Oh dear, I felt shy, timid, with minimal English skills (but pretty good 

for a year after immigrating from Germany as a ten pound tourist), and 

what an intimidating old school building it seemed to me. I had never 

heard of Charles Dickens then, but that's what it felt like in 

retrospect! My memories are sketchy, hidden by some blockage, probably a 

sense of not really belonging or coping well. The recurring memory is 

concrete, with lines drawn or painted, for playing "wog ball". I was 

a...