Jamie Shiers

I guess like for many ex-public schoolboys, Hogwarts brings back memories. We didn't have a Tom Riddle, but we did have a Ridley - also the local brewery. No Malfoy, but the prep. school motto was 'garde ta foy', the school itself having been setup by that great benefactor Lord Richard Riche (sic). Other 'houses' (leagues) in the junior school being named after e.g. Cromwell... Breakfast was normally huge bowls of real porridge - with salt - then half a slice of fried bread + a rasher of bacon, then toast and marmelade. Other treats included the whole skin off the custard bowl and even rice pudding. And a fear of spaghetti (as it was the Heinz tinned kind) that I was sure had worms in and took me many years to get over. (I finally did so at Zurich station whilst inter-railing and then, with shades (again) of the Tin Drum proceeded to eat it almost every night for at least 10 years...)

Unfortunately, things were not quite the same at the senior school - food that I wouldn't (and don't) give me dog.

The school porter too reminded me of Hagrid - or vice versa. And those years of carpentry lessons mean that I can fit an Ikea kitchen like a snap. Mind you, after 6 years of Latin, I can't even remember "Caesar adsum jam forte, Brutus aderat.." correctly. Although I do remember he seemed to spend lots of time attacking ditches with arrows.

But it was there that I read about Mr Tomkins in Wonderland and other books by George Gamow. Which somehow started me on the meandering path that led to Geneva, the birth of the Worldwide Web and later the Grid...

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

-- J R R Tolkien