Someone who was keeping an eye upon my rise to schoolboy fame was my former governess, Miss Vigers. By a curious coincidence, it turned out that her very first pupil was one of my Eton teachers, the French beak Mr Martin Forest. It took me by surprise when he first revealed this mutual relationship to me, in that while she was still at Sturford, we had never ceased hearing about the many aristocratic pupils that she had once taught. But then Forest came from an untitled family, so there was little she had to say about him - until she arrived at Eton one day, to stay with him, and to reopen her contact with myself.

She had in fact been down to Eton on a couple of occasions and, at the last of these, I had taken up her hints that she would like to revisit Sturford Mead before she got too old, by inviting her to come down there for a couple of days during the Summer holidays. Daphne was nervous about the prospect of such a remeeting, because she had quite openly sided with Nanny in her feud with the governess. Indeed, Miss Vigers had virtually been sacked by Daphne in the final stages. But that didn't stop the governess from expressing a wish to remeet the nanny - perhaps for no better reason than to judge for herself how she had been treated by the family on her retirement.

Of course the difference was immense: a point that was emphasised by Nanny when she greeted her old enemy on the door-step of her cottage, as if she was a Dowager Duchess inviting some member of the general public to come and visit her stately home. I noted how Miss Vigers was taking it all in with a sour smile. But in a private conversation with Henry just before she departed, it would seem that he agreed to pay her a small pension in recognition of her past services: something which irked him a bit in retrospect, in that he mistakenly supposed that she would be dead within a year or two, whereas she survived for another decade.

I made good use of Miss Vigers' visit to paint a portrait of her, which in effect was quite a good likeness. Not that she liked it of course - for that very reason. I also painted a good portrait of Miss Prokinar, our cook at Cowrie, during the part of these holidays which we spent down in Cornwall. I managed to catch the sly sauciness of her expression to perfection. So along with the portrait of Nanny Marks, which I had painted previously, I now possessed a good visual record of some of the main characters within our domestic household. It remains a matter of regret however, that I never got round to doing a picture of either Mrs Sims or of Donald Marks.

My relationship with Donald had improved greatly over these past few years. I knew that he respected me for the way I had withstood his bullying behaviour, when I was fifteen. In all his efforts to ingratiate himself with me subsequent to that period, I had consistently managed to keep him at a polite arm's length. But he was firmly on the tactic nowadays of creating the impression that he had always been my ally. And he conveyed to me an assessment, which apparently came from Henry, that everyone was delighted with the way I had developed. "You're the blue-eyed boy, I can tell you. You should hear the way your father keeps going on about Christopher and Valentine. He's not at all happy with the school reports they get. No, you're the one that's in favour nowadays."

And it did feel as if there was some truth in what he was saying. I was after all on the point of emerging from all this business of a public schoolboy education with flying colours. It must be that I had performed better than either of my parents had ever deemed probable. And now that Caroline had left the fold, I was very much the young person upon whom all public attention was focused, with everyone supposing that I had what it takes to make a success of my life. After all, the Thynnes were a privileged family unit, who were still united. They would surely make it their business to see that the young scion of Longleat got well launched in life. So I had every confidence that luck would continue to be on my side.

I was greatly looking forward to returning to Eton for this my final half. There was all the swagger of being dressed in Pop-bags and sporting coloured waistcoats - each of them made to order - and with a flower in my buttonhole. Or my own preference was to wear the eye from a peacock's tail feather, instead of the traditional carnation - incurring a mild reproof from the new Headmaster, Mr Birley, on one occasion. But the ostentation of the uniform attracted all eyes, whenever I walked down the street: accompanied as I often was nowadays, by other members of the Eton Society.

Having been elected myself at the end of the Summer half, I had the right to participate within the election for some additional members at the start of this Michaelmas half. And to the surprise of everyone, (including himself,) my friend Iain was now elected as well. It wasn't that I pulled strings on his behalf, for my own preference might have gone to Richard Timpson instead. But I think it's true that there was a realisation how Iain might find it a problem to retain his proper authority as House Captain, if there was someone junior to him in Jaques's Library with the superior prestige of being in Pop. So he was admitted to the Society on the first round of voting with just two black balls against his name. And I certainly didn't inflict either of those.

Of the peer group who had come up through the school in the same batch of friends as myself, Steve Arkwright (who was still very much into religion) had been elected like myself at the end of the previous half. So had Jimmy Skinner, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, Torquil Norman and Julian Gibbs. And of those we elected at the start of this half, Henry Vyner became a good friend, despite the fact that he had never seen fit to speak to me prior to my own election. Then there was a group of friends which I now saw a lot of, who were representative of the more long-standing members of the Eton Society. And these were James Spooner - who was now the President of Pop - and Michael Moseley.

Apart from the beaks, we were supreme in authority. We could fag any Lower boy we encountered in the street, to perform whatever errand we desired. And we took control of whatever situations that might seem to be diverging from the line of behaviour which our traditions required. So evidently were we revered and respected by the general throng, that it would have been almost unnatural if it hadn't gone to our heads. We were little demi-gods and, after all the submission involved in just staying the course at Eton, we were eager to live out to the full this resplendent hour of precocious achievement.

While suffering the bumps and buffeting of school ritual,
hitting perpetually the toughening hub in my molten
sola plexus, I soldiered valiant to the raw
forefront, clad in the colours of emergent identity.
Splendidly pirouetting in my brash attire,
I fired rockets at a moon's loony smile,
compiling lists of optimistic options
in a sloppy survey of loosely exclusive ambitions.
Richly pampered with a stately home, yet harshly
harassed in survival of the fittest hit programmes
for growing tall, I sprawled far too florid
on the slushy horrid cushion of family renown.
In gaucherie, I found myself enslaved
with thoughts the world would give me all I craved.

As far as life in the Library was concerned, Adam had now left the school, and his place had been filled by Tim Rathbone, whom I liked - but found somewhat less easy to influence than the others. The truth of the matter is that he was more the friend of Iain and the two Johns, and he joined with them in the faintly humorous manoeuvres to restrain my own ascendancy within the group. Tim was particularly adept at goosing anyone in our group who happened to be bending over. But I suspect it was in a spirit of deliberate malevolence, egged on in secret by the others, that he made a bad shot on the one occasion when he managed to catch me bending, and smote me with all his strength on a testicle from behind. I collapsed to the floor, writhing in agony. In later life I was to be informed by a doctor that the testicle had been ruptured, to the slight impairment of my subsequent sperm formation. But I managed to rise to my feet with the grin that was expected of me. And to tell the truth, it was only much later in life, with my judgement more cynical in its sophistication, that it occurred to me that the blow had been anything other than an accident.

There were some other practical jokes too; for example, the occasion when Iain delegated to me the task of delivering a beating up to Cunliffe - Roger's younger brother. The strokes which I gave him were not at all hard, but I found the cane breaking up, piece at a time - until I was left holding no more than the handle. I couldn't very well goose him with this, so I told him that he could go. Iain and the others tried to persuade me that it must have been a situation prepared by one of the Lower boys. But I knew damn well how the real culprit was Iain, making little cuts on the cane with the intention that I should lose face. We were both secretly aware how there was a power struggle in progress.

I took it upon myself for example, without informing Iain, to try and eliminate the ganging up stances that were being taken by that group of Lower boys, which included Tubbs, Davison, Marsh and Reed minor. There were still some reported instances of them terrorising the group just younger than themselves, with threats or actual violence. I had a friendly chat with each of them individually, just before lights out, making the point that this gang activity was just another way to describe bullying, and that if they really had a grievance to settle with someone in particular, then there would be greater credit in them picking a personal fight with that person. Of course we'd beat them if they got caught, for that was just the luck of the game. But it so happened that personal combat was regarded as the more acceptable form of aggression, than any ganging up against individuals - in terms of public school values, that is to say. And I knew at the time that I had made a considerable impact upon their own way of thinking upon the matter.

As the weeks went by without any more cases of bullying coming to light, Iain was boasting that the beatings up which he had administered were evidently effective. I made the mistake of remarking to John Ganzoni that the reason was different to what Iain supposed, in that I had talked to each of the culprits privately. Well a little while later, Iain quite rightly took me up on this point, suggesting that I should refrain from taking such tasks upon myself unless he requested it. So I did henceforward mind my own business.

But the balance of power in the tutor's was in effect shifting in my direction. Iain had his following, both in the Library and in Debate - with Ganzoni, Blackett and Maxwell as members of his rather special group. But when it came to the house at large, there could be no doubting that my own prestige ran the highest. And there were occasions when, perhaps maliciously, I demonstrated this to him.

For example, in our mobbing activities, Iain had been known to lock me out of the Library, refusing me re- entry. My response to this was to call: "BOYYY!" - summoning all the Lower boys to my assistance in laying siege to the Library. Nothing that Iain could say from the other side of that door, could persuade any Lower boys to switch loyalties, which just meant that he stood to lose face if we eventually gained entry by ramming the door and breaking the lock. He had quickly capitulated and let me re-enter. And thenceforward I had only to threaten that I would summon the Lower boys, for him to desist in any supremacy tactics.

On occasions my own tactics were somewhat more vicious. I cannot recall what it may have been which he had done to upset us, but I sided with some mutual friends of ours in Debate and assisted them in debaging him, whereupon we lathered his genitals with golden syrup. Then as he minced his way up the staircase in his dressing-gown, on his way to the bathroom, I called "BOYYY!" - ostensibly to fag someone on an errand, but in reality to send Iain scuttling down the passage like a rabbit, in case I intended to set the Lower boys on him. Then after the crowd had dispersed, I took a fire-cracker and threw it through the skylight window to the bathroom, and Iain made the mistake of picking it up and dropping it into the bath, before it had time to explode. The effect was to raise a great cloud of smoke, so that he was obliged to come crawling out, half suffocated. The whole incident had been perpetrated in what purported to be a spirit of fun and banter; but in the light of the text about bullying that I had taken, on which to lecture others, I might question in retrospect if my own conduct might not have been similarly reprehensible.

Taking things all round however, I did not abuse the power which I found in my hands, like I did when I was in my final term at my preparatory school. My experience of power on this occasion was salutary, and a considerable boost to my self-confidence, standing as I was at the brink of adult life. I exercised my authority with the appreciation of the school authorities, while enjoying a popularity all round. So I regarded my last half at Eton as being an undiluted success story.

I would dearly have liked to get my good friend Nick Crossley elected into Pop, when it came to the end of half elections. But I failed in this. Not that it mattered much to him in the long run, in that I was to hear subsequently how he got in at the beginning of the following half, without any manner of assistance from myself.

It is interesting to note where I am situated in the end of half photograph of the Eton Society on the College Chapel steps. This had its particular significance. There were special positions in any Pop photograph for the President, at the centre of the front row, or for the Captain of Boats, beside the buttress on the right. The other boys are lined up in four rows, with the senior members to the fore. But the two positions in the vicinity of the left hand buttress were reserved for the Captain of the Cricket XI, and for the boy whom the President regarded as being the foremost character of the day. Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie was perched up on top, whilst I was the boy whom James indicated should take up his pose underneath. I am to be seen there, proudly leaning upon that buttress with my left elbow.

Let me state at this juncture that, when I finally came to depart from Eton, I was leaving with a huge store of love and regard for it in my heart. I was aware how there were Etonian stereotypes, both to be criticised and commended. But I felt sure that my own personality was to be judged as one within the higher range of that spectrum. I knew even then how, if I had seen fit to depart from that process of character formation before its final completion, I would have carried away with me some of the most negative judgements that arise. But the fact of seeing the process through to its successful conclusion, entailed that I had gained confidence both in myself as an individual, and in the system which had thus created me. Eton was renowned for the production of individualistic gentlemen; and I knew myself to be just that - if not a lot more besides.

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