I had never been an especially sportive figure when at my preparatory school, so there had been no great expectations for any such performance when first arriving at Eton. Or rather there had been my proficiency in the boxing ring, and in the gymnasium generally. In a letter home, I boast of being able to do forty press- ups. But it went rather further than that. During the course of my second half, a gymnastic tournament had been organised against Harrow - with both senior and junior teams entered to compete. I had participated in all the training sessions, although I was not finally picked for the junior team. Something which I did not finally regret in that the standard of gymnastics at Harrow turned out to be far higher than our own, so that they wiped the floor with us.

And it took me some little while before my boxing skill received much recognition. The competitions were held during the course of each Easter half, and I only reached as far as the semi-finals during my first two years. On each occasion I was eliminated by Hugo Seabright, on points by a narrow margin. I might be the more stylish boxer, but his punches were heavier and he maintained an edge in aggression. I knew that I had lost face with my old chums from Ludgrove when I failed to get into the school team as a result of losing out to him. It wasn't even as if Seabright went on to win our weight, since he was twice defeated in the finals by Wilson, who was someone older than ourselves.

I had always enjoyed a game of Eton fives, and the boys who came from Ludgrove had a distinct advantage over others in that we were already well acquainted with the game on arrival. When I entered for the Junior Fives with G-Wigan as my partner, we did in fact win through to the semi-finals. But after that, I discovered that my relative standard was diminishing as those from other preparatory schools began to overtake me. I also played squash, but was never particularly good at it.

It was a fives match which Graham-Wigan and myself went to play against a pair of old school chums - Cleland and Pilkington, which finally led to us cutting the umbilical chord which kept us oriented towards Ludgrove, at the expense of Eton. It was towards the end of the Michaelmas half that we decided to go down there again. And I describe how the day went sadly wrong in a letter home.

A whole lot of other nasty things happened, which I haven't the time to write about. [Mr Barber had told our friends privately that they must jolly well defeat us - since it was clear to all that we had become swollen- headed.] Anyway I don't think so highly of Ali any more. I believe that he was doing all this to us quite deliberately, and I think no better of him for it!

In his reply to this letter, Henry declared that his esteem for Mr Barber had finally started to rise, for it was evident to him that we had been given our just desserts. His own dictum that we only went back to Ludgrove in order to swank, was now being voiced by others, it would seem. In any case, neither Graham- Wigan nor myself went back there again for a great many years. And henceforward we were both fully oriented towards the task of finding our feet at Eton.

When it came to soccer and rugger, I always took the alternative option of playing fives and squash during any Easter half. It was only during each Michaelmas half that I found myself obliged to play something in that line, which took the form of the Eton field game. I was no good at it to start with, in that I lacked sufficient control over the ball. Nor was I fast enough as a sprinter. No one was ever particularly eager to discover that I was playing on their side, nor did I myself feel much pleasure in participating.

The truth of the matter is that in games which required a good control of the ball with my feet, or even with a racket or bat, I lacked the sufficient degree of required co-ordination. I was more gifted in matters where the use of the body was more directly involved. It is true that I had enjoyed cricket when I was at Ludgrove, but Mr Barber had been hesitant about recommending to me that I should continue with the game at Eton, as a dry bob; and it was finally a piece of fatherly advice delivered to me by Henry - to try my hand at something new - which finally decided me to become a wet bob, and take to the river during each Summer half. "After all, you'll never know if you might be some good at it until you've tried."

Once the decision had been taken, I never regretted it, for I discovered from the start that I was quite reasonably gifted at rowing and sculling. The combination of a strong wiry body with an ample fund of sheer guts and perseverance boosted my chances of acquiring the necessary skills. My performance was only moderate during the first two summers, but I did prove my pertinacity by rowing up to Cookham, and then to Marlowe, on two of the school holidays - partly to acquire good points for M'tutor's Upstream Competition. And over my second summer, I actually won this competition, while also performing well when rowing at stroke within m'tutor's second Baby IV.

I greatly enjoyed the leisure side of rowing, in that it was customary to scull up the river to Queen's Eyot, an island which belonged to the school, and where a small club house had been built. A strictly limited quantity of strong cider could be bought on the premises. But it was quite usual to persuade others to forego their full quota, so that one became marginally inebriated by having drinks on them. I suppose this ranks as my first experience of excessive drinking, and it did almost get me into trouble on one occasion when a bit of a riot broke out on the island. Then a beak arrived and took names - including mine. I anticipated for a while that I would be included in the group that finally got Pop-tanned for this event, but someone must have judged that I was not amongst the real culprits.

Another summer sport in which I was beginning to display some excellence was swimming, or rather diving to be more exact. I might well have developed far in this field, but I was unfortunate in that the water in the river Thames was to be declared a health hazard around this time, and responsible for the outbreaks of polio which recurred too frequently. I had two summers of bathing, first at Cuckoo Weir, and then at Warr's Mead before the compound was closed down. But there was no swimming at all during the latter part of my time at Eton, when I might have been expected to make rapid progress in my performance from the high diving board. My potential therefore remained untested and unknown.

Something that was entirely new to me, on coming to Eton was the indoor rifle range. And Jaques' was a tutor's which was just maturing into a peak of excellence in this sport. I found that I had a steady hand and a sufficient degree of concentration, so I quickly found my place in the Junior House team. And we in fact won the Salteau-Simmons cup during my second year at Eton. This was a skill which was to remain with me throughout the rest of my time at the school, although my proficiency in other sports was gradually to erode my specialisation in that field.

Back at home during the holidays, I was also to be regarded as a good shot for my age with the pair of twelve bore Purdeys which Grandpa had passed on to me shortly before he died. But my performance was a bit erratic. Amongst the gamekeepers it was said that Chris might display greater promise than myself, and this always galled me a bit. But I had a sneaking suspicion they might be correct.

I had also been given an air rifle by my parents, one Christmas recently, with which I satisfied the killer streak in me at more casual moments during the holidays. But I discovered a sensation in me which I hadn't met before when I shot at a small bird - a Great Tit - which had been hopping around on a branch overhanging the pond at Sturford. I hit it, but the pellet only broke the bird's wing, so that it dropped into the pond and remained there floating upon the surface, with a beady eye on one side of its head watching me askance. I went on to execute the bird with a second shot of course. But the memory, and a feeling that something wasn't quite right in my relationship with this planet, was to remain with me indefinitely.

Exquisitely miniature in her pin-footed grace,
placing her perch from twig to leafy twig,
wriggling her feathered neck, then chattering raucous,
talking a language I know not - apart from beauty.
Looter of nature's treasure, I fire my gun,
thundering hail and brimstone in a god's guise,
despising my quarry as a lesser living being,
and gleefully see it drop dead to my skill.
Killer? Assassin? Is that what I've become?
Trumpeting my power to destroy whate'er I please,
I've seized the hunter's banner, in no manner
comprehending the gush of harsh remorse.
Just what she was, or could be, isn't there;
there's nothing now for any to repair.

My air-gun had other misuses, since the truth is now being told. For many a year, my dog - a Scottie - had been a background companion during my life at Sturford, and it must have been from jealousy that I resented the attentions that were given her by Bubbles, the Fox terrier from one of the local farms. But much as I indicated to Bubbles that his attentions to Charlotte were not welcome, she herself managed to indicate the contrary. They had indeed had puppies together some few years previously. Where I transgressed the limits of gentlemanly behaviour however, was when I started training the sights of my air rifle upon Bubbles, whenever I espied him skulking in the garden - waiting for Charlotte to appear. And there was one occasion when I knew, from the speed in which he departed, that I must have scored a direct hit somewhere upon his anatomy.

Worse still was the way in which I denied my guilt when Tom Renyard, the gamekeeper who had instructed me in the lore of the woods from an early age, called in at Sturford conveying a complaint from the farmer concerned that his dog had been wounded. It is one of the very few occasions in my life when I can recall telling a deliberate lie. I had felt taken aback by such an insinuation of responsibility for my actions, and found myself denying that they had even occurred. But I could see from Tom's expression that he knew otherwise. Mrs Sims the housekeeper, had always been a traitor when it came to relaying gossip about all that went on at Sturford.

One crime of which I was never guilty, despite the fact of being accused of it, was of shooting at the local cats. I know how the story originated, and might as well tell it - revealing the identity of the real culprit. There was a particular outing when we were walking the hedgerows and coppices in the company of our Wilson cousins. The keepers with their dogs were driving a patch of kale, with the occasional pheasant or rabbit presenting themselves as targets. Yet Ben Wilson who was in fact the eldest of us, had a particular hatred for cats - regarding them as poaching pussies.

I had never shared his dislike for the species, and never fired at one in my life. But I was more clearly identifiable as the culprit when a wounded pet had managed to reach the sanctuary of its own home cottage. There were complaints to the local branch of the RSPCA accusing me in person. It did nothing to raise my popularity within the neighbouring village of Corsley. And of course I was guilty to some extent, in that the shooting parties came under my aegis. But I felt uncomfortable in that so many people evidently believed it to have been my finger which had been on the trigger.

Some of the criticism against what was occurring in my life at this juncture should perhaps be related to the cultural atmosphere disseminated by my parents. I don't think I'm being unfair in stating that they were far too preoccupied with their own marital problems to be concerned very much with how their children might be developing in life - in matters which did not intrude upon their own identities. As I see it, all the intellectual stimulus was required to come to me from school. They had their own lives to work out, and that was that.

Despite the fact that Daphne came from a moderately literary background, and despite the fact that Henry had the capacity to inspire me with many of the concerns that I was heading for within the social life of anyone from our kind of heritage, the communications were never really made. I might describe the atmosphere which they created as one of intellectual stagnation. Much of my holiday time was spent, up in the nursery, rearranging the tin soldiers which we possessed in some manner of redeployment over a perpetual battle ground. We were never encouraged within this environment, to emerge in a direction that was first of all, something which we ourselves might feel a new opening upon ourselves, and which secondly, they might have endorsed.

I do not know what angle of psychological theory one might put upon this, but the activity that I began to develop seriously around this time, over all summer months whether at Sturford or at Eton, was entomology. I became really concerned to build up my collection of butterflies and moths to a point where I regarded myself as an authority on the subject. And the interest had augmented now that we had a house in Cornwall, for it widened the whole range of the insects that I might expect to capture.

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