Within the home environment, I had been fighting back against the spread of disrespect within the household. But I knew how I still had to contend with the question of my impaired image at Eton. I was dreading the thought of having to return there for the Michaelmas half. It would have strengthened me enormously if I'd had the kind of father to whom I could unburden my anxieties upon the whole issue, and then listen to his advice. Much as I loved Daphne, and was even quite close to her in spirit, her femininity excluded her from any intimate consultation upon sexual matters. However I couldn't feel that Henry was the right kind of person either. But I had to tell him something about it all before we finally reached the end of the holidays. I must at least acquaint him with a notion of the problems that I was experiencing - if only to ensure that, were the situation at Eton to deteriorate any further, then he would know what I was talking about when I came to write home asking him belatedly for his advice. So I took the decision to broach the subject with him.

I didn't want anyone to interrupt us while we were having this conversation, so I asked if I could accompany him when he was driving round the woods one morning, to inspect what some of the forestry gangs had been up to. I hadn't been offering to accompany him for some while now, so he probably knew that I had something special on my mind. We were driving up Longcombe Drive when I finally asked if we could have a serious talk. He stopped the car and said: "Well, what is it?" But his voice was so fierce that it almost silenced me. I realised how he was anticipating that the subject I was going to raise was his treatment of me, and he was all set to give me a further piece of his mind - to ensure that any resurgent opposition to his authority might quickly be crushed.

I hastily spilled some of the details into his ear. I said that there was a boy at Eton who had crashed on me. Himself having been educated at Harrow, Henry didn't know what I meant. Then it clicked. "Oh you mean one of the elder boys has a crush on you?" And the relief in his tone was enormous. I let that description stand, and filled in on some of the details. Henry was now in a jovial mood. "Oh you don't have to worry about that! I had the same thing happen to myself on one or two occasions. Take no notice of it. There's no need to get worried."

I knew that I wasn't getting anywhere, so I left it at that. But my relief was in fact enormous that I'd told him as much as I'd done. I could continue with any additional explanations from this point that we'd reached - if the need should arise. So I was now far happier about the whole thought of my imminent return to Eton. Once back there, I could confront my accusers with a pretence that I had a father who had been fully informed upon the whole issue, and that he intended to take the matter up with the Headmaster if they tried again to make life a misery for me.

I did in fact put this policy into practice - largely through the assistance of the Parker brothers. It was Parker minor who warned the group at Wilkinson's who were responsible for spreading the tale that there was a love affair going on between [F] and Weymouth, that if they continued with this line of scandal, then they'd have the Marquess of Bath to reckon with: a person whom he'd heard to be a fierce authoritarian, and who regarded the cane as the only adequate form of punishment. He was apparently intending to write to the Headmaster about this smear campaign involving his son unless it were promptly discontinued.

Parker brought me a message from [F] urging me to persuade my father to hold his hand before writing such a letter. [F]'s father had a weak heart I was told, and it was uncertain if the hint of such scandal were to reach him, whether it might not bring on his instant demise. Then I received a visit from two of [F]'s friends at Wilkinson's, to ask me with the greatest civility what I would like them to do to get things sorted out, to my satisfaction. I told them that I just wanted them to put an end to all this false gossip. And I believe they then took the whole question to their House Captain, Simon Sainsbury, who approached his opposite number at m'tutor's - who happened to be Parker major. And between them, they came to a conclusion that an injustice had been perpetrated upon my reputation, and I daresay that the whole group that had been seeking to throw me into the water in front of [F] were given a severe lecture by Sainsbury, with the message being that all such bullying should promptly cease.

I could not have hoped for a better response. My tormentors were now cautious about doing anything at all which might be construed as bullying, so that the possibilities for counter-aggression were tilted in my favour. Whereas previously, if I crossed their path in the street, they would be sneering in my direction, I now found their glances were averted - to an extent that they could not hold the fierce gazes I threw in their direction. I had the confidence-booster on one occasion when, following a few steps behind one of them after he'd needed to cross over the road to reach his tutor's, I could sense his embarrassment even from behind, so exploited the situation - glaring fiercely (for him to see if he so happened to turn round) and placing my footsteps firmly on the ground just behind him, in a manner that I assumed he might find menacing. After this episode, I knew inwardly that I'd won the day and that I would soon regain my feet at Eton.

It was not an instant case of finding that I was clear of the woods however. By the time that I had counterattacked, there were too many boys within my own peer group who had acquired the information that I was a school tart. The notoriety was too widespread now, for me to hope to clip every bud. Yet they were no longer receiving fresh information upon such activities that I might be making, so the general condemnation began to subside.

But the trauma did remain with me for a very long time. One might almost say perpetually. What it meant at this stage however, was that the very mention of any concept which might conceivably trigger the thought of homosexuality in anyone's mind was sufficient to send me into a fit of blushing - with my heart racing, and a feeling of inward terror that someone was going to glance meaningfully in my direction. And there were times when it did happen of course. I remember freezing in my tracks for example, when two boys from Wilkinson's who were walking a couple of paces behind me as we were coming out from chapel, and one of them murmured softly, but quite deliberately, the name '[F]!' To their sadistic delight, I was instantly blushing scarlet.

The other had me reddening on a different occasion by suggesting that it was easy enough to identify those who were going to become pansies by watching them in chapel to see where their eyes rested. "If they're developing in that direction, their eyes never shift upwards from the level of our balls!" The two of us now had our seats in the College Chapel, and were sitting on the knife-boards, on opposite sides of the aisle. So it was clearly intended that I should realise he was talking about me. And the truth of the matter is that I did find it very difficult to look my contemporaries in the eye, when I knew how they were sneering at me behind my back. My natural defence was to fixate my gaze where it wouldn't be challenged, or even examined. But of course, this appearance was always open to such mistaken interpretation.

The fear of any insinuation of homosexuality is something which has remained with me permanently. If I ever did have a tendency for development in that direction - which I would personally regard as a false diagnosis - then it was clipped in the bud at this stage in my life. For better or for worse, I was now determined to be heterosexual!

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