It was a model of clean living. There was no smoking, no alcohol and no drugs. And of course no girls. So I left school as a remarkably abstemious individual, shunning any unhealthy activities, unless an enthusiastic interest in politics is unhealthy (it probably is).
At home I was equally abstemious because of the attitudes slowly engrained at boarding school, and because my parents were equally abstemious. My father was a light smoker and both my parents were happy with a single glass of wine.
No doubt some of my fellow pupils relapsed as soon as they left school and were free to indulge themselves, but I kept fairly "clean". I've never smoked. I took drugs once or twice before deciding they weren't for me. And I drank wine for many years but only in small quantities.
No doubt if I'd gone to the local public school clean living would have been dismissed as puritanical nonsense and unhealthy behaviour would have been the norm. So thanks, Berkhamsted School, for keeping me on the straight and narrow.
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