10 OCTOBER 1958, Page 22

SIR,—I have been reading 'John Bull's Schooldays' with growing astonishment

and distaste. Of all the writers the only two who seem to have enjoyed their schooldays at all were educated at council or charit- able schools. Those who went to private and public schools seem able only to scream indignities at their schools and thus display their own incapacity. Are there so few who can write and who went to a public school and enjoyed it?

Lord Montgomery has recently written that he enjoyed himself at St. Paul's. I went to a not undis- tinguished school. It may even be one of that blessed group that Mr. Raven so graciously calls 'the big six.' I have many happy memories and 1 have many friends who, if they endured them, have not at any time confided to me the horrors of their school days. There must be thousands of others.

As to Mr. Raven's views on sneaking or whatever he calls it, my sons, aged fourteen and sixteen and at a public school, commented 'absolute bilge' with the scorn and certainty that they normally reserve for their parents' views.—Yours faithfully,

4 Heathcote Road, Epsom

ROBERT NOTE