29 JANUARY 1954, Page 35

So to begin with I thought my first boarding school

must be only a dream. A dream which went on and on, was full of hostile people swayed by sudden gusts of unreasoning fury and hatred far outside my control, of menace lurking behind corners, and of long bleak corridors, obscenely scribbled on, Which I touched for protection first on one side and then on the other. Because it was a dream everything had a saving unreality. There was no need to make contact with people or to hear what they said. I was sure that soon they must vanish, and I would wake up alone, the only real person, safe back in the places where I knew everybody, where the corners were friendly, and there were no long corridors.