Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Both I and my elder brother Alistair attended Barstable Grammar and Technical College in Basildon. I won’t say much about this here – as this will be discussed in Volume V of “No Woman No Cry” (my mother’s ‘scrapbook’). 

There was something ‘impersonal’ about this state-run school – almost a feeling of alienation – unlike the private Isis school I had attended in Bolton in the north of England. At the Isis one felt a warm regard for senior students and many of the teachers. Of course, this is very subjective. But, ironically, I have a better memory of the names of the pupils and teachers at the Isis school than I have of the names of the pupils and teachers at Barstable Grammar and Technical College. I had few friends at Barstable, while I had many at Isis.