At fifteen I entered  the  fifth form preparing for G.C E exams. There was no time for a social life and I didn't really want one either.

I was still getting up early to go and practise the piano at school and the only thing that put me off briefly was when a huge spider descended from nowhere and landed on my hand.

In those days shops had an 'early closing' day and that meant that every Thursday when I got home from school I had to fit two hours homework into half an hour and then be dragged to the cinema with Mum and Pop. It was their weekly treat but I hated it. You could bet that wherever we sat someone would plonk themselves down in front of us and light up a cigarette.

Once O levels were done and dusted I spent quite a bit of the Summer holiday helping out in the shop. Mum's assistant had left and she was having problems finding another. The only applicant was a middle aged lady who demanded a much higher wage than Mum could afford but she obviously didn't like the idea of hard work.

I casually told her about selling a lot of paraffin in the winter, which meant going out to the shed in the cold and getting the smelly stuff all over your hands. She declined the job but I was roped in to fill  the gap. My wages for six weeks work was a small radio.

Going back to school was a relief and as there were only nine of us in the Lower Sixth it felt very different from previous years.The sixth form used to have a Common Room in an adjacent building but they had abused the privilege by taking in fish and chips (!) so we were now accommodated on the top floor right beside the staffroom.

The music teacher decided that if I was really serious about going to music college I needed to learn a second instrument. I loved the sound of the  oboe but when mum learned that a clarinet was a lot cheaper that was what I was given. My early efforts sounded like a cow in labour and I never felt at home with the instrument.

Unfortunately I upset the Latin teacher by practising in the Common Room early in the morning. Instead of  coming next door and asking me to stop she had her revenge by making my life a misery in lessons. There were only three of us in the Latin class; Heather, my best friend and Josephine. Heather was undoubtedly the best student but I don't think I was any worse than Jo. However, Miss C constantly criticised me and claimed that I'd never pass A level. After putting up with this for a year I changed  subjects and took English instead.

That meant an awful lot of catching up to do in the holidays but I was also trusted to stay and 'look after' the shops when my parents went on holiday. Pop had a really nice chap who helped out with the repairs and he came in fulltime for two weeks but I had the hardware shop to myself. I enjoyed it, in a way, but it proved to me that I wouldn't want to run a shop all my life.

Back to school in the Upper Sixth I was completely astounded to be voted Headgirl thanks to a 'plot' by the new Lower Sixth formers. There were over twenty of them so they outnumbered my peer group and had decided that the tradition of having a Catholic headgirl  should be broken. (Depite being a Cathollic school about  three quarters of us were non-catholic in those days).

The result caused a furore and I offered to resign but the Head talked me into doing it. It meant standing on the stage every morning while the classes trouped in for assembly to stop anyone from talking and this petrified me.

In the first few weeks there was a big argument when the Lower Sixth wanted the right to wear the special 6th form scarf - which had only been worn by the Upper 6th until then.  Straight away I said I didn't see any reason why they shouldn't but my fellow Upper 6th strongly disagreed and I was accused of being in the Lower 6th pockets because they had voted me in.

I said the fact that we hadn't been allowed to wear the scarf was no reason to stop them from having it - and, after all, if you were going to buy a scarf you might as well have an extra year's wear out of it. The head agreed with me and the Lower Sixth bought their scarves. Eventually my school mates calmed down.

After a school career of being rather too serious, Heather and I devised a plan for the last day of term. She arrived very early and we hid all the school bells. There were no buttons to push then. Lessons were timed by handbells rung in each corridor and at the end of the school year everything depended on the bell to announce the day's events.

The staff were furious and several of them invaded our common room demanding that we find the culprits.

"It must be some of the lower sixth. None of you would do a thing like this."

Needless to say, I was put in charge of tracking down the missing clangers and  as I had a tendency to blush and look guilty even if I was innocent I was only too pleased to escape.

Heather and I decided the joke had gone far enough and I tipped off the caretaker that it might be a good idea to look under the stage. He knew very well that we were the only ones in school early that morning but, as far as I know, he didn't give us away.