Our GCSE set book was Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. One half term our English teacher asked us to read two chapters during the week off, but I got really into it and finished the whole thing (it’s not like it’s a long novel or anything). My teacher refused to believe I finished it and gave me a very public dressing down for lying.

This was also the kind of school where you had to pretend to be stupid in order to not get your head kicked in, so it’s fair to say the next week was rather challenging.