I’m on the train to Paddington, hamster in cage in the rack above my head and Belinda with hers is in her folks’ car on the way to Hampshire. It wasn’t so bad, the second half of the term, but oh! that stretched out, seemingly never-ending period of counting off the days. And now the Easter holidays were beginning and I was as excited as everyone else in our ‘Badminton reserved’ coaches, our excitement barely containable by the teachers who travelled down with us. One particularly exuberant girl, Pru short for Prunella, took off her felt school hat and threw it out the window. It landed on the railway line. We gasped as a train approaching in the opposite direction thundered past, no doubt flattening it.

‘Crikey, you’re going to get it from your mother, aren’t you?’ I remarked. Pru didn’t seem bothered ..............

..... see what happened next here