Gordon Brown is a son of the manse. John Major's dad was a circus performer who sold garden gnomes. My own father, R F B ‘Dick’ Letts, was a prepschool headmaster at Oakley Hall, Cirencester, from 1962 to 1992.
Having a boarding school for one's home was odd but never dull. We lived with over 100 children and staff. Privacy was rare. One afternoon in my teens, I was taking a bath and a visiting clergyman wandered in. He stayed for a long, amiable chat while my
