In 1956 Suez was lost, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and Look Back in Anger put howls of existential frustration on the stage. Sixty years ago old certainties were swept aside… Lionel Woodroffe, the headmaster of a prep school I attended in the early 1950s, was then in the habit of visiting his local pub most early evenings for a couple of large whiskies, generally taken in the company of his friend Claude Medland. After several years, Medland wrote to Woodroffe suggesting they might start calling each other by their Christian names. Woodroffe wrote back at once: “My dear Claude, Many thanks for thrusting the ‘Mr’ overboard. I gladly retaliate.”This story – told in the official history of St Martin’s, Northwood – illustrates a stark cha