ABSTRACT
In 1951 at the age of eighteen I was the first of my family ever to go to Cambridge. Subsequently, Brian Jackson and I traced 88 ex-grammar-school pupils of about our age, who like us had come from working-class homes in Huddersfield. We asked them and their parents to describe their education and changing family relationships, and we wrote a book about these experiences called Education and the Working Class. The story of my own education repeats some of the main themes of the book, perhaps linking and highlighting them in a slightly unusual way. However, in the present volume of essays I think it's worth making the case again. The working-class child who gets through the education system by the conventional grammar-school route is frequently the subject of unusual forces and circumstances. And he may become a puzzled and insecure adult.
