There was a school club called the ‘Leonardo Society’ for sixth-form pupils. It met in the house of another of our teachers, who was a quaker, and a fine pianist. Those meetings were an eye-opener, especially for those of us with modest origins, not just because of meeting in spacious and elegant domestic surroundings, but because of the opportunity for informal discussion in a non-institutional environment. We felt like young adults, rather than schoolboys. I gave a talk about modern philosophy, with Harwood’s help.

But the teacher I mentioned on the previous page was anxious that the pursuit of philosophy might undermine my religious beliefs. In conversation, he said to me ‘I bet that no-one would notice if you read the morning lesson in the original Greek.’ There was a morning service each day in our school, in which the lesson was read by a School Prefect. So, when it next came to my turn to read a short lesson (from a letter of St Paul, I think), I read it in Greek. No-one seemed to notice, at first. But after a bit, there were signs of surprise among the boys. Later, I crossed paths with our Headmaster, who said ‘Rather silly, Moore, wasn’t it?’, and walked on.

I respected the Head. He was another who taught us Greek. I remember being required by him to learn by heart a good chunk of the famous ‘Funeral Speech’ of Pericles as reported by Thucydides, in Greek, and I still remember some of it, over fifty years later. But this caught me out a bit later, when I was interviewed at the age of 17 for a place at Balliol College, Oxford.

At Balliol I was quite intimidated by rival candidates for a scholarship. They seemed so confident and sophisticated. My interview on a wintry day was in a study with a fire burning in the hearth. I mentioned having learned some of the funeral speech in Greek. At which Russell Meiggs (the renowned ancient historian) said ‘Well, go on: recite!’ I began to do so, my eyes shining, no doubt, with youthful idealism at this early statement of democratic principles in fine prose. Then Meiggs said: ‘It’s just school prize-giving day stuff, isn’t it?’ I was shocked, and too callow to respond. I didn’t get a place at Balliol. An obituary published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society said of Meiggs: ‘the real challenge was to stand up to Meiggs, to challenge him as he challenged others. He admired and encouraged fierce integrity.’

But I did go to study at Oxford University, and later enjoyed going to Meiggs’s lectures, and participating in one of his seminars. In one lecture, not read from any text or notes, he was constructing an unusually complicated phrase. Then he paused, looked out of the window with his very long hair (not at all a fashion at that time), and whispered loudly: ‘Fuck! I’ve forgotten the beginning of the sentence.’

There was another incident with our Headmaster. For some reason, some of the Sixth-Formers were aware of a reception to be held by the Governors of our School. Out of mischief, three of us went out at lunch-time to a public telephone booth, and telephoned invitations for this occasion to unlikely people. It must have been difficult for the three of us to get into the booth. When we came out, it happened that the Head was passing. The Head said: ‘Moore! Placing your bet on the 2.30?’