Personal timeline

Born!

Also suffered some permanent nerve damage, impairing speech and coordination, though that wasn’t detected for several more years…

My first school, for ages 2-8. Actually outlived my prep school by a year, closing in 1996.

Learned a handful of words of Arabic. Not really sure why in hindsight, but it seemed fascinating at the time.

Also several years of speech therapy — needed thanks to that nerve damage, though this wasn’t known at the time.

Acquired my younger brother, Ed. As a precaution in case my new sibling turned out to be a girl, I’d prearranged a swap for the girl next door’s pet rabbit.

Ed later had his index finger bitten off by my pet rabbit. Twice. Origins of that rabbit not recorded…

One term – my first in Scotland – at Lathallan, which is still open as of 2015 and now employs my childhood friend Lisa.

The prep school where I stayed until going to Glenalmond at 13.

An excellent French and Latin teacher who did a great job nurturing my interest in languages.

Punctuated by extensive physiotherapy, as well as replacing my customary morning cup of tea with coffee, per medical advice: that nerve damage was finally diagnosed and explained. Impaired speech and co-ordination, as well as disabling the nerves in my vestibular system which would normally provide balance — with the somewhat ironic result that my sense of balance is actually more precise and responsive than in others, since I learned to balance visually instead.

My first music teacher, Tim Geaney, took a keen interest in photography and the male pupils. Rather too keen, the court decided after examining his stash of 21,000 photographs of us…

Five years, the first of those as a boarder, in a remote valley near Perth.

Slightly eccentric knife-waving French teacher who rapidly dissuaded me from French.

Great teachers for Latin and German, though, who more than made up for that overall.

Asked out by RH, in front of a group of other pupils. Too good to be true? Well, yes: she dumped me less than 48 hours later via a friend, telling her she was ‘desperate to find a new boyfriend’; presumably that had been her plan all along, which isn’t nice. Then apparently told other girls a week later that I had been the one who dumped her. (I’d spent the week hoping perhaps it had been some sort of misunderstanding, but no: she wasn’t talking to me any more.)

Offered a place at St John’s College, Cambridge, to start September 1999 after a gap year. (Also York, Imperial, Dundee and Heriot-Watt.)

School leaving dinner in Edinburgh in July for multiple Scottish private schools including mine. RH there (with MR), despite not actually leaving that year. Oddly, tried to talk to me afterwards and seemed quite nice

Family reunion in the Black Forest, ancestral home of some of my paternal ancestors.

My first visit to the US, visiting Illinois, Iowa, Virginia, Washington DC and Maryland, in roughly that order.

Phoned just before the start of term back at Glenalmond: starting to take computing more seriously, they now have a leased line Internet connection to replace the ISDN link I helped BT install — but can’t get it to work! (Subnet calculation issue on the gateway server, easy to fix.)

Given a car! Not new, of course, in fact given to me with the warning it had an ‘oil leak’, so I was to drive it down the motorway to Edinburgh with my brother to get that fixed as soon as possible. A bizarre stipulation, which makes sense after the brakes fail at 30mph in Perth the first time I take it for a drive; had that happened at motorway speeds, we could well both have been killed. Checking it later, the ‘oil’ stain it left turned out to be pale pink: not the colour of engine oil, but brake fluid! Funny, since our ‘benefactor’ happened to feature in the same will as us, giving rather a large motive…