An appetite for wonder...

To get the bitter, acrid taste of the Koran out of my mouth, I’ve been reading An Appetite for Wonder, a memoir by Richard Dawkins. It covers his childhood, schooldays and years at Oxford, ending with the publication of his first, ground-breaking book, The Selfish Gene. For a man who’s often called arrogant and strident, particularly by people of faith, the young Dawkins comes across as measured and restrained. He seems well aware of the advantages he enjoyed, and readily owns up to the mistakes he made. I was surprised to discover that, as a child, he wasn’t very interested in - or knowledgeable about - wildlife. Even today he admits to not being able to recognise the songs of more than half a dozen birds or know the names of many plants. He even admits to not being very observant!

I was particularly interested in the chapter on Oundle School. Dawkins went there, aged 13, in 1954 (I was the same age when I went there, but ten years later, in 1964, so our paths never crossed). The one common thread was a man called Ioan Thomas (He wasn’t Ioan Thomas to us. To his face he was Mr Thomas; behind his back he was ‘Tit’ Thomas. God knows why). I remember him as my housemaster: a rather distant figure, and a bachelor, who should never have been put in charge of seventy impressionable boys. Dawkins recalls him, more positively, as an inspirational biology teacher.

Dawkins remembers, with a shudder, the arcane rules and regulations of life at public school. They were administered by the prefects, who were allowed to wear a straw boater and carry a whip. Dawkins was a fag, at the beck and call of the deputy head of house; ten years later this arcane tradition was being dismantled (though the prefects were still entitled to carry whips). We both remember the bullying, the casual cruelties that seemed to be sanctioned - even encouraged - by the very people who were, in loco parentis, entrusted with our welfare. Along with rugby, cold showers and corporal punishment, it was no doubt supposed to be ‘character building’…

Ebenezer Row, Chesterfield...