I'm glad I spent it with you

When I was at school I never got to be a prefect. I was Ink Monitor once, which was quite fun. In those days we all sat at proper desks with inkwells for real ink, which had to be carefully poured from a large bottle to avoid a disastrous spillage. Quite often some bright spark had stuffed the inkwell full of blotting paper, which had to be winkled out with the point of a pair of compasses. Another term I was very proud to be Pencil-Monitor, which involved the great responsibility of sharpening all the pencils in a marvellous machine with a turny handle which went kerchunka-chunka-chunka; you had to be careful not to get too enthralled and grind a pencil down to a stump. (Milk Monitor was a position nobody relished - although you got to leave class early before break in order to fetch the crate of milk, you didn't half get some stick if you brought the one that had been too close to a radiator and the milk was tepid. And those horrid waxed-paper straws, that went all soggy long before your third-of-a-pint was finished and no matter how hard you sucked nothing would reach your mouth.) Once I was even Form Vice-Captain, which seemed to be a courtesy title only - I don't remember having any task to perform, and certainly not one involving any sort of vices. For all those positions there was a cool enamelled badge to wear on your jumper next to your house (Constable, Chicheley or Dereham at one junior school; Courteney, School or Newton at a senior school) badge, so that everyone knew how important you were. But I was never a prefect. However I've gone even better now. For Christmas I was given a beautiful shield-shaped enamelled badge. Modern schoolchildren won't notice the difference.