As a contemporary of Jeremy Seabrook at Northampton grammar school, I remember his aloofness, his favourite expression of dismissal – “madly droll” (which I sometimes use even now) – and his angry response to the school’s reaction when he addressed a letter to Gonville and Keyes (sic) College.
That still rankled when he wrote his autobiographical book about Northampton, The Everlasting Feast (1974). But he did not hate everything about the school. Like many of us he thought highly of DB Gregor, the senior classics teacher, who taught him Italian and whose obituary he wrote for the Guardian.
