While I was waiting to enter university,I saw advertised in a local newspaper a teaching post at a school in a suburb of London about ten miles from where I lived. Being very short of money, I applied. Three days later, a letter arrived, asking me to go to Croydon for an interview. It proved a tiring journey: a train to Croydon station; a ten-minute bus ride and then a walk of at least fifteen minutes. It was clearly the headmaster himself that opened the door. He was short and fat, with a grey-color1ed moustache,a deeply lined face and hardly any hair.  He looked at me with surprised disapproval. Then he said. "You'd better come inside." Leading me into his study, he started to ask me a number of questions: what subjects I had taken in my General School Certificate;how old I was; what games I played; whether I thought games were an important part of a boy's education, etc. I said something about not attaching too much importance to them. We obviously had very little in common. The teaching arrangement filled me with fear. I was to divide the class of twenty-four boys, aged from seven to thirteen, into three groups and teach them all subjects--including art, football, cricket and so on--in turn at three different levels. Actually, I was depressed at the thought of teaching algebra and geometry--two subjects in which I had been rather weak at school. I said shyly, "What would my salary be?" "Twelve pounds a week plus lunch." Before I could speak, he got to his feet. "Now," he said, "you'd better meet my wife. She's the one who really runs this school." This was the last thing I could hear. I was young. How could my dignity allow me to work under an old woman? What was the man's first attitude towards the writer?
Pleased approval. Scared doubt. Amazed disapproval. Excited pleasure