What draws me back to my school reunions?

I am 42, so it is a little pathetic to be taken back to my teens by the sight of a former teacher

Someone once said that "schooldays are the best days of your life". Someone else ventured that "whoever said that schooldays are the best days of your life was probably a bully and a cheat."

Worryingly, I enjoyed my schooldays very much. I don't think I was much of a cheat or a bully, although now that I think about it, I did quite often, at the back of the number 17 bus, persuade Simon Cliffe to let me copy his Latin homework. Not that our Latin master, Mr Clough, was remotely fooled.

In another life, Mr Clough could have been a forensic scientist. "Did you by any chance share a bus with Cliffe this morning?" he would write, at the bottom of my ablative absolutes.

Neither Cliffe nor Mr Clough were present, alas, at my school reunion dinner last Thursday. But plenty of other classmates were there, as well as one or two teachers. It is strangely unsettling seeing old teachers now, especially those who were, in the 1970s vernacular of King George V Grammar School for Boys, Southport, "rock hard".

Stan Rimmer, who taught French and ruled Room Seven like Pol Pot ruled Cambodia, only with not quite as much tolerance for dissenters, is one of the stalwarts of the Old Georgians Association. He is a man of warmth and benevolence, and probably always was, but old manifestations die hard. When he appeared behind my chair last Thursday to ask me for my £20, I would not have been remotely surprised had he then hauled me to my feet by my sideburns.

I am 42, so it is more than a little pathetic to be transported back to my teens merely by the sight of a former teacher. Maybe I'm unusually vulnerable in this regard. Six years ago, when I took my four-year-old daughter to the state school in London we wished her to attend, for a "consultation" with the forbidding head teacher, it was the first time I'd been back in an infants school since I was an infant myself. If anyone had asked me why I wasn't wearing black pumps, I probably would have started to cry. And when the head teacher peered at me over her spectacles and said "parents' names?", I offered her those of my own mother and stepfather.

"Actually," said my wife, looking at me askance, "it's Jane and Brian." Obviously, the inner child in me is raring to get out, which is doubtless why I enjoy attending the Old Georgians' dinner every maundy Thursday.

Moreover, there is comfort to be gained in shared experience, and a particular bond with those who shared what is perhaps, apart from being born, the most formative experience of all.

No matter that you've never been quite sure of their first names (I'm amazed, frankly, that I managed to recall that Cliffe was a Simon). Luckily, there are always nicknames to fall back on. However puerile it might seem for one middle-aged man to address another as "Stoffer", it comes more easily than "Chris".

Speaking of nicknames, there was one discordant note at last week's dinner. Our old headmaster, George Dixon, known to my generation as "the Fez", was not sitting in his rightful place at the top table, having died last month, aged 91, after a mercifully short illness. Apparently, he was full of vigour almost to the end, and spoke at last year's dinner with his customary style and wit.

There were men in their 70s there, and men in their 30s, and he had been headmaster to them all, although I think his nickname changed through the years. I never knew why our lot called him the Fez. He wasn't Moroccan and he certainly bore no resemblance to Tommy Cooper. But the Fez he was and the Fez he will remain, although always with the utmost respect. To show disrespect to the Fez was unthinkable, and that axiom alone was a useful one for generations of boys to carry into adulthood.

He in turn, on the 75th anniversary three years ago of the founding of King George V School, wrote this in the Old Georgians' magazine, the Red Rose: "The true worth of a school can only be gauged many years after the pupils leave. A member of Liverpool University once said to me, 'We like having your boys. They are such good citizens.' One of my greatest pleasures is to read the achievements of Old Georgians in the Red Rose. So many of them have not only followed successful careers, but have made major contributions to the culture and life of their neighbourhoods. They have been good citizens. No school can hope for more."

I don't suppose I ever uttered more than 50 words to the Fez, and a large number of those were "yes", "no", and "sir". But if I'd had a proper conversation with him in recent years, I'm sure I would have found a dim opinion of league tables for schools. Even allowing for some sentimentality in those words of his, he was right to say that a school's worth is best measured long after the pupils have left. Especially if those former pupils still make the effort to meet up every year, if only to discuss which teacher scored the most direct hits with a board rubber.

b.viner@independent.co.uk