My sister T spent her entire school career coming home from exams insisting that she had screwed up. It would subsequently emerge that she had finished top of the class every time. Okay my hard working younger sister did not get into Oxford but she gained entrance to a place in the Fens which is, I gather, almost as good.
And so we come to daughter Olaf, my miracle baby. Born at 26 weeks weighing just 1lb 4 oz we were warned that if she survived she would face all sorts of problems and one of them might be that she was not exactly the brightest spark in the class. And so today my award winning swimming, accomplished acting, Welsh Nationalist daughter got her A level grades.
She knows my views about grade inflation and my father and I have had a good, reactionary, chortle about how, this year, some brats got less than 50% in their Maths A level but were still awarded an A. Whatever.
Olaf needed 3As to secure her place at Oxford. She had said that a number of papers went very badly including French oral where she had to discuss French popular music, a subject she knows less about than her old Dad. But Olaf has a bit of the Aunt T about her and so today she discovered it was 2 A*s and 2 As (though the little swot is appealing one of those). And thus Oxford it is rather than some ghastly institution packed with posh and privileged English snowflakes in the Athens of the North.