h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I began my sixth year as a maths scholarship candidate. There were four of us, Bruce, Fred, Robin and myself. The school's reputation rested on the maths teacher, Jack Campbell; the only other brilliant teacher was Micheál Franklin, but he scored no dazzling successes as his job was to ensure that every pupil without exception passed the Irish exam, as without a pass in Irish no certificate was awarded.

In fifth year Jack Campbell would give all his attention to the promising pupils, leaving the rest to work away at exam problems. Micheál Franklin on the other hand terrorised the entire class into constant attention, with an all-seeing eye and a scathing tongue. Everybody passed their exam.

I didn't exert myself. At the end of the Christmas term something was said to my father and I found myself in a different class in January. I was to sit instead the TCD Matriculation exam, and I was in a class of one. This suited me fine. In fact I had been forewarned, and I read 'Pride and Prejudice' over the Christmas holidays. The horrible revelation that brought me was the vandalism our English teacher was wreaking on literature; when I read it it was interesting enough, when he barged through it it was reduced to rubble.

The opposite revelation was Micheál Franklin. From a scary tyrant he became, in one-to-one classes, a real tutor. He brought me through the seventeenth-century poets and gave me idiomatic phrases to say about them. I could tell from his emphasis which phrases to take note of, and I reproduced them in the exam. As a result, Micheál was rewarded with a rare accolade in his career as a teacher: Trinity College gave me an exhibition (a small prize:£10 a year) in Irish.

Oooh, I'm a sucker for teacher stories. And this is a great one.

I love it. Amazing how the teacher can transform himself into a mentor by just changing the environment.