Author Description

After being initially fostered, Peter Collins was adopted into the family that ran the Collins publishing company when his beautiful, talented and socially ambitious mother married the younger Collins brother, Ken, under scandalous circumstances. He experienced much sex, violence and erratic education while at Heath Mount Preparatory school and at Harrow school. Though an open scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, he only managed a mediocre second-class degree in Modern Languages. He learnt rather little at the hands of various Oxford dons, partly as a result of having much fun. However, he did learn a great deal about many different things from David Luke, his ultra-eccentric German tutor and a life-long friend. David introduced him to W H Auden in his first week-end at Oxford and Peter got to know Auden quite well during the last decade of the poet’s life. Through David, he also got to know others amongst the literary great and good including Nevll Coghill and Iris Murdoch.At 19, he fell madly in love, married as an undergraduate and soon had two children. For five years he taught French at Dulwich College, stupendously badly at first. He failed to get a Dip. Ed but did get a First in Philosophy as an external candidate at London University. He then spent three happy years teaching trainee teachers the philosophy of education at Westminster College, Oxford, while also studying for a doctorate in the philosophy of religion during the heyday of Oxford Philosophy. This book consists of accounts of his adventures in education, of attractive people he has known, and of the development of his moral, political and religious convictions during the first 30 years of his life.Praise for this book“Wonderful” — (John D Collins)“Astonishing” — (Melinda Riechert (née Collins)“Hilarious” — (Roger Collins)“Brilliant” — (David Collins)“Flabbergasting” — (Sarah Hallas, née Collins)“Sensational” — (Catherine Collins)“Better than Augustine, Rousseau and Proust” — (Peter Collins)“Hmmm” —