I learned at Fettes most of the best of what I am

What did I get? For what am I in debt? For a start, the people. I am too discreet to name the few truly terrible teachers who were at Fettes when I was. But in Tony Chenevix-Trench, Bob Philp and David McMurray, Fettes also had teachers who were as good as it gets.

From Chenevix-Trench I learned passion for the subject that still informs my life. He loved the ancient world like a son and knew it like an old shoe. He took me beyond the arid over-emphasis on language that has killed Greek and Latin off. He brought the classics to life.

Trench told me, for example, of his first Greek master who used to hold up before his class a tattered picture of the famous nude statue, the Venus de Milo, and demand: "And what do you think they were trying to do? Make us tingle with lust? Certainly not! They were asking themselves what beauty is, and whether it lies in proportion."

To be taught by Trench at all was an honour. But as the only Oxbridge candidate in ancient Greek that year, I was taught by him on my own in his study. I knew then that this was a rare privilege. I still know it now and, beyond his grave, I thank him.

From Bob Philp, who taught me both Greek and Latin, I learned care. Bob was and still is a fine, fastidious scholar. His meticulous mind, his measured manner and his intellectual rigour are qualities that, in my historical fiction and my journalism, I still try to match. If I fail, it is great comfort to do so against the standards that Bob set. They were the highest I have known.

David McMurray may think that he taught me English. But he didn't. He taught me much more. In my fiction I try to catch what Hopkins called "the naked thew and sinew" of English prose. From David I learned that the heart of good prose is in poetry. Thanks to him, I read and re-read Plath and Pound and Eliot and Wallace Stevens and ee cummings and many others, and I still do. That, and my resulting writing, may not make the world a better one. But it makes my life richer.

There were others, of course. When I wasn't push starting his E-Type Jaguar, Mike MacIntosh-Reid introduced me to writers like Stoppard and gave me a model of perfect manners. John Arkell encouraged me not to follow the syllabus, but my instincts. Charles Wilkinson-Valley fostered in me an interest in writing, not just reading, that I didn't know I had. Colin Tipple helped me to hear the music between notes, and Michael Lester-Cribb showed me how music explores the hidden human heart. These teachers were inspiring. I owe them a very great deal.

Secondly, I owe to Fettes the closest of my few close friends. Simon Scott has always been there for me when I have been in need. "Old friends, like old swords," he loves to say, "are trusted best." Between Simon and me lie, I believe, unbreakable bonds. These were formed at Fettes. The same is true of my friendship with Simon's sister, Sarah, now Boisseau.

Not all was as good as this at Fettes, of course. There was the bullying, the beating and at times the brutality - and the ever-hideous food. There was the obsession with excellence in only a few spheres. And the irony there? That the contemporaries of mine who have succeeded in worldly terms since leaving Fettes - people like Simon Scott or George MacDonald or Karl Tweedie - were considered failures at school. But all that has gone, or else my children wouldn't have followed me to Fettes. The only thing that hasn't improved immeasurably, as far as I can see, is the singing of Floreas Fettesia on Founder's Day.

Anyway, the good in my time at Fettes far outweighs the bad. That is why I support the Fettes Foundation, albeit in a very modest way. I learned at Fettes most of the best of what I am. The worst was, is and will be up to me. Or did I learn that there too?