A class act to follow...

My hair - what remains of it - may be as grey as a badger, and the days of wearing trousers with a 30-inch waistband nothing more than folk memory, but a strange regression always sets in when circumstances find me in that big room at Worcester's Nunnery Wood High School.

I've been traipsing up and down London Road periodically during the last 10 years, duty and devotion dictating that I must from time-to-time check on the heiresses' progress at this academy for the sons and daughters of the Faithful City's finest.

I accept that this all speaks volumes for the Phillpott psyche, but as I sat up straight and paid attention to the great and the good talking to parents and pupils, I would often forget which side of the room I was on.

Listening to the firm and eloquent diction of headteacher Alan Brodrick, I would be reminded of that first day at Lawrence Sheriff School, Rugby, when I stood with other trembling new boys who had just filed in under the myopic gaze of Sench Staveley, a fearsome individual capable of wielding words and whack with equal dexterity.

You could have heard a pin drop, a silence born of terror, when "Stench" addressed the September, 1960 intake as they perched nervously on seats arranged in parade ground order between wood-panelled walls covered in pictures of bewhiskered men in gowns and mortar boards.

He chose his words carefully, delivering them with studied timing, waiting until Big School Hall was as quiet as the grave.

You boys, he boomed, you boys... are the chosen few. You have come to this school to learn to be English gentlemen.

These days, of course, such language would never be used, yet I have a sneaking feeling that there are a number of teachers at Nunnery who would recognise such headmasterly sentiments from the past.

And that's why Nunnery Wood High, Worcester's largest secondary school, is such a successful organisation. The senior teaching staff have taken the best bits of the old ways and blended them with more up-to-date sensibilities.

People of my acquaintance give me the impression that Worcester's selection of schools is very much a mixed bag, and obviously, I can only speak from the limited perspective of having been a parent with children who attended just one primary and one secondary.

But I make no apology for heaping fulsome praise on Nunnery. And it was with much sadness that I sat with my wife the other night to watch our youngest daughter receive her exam certificates.

For I realised that this was going to be the last time I'd ever sit in this hall in a parental capacity. It was the end of an era and this made me somewhat reflective.

One of the reasons why I like this city is its sense of community. Worcester's like a big village -- there are bonds and allegiances that go back years. The reason I know this is because I was brought up in a village. It's to do with a feeling.

Worcester's an honest, no-nonsense working town that, happily, lacks the pretentiousness of some of its near-neighbours. Without doubt, it's as good a place as any to form the backdrop for your children's education.

Like many Faithful City parents living in the Bath Road area, we started our pair off at Cherry Orchard, Timberdine Avenue. I remember how all the children adored the then headteacher, a genial chap who everybody just knew as Mr Vincent. Nobody seemed to know his christian name. There were many, many people who were saddened when he retired.

Cherry Orchard was a perfect preparation for Nunnery, where a mixture of kindliness and discipline has always seemed to bring out the best in young people. Having been educated in the days of liberally-applied corporal punishment, it is a never-ending source of amazement that the teachers these days still manage to control so many testosterone-charged teenage boys without employing the ultimate deterrent.

From a historical perspective, I can vouch for the fact that the cane was an effective, if brutal punishment. I can recall with crystal clarity the excruciating pain of the "stick" on my hind quarters, and believe me, you didn't offend again in a hurry.

Those four feet of bamboo certainly stopped your gallop. In more ways than one.

But that was years ago, and I must say how I admire large comprehensives like Nunnery which must cope with the changing face of a society that in recent years has altered out of all recognition.

Other groups of workers may look enviously at the long holidays, but the fact remains that a teacher's lot, like that of the music hall policeman, is increasingly not a happy one.

Mind you, watching all the youngsters respectfully filing up on to the stage to collect their certificates, one could be forgiven for thinking that butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. The boys loped up the steps all baseball caps, trainers and adolescent swagger, while the girls tottered up in jeans, bare midriffs and each wearing the unmistakable badge that is self-consciousness.

But fair play to them. For these kids are about to enter an uncertain world from which many of the old certainties have long departed. Some will go on to Sixth Form College, others to the Tech or the Art and Design centre at Barbourne but how many of them will sign up for apprenticeships?

The good old apprenticeship was once the mainstay of the industrious young person. But Britain has now dismantled its manufacturing base and become a nation of service industries.

How many of the current crop of youngsters will actually learn to make something? Thirty-five years of Governments encouraging globalisation and mass de-skilling have created an impoverished world for those who are now going forth.

The alternating dogma of Tory and Labour administrations the wretched "see-saw" effect has much to answer for. And coming generations must now cope with the implications of Britain's corporate state.

But I daresay such notions could not have been further from the thoughts of those girls and boys as they filed out of the Nunnery Wood assembly hall. In many ways, they are now on their own. Yes, they may still have the encouragement of supportive parents, but in a way, that final handshake with the headteacher said it all.

These fledglings had now gained their flight feathers and were poised for take-off. For the parents, it was yet more confirmation of their own mortality, as the march of time took them past another milestone.

And whatever lay ahead for these youngsters, who now abruptly found themselves to be ex-pupils of Nunnery Wood High School, this was the start of a new era and most certainly the end of one for those on the other side of the hall.

One chapter closes, another opens. And I'm afraid the clock cannot be turned back even for those caught in a timewarp who always feel like naughty boys whenever the headteacher hoves into sight.