Encouraging

I had lunch today with a man who was a school contemporary of my son, and who remains a good friend of us both. As some people do, he more or less threw away his early twenties in a series of dull jobs, and then he discovered the extra gear in his gearbox, changed up and put his foot down. He is now well into a law degree at a highly respected university, and I realised, a short way into our conversation, that he has developed a powerful and questioning intellect from which old chaps like me can learn a lot.
He will do well in time, and it dawned on me that in an era of increased life expectancy and longer careers it is no great handicap to qualify as a lawyer at 35, because you may still be working at 70, unlike those who qualified ten years younger.
I was educated in the Fifties and Sixties, and those who failed to make the grade at 11-plus, or O-level, or A-level were expected to bow to their fate and disappear into the maw of commerce or the public service. Nowadays a young man or woman who may just have grown up a little more slowly than their peers can, if they have the grit, start again and succeed. I truly wish them well.