Joe, Alison and Martin: I went to a Catholic Boys College here in Melbourne and learned Latin in Form 1 (Year 7, these days).

It was my favourite subject - though I was barely slightly above-average at doing it; I loved the challenge. Unfortunately I contracted Hepatitis A sometime in early Term 2 (we had three terms a year in those days, remember?) and ended up missing the second half of Term 2 and most of Term 3 - returned to school about 2weeks before end of year exams. Despite no work being sent home for me I managed to pass every subject except Maths B (basically, calculus/pure maths) and Latin - although I did manage to get 35% for my mark and the entire exam was on second-half-of-the-year material.

I asked to continue doing it in Form 2 and was rejected - got told I was an idiot and couldn't cope.

Talk about devastated.

However, some remained and I found I was able to translate some inscriptions on ruins when I visited Rome and Pompeii and later Nimes and Pont du Gard in France. Great sense of satisfaction.

Muttley