This was going to be my handbag book this week. (Can't get on the Tube or a bus without a book!) But I dipped into it in bed last night and now I've kind of had enough, because there's only so much schoolgirl enthusiasm you can take: 'Super - dead thrilling - Latin was simply unspeakable - Ye Gods! - The lower VI concert was terrific.'

I'm flagging - but in small doses it's fascinating as a window into the unsophisticated life of a 15-year-old in 1954. Margaret thinks boys are soppy and girls who are into boys are even soppier. She washes her 'mop' once a fortnight and helps her mum with housework on Saturday mornings. She thinks lipstick is 'muck' and despises those girls who try to look 20. 'Give me socks, flat heels, no makeup & teenage clothes any day!' 

Less than 20 years later, I was also a northern schoolgirl, equally set on getting into university but rather less assiduous when it came to revising. I would have died rather than wear socks. I haunted the makeup counter in Boots (Miner's lipstick, Kiku perfume) and my biggest interest in life (apart from boys) was my split ends, discussed endlessly with my best friend. We fervently believed that a much-advertised shampoo called Protein 21 would miraculously mend them. We hated Latin, never helped our mothers and ached to be grown-up.

I was never going to win any scholarships. But my spelling was much better than Margaret Forster's!