You would always think of old Vidhrio as the quintessential Englishman.

True, his name was Hispanic-sounding enough if we'd stopped to think about it, but his lean and ascetic appearance, the well-modulated tones that came from somewhere deep within his tall frame, and his severe, almost sombre clothing had Home Counties pedagogue written all over them. Fifty years or more before the time that he actually lived in the Home Counties, that is. If you had absolutely no imagination you would probably mark him down as the teacher of Geography at a prep school that was distinctly of the second rank, which he in fact was.

Anyway, we pupils had all but forgotten his real name. When he'd come to St. Cuthbert's years before as a young man - it was funny for us to think that old Vidhrio could ever have been young, though in fact he wasn't so very old then -some bright spark had named him 'Mr. Glass', a rough translation 1 think it was. Not that you'd see him as brittle or transparent or anything like that, but the nickname stuck through the years. Everybody used it. I even gained some notoriety by calling him Mr. Glass to his face once in my early days at the school. I wasn't being brave or reckless, just forgetful. He didn't bat an eyelid. He probably thought of himself as Mr. Glass as well.

Our teacher wasn't Spanish at all. 1 found out later that his grandfather was Portuguese. The family had lived in Chiswick, West London for two generations past. But genes, or blood, or whatever it is, will out. That's what I want to tell you about, that day forty years

'Boy,' he said to me in the quad one day - we had a quadrangle would you believe, complete with a pond and fountains. 'Just a minute'. I froze. I hadn't been running or even hurrying. I hadn't made a hash of my geography prep or done anything else to annoy him that I could think of. How, today, can I convey what St. Cuthbert's was like? If old Glass was fifty years out of date the school rules and the way the place pretended to be was at least a century behind its time - this was the nineteen-sixties. I suppose they could charge larger fees that way.

The sixties wasn't the time when things changed for all of us. The world of popular culture was something that was a million miles away from St. Cuthbert's. Things did change for me, though, perhaps more dramatically than they have at any time since, though not in the way you read about in the newspapers or see on the television. In our school at that time it wasn't really even done for teachers to talk to pupils in the quad. So you can imagine the way I was feeling when Glass spoke to me - shocked.

'Boy,' he said again, satisfied that he had the attention of that part of my scrambled wits that wasn't casting about for whatever misdemeanour I'd been guilty of. "Tomorrow evening I'm giving a small - er, party for some chosen pupils. Be at my study at eight o'clock.' He turned his back and marched off, black gown streaming behind him like some tall black bird, without waiting for or expecting a reply. That was the way things were then.

For the next day-and-a-half l didn't think of much else. I was surprised that old Glass had even noticed me, let alone that he could think of me as a 'chosen pupil'. Thank goodness we didn't have a geography lesson in between times, or Lord knows how I'd have been able to get through it. I was glad when at last the evening of the next day came and I could set off through the dampness of the early March evening towards the 'small party'. I was tingling with excitement. Nothing much ever happened at St. Cuthbert's, you understand.

'Ah. Come in. You're the last to arrive.' This was a small enough victory, but it made me feel that the last hour of purgatory had been worth it. 1 hadn't taken my eyes off the clock for the last half-hour.

I looked across to see who else was among the favoured few. There were only three of them. There was Martins, thin and worried-looking, and the best part of a foot taller than the rest of us. He probably looks now something like old Glass did then, I'd guess. Then there was Foxy - Colin Fox, but we never thought of him as that. Foxy was chubby and had nervous eyes that kept darting about. His face broke into a fleeting smile at the oddest of times. He was a bit slow or daft I think, but I suppose that as long as his parents paid the fees on time that didn't matter at all. The third boy was Broome, of whom I can't now remember much apart from the huge strawberry birthmark slap in the middle of his freckled left cheek. It didn't bother him much, though - or at least it didn't seem to bother him at that age - and he grinned when he saw me. Broome was the only one that I was at all friendly with, and I didn't know even him all that well.

Fortunately, Glass broke the silence that had quickly descended on the room. None of we boys knew what we should do or say.

'I expect you'd like some refreshment. What is it to be? Wine?'

Wine? Jesus! He may as well have offered us opium. Remember, we were only twelve years old and this was St. Cuthbert's. Fortunately, all four of us managed to nod assent - the other three went up in my estimation at that moment -and soon he was pouring steadily into the five glasses that were already on the table. I can still hear the faint slooping, gurgling sound today

I made a mental note of the name on the bottle. It was Casu da Insua, one of the wines from the Dao region. I drink it today, when I can get it. Of course, I recognise that it's inferior to Nuits St. George, or a good bottle of Pomerel, or even a good many cheaper wines, but I suppose we're all condemned to trying to recapture the jewels of our youth - first sexual experience, first sip of alcohol and so on. Anyway, now you know why I drink Dao sometimes.

That first taste of wine was a disappointment. I think it was a disappointment to all of us. I had been expecting a sweetish, honeyed taste. I suppose I had been influenced by all the songs and the poems, and the tantalising look of the wine in the glass: rich and red, and holding a liquid promise that it never quite delivers. It was quite a surprise to feel the slightly acidic, strong flavoured stuff on my tongue.

But I stuck to my task. We all did. Soon our teacher was emptying another bottle into five glasses, and we were drinking a little faster than before. I'm fairly sure that we had another glass after that, or maybe even two, but the truth is that I don't know exactly how much wine we drank that night. The world was a warmer, less wearisome place but it was becoming more out of focus too. There was a lot of conversation. Foxy chirruped in his high nasal tone and Broome sounded very adult and wise to me. Even Martins and Mr. Glass joined in sometimes, and seemed less forbidding than usual.

"I think you'd better go back to your rooms now,' said Mr. Glass in a voice that echoed strangely above our little crowd. 'It'll be lights out in a quarter-of-an-hour and I can't help thinking that some of you have had one glass too many.' There was a slight note of panic in his voice as he said this. It was as if, belatedly, he realised that he had gone just a bit too far.

He wasn't looking at me when he said this, but at Foxy and Broome, who were swaying quite comically by this time. My head was clearing: you would say that I was already developing a taste for the demon drink. Martins seemed much the same as he had been an hour or so before.

That was the last I saw of Mr. Glass. Before long I wouldn't see the other boys again, either.

We found ourselves in the grounds of the school. Broome and Foxy were staggering about, but Martins and I managed to get them home - we all lived in separate dormitories. We had a close call, or what may have been a close call - it might just have been coincidence - when Foxy stopped to vomit copiously and noisily into some flower beds at the same time that a light went on in the headmaster's residence. It was probably no more than a coincidence, but I can still remember that moment - absolute terrified hush except for Foxy's death rattle, which seemed so loud to the rest of us. Otherwise our journeys were quite without incident, though in my memory they lasted a very long time. The journeys were unreal seeming, but without incident. I don't remember whether Martins saw me home or I saw Martins home - maybe we did both things. That wouldn't surprise me.

The very next afternoon I was removed from St Cuthbert's. There was a financial crisis at home. Not our first and by no means our last, but certainly the biggest so far, and I was at an age when I could begin to understand what it meant. The end of my private education was nothing like the disaster it sounds. St. Cuthbert' s was at best a mediocre school and the headmaster of the state school I went to within a few weeks at least realised what century we were in, and showed more interest in school books than cash books.

A couple of months later I heard from a former schoolmate - my last contact with anyone from the school - that old Glass had left St. Cuthbert's in a hurry and under some mysterious dark cloud. I know what you're thinking. But I just can't imagine Glass at the centre of some scandal of paedophilia, however neat it would make this story. My family's financial crisis would have saved me from the dark fate in the nick of time. That would be a highly moral tale if ever there was one.

I just can't picture old Glass passionately kissing that strawberry birthmark, or wrestling Foxy onto the bed after a few glasses of Vinho Tinto and having his wicked way with him. Every time I try to do that the images are cartoon-like and just make me laugh. Sorry. No, I happen to think that old Glass was just desperately lonely and picked on us as some unlikely drinking companions. St. Cuthbert's, Glass, the night I had my first taste of alcohol, and Foxy becoming intimately acquainted with some daffodils simply faded into the background of my memory over the years.

Until last week, that is. I happened to glance at the deaths column in one of the broadsheets. I tore the piece out. Here it is: 'Glass, Jorge. Peacefully in his sleep after a short illness at Ickenham, Middlesex. Survived by a loving widow Maria and a fond daughter Luisa.' Glass, notice, not Vidhrio. He must have accepted the inevitable and changed his name. But Jorge and not George - that would be just like him. And when did the wife and daughter come in? Perhaps leaving St. Cuthbert's was the making of both of us.

It may have been a coincidence but I'm convinced this was my old teacher. He'd have been about eighty-five or ninety. A 'good age' as they say, but not the relic from near-Medieval times that he was in some dark comer of my memory. Anyway, I opened my last bottle of Casa da Insua on the strength of it. And do you know what? Just for a minute it tasted as sweet as honey.