The grammar school, secondary modern school system, only existed in England for 20 years,

and yet a half century after its abolition it's back on the agenda.

Why?

Come with me into the briefing room and I'll try to find out.

Let's begin not with facts, but with feelings. Whereas secondary moderns, what the non-grammar schools were called,

have left few admirers, the products of the thousand-plus grammar schools,

often in prominent positions in British society, can be deeply grateful.

This gratitude was captured in the BBC Ford documentary The Grammar School, A Secret History.

I had never seen anything so beautiful as going through these gates and seeing this glorious school

and to think that that was where I was going to go every day to do things that I knew that

I was going to enjoy. It was fantastic. And inside the building, the smell of the oak floors and the wood panelling of this beautiful, beautiful building.

We had to behave with decorum, very Victorian values,

and so we would sit at the table eating properly with the correct knife and fork, with our mouths closed.

If we needed something passing,

other people on the table had to be aware of your needs and pass it.

You weren't allowed to say, well, you pass me the salt please.

They had to look after you, and we each had to do that.

When I put on the school uniform, the first time, it was so amazing.

I didn't even recognise myself. I'd never

had new clothes. Never. It's the first time I'd ever had new clothes. Once there, expectations

were high, highlighted by this video from Harrow County School for Boys, titled, Makers of Men.

The new boys, as first-formers, entered the school on their very first day,

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