It was a slim book called This Way Please. Its author was, I remember, Eleanor Boykin. We were schoolboys, easily influenced, eager to be influenced. The book, written in a lively, friendly style, offered lovely advice we would never use on public behaviour, with chapters like Learning to be at ease with people; Talk and popularity; Manners at the table; Rubbing elbows with the public; Good travellers; and Boys and girls.

We didn’t get to meet many girls, such were those times, and we were not frequent travellers, but we still loved Eleanor Boykin’s book, because we knew that anyone who behaved like that would be respected and admired. They would be seen as people of good manners, a phrase no one uses any more.