Asa Briggs once came to my school to inspect the Combined Cadet Force (CCF). In retrospect, this should have surprised me in at least two respects. First, that a famously swotty Outer London day school maintained a CCF — albeit voluntary — at all (one schoolmate thought that weapons training might usefully prepare him for the service he planned in the IDF; in fact, he became a theatre director). Second, that Professor and soon-to-be Lord Briggs, then vice-chancellor of Sussex University a...
