Although we’ve never met - i feel we know each other in some way. Sorry for all the critical stuff - it doesn’t represent the full picture of what i think - that’s why i’m writing.

Firstly, i don’t think you’re evil. You did what you thought was right. Let’s say: ‘You knew not what you were doing - but you thought you knew.’

Your life is very interesting. It’s a novel - or a play maybe. By the time you sat your A-levels in the UK, you’d lived in Singapore, Malaysia, Egypt, Yemen, NZ (for 6 months - hated it), and then 7-years in Libya (loved it).

You failed those A-levels - your first and last experience of serious failure - until Covid? It was understandable given your “peripatetic childhood” - though it looks like you attended Churcher’s College in the UK from at least the age of 15 in 1977. Doesn’t appear to be a boarding school - so you stayed with relatives? At that time your father was an English teacher in Tripoli as i recall.

You were a teenager - probably had some rebellious stuff with the peripatetics going on - it’d be normal - i would. To your credit, you didn’t give disjointedness as an excuse for flunking. Said you were good at sport - like your father was - said you focussed too much on it.

You were good - both cricket and rugby - made the Churcher’s First XV in Rugby in 1978-79 - and it wasn’t just any old season either:

Churcher’s Hill Annual (PDF): This season will be remembered for, arguably, the best 1st XV Churcher's has produced in its fifty year rugby history.

Whoa! Best team ever! In fact the Churchers won 10 games out of 12. As a champion schoolboy team you toured France. After being moved on by the gendarmes for conducting practice under the Eiffel Tower, part of the group went to visit a museum, while:

...the more sophisticated minority occupied the Left Bank and lunched on wine, cheese, wine, pate, wine, bread and wine, to the evident bewilderment of the Parisien spectators.

Sir Jeremy, sorry to out you, but you were among this group of teenage piss-heads.

The afternoon was spent defending the Parisien public from Tim "baguette" Easlick's sly attacks and bestowing some English Christmas spirit (in the form of an enthusiastic rendition of "O Come All Ye Faithful") upon a crowd of French students chanting "Assassins!" outside the police H.Q. .. Celebrations back at the hotel continued until 3 a.m.

Big night!

Wed 20th: A morning expedition substantiated that Lawrence Fiddler was still alive and meanwhile Jeremy Farrar was sent home with alcohol poisoning.

Yep - you could fail your A-levels by being a binge-drinking lout at 17.

Churcher’s College is a pretty good school though! According to Wikipedia, it’s got four alumni from around your time who you’d say are/were modern day movers and shakers.

• Howard Drake (aged 65) OBE, High Commissioner to Jamaica from 2010 to 2013, and Ambassador to Chile from 2005 to 2009 High Commissioner to Canada from 2013 to 2017. Retired
  
• Rear Adm Philip Mathias (in his 60’s) MBE, Director since 2010 of the Strategic Defence and Security Review (Nuclear), and President in 2004 of the Admiralty Interview Board
  
• Dr Richard Dyer (in his 60’s) OBE, Chief Executive from 2006-9 of the Biosciences Federation, and Director from 1994-2005 of the Babraham Institute
  
  Then there’s you of course - the brightest star:
  
  
• Sir Jeremy Farrar (aged 60) Professor of Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford, Director of the Wellcome Trust, Director of the Covid Conspirators (?)