At 14 I read voraciously. But having to read anything and then rip it apart has never appealed to me. Our class of 13 was given the choice of GE, Jayne Eyre or a book of short stories for O level. The boys outnumbered the girls and vetoed JE. I'm actually glad about that, as when I did read JE later, I loved it and knew it would have been forever spoiled if I'd had to take tests on it.

Even now, more than 30 years later, having seen more modern film and TV versions, I have no desire to even pick the book up ever again. My *only* positive take on the entire experience was that we got an afternoon off to go and see the 1946 version of it - but even that was impenetrable to me! It might as well have been subtitled in Swahili for all I got out of it.