Only by never mentioning them again. Unless you wrote a book several terms on from Attic Term and made Nicola, Patrick and Ginty very minor characters it would be hard not to refer to the events of Attic Term. True, AF could have done that. But my more serious objection to setting a Marlow book in 2011 is that the characters just wouldn't fit. Teenagers born in the late 90s just don't have the same values, morals, interests and speech patterns as those born before the war in the era the Marlows were originally conceived in. Yes, it is amusing to imagine Ginty on Facebook or Lawrie entering Britain's Got Talent, but I don't think that would be sustainable in a book. Whenever AF mentions music or fashion in the later books it slightly grates with me because it doesn't feel right. (I've often felt that if the Marlow books had been kept firmly in their original period they might still be more widely read - modern librarians and teachers can cope with the 'two servant poor' in period books.)