Above all, I think it shows that class distinctions have become much more fluid and less marked, and that the middle and upper-middle classes have become less smug and more liberal, and increasingly aware of their privileges and responsibilities. This is particularly evident in the case of John Brisby, first seen in 1964 as a somewhat ghastly little prep-school boy (possibly rather like me), singing Waltzing Matilda in fluent Latin and unabashedly expressing inherited views that would now be considered unacceptably sexist and snobbish. A privileged high road is open to him and he advances along it steadily: at 14, he is at Westminster, nakedly ambitious for “fame and political power”, and at 21, he is at Oxford, confidently en route to becoming a QC.