Teachers have no idea. Seventy years after he taught me English I am writing on my Jim Clark book, “To James K Scobbie.” It would probably make him uncomfortable. I sent him my 1970 Jackie Stewart book and he said I was his first former pupil to be an author. Scobbie was a big untidy man with a booming voice. He didn’t ever say I wrote well; he would only proclaim, “Find an essay subject Eric Dymock can’t bring cars into.”