And I'm A Hailsham Student - Which

The Booker Triumph Of Graham Swift's Moving, Effortlessly Profound Last Orders Is A Vindication Of The Quiet, Much-misunderstood Path This Fine Writer Chose To Take After The Brilliance Of Waterland More Than Ten Years Ago.

All I Know Is That I've Wasted All These Years Looking For Something, A Sort Of Trophy I'd Get Only If I Really, Really Did Enough To Deserve It. But I Don't Want It Anymore, I Want Something Else Now, Something Warm And Sheltering, Something I Can Turn To, Regardless Of What I Do, Regardless Of Who I Become. Something That Will Just Be There, Always, Like Tomorrow's Sky. That's What I Want Now, And I Think It's What You Should Want Too. But It Will Be Too Late Soon. We'll Become Too Set To Change. If We Don't Take Our Chance Now, Another May Never Come For Either Of Us.

Everything Might Scatter. You Might Be Right. I Suppose It's Something We Can't Easily Get Away From. People Need To Feel They Belong. To A Nation, To A Race. Otherwise, Who Knows What Might Happen? This Civilisation Of Ours, Perhaps It'll Just Collapse. And Everything Scatter, As You Put It.

A Man Who Aspires To Rise Above The Mediocre, To Be Something More Than The Ordinary, Surely Deserves Admiration, Even If He Fails And Loses A Fortune On Account Of His Ambitions (...) If One Has Failed Only Where Others Have Not Had The Courage Or Will To Try, There Is Consolation - Indeed, Deep Satisfaction - To Be Gained From His Observation When Looking Back Over One's Life. #page No.134

When We Lost Something Precious, And We'd Looked And Looked And Still Couldn't Find It, Then We Didn't Have To Be Completely Heartbroken. We Still Had That Last Bit Of Comfort, Thinking One Day, When We Grow Up, And We Were Free To Travel Around The Counry, We Would Always Go And Find It In Norfolk...and That's Why Years And Years Later, That Day Tommy And I Found Another Copy Of That Lost Tape Of Mine In A Town On The Norfolk Coast, We Didn't Just Think It Pretty Funny; We Both Felt Deep Down Some Tug, Some Old Wish To Believe Again In Something That Was Once Close To Our Hearts.