This came back to me today, how, at prep school, we would sit in morning assembly. Most days there was a hymn, a reading from the Bible, a prayer. Then we would troop out and on to classes. The important stuff.

Every now and then we would have a special visitor. There would be the obligatory hymn and a short talk. Then we were told 'let us pray' - and nothing happened. Silence. Little boys being little boys, there'd be nudges and whispers: he's fallen asleep ... he's forgotten the words ... . Minutes went by. Much shuffling and fidgeting. Then the headmaster would clear his throat and we knew that was it. Assembly over. Off you go.

It took some years for the penny to drop that this was normal Quaker practice. A silent waiting, listening, for - well, whatever. It would be presumptuous to say.

Or like the time we were told about a concert where the player with the triangle (you know what a triangle is I take it boys ...) waited all through the piece and played only once or twice. However, we were told, these few notes were as vital as any others.

Nothing was insisted. Nobody rammed a moral down our throats. Yet - as this post confirms - the words and the silences went deep. And stayed.

As I say, thinking about this today.

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Just as a matter of interest, Bunting went to the 'big school' just up the road from mine (although many years earlier). And hated it.