NEXT time you are in Leeds, pop along to Horsforth and take a stroll up Butcher Hill (this is a hill with an Everest-like incline, so don't forget your crampons).

When you reach the dizzy heights of the summit you should find yourself outside the gates of Abbey Grange School.

This may look like an ordinary, not too grand, not too shabby high school, but beneath its boring box-like exterior is an educational institution throbbing with potential.

Indeed, it is second only to Eton in terms of the calibre of students it produces. Students such as myself, Scary Spice's little sister and Royston someone-or-other who is the lead singer of a band whose name escapes me and who has been dating (is living with or, for all I know, is married to) Hollywood babe Liv Tyler.

Pitiful isn't the word, is it?

So why should you take the trouble to lurk about by the gates of such a seriously average school?

For no other reason than to witness a part of my personal history.

While lurking suspiciously, cast your eyes down to the driveway. Ten inches in from the left gate post should be about right. There you will see the skid marks I left in the Tarmac after completing the last sentence of my last exam and finally escaping Scabby Abbey (for that was our affectionate name for our beloved alma mater) after three years of scholarly confinement.

It was a warm day in June 1986 and the ink barely had time to dry on my history O-level exam paper (no GCSEs for me, these were the halcyon days before education was decimalised) before I sprinted up the school drive in a time that would have pleasantly surprised my games teacher, skidded round the corner in a distinctly unladylike fashion, and jumped on the first bus heading for the city centre.

From that day to this I have never been back. I didn't return to collect my results (Royal Mail delivers even to the outer reaches of East Leeds you know); I didn't return to get my college application form signed (well, the mail does go both ways); I didn't return for the prize-giving ceremony (my numerous accolades must have got lost in the post); and I didn't return for the leavers' disco.

In fact, I made a point of being out of the country (on a jolly junket in Majorca with my mum, dad, best pal Jo, auntie Dot, uncle Brian, cousin Andy and his chum Craig, a very short lad with only one eye) when the latter event was scheduled to take place.

In other words, when I left school, I left. Not only did I not look back, I didn't go back either. And the promise of a sweaty-palmed smooch with one of the other spotty students wasn't going to tempt be to return.

In those days however, we didn't have school proms. We didn't dress up to the nines in designer evening gowns, hire limousines and head off to a posh venue for a US-style knees-up as most modern school-leavers appear to do (if the recent Evening Press picture spreads of grinning adolescents in dickie bows and dodgy frocks are anything to go by).

We had to make do with supping cans of warm Vimto in the gym while the boys flicked their fringes and picked their zits and the girls danced badly in a tight circle to the Human League.

I have never been to a British school prom - I think even a PE teacher would be smart enough to spot a 30-something woman in amongst the fresh-faced teens - but I imagine they are a paler, more dignified imitation of the sort of hysterical hoopla that goes on in America.

And all the better for it. Our education system is already veering dangerously towards the hyper-competitive environment engendered in American schools as it is.

So let's not add to the pressure by making UK school leavers take part in proms that echo too loudly the pathetic popularity parades that take place across the Atlantic.

As US imports go, a bit of a jig in a fancy frock is pretty harmless. I suspect however that the promise of a ride in a posh car, a designer gown and a glass or two of bucks fizz (as opposed to a ride on the number nine bus, a satin-effect shirt from C&A and a dance or two to Bucks Fizz) would still not tempt me back through the gates of Scabby Abbey.

Sorry, but those skid marks were meant to go only one way.

Updated: 11:13 Tuesday, May 27, 2003