WHEN I was at school, there were weird kids in the sixth form with wispy fluff adorning their cheeks, who were determined to embrace the Swinging Sixties as widely as possible.

While most of my foolish classmates in the Upper Fourth were experimenting with conventional cigarettes behind the bike shed, they were on a constant quest for more exotic smoking materials of an illicit nature.

Despite the modern perception that “certain substances” were freely available back in the day, wacky baccy was in fact notoriously difficult to get hold of, especially by spotty boys in school uniform.

(I should say at this point that I personally was then and remain violently opposed to setting fire to anything and putting it into my mouth, following a six-hour coach journey at the age of 10, when I sat next to a women who chain smoked French smellies throughout the journey. While I had the satisfaction of being lavishly sick on her fur coat at the end of the journey, my hatred of smoking of any kind has never left me).

The drug seekers would try anything to get their kicks. Including gathering weeds from the fields around the school, drying them out and cramming them into the bowl of pipes stolen from the local tobacconists. They managed to produce flames several feet high, and induce some remarkable projectile vomiting, but the only buzz they got was in their ears when the teachers smacked them round the head for their anti-social antics.

Some of the druggies were prefects, with limitless powers over the lower orders, including the right to administer vigorous corporal punishment with gym shoe, belt or cane for even the slightest deviation from school rules.

I was once summoned to the prefects’ common roof for some minor misdemeanour – possibly not wearing my cap – but was told I would escape a thrashing if I went to the local pet shop and spent my week’s dinner money on as many packets of a well- known brand of proprietary bird seed as I could carry.

A quick glance round the room failed to discern any budgies or other cage birds of any description, so I dared to ask why they wanted such an abundance of pet food.

A flame haired fellow tapped the side of his nose with a fearsome belt made from the strap used to open windows on a steam train, and said: “What do you think makes budgies bounce with health?”

It transpired that the druggies were of the opinion that the bird seed contained generous helpings of Indian hemp seed, from which cannabis plants could be grown.

I made the purchase to save my skin, but I never did find out whether they succeeded in raising a crop of any significance as one by one, the druggies all disappeared from the school scene,

I was reminded of the unsavoury episode the other day, when our desire to be kind to our feathered friends backfired in a big way.

Over the winter, we spent obscene amounts of cash on bird seed to see the local avian population through lean times, regularly replenishing the bird table as well as innumerable feeders in the rowan tree and on the fence.

We took a lot of pleasure seeing the birds tucking in, but their table manners left much to be desired, as they scattered more seed on the ground than they stuffed in their beaks.

Now the back garden at Hextol Towers lies under several inches of gravel, as a result of the dog ruining the previous lawn with her constant patrolling of the grounds in search of people, cats and hedgehogs to bark at.

She wore away the grass so many times, and trailed so much mud into the house in wet weather, that we decided to lay gravel to tidy the place up.We made sure we laid lots of plastic over the old lawn to prevent weeds shooting through before spreading three dumpy bags of small stones – and very nice it looked too.

That is until this year, when beneath the bird table and under every feeder sprang luxuriant swards of vegetation, as the seeds cast aside so profligately germinated with a vengeance, and sprang up through the pebbles like a little green forest, even though they had no soil to grow in.