David Head (Letters, 23 February), referring to your obituary of Sir Peter Mansfield, picks up on the fact that he studied for A-levels at evening classes. Point well made. However, I would have thought that at least as interesting was the fact that he “failed” the 11-plus. That he went on to win a Nobel prize suggests the “failure” lay in the system. Proponents of this archaic and socially divisive examination, about which our prime minister seems so nostalgic, will no doubt object to the use of such anecdotes to attack it, but anecdotes about the odd unprivileged child going to a grammar school are all that they offer us to justify it. No, I’m not grinding an axe here; I passed the exam – but, sadly, the Nobel prize has eluded me.
Prof Peter Dawson
Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire
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