On October 17 he returned to Holmwood House School in Lexden on the outskirts of Colchester, Essex where he spent three contented years before starting (reluctantly) at a boarding school at the age of ten. In his time some 70 boys received an excellent grounding in core subjects from a small, much loved teaching staff; today Holmwood House is a popular co-educational school where around 400 pupils aged between 3 and 13 enjoy a tremendous array of opportunities, academic and non-academic, provided by a staff of over 50 under their engaging and enterprising head, Alex Mitchell.
Alistair Lexden found that the school’s essential character remained unchanged. He noticed the same happy but well-disciplined atmosphere and the same evident enjoyment in learning and achieving made possible by a devoted teaching staff. He was bombarded with questions from the 150 girls and boys to whom he spoke about his memories of the school many years ago and his work in the Lords today. Their questions were all clear, short and to the point— not always characteristic of questions in Parliament—and delivered with great enthusiasm, conveying real interest in the experiences of the old boy(in both senses of the term) who was visiting them and in his views on life in the House of Lords. For his part Alistair Lexden emphasised the extent to which the Lords had adapted—and continues to adapt— to changing circumstances, and explained the relationship between the Houses, one elected and the other appointed.