A remarkable exposé of the dirty dealings that have given public school pupils an unfair advantage in winning Oxbridge places is mischievously offered from beyond the grave by John Rae in his newly published volume of diaries, The Old Boys’ Network (Short Books, £17.99). Dr Rae, it must be said, was in the best possible position to observe the unequal opportunities that existed for the private sector because for 16 years, from 1970 to 1986, he was headmaster of Westminster School, considered by all to be one of the top five independents.

Astonishingly, in view of its contents, Dr Rae’s book has not been recognised as the bombshell that it is. Reviewers, among them a number of the author’s former charges, have chosen to see it simply as an affectionate portrait of life at a great public school, utterly ignoring the trouble-making agenda implicit in its title.

The mention of a ‘network’ occurs, I think, only once, but in a story that very graphically reveals how useful contacts and influence can prove. I shall let Rae (pictured right) tell it in his own words, in his diary entry for December 16, 1984.

“The term ends quietly but there is one sour note that illustrates everything I hate about the English Establishment. ‘A’ has failed to get into Magdalen College, Oxford, to read law. Mother and father want to pull out all the stops to get him a place at another college. Nothing wrong in that but it is the way they go about it, and their assumption that their son has a right to a place at Oxbridge, that alienates me.

“The fact is that Magdalen is much too competitive a college for this borderline candidate with only three Bs at A level, but parents insisted because of the family connections with the college. Mother says she will get her brother, a prominent Magdalen man, to ring the college president. She sees nothing wrong in twisting every arm to get her son into Oxford. If this boy gets into Oxford or Cambridge it will be a triumph for the network. I would like to see him get in despite the lobbying, but I cannot help hoping that the lobbying will fail.”

So does it? What do you think?

On January 21 of the next year Rae reports: “The boy on whose behalf so much lobbying has been done, so many strings pulled, has been given a place at Christ Church, Oxford. Well, well!! I don’t begrudge the boy his good fortune but this saga illustrates the nature of inequality. A boy without family connections and only three Bs at A level would not have managed to wangle a place in this way. If it was widely known, it would undermine Oxford’s claims to be aiming at fairness in their entry.”

Earlier, we hear of Rae’s lunch at Brooks’s club with a parent whose son is taking A levels. “He is a QC and his approach to his son’s education is that contacts matter as well as qualifications. He tells me that he made a useful contact with the senior tutor of Pembroke College, Oxford, when they were both guests of a merchant banker at Newmarket Racecourse, and arranged for his son to visit the college. Now he wants to make sure I will be contacting the senior tutor on his son's behalf. So his son’s future is planned between races at Newmarket and over lunch at Brooks’s.”

Quite often it is Rae himself or members of his staff who are banging the drum on behalf of pupils. This cosy arrangement is manifestly unfair to pupils who have no similar means of attracting attention.

In October 1976, Rae travels to Cambridge “to dine at Emmanuel and put in a good word for our applicants to the college”. On December 21, 1979, he writes: “We have had another good year with 22 awards and more than that number of places, some of the latter the result of housemasters ringing round colleges all day until a place is found. If people wonder why schools like Westminster get so many boys and girls into Oxbridge, it is at least partly because the school takes so much trouble. This year more than the past I am struck by the contrast between Oxford and Cambridge. Boys and girls of scholarship standard are lucky to obtain a place at Oxford, whereas less able candidates win open awards at Oxford. I have no doubt that in most subjects it is more difficult to get into Cambridge.”

He returns to this theme two years later, writing: “The first Oxbridge results look good, though the element of lottery at Oxford is more marked than ever. Cambridge entry is less of a lottery and Cambridge colleges are less susceptible to the sort of family connections that still influence your chances at Oxford.”

But the school can still work its own special charm . . .

On December 22, 1975, he tells “a Cambridge good luck story”. “X, a good linguist, has been turned down by Clare. I telephone Tom Howarth at Magdalene, who at that moment is discussing with the director of studies for modern languages whether to take X or another candidate from the pool. I persuade Tom that X is the one to choose and he agrees. But what of the other candidate and what if my call had been half an hour later?”

I could list further examples of string-pulling, but I think you get the idea. Of course, there will be those who say that this was all a long time ago and that things are different now. I remember that Oxford colleges and public schools used to tell us that things were different then. Giving their children an unfair advantage over others is precisely why parents choose to spend more than my annual income on one year’s study for each of their little darlings.

On a personal note, I met Dr Rae just once, in 1975, when two friends and I tried to rent a house he owned in Beckley. I got on rather well with him but the property went elsewhere. I could pretend this was because we had been to the wrong schools but I am sure it was because, by then, Rae knew all that he needed to know about young men behaving badly.