Nevertheless Deighton, who is now 93 years old and retired from writing, has strong views on class and education. "I would do everything I can to prevent my children being educated in England," he told an interviewer on Thames TV’s Afternoon Plus in 1983 (his children were at a small village school in France), "because the moment you step across the threshold of any school in England, you"ve put on a uniform for the class war. Everyone educated in England has been assigned rank badges for the class war."