It was an odd advert for a computer magazine. Next to a sketch of a provocatively posed, long-legged young woman in stockings — okay, maybe that part wasn’t so odd — its copy hyped not a new piece of hardware, but a house in Ireland:

the famous school where grown-up girls are transformed into schoolgirls. …Now you can find out for yourself as you guide Trixie Trinian through the classrooms, corridors and secret places of the strangest school ever — to uncover

THE SECRET OF ST. BRIDE’S

“Not so much ...