Did Michael Gove know that this was what would happen when he set up the free school movement? Perhaps. The US and Sweden started their own free schools many years ago and so we have learned from some of their mistakes. Gove has done so much for our education system and it is important that he remains in post to continue his extraordinary and revolutionary work.

One of the reasons the free school movement alters people so significantly is that a lot of personal sacrifice is needed in order to set up a school. It takes up so much time. Indeed, the chapter of the book Toby read to those Eton boys that evening never saw the publishing light of day because Toby was too busy making sure his school would provide a variety of extra-curricular activities.

At the end of Toby's talk, when he pointed to me to answer one of the boys' questions, I turned to them all and railed about how lucky they were, how they had no idea what life was like in state schools, and how it was their duty to do something with their lives, to make use of their privilege, and change the world for the better.

Whether they absorbed my message, I don't know. But I do know that a far more powerful argument to do good with their lives stood before them that night: it was simply Toby's enthusiasm for his new school. He had abandoned an exciting lifestyle for the privilege of having an impact on the future education of our young people. If only we could all catch a little of the free-school, do-gooder bug that bit Toby, how much better Britain would be.