THE Daughter left primary school last week. I was quite emotional and not just because it’s the end of an era and The Daughter is growing up, but because I have realised that I too am going to have to make new friends.

The children had an end-of-school disco to which they didn’t go in school uniform. And as a local fundraiser, the parents had their own adult version, over 18s only.

It was clearly advertised as a fancy-dress evening and so, with 15 minutes to go and a ticket to collect on the door, I squeezed into The Daughter’s clothes from Tesco’s Back to School range.

It was no mean feat and a lesser man than Houdini would have given up, but I had no other options to hand and had left it too late to throw together something gorgeous. So off I set, sandalled and satchelled, the under-12 slang for suited and booted, to join the throng.

Now you’d think one of my formerly good friends might have given me a ring to say that the village had decided en masse to skip the fancy dress. My entrance was akin to Bridget Jones’ bunny costume at the gentile summer garden party, and I haven’t been so humiliated since I turned up at a Christmas bash as an eight foot holly leaf to join a strictly black tie bash.

Both times I was a conversation piece, this week competing only with Fifty Shades of Grey as an interestingly packaged proposition, but fortunately I avoided the cane for bad behaviour. No-one expelled me for an unseemly short skirt although I did find myself in long-term detention in the St Trinian’s bar.

I was at least a straightforward choice for first prize in the costume competition, narrowly beating a token pair of legwarmers, and won the Teacher’s Whisky for audacity, but on hearing of the evening’s exploits, The Daughter was humiliated beyond measure.

“After that, mum,” she said, “it’s a good job, I’m changing schools.” But the pupils of yesteryear have longer memories, and I’m thinking we need to change villages.