The message
from John Cartmell contains these words:

NB At my grammar school every boy was loaned text books (plural) for every
subject for the whole of the year. The kids in the local sec mod had none.

I have no idea whether or not the SM pupils had text books or not but we
had to share mostly old and decrepid text books. I remember the SM had
a library though which is more than can be said for the Grammar.
--
Roger Chapman