My father was an autodidact. It wasn't a middle-class house. Shopkeepers are aspirant. He paid for me to go to private school. He was denied an education - he had a horrible childhood. He got a place at a grammar school and wasn't allowed to go.
Competition got me off the farm and trained me to seek out challenges and to endure setbacks and in combination with my faith it sustains me now in my fight with Alzheimer's disease.