Ok, I confess, I went to a public school. I admit it. It feels such a relief to say so. This is a meeting of élitist anonymous, isn’t it?
Obviously, this was not my choice, but that of my parents. Obviously, I was too young to understand the social and class implications of the school, but that’s true of any upbringing. Even so, I’d have liked to have had an input in the decision.
My father wanted his sons to go to my school, Bedford School. My mother respected his wishes. He died when I was six years old, long before I could talk to him about it. Apparently, maybe when he was in the military, maybe afterwards, he’d been impressed by a couple of lads who went to the school. I can see his point (now): the school slogan is to educate boys so “that they be good men”.
I didn’t really appreciate the school when I was there. Well, to be honest, how could I compare it with anything else? But now I’ve come to appreciate it a lot.
I was a middling pupil. The best guys left for oxbridge. The worst left for work. I escaped to poly.
The school gave me my career. The school, extraordinarily, had a computer (for fellow nerds, a bottom of the range DEC PDP–8/E). It had a computer club, where I cut my programming teeth. I was a pupil before the microcomputer revolution, so, then, the computing profession was a rare one: programmers were wizards. Now they’re next door neighbours.
The school gave me the confidence to learn languages, oddly enough because I was so awful at them there. I got the worst possible result in French, and was thrown off the German course. But I also learnt that when I spoke foreign, people would laugh at my mistakes. I got used to that. Thus, once I left blighty for Europe, and tried to learn other languages, I had no fear of speaking, because I had no fear of being laughed at, because that was my norm. Thus I had no fear of giving the language a go. Now, I remain awful at languages, but I speak French more often than English, and have no great problem getting around in German and some of its sister languages: I can croak and grunt comprehensibly.
To give an example of my youthful linguistic awfulness, an annoyed teacher said, to me, something along the lines of “oh, come on, Harris, say the French for ‘my name is Harris’”. He was looking for “Je m’appelle Harris”, but I replied “Je suis Harris”, a faux pas so awful that one of my fellow ex–pupils remembers it to this day, and gleefully reminded me of it last weekend!
I spent many years after school trying to escape it’s middle class grift. I wanted to present as classless (rightly), and was able, I think, to achieve that. I’ll never lose my childhood, rather obviously, but I can and have moved beyond it, although it does growl from behind the barbed wire now and then.
In the 50 years since I left, I have gained a peace from the place. And, given it’s exactly fifty years, it’s hardly surprising that there was a celebratory dinner at the school for pupils of my year (and anyone else connected who wanted to come along). So, last weekend, I went back for the first time in half a century. There were quite a few other ex–pupils (Old Boys in the parlance) in the same situation.
We were given a tour of the school. It’s the same home of élite education, it’s the same feel, same atmosphere, yet it’s changed significantly.
A number of buildings were renovated or replaced. There is a new library, a theatre (cue mass envy), a planetarium, an indoor swimming pool: it’s all rather impressive. The main building was renovated after it was burnt down by an opportunist arsonist. The science block was no longer rooms of dark wood stained and burnt by irregular mishaps, of test tubes and bunsen burners, of men with singed eyebrows. It’s rebuilt, bigger, and cinder–free.
It was in this science block, in the early 1970s, where a chemistry teacher introduced his chemistry class to global warming. I didn’t like the idea, I didn’t believe it, so I argued against it, which is why I remember the event. Of course, he was right. This memory gives a lie to those reality deniers who claim global warming wasn’t mentioned anywhere before the 1980s. The same teacher also introduced us to the theory of black holes (I have no clue what that had to do with chemistry), which excited me! I didn’t really get on with the chap at the time, but I very much appreciate his enthusiasm for the sciences now.
The music school was rebuilt. That music school gave me a lot: I was taught the tuba by Mr. Guthrie, and ended up in the school orchestra, military band, and jazz band—not because I was particularly good, but because they all needed a tuba player and I was the only one! These courses gave me a deep appreciation of music, and ultimately led to my poetry (the English literature courses there certainly didn’t do so; I was too young to connect).
But there is a real problem with the new music school. It’s named for a teacher, a Mr. Amos. This teacher, in front of many, including me, attached a pupil. This wasn’t discipline, it was rage. The attack ended when another teacher, Mr. Witt, saw what was going on and stopped the assault. This episode is a shameful blot on the school, and the attacker should not be the receiptient of a dedication, no matter how much he otherwise gave to music education at the school.
What I didn’t like as a pupil, and for many years after, was the stigma of élitism the school gave. In some ways, this is ironic, since I have élitist tastes in the arts, both modernist music and modernist poetry. Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy other forms of both, but I find the contemporary modernism the bees knees.
The school is strongly sports orientated, and I hated sports. I was never ever given a reason to do them, beyond the selfish fitness argument. I was also crap at them, because I was, and still am, clunky. I see that people follow various teams, and I cannot see the point of it. I do not understand how sport advances civilisation, or betters the human condition. All I see is a waste of energy, effort and resources. There is an argument for taking part that might have won me over, that playing team sports teaches you to how to judge, respond, and indeed lead, on the fly, in rapidly changes circumstances. If it was said to me, it didn’t sink in.
So I left my school, and felt like I’d escaped my school. I slowly taught myself to be classless. The years past, and I mellowed. The school taught me music, and taught me superbly, and that turned into poetry, and eventually published collections. So, finally, after 50 years, I felt able to return there.
It was good to speak with people I’d not seen since I was little (admittedly, little more in terms of width than height). Ok, I’d forgotten many of them, and all the faces. Of course, they’d all grown up: no more silly competition and lots more conviviality. My scars only blurted out once or twice.
Would I recommend the school for rich parents with boys? I’d certainly suggest they considered it, but I’d also ask them to consider the whole public school system, and ask them if that’s what they wanted for their children. It provides a very good education, but if you send boys there, make absolutely sure they are also introduced to all parts of society, and ideally the world, not just the rich English bits. The school tries to do this, it must be said, but I don’t see how it could be much more than touching the edges: pupils see the poverty, they don’t experience it.
So, yes, I went back.