Boarding School Blues

I learned a lot more than standing on my own two feet

I went to boarding school in the 80s. My brothers and sisters also went, because my parents had attended in their era; they thought it would be a great experience for us, so my family made considerable sacrifices for it to happen (ouch — the fees!). But I hated it, and it’s effects on the formulation of my attitudes and my ability to express emotion may have been detrimental.

I was lucky and didn’t start too young (some begin their boarding aged 8) but even aged 11–16 those are tender, formative years to be standing alone, dealing with: study difficulties, personal interaction, homesickness and health/hygiene to name a few of the challenges. I learned to cope, but it made me internalise a lot, I hardened up, built a wall. Back then, phone calls were on landline and limited, 2 incoming a week and not much privacy to talk (the phone was in a foyer). Not everybody is a letter writer (my blog is probably the proof that’s not my problem).

Please abandon the idea that British boarding schools are filled with the fun & capers Enid Blyton depicts in her books (Mallory Towers) or the adventures to be had at Hogwarts — although the Harry Potter books vividly demonstrate via ‘Draco Malfoy’ the types who abound at a private school. They sneer at other pupils from their position of money and privilege, deriving pleasure from humiliating those less fortunate than themselves. Some who attend boarding school cope by bullying, I experienced this only, mildly, my strategy to stay under the radar was fairly effective.

I know all schools there’ll be unofficial grading of pupils into cool kids, sports stars, brainiacs, attention seekers, and the rich alongside my team, the just-scraping-by pupils. I was near the bottom of the pile, wearing handed-down uniform like a true ‘Weasley’. Luckily my school had things a bit messed up — there was kudos in having old style uniform (I wore my sister’s) — my school sneered at anything new or too ‘try hard’ unless you were a rich kid, they even bought their vee-necked pullovers at Harrods. Even in the relatively label free era of the 80s people would ask with a sneer where I bought my clothes. They shopped at Selfridges, Harvey Nicks, while I trawled market stalls trying to fake the look. I didn’t even live near a town with big stores.

So basically I didn’t really ‘fit’ — I was never sporty but I did alright in class , but that brought troubles of its own. I struggled to conform with clothes and posessions, I strenuously avoided conversations about vacations. On the plus side my family was nearby and I could go home, which I did as often as I could, sometimes taking a friend who lived overseas with me to enjoy home cooked meals and some irreverent family banter.

When it came to working, I couldn’t get up the nerve to go jobhunting in London. For some private school gives them innate self confidence, but that sadly passed me by, so I looked for employment in the vicinity of my home town. I probably should have aimed higher but boarding school had left me with low self-confidence; meeting new people made me blush and feel tongue-tied — boarding school is a small community, I saw only a few new faces each term. Once again I didn’t fit. I had a plummy accent, I didn’t go to the same school (or pubs or football matches) as my colleagues. Most people didn’t know what to make of me but I sensed my boss liked to show me off, taking dictation or serving coffee to his visitors.

For a long time I didn’t want to date boys who’d been educated similarly to me, Hooray Henrys made me feel inferior, instead I was attracted to ‘a bit of rough’. The drawback was that after a while with them I’d begin to act like a brat and get all superior. Their families didn’t know what to make of me, I suspect they found me standoffish.

Even my OH (we’ve been married for 28 years) sometimes finds me cold and detached. We’ve talked about my boarding school experience and he believes it’s shaped the way I learned to deal with things: not caring about anything too much, presenting a poker face rather than showing emotion. I adore him and my children fiercely, so I hope I’ve shown them all the love, pride and appreciation I have buried inside me.

Friends sometimes tell me that I give off a very ‘calm’ vibe, so maybe that’s an up-side to all these buttoned up feelings. I am restrained to the point that people don’t realise they’ve pressed my ‘angry’ buttons until they go too far and I flip out. Showing strong emotion, in particular crying, is something I am still ashamed to do in public. [Kink blogger Biblious1 & I have discussed this — you can read his post here]. I am also polite — so polite — and obedient, which can sometimes be a hindrance to honesty. I’m shaped into a people pleaser, by my deep desire to fit and not be rejected, is this because I was the third child? or shaped from boarding school survival?

It is hard to separate nurture from nature, but I think there are some clear ‘footprints’ that spending formative years away from my family, fending for myself, out of my comfort zone financially and socially, have left on my personality.

I’ve attended 2 school reunions, the first in a hotel in London where it was fascinating to see how little my cohort had changed on a surface level. The condescending girls hadn’t felt the need to change and the friendly, interesting ones were still that — friendly and interesting. The second time we met again was at our school, so were able to look around the buildings, which pulled things into perspective and put demons to rest for many of us. It now looked like an underwhelming establishment, on the decline. We were told most girls don’t board nowadays and the facilities didn’t seem to be keeping up with modern schooling requirements — my children’s state school was better equipped.

One girl (still vapid and arrogant as three decades ago) sidled up to me.

“Do you remember those dirty stories you used to write?” she was giggling, “we used to pass them round the dormitory at night.”

“Yes I do.” I took a deep breath, I had previously been undecided if I would share this, but I squared my shoulders. “I write erotica now.”

“Ooo you didn’t tell me that!” said an interesting girl I’d been chatting to over lunch.

“I hadn’t got round to it!” I laughed as vapid girl moved off, taking her new piece of gossip back to the vultures at her table.

What I’ve learned from time spent with old classmates is that, despite being a grown-up and making an effort not to bear old grudges, I still had no inclination to get to know the girls who I hadn’t liked back then. The more important lesson I learned was that, during our time at boarding school, we’d all been wrestling with our own problems, while imagining that everyone else was ‘dealing’ better than us. We are all boarding school ‘survivors’ to varying extents.