Tuesday 25 March 1975
‘Win DC’s prize, Form prize and Merit prize. Talk with Mr T about the advantages of my term at common entrance. Just leaving, have a good walk about the school and grounds. Nearly forgot English folder. Think of writing a book about Mowden (but don’t bother).’
DC’s Prize, Form Prize, Merit Prize
At the time, these were achievements, indeed ‘all that a boy could want,’ the ‘top’ perfect, top of the class, and most recognised already for Merits. It had required five years of indoctrination. I think of it now and want to vomit. I was a lackey for the system.
These awards were made at the morning assembly. I’ve witnessed them for the best part of Five Years at the end of the term. I’ve been picking up such prizes and end-of-year cups for a few years and want more each term and year. They were a right goody. However, from a student’s point of view, they weren’t necessarily admirable.
Mr T and I had not seen I to I. My early departure had seen me taken out of a more senior scholarship stream to take the common entrance. I had been lined up to sit a scholarship exam, too.
If I were a train, I’d be something created by Professor Brainstorm, Salvador Dalí, and Le Corbusier. Were I a book, it would be The Hitchhiker’s Guide to a Northumberland all-boys posh boarding prep school. At this time, I feel like the contents of my brain are a drawer of antiquated knickknacks and redundant tools. The reality is that I was ill-prepared for the real world, simply preprogrammed for an elitist, albeit minor, all-male boarding public school.
My education was an elaborate contraption: brilliant in design, eccentric in function, and unfit for the modern track.
We were all missing a wheel or two, and each had some eccentric addition, such as a wing, fin, sail, or kite attachment. Some had been stripped of personality, yet they were ideally suited for the next stage through the private education sausage machine.
Could you sketch or describe your Professor Brainstorm-style engine in detail — its compartments, conductor, and cargo?
It’s an older sibling of the Ninky Nonk from In The Night Garden. Made of mahogany and oak, it’s a bit like Jules Verne.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Posh Prison: Boarding Prep School in the 1970s:
- Don’t Panic: What to do in a dorm raid
- 16 uses for a slipper
- Interesting uses for a slide rule
- The library and where to find the naughty bits
- What to wear in bed in winter
- How to pick stones and influence people
- The winner’s guide to the junior and senior obstacle course.
- Gardening tips from the cold frame
- Controlled falls from the tallest trees
- The best den and how to get one.
Items of importance
Bundles. Your clothes were rolled into your jumper, and the arms were tied in a knot. In case of fire, put on your dressing gown and slippers, grab your bundle and torch, and wait in line at the entrance to the dorm for further instructions from your Dormitory Captain.
White see-through swimming trunks
These were to be worn by all new boys until they could prove they could swim the length of the pool and collect a brick from the bottom of the deep end.
Bracken rhizomes were hand grenades.
Brambles dried and hung from sticks were barbed wire entanglements
Any stick that looked like a pistol, shotgun or machine gun was so.
Merits and Demerits
Teachers randomly handed out Merits to recognise improvement, like getting a personal best time in sport, but this was for having neat handwriting or a tidy desk.
Demerits were given for failure, doing worse than expected, or collective failure if a teacher felt vindictive.
The reality is that I was ill-prepared for the real world, simply preprogrammed for an elitist, though minor, all-male boarding public school.
We were raised and lived on Tyneside but were so protected from its dialect that we couldn’t understand kids our age we met in public, say in the changing rooms.
Those who thrived at Mowden and wanted more of the same could progress quickly through the hierarchies of public school via sporting success by playing rugby or cricket. At Sedbergh, sport alone was celebrated with only an Oxbridge candidate or two each year.
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