Winder House, Sedbergh School
Diary: I slept better. Not perfectly, but better. Sleep must matter. I note it.
The cold that had been circling the House seemed to be loosening its grip. I was still a little headachy, and I note that I functioned slowly — that fogged, half-present feeling you get when you’re almost well but not quite.
Morning routine was practical. Clean stuff out. Drawers, perhaps. Locker? Why? On demand?
Boiled eggs and toast for breakfast.
I stopped wearing the diagonal elastics on my braces. “Teeth suddenly come back,” I wrote, cryptically. Perhaps I’d noticed the change in my face without them — less metal, more me. Rebellion.
There was another rebellion in the air. Some boys tried to ‘scab’ prep — to dodge it, making weak excuses that we were all supposed to go along with. Something about it had meant to be a Field Day and so many people were off sick. We were told firmly to get on with it. I’d done it. The system held.
Half English. Unsure why. Started late or finished early. No doubt the teacher was off. It was spent on the Tolpuddle Martyrs. How could privilege boys with our backgrounds relate to it?
At some point a small piece of social reform occurred in miniature. A boy whose teeth were notoriously dirty had been the subject of comment for days. A group of us had said something out of kindness and he’d cleaned them. Thoroughly. He was pleased. We were pleased. It felt corrective rather than cruel. Or were we fed up of his bad breath?
French. Back in the language lab — headphones, booths, mechanical repetition.
Divinity. Jeremiah, I described as “easy,” which probably means I’d heard it all before from scripture lessons at prep school and Sunday school before that. Not that any of this had me in the thrall of religion, on the contrary.
I resolved to get a new fountain pen. The current one was too messy. Blotting. Smudging. We spent hours writing things down and my day ends with a diary entry.
Break: two slices of toast with chocolate spread.
I handed in Latin prep to some boy, I guess he was in the Latin teacher’s House.
Music lesson — flute — during school time. Ordinary enough. And then: as I was leaving, a girl my age turned up. She was a Housemaster’s daughter. She attended Kendal High School. She played the clarinet and came in after her school day I guess for a private lesson. We all fancied her, of course. I had a chance to say something but over thought my choice of words and so said nothing. She belonged partly to our world and partly to another one — day school, girls, home life, something beyond 24 hour term long timetables and dormitories.
Then a run.
With one of the R twins from Mowden, both three years above, prefects in their final year. Was one of them organising it, or did I attached myself to him when he set off and he obliged? He was already a strong runner — he (or his twin) would win the sxjools’s Long Run in March. Was he taking us out, meant to inspire us. Did we look up to him? Not I. We’d been boys together at Mowden, I couldn’t fathom how speed of maturity so separated us now. I felt invisible and not worth speaking to.
Fifty years on
I see that I could have engaged with him, I could have shown mt interaf in him. Why did l not? Why did I keep my friendships within my year group and shun all others? Anything I was struggling with in class, even with playing the flute, and certainly with running, I could have turned to him.
Years spent in the same space yet not even acquaintances.
There were other Ex-Mowden boys in Winder House. We functioned in micro-bubbles quite ignorant of each other to the point of purposeful avoidance. Was I any better with my brother except on days out with Mum or Dad?
For lack of counselling, lack of pastoral care, I suppose we had the Church. We could have found comfort and guidance. There was nothing in its absence of we rejected it.
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