(Winder House, Sedbergh. Age 14)
I’m reading ‘Villains of Piece’ by Graham Shelby. It’s my choice – not something being thrust down my throat by school, with turns to read it out loud in class followed by a weekly test. I’m soon engaged in the story.
The author left me struggling with the spelling of the word ‘piece’ – surely he meant ‘peace’? Until I have the pun explained to me.
‘Piece’ means like a play or a story, not peace. So ‘Villains of the Piece’ means the villains in the story. The idea is that history—like the Crusades in this book—can be told like a drama, where people get cast as heroes or villains. But the point is that they weren’t necessarily just bad people in real life. Depending on who’s telling it, the same knight could be a hero to one side and a villain to another. So the title is saying the ‘villains’ are really just the ones the story makes look like the bad guys.
With any good story I soon see myself in the lead role.
I had read somewhere, or heard that history shouldn’t be taught at school. Historian A J P Taylor said as much on TV and on the radio in his schools broadcasts. E H Carr says this in his book ‘What is history?” Leave me alone in a good library for a year or two and I’ll give myself the education I crave.
I also read that you should read around a subject ‘until you can hear the people speak’. I like that idea, Shakespeare as an historian – a good historical drama does that.
- History is not about events as objects (dates, battles, treaties)
- It is about thoughts expressed in action
- The historian’s task is to re-enact those thoughts in their own mind
Five-Year Diary: I hand in my English prep—a précis—and feel glad to be rid of it. I can spend far too long on such things. I’ll circle it until the deadline looms because that’s what I crave, indulging a subject not being told what to learn to the bang of a drum.
French: just the next boring chapter in the a book rendered boring by its treatment. The stories in Le Petit Nicolas are gentile and infantile.
German. Just as tedious. We turn the page, read, translate, and move on. It feels relentless and futile, tied to one dated textbook, the teacher just supervising as we go. Give me Hitler’s diaries. That would be interesting. Have us research and write excerpts … now I’m learning German. Have us create fake documents to escape from Colditz.
What’s the teacher for? Supervised reading doesn’t feel like teaching to me. I don’t feel like I’m learning anything. Based on what I’m writing in this Diary – sweet Fanny Adams!
Divinity: I hand in my Erasmus project and then sit there while a man in a dog collar tells us about Joab. I drift. It feels like a complete waste of a morning.
Break: Back in House. There’s barely any time—walk all the way there, make toast, pour coffee, eat it quickly, then head back to the school block again. I eat a lot of toast. No time to linger.
Latin: I hand in my sentences, and I know they’re not good. I can tell even before they’re marked. Young goes through them and confirms it.
Music: we doss around until ‘Greasy Grenville’ gets annoyed with us. The name fits—hair slick with product, a bit overdone. His anger is understandable. We are teenagers being forced into yet another class with no clear relevance.
Lunch: hearty, like the school and its location.
Games: off. I dump my swimming things off. Madge is late again and he’s no swimming coach anyway.
Look at my day. This is called a private education. What a waste of money!
Meanwhile, given enough time to myself I am self taught. Books like this help:
It’s a suitable intrigue to someone curious about history than the Ladybird books and Victoriana I had been brought up with.
Then swimming.
I used to be a star swimmer. I’d even been offered a free place at a local club. But my boarding school wouldn’t support it—held back is how is sum up nine years of boarding school.
Prep: (supervised): maths project, which I get on with, more or less.
They should call it boring school, not boarding school.
What have I learnt today? This is not the right place for me. I am being crushed, my wings clipped, my soul suffocated before it’s had a chance.
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