Fifty Years On: Monday, 21st June 1976
Sedbergh School, Age 14.9
I slept in, which was a shame as I had a favourite Geography book up to read in bed: Nigel Calder, The Weather Machine. I usually woke early – in summer, very early.
Chemistry: tests back. We were also doing electrolysis on various chemicals. The teacher took no prisoners. When Chin fooled around and got an impot – punishment work of some sort – the exact context escapes me now. It beat a beating. That had mostly come to an end. I wouldn’t have stood for it. Caning.
English: we got back our Silas Marner vocabulary test. Out of the twenty-three words on my revision list, I was only asked one. Typical. I did worse than usual and I’m usually not very good!
Physics: less productive. We spent much of the lesson mucking about. A teacher who couldn’t control a group of fourteen-year-old boys wouldn’t be able to teach. Somehow I managed to avoid getting an imposition for scribbling in Hutchinson’s notebook. My attitude fluctuated between leading or joining in the teacher-baiting, or being eager to learn and get the others to behave. Either way you were labelled: troublemaker, swot, or too thick to notice or care. We could be horrid. If teachers let us get away with it, as some did, we were hideous tormentors.
English: Twelfth Night. When can a Shakespearean play take ten weeks to perform? When it’s being read out loud by a variety of willing and unwilling boys in Third Form Middle C.
Divinity: it descended into near-chaos. There was no supervision in Room 4 and behaviour quickly became wild. Fourteen-year-old boys left unsupervised in a boarding school classroom rarely moved naturally towards quiet reflection.
I recall one such Divinity class when the teacher – let’s call him the Rev. Fender – was present but rather than teach or supervise he simply sat, Buddha-like, as if in a trance, staring straight ahead. He wore the faint smile of the Mona Lisa. Gradually, over ten or fifteen minutes, things escalated. A couple of boys began writing crude inanities on the blackboard, complete with arrows pointing at Fender. Then, because he was bald, somebody polished his head with the board rubber.
The room became increasingly riotous.
I eventually went over to him, told him exactly what I thought of the situation and why I was leaving, then walked out and returned to my House, or perhaps the library. That evening my Housemaster questioned me about leaving Fender’s class without permission. I was furious, but directed my well-honed response into the kind of argument a barrister might make. Perhaps he knew I would escalate the matter into a complaint to the Headmaster, and possibly my father, if he so much as hinted at a reprimand. He muttered something and left it there, excusing himself. Was this one teacher rallying round to defend another?
We had a collection of oddballs. Teachers who were frequently absent from class, or who turned up only to sit like a gnome on their desk telling stories rather than teaching. Others tried to enthuse us about their own pet passions: war-gaming with model soldiers, fell walking with a geologist’s hammer, obscure hobbies and enthusiasms. The teacher who extolled the virtues of hugging I gave a wide berth.
There was also a French test, and at some point I noted “Hungarian”, which may have referred to House supper. Hungarian goulash anyone? The gristle ended up in the slop bowl. Which led us to challenge De Ruit, the South African Lower Sixth boy, to consume the contents of the slop bowl. As bets were taken, more was added to the slop. Hard describes him. Barely flinching, he swallowed the lot. Everyone round the table was £1 down. For some, House Hungarian goulash was an opportunity.
One thing that stands out here is the contrast between two kinds of authority. In Chemistry, discipline was immediate and unquestioned. In Divinity, authority simply evaporated. Fourteen-year-old boys are remarkably quick at detecting the difference. The result was usually either productive learning or near-anarchy, with very little middle ground.
Looking back, I am struck by how poor I became at Chemistry despite the stern discipline surrounding it. Punishments maintained order, but they did not create understanding. Physics improved because I became curious enough to teach myself from the textbooks. Divinity, despite the chaos and eccentricity, appealed to the budding historian in me. I was beginning to understand that religion, theology, history and even the English language were all interconnected. The subjects that stayed with me were rarely those taught most strictly. They were the ones that sparked curiosity.
Looking back, I realise that by thirteen those of us who had already spent five years at boarding prep school had been trained for institutional life. The school thought of us as “prepped”. I think “primed” is a better word. We understood the system and knew how to work it. The paths before us were limited: conform, rebel or disappear. What troubled me was that none of those outcomes felt healthy. I was less concerned with surviving the institution than with what it might turn me into if I stayed long enough. None of us were to emerge as the best versions of ourselves, but rather a lame or distorted version of what the institution and indirectly oir parents wanted their sons to be in 1970s Britain.
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