Boarding school

I felt lucky going off to boarding school aged 11. A cousin and children of family friends were there and I couldn’t wait to join them. I was an only child of busy professional parents whose love I never doubted. I loved my time there and made lifelong friends I still have contact with.

When my dad was killed in an accident, mum was left to bring up 3 very small children, the youngest 2 months old.

She had no family alive and was living in a country, his country, where she had not had time to make friends. After a few years she decided to bring us to England where she had been to university and she found a job.

Working full time she had to find childcare. At age 9 my DB was sent to that school in the Sussex countryside where they still wear mediaeval dress! The fees were scaled in favour of widows and poor Clergy.

My DB wasn't happy there. It didn't suit him and he ran away several times.
I have kept our letters from his time there.
He never told mum how bad it was. She thought she had made the right decision especially as he did well academically.

Later on, for different reasons, my sister and I both went away to school. It was a girls' school and we joined in the 6th form so it was like a college for us. I loved it and still see several friends from my time there.

I considered sending one of our boys to the boys' school (the brother school of mine) because he was not happy at his huge comprehensive school, but neither he nor DH wanted that so he moved to another, smaller school to escape the bullies.

I wouldn’t have and didn’t send mine to boarding school and I wouldn’t have married a man who’s career made such a thing a necessary. If careers had meant we had to travel the world we would have , Never in a thousand years would I have considered it. I had children because I wanted to be with them and raise them as much as I could in the time I had I’ve never for a moment understood how or why anyone would choose to use boarding schools. Nannies and other things for daytime care i understand though never used it myself. But to have ones children actually live elsewhere is so terribly sad to me.

Cabbie21

My late husband taught in a boys’ boarding school, which later became co-ed and a day school. I think it was a happier place after the change. The boarding years were very spartan and corporal punishment was used for quite trivial offences. Most of the boarders were children of parents in the armed forces, or overseas workers. Some were from families in very difficult circumstances and were on bursaries.
Not all boarding schools are like Eton- or Malory Towers!

Some were from families in very difficult circumstances and were on bursaries.

I was one such - on a bursary.

And the school your late husband taught in fits exactly the description of the boarding school I attended! It became co-ed in the early 50s, and I was among the first intake of girls.

Yes, there was corporal punishment - but not for us girls.

I loved every minute of it though and, if I could go back in time to experience it all again, I would.

Thank you Doodledog. I much appreciate your kind words. Yes, my child is proud of what I did, understands there was no choice and we have always had a close and loving relationship. He is, and will always be, my greatest achievement in this life.

M0nica

^Parents had the choice of changing their job.^

What sort of world do you live in. It sounds ever so cosy and I am sure so many people stuck in jobs they hate would give their eye teeth to live in it. Let alone those needing to send their children to boarding school.

The parents weren't stuck in jobs they hated , the had careers !
I'm just making my opinion like everyone else . I don't pick on others for having a different opinion to me.
It's all unimportant now anyway, not worth the aggro .

I loved Mallory Towers, St Clares (is that right?) and the Katy books, and would have loved to go to boarding school in theory. There was no way it was ever going to happen though, so I was safe to think I wanted it, and that it would be like the books.

DH went to well known boarding school and hated every second!

I went to boarding school when I was 12, Dad was in the army and we were in Germany. Dreaded it at first but soon settled and made many good friends.Of course I missed my parents and they missed me,but they visited and I went home for all the holidays. And yes we had midnight feasts!

Barleyfields

NonGrannyMoll

There's no way I would let anyone else bring up my child, be it a daily childminder or a full-time boarding school. What's the point of having a child if you aren't prepared to bring him/her up yourself? They end up being just another pet to be kept fed, watered, walked and cleaned - whoever wants that for their children (apart from people with property or titles they want to hand down)?

I had to work full time, I had no option . Obviously you did. Lucky you. My child was never ‘just another pet to be kept fed, watered, walked and cleaned’. What a horrible thing to say, and most upsetting to those of us who had a much wanted and much loved child but didn’t have your obvious financial advantage.

Don't rise to it, Barleyfields. It's a cruel attempt to be hurtful, so pay no attention. You clearly showed your children by example that people should stand on their own two feet, and I'm sure they will be proud of you for what you did for them.

I went to 8 primary schools and went to barding school at 11. My experience was far better than MissChatelaines.

My school was a convent grammar school in a big town. The education I got there was excellent. I passed all my O levels, then got 3 A levels and was accepted by my first choice university. This in 1961 when only about 6-7,000 girls went to university each year.

Most of the girls at the school were daygirls and almost all were there because they had passed the 11plus. I do not remember any pecking order, we all came from similar homes. I do not think anyone ever had a tuckbox, but there was a very limited tuckshop where we could buy sweets. We did fly to exotic places in the summer holidays, but that was because our parents lived there.

I do not think boarding school in anyway placed a gulf between me and my parents, I was the same person at home and at a school, and we remained a close family all my parents lives. My parents put a lot of effort in keeping in contact, each writing to my sister and I every week without fail, and when my father was posted abroad, they did everything they could to make sure we were happy living with our grandparents, but it wasn't just my grandparents, both families rallied round us to make up for the absence of our parents, aunts and uncles, we were both loved and nurtured by the extended family.

In some case they did, in others they didn't quite so easily. But at the end of the day, it was a choice- to earn less, do with less, and have a different life- that is true.

Parents had the choice of changing their job.

What sort of world do you live in. It sounds ever so cosy and I am sure so many people stuck in jobs they hate would give their eye teeth to live in it. Let alone those needing to send their children to boarding school.

Allira

Nanato3

Yes I have read the thread . My point is the parents had the choice of changing their job but didn't, they sent the children away instead . They did have a choice .

Oh, so easy to change any old job!
But not so easy to change a career.
they sent the children away instead
You make it sound as if they sent their children away and never bothered with them again. Of course they cared about them, wanted the best for them and spent time with them every school holiday.

Well said, Barleyfields.

With the relatives in my generation who were sent to Boarding school, often from abroad and at the age of 5 - the mother's didn't work and it was a social class choice. Other children went home for week-ends, or one week-end a month, and for half-terms as well as Christmas, Easter and summer hols. But they didn't as it was too far, and they had to spend such holidays as guests with teachers' families. It was tough, VERY tough- and the emotional baggage remained to the end of their days.

For the next generation- the same mothers did not work- so they could have easily stayed home- but it was a social expectation.

Thinking of it- same for our GCs generation- mothers didn't work either, but had a very busy sport and social life- but children came home at week-ends, end of Saturday morning and till Sunday late afternoon. Social expectations too.

I don't recognise your school MissChateline but indo recognise some of the situations.
My DB (A Forces child) had been to seven schools by the age of nine, apparently. Then my parents bought a house and DM stayed put so that DB could go to a local Grammar School.
Uniform was really strict at my girls' day school too.
DH , who went to boarding school, travelled to and fro by train by himself from the age of about 8.

I think there's a big difference between going to boarding school at 11 or 12 and 7, the age my OH was sent. He claims to have enjoyed it, but admits to it affecting his relationship with his parents, as the school was far away, so he was there for 9 months of the year.

I went to boarding school and loved it most of the time. Catholic nuns ran it, and I loved it apart from spending too much time in the church. Games seven days a week, bliss.

I was beaten and hammered half to death at home, so I felt safe at boarding school.

I was an only child, and I never had the courage as an adult to ask why they had me because I spent my days feeling terrified, and I rarely did anything wrong.

Whoops “shorts”

Sorry, a few typos.
Shirts = shirts
Get on the ferry

I was a forces child. After 13 primary schools with no national curriculum I was sent in 1966 to an all girls boarding school at the age of 11. The education provided was dreadful and I came away with 4 poor O levels and an expulsion for being very naughty. Believe me, you had to be extremely naughty to be expelled from this school as they were desperate for the money. On the plus side we had our own riding stables and fabulous grounds and outdoor sports fields. We swam in our knitted swimsuits which got waterlogged and fell down. We had strict uniforms for different times of the day including gold coloured best dresses and gold pumps for dance lessons and prize giving. We had a matron who peered up our dresses to make sure that we were wearing regulation white knickers, then thicker brown knickers over the top. Then according to the outfit we had a matching pair of shirts all under a dress. In order to get a “ rest slip” if we had our period and wanted to avoid afternoon sports we had to prove that we were on our period by showing the matron the doings. We had enforced silence after lights out. If our parents lived abroad, which mine did, you went to a host family for the twice termly visiting weekends. We had universal aunts who put us on trains and I travelled worldwide as an unaccompanied minor. I would regularly travel by train alone at the age of 13 across Germany, get in the ferry and arrive in London on my own. We had “weekly marks” and had to move our desks into the order of highest to lowest every week so that any teacher coming into the room could immediately see who was the cleverest and the least clever. This scared me for life.
Us forces children were the bottom of the social heap. Our fees were paid and we didn’t have wealthy parents who took their children skiing etc. we didn’t have tuck boxes from Fortnum & Mason etc. mine came from Woolworths.
I left in 1972. The burned down not many years later.
The best part is that there is a group of about 10 of us from my year, there were only 20 in each year divided into “form & parallel “ who have all kept in touch. We are spread across the world but keep in touch daily on WhatsApp. We try to meet once a year and we would all go to the ends of the world for each other.
If any other gransnetters recognise this school, please do PM me !

My late DH was a house master in a boys’ school, mixed day and boarding, in the late 60s/early 70s. Our fifty boys came from a wide range of backgrounds - parents in the services, diplomatic service, oil industry, farming in remote areas - and I soon recognised that while it suited many it was torture for some boys who were very unhappy. So later on when DH was one of HMI of schools we chose not to leave our son behind as a sixth form boarder but took him with us. He would have been quite happy to board but we would not have known him as he would have kept his two lives quite separate.

Today’s boarding schools are very different places but most parents try to do the best they can by their children, often at great financial sacrifice.

Cabbie21

My late husband taught in a boys’ boarding school, which later became co-ed and a day school. I think it was a happier place after the change. The boarding years were very spartan and corporal punishment was used for quite trivial offences. Most of the boarders were children of parents in the armed forces, or overseas workers. Some were from families in very difficult circumstances and were on bursaries.
Not all boarding schools are like Eton- or Malory Towers!

This is true and some will be much better than others, like all schools.
Boarding schools today will be wonderful compared with how some were run in the past I expect.
It depends on the child doesn’t it, if they are sensitive and need to live at home then a day school will be best.Others will thrive as a boarder.
It also depends on what the parents lifestyle is like and how much they travel in their jobs, or are military.

Nanato3

Yes I have read the thread . My point is the parents had the choice of changing their job but didn't, they sent the children away instead . They did have a choice .

Oh, so easy to change any old job!
But not so easy to change a career.
they sent the children away instead
You make it sound as if they sent their children away and never bothered with them again. Of course they cared about them, wanted the best for them and spent time with them every school holiday.

Well said, Barleyfields.

A choice which would have meant loss of employment, in the case of people employed in the armed or diplomatic services Nanato3? You really have no idea. We rely on our armed forces and people in the diplomatic service for the security of our country. Do you not understand that, and the sacrifices which those people have to make? I think not.

Yes I have read the thread . My point is the parents had the choice of changing their job but didn't, they sent the children away instead . They did have a choice .