Alma Mater

[poliphilo]

My old school (which is a "public school", meaning a private school, a fee-paying forcing-house of privilege) sends me its annual old boy's mag. Very glossy. The headmaster lauds his achievements. We are told about exam results, sports achievements, building projects. Yes, yes, yes, I mutter; but why won't you tell me about the real life of the school- like who's hot, who's smoking what and who's going to bed with whom.

At least I'm not having to pay for these ghastly sales brochures. "How about remembering us in your will?" they hint.

In a pig's arse, friend.

The mag is full of faces. Privileged faces. Crusty and ugly and hooting drunkenly at some awful reunion dinner. Oh look, there's Sir Tim Rice!

And here in a single frame are my two least favourite teachers: the baby-faced paedophile and the creepy chaplain. Forty years have passed. The paedophile is no longer baby-faced. The creepy chaplain looks like a lizard.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The very same. He's a little older than me. I don't think our times in the school overlapped.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The guy I did overlap with- and remember as a highly strung senior prefect- was the playwright David Hare. He (like me) is way too cool to return for old boy reunion dinners.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

My school was so old Thomas Paine went there.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Now that is classy!

My school's most famous alumni (a little before my time) is Evelyn Waugh.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

That's pretty classy, too!

Yep, Tony, bet your way too cool for school while you were there, even.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I adopted a semi-detached attitude.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

My granny met him on a cruise round Florida!

I was Thomas Paine librarian, I had responsibility for looking after an interesting collection including various books about Norfolk and Suffolk folklore and antiquities, some eighteenth century sudent's excersize books (they were beautiful things - I particularly remember a geometry one with lovely copperplate writing and wonderful drawings) and phonebooks from the 20s which had instructions on how to talk into the phone! As well as a bust of the man himself.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Waugh was crusing round Florida? That seems very much out of character. Was he as nasty as everyone says?

Paine Librarian sounds like a great job!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Why were your teachers featured? Are they still there?

Oooh, like a lizard.

My high school principal's name was Mr. Honey. He had a creamy voice, too, and a sticky sweet smile. He scared me to death, because his eyes were cold.

Is the pedophile still teaching? The horror!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The teachers were at some big dinner. The paedophile will have retired by now, but he still hangs around the school. Ugh!

I don't think he ever molested anyone, but he used to have lots of "special friends" among the younger boys. He was well hated.

He also happened to be a very good maths teacher.

[sina-says.livejournal.com]

as a youngster (12-15 years old mostly) i desperately wanted to go to boarding school. it's not that i was unhappy at home (though that's how my mother took it...), i just wanted (what i thought of as) the freedom, the independence, the intellectual-ness of it. i was bored at my ill-funded, backwoods public school and dreamed of going away. my family was poor and could never have afforded it but i studiously applied for scholarships and in fact was tentatively awarded several. i didn't end up going and i'm not sure if i regret it or not...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Boarding school marks you for life. I can't imagine who or what I would have been if I'd have been educated "normally".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Good old Larkin. I wonder where he got it from? It's hardly everyday speech.