This morning I remembered some stuff and it made me deeply grateful

[SWv2]

True that. Once we got to the fourth form, boarding school was like having a hundred brothers and no parents around to spoil it.

Hold the fúck on, you went to a boarding school?

[Pokster]

Hold the fúck on, you went to a boarding school?

Only to fix the bogs

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

Fúcking hell, were you at my school between 1976 and 1982?

I think I am a little older than you c, I escaped in '74. They were all much of a likeness. England was awash with sub-standard boarding schools that were basically dickensian relics that had refused to die an got away with it because no-one new how **** they were.

Some new standards, enforceable by law, were introduced in the late 80's sometime which saw hundreds of them closed down.

[Burney]

Not in the 1970s, it wasn't.

It was fúcking brutal.

I think my place was probably quite brutal if you were one of the chaps who weren't as described. I've met a couple of them in later life and they've told me how unhappy they were. I was oblivious to this at the time, of course, because no-one is more solipsistic than a kid.

Also, I left the fact that you had to be white and Christian off my list. God help you if you were brown or a four-by-two.

[Sir C]

I think my place was probably quite brutal if you were one of the chaps who weren't as described. I've met a couple of them in later life and they've told me how unhappy they were. I was oblivious to this at the time, of course, because no-one is more solipsistic than a kid.

Also, I left the fact that you had to be white and Christian off my list. God help you if you were brown or a four-by-two.

You'd have noticed. Fúcking hell, being reasonably good at sport and socially viable didn't save you from getting a regular hiding. Being able to fight did.

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

For anyone who wasn't monumentally stupid or hideously deformed, had a modicum of social skill and (ideally) some facility for sport, public school was tremendous fun.

The great fun I had at school was most definitely in spite of the school and nothing to do with it.

I shudder to this day to recall the brutal bullying that was a reality for the less popular, the dim and the fat ( we reserved a highly refined and quite vicious odium for fat people).

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

Hold the fúck on, you went to a boarding school?

I have spoken of it many times on here so wind yer almost non-existant, irish neck in

[redgunamo]

For anyone who wasn't monumentally stupid or hideously deformed, had a modicum of social skill and (ideally) some facility for sport, public school was tremendous fun.

Agreed. Terrific fun, them days.

[Burney]

The great fun I had at school was most definitely in spite of the school and nothing to do with it.

I shudder to this day to recall the brutal bullying that was a reality for the less popular, the dim and the fat ( we reserved a highly refined and quite vicious odium for fat people).

Yes. Fatness meant instant bullying back then. There was a chap called Jupp whose jelly-like frame would make him a constant target for vicious towel flicking after swimming. It has to be said there was a certain sadistic pleasure to be gained from watching his flab wobble when you caught him with a good one to the belly.

I suppose with hindsight that that was probably bullying Mind you, there was a big fat Chinese lad called Pete Lam who you didn't mock because he was enormous and would fück you up if you did.

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

Well quite. There was a chap I recall was mercilessly tormented until one day he lost it and delivered a comprehensive and quite bloody shoeing to the tormentor-in-chief. None of us knew he could scrap and the bullying ceased immediately of course.