Terms & Conditions: Life in Girls' Boarding Schools, 1939-1979

by Ysenda Maxtone Graham

When I asked a group of girls who had been at Hatherop Castle in the 1960s whether the school had had a lab in those days they gave me a blank look. 'A laboratory?' I expanded, hoping to jog their memories. 'Oh that kind of lab!' one of them said. 'I thought you meant a Labrador.'

'The cruel teachers. The pashes on other girls. The gossip. The giggles. The awful food. The homesickness. The friendships made for life. The shivering cold. Games of lacrosse, and cricket.

'The girls' boarding school! What a ripe theme for the most observant verbal artist in our midst today - the absurdly undersung Ysenda Maxtone Graham, who has the beadiness and nosiness of the best investigative reporter, the wit of Jane Austen and a take on life which is like no one else's. This book has been my constant companion ever since it appeared'
A. N. Wilson, Evening Standard

'A wonderful book'
Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Boarding School, Memoir, Biography, School Stories, British Literature

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2016

About the author

Ysenda Maxtone Graham was born in 1962 and educated at The King's School, Canterbury and Girton College, Cambridge. She has written widely for many newspapers and magazines, as features writer, book reviewer and columnist. She is the author of The Church Hesitant: A Portrait of the Church of England; The Real Mrs Miniver, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography of the Year Award; and Mr Tibbits's Catholic School. She lives in London with her husband and their three sons.

Reviews

[Cecily · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a collection of reminiscences, grouped in thematic chapters. It will appeal to those who want to compare their own experiences, as it’s not a history of girls’ boarding schools nor a rigorous analysis of them and their pupils (it doesn’t even have an index, which is infuriating in a book of this kind and unforgivable when it's so easy to do a basic one in any word processing software). Some long-forgotten small schools are mentioned a lot, and better-known ones not mentioned at all, but the overall impressions ring true. Note that only English schools are included (not British).

Rather than repeat anecdotes in the book, I’m sharing my own memories here.

My boarding experience

I started at an English girls' boarding school three years before the cut-off date of this book. 1979 was chosen as it was the advent of duvets: a game-changer I remember well. (Stopping a generation ago also avoids negative stories being tied to the current incarnations of schools mentioned.) I don’t remember being told I’d board; I always knew. I had enjoyed Malory Towers Boxset, set in my mother’s day, and even some ancient Angela Brazil school stories. My school wasn’t much like either, but nevertheless, I was broadly happy there.

Demographics

My school was half day girls, half boarders (there’s only one mention of such a school in the book), for ~800 girls aged 11 to 18, in a leafy suburb. The way it was organised, all my friends were fellow boarders in the same boarding house and same year group, and we’re still friends. Of the boarders, about half lived in England, sometimes less than an hour's drive away. The overseas boarders were mostly one of: Hong Kong Chinese, British expats from the UAE plus a few from Africa, and Nigerians. It was more ethnically diverse than anywhere I’ve lived or worked since, but although I didn’t notice any racism, people mostly kept to their own groups. A sad lost opportunity for all, but if you’d been despatched to the other side of the world at 11, perhaps you’d want to hang out with those you vaguely knew, or of a similar background.

It was not a particularly well-known or prestigious school (it’s improved since I left!) and although many of the overseas girls were quite wealthy, plenty of the domestic ones were not. My grandmother paid my fees, and even so, all my clothes and equipment were second-hand. But I wasn’t the only one, and no one made me feel inferior because of it. We were pretty unworldly and not desperate for the latest, priciest fashions.

The staff were female, mostly privately educated, but not all stereotypical spinsters, and only a handful of them lived at school. We didn't give them nicknames (except the sole male teacher (Mr Loft-Johnson, aka Lofty), and two geography teachers when the younger one married and then had the same title and surname as the other (we dubbed them Granny Brown and Ali Brown). There were some excellent and inspiring teachers and some bad ones. The alcoholic English teacher who, when drunk, would read Just William aloud instead of teach, was both.

Accommodation

There were four boarding houses and four day houses (teams). The latter had equal numbers, but the boarders were in physical buildings, and mine was much the smallest (about 30 aged 11-16), which was less institutional but put us at a huge disadvantage in inter-house competitions in sport, music, and drama. It was a large Victorian family home: we slept in unheated, uncarpeted rooms, on iron bedsteads with thin, prickly horsehair mattresses resting on what looked like chain mail. They were reputedly left over from when it was a convalescent or maternity home in WW2. There were three to six girls per dorm (bedroom).

We had three 15-minute baths timetabled per week, and a plastic bowl and jug for other days. Sometimes the jug was heavily iced by morning. My first term was during a prolonged drought. Much of the city had to use standpipes in the street. Not us, but we were allowed no more than four inches of water in the bath. There was a dipstick for measuring, and we were supposed to leave the door unlocked so matron could check (she didn’t).

Sport

Not my thing, and games teachers disliked such girls. Hockey, netball, gym, and cross-country-suburb running in the winter. Tennis, athletics, and swimming in the summer. The pool was outdoors and unheated, and the changing cubicles had curtains that flapped in the wind. The results of individual gym and athletics tasks were displayed on charts in the classroom. It’s one thing to award stars and badges to those who achieve; quite another to display failure, and not just personal failure, but failure to earn points for your house. There were no showers anywhere, not even after sport.

Food

It wasn’t great, and there was no choice, but being in the smallest house meant better quality and occasional off-menu items at breakfast: eggy bread (aka French toast) was a favourite. There wasn’t a tuck shop, we weren’t supposed to bring our own treats (except home-made jam or marmalade), and until 16, we were only allowed out to the local shops fortnightly. A few people got into competitive eating, and some developed bulimia and anorexia. Everyone had their height and weight logged at the start and end of every term - in public - supposedly to spot problems, but nothing was ever done until it was too late.

Health and safety

General health was OK, and flu jabs were compulsory. Matron did first aid and called a GP if necessary. If we were properly ill, we went to stay in the san(atorium) for a few days. Matron would supply sanitary products if we had “the curse” and had run out, but not sympathy or painkillers - although we were excused swimming.

Homesickness was largely ignored and eating disorders were rife. A disproportionate number of my peers had and have major mental health issues, at least some of which are connected to being sent away. There was some teasing and bitchiness, but I don’t think bullying was more of a problem than anywhere else.

Safety wasn’t much of a thing. The fire alarm was a single whistle on each floor. One night, my two roommates and I slept through it and, even worse, no one noticed we missed roll call! When I was 17, with persistent abdominal pain, focused on the right side, the housemistress suggested I catch the bus alone to the hospital emergency unit! I insisted on a taxi and companion. A few hours later my inflamed appendix was removed. Nowadays, parents might sue such negligence.

Curriculum and careers

It was reasonably academic: we had to pass exams in English, maths, and verbal reasoning to get a place and we were taught traditional subjects in traditional ways; Latin was compulsory for the first two years. Art and craft covered the obvious art, needlework, and cookery, but also stone-carving, rug-making, and weaving stools, trays, and baskets. Careers advice was university (not a polytechnic) and anyone good at science was pushed towards medicine. The others went to secretarial college, art foundation course, or finishing school until marriage. This was in the 1980s!

Extracurricular

Sport and music were the only options, plus occasional theatre trips, and one field course each for those studying biology or geography in the last two years. Weekends were worst as there was almost nothing to do and TV was very restricted. We played jacks, card games, cat’s cradle, records, guitars, and swapped books and magazines: Mills & Boon romances were popular (though I never read more than the back blurb) and Agatha Christie.

Celebrations

New girls in my house were asked to bring a Christmas decoration for the tree, which was encircled by the central staircase. A riot of variety from around the world. We had a traditional Christmas dinner, including one Christmas pudding per table, with a sixpence in each. Parents were invited to the carol service, in the main school hall, in the central bar of an E-shaped building. It started with the choir singing Personent Hodie, unaccompanied, as they approached from opposite ends of the E. It echoed and got gradually louder as they approached. Magical. Listen to (stationary) girls singing it here. In my final years, they used a church instead.

Bump Supper was near the end of the other two terms. A better than usual evening meal, followed by party games (the flour game and the chocolate knife and fork game were highlights), comic turns by staff, and silly songs.

We also had annual prize-giving and sports day. I never won anything in the latter.

School didn’t do anything for our birthdays, but the heads of dorms would get something inexpensive for girls in their dorm.

Religion

The school had an explicitly Anglican ethos but didn’t have a chapel or chaplain. Sunday church was compulsory unless you actively practised another religion. We walked, in uniform, in crocodile, to hear a vicar with an especially boring voice. When he ran confirmation classes, he told us he wasn’t sure if he believed in God, but he was still a vicar decades later. Daily, whole-school assemblies were prayers, hymns, and admin notices. In the boarding house each evening, the housemistress would read something worthy and Christian, and we’d recite prayers. RE (Religious Education) was Bible-based and compulsory for the first three years, even for non-Christians. However, there was one term, when we were 14, where we covered other religions and ethical issues like sex before marriage and euthanasia. I’ve rejected religion, but I’m still guided by a few of my housemistress’ sayings (“Send postcards to people when they’re alive, not flowers when they’re dead”) and secular parables, several of which are in GR reviews, including last week, HERE.

Clothes

The clothes list was precise: we couldn’t take more, less, or a different style of anything, and everything had to have Cash’s woven name tapes sewn in. It included thick grey PE knickers and an optional hooded cloak. Mufti was limited too, and we couldn’t wear trousers on Sundays. At the beginning and end of each term we had to lay everything on our bed, in list order, to be checked by matron. Winter uniform was skirt, white shirt, and a tie with stripes to match our house colour. In the summer, we wore dresses with an unusual geometric pattern and an optional money-belt (not that we had any, or anywhere to spend it most of the time).

Each week we put our washing in a laundry bag, with a list of what was enclosed. Dyed hair was banned and we could earn house points for good deportment, which included the tidiness of hair and clothes, as well as how we walked.

Treats

We couldn’t have many personal possessions, but treasured things like leather writing cases and decent pens. Jewellery was banned with uniform, apart from plain studs for pierced ears (frowned upon) and a watch. I was especially proud of my uncle’s rugby shirt, even though I hated sport, because it was unusual and not girly. Our limited pocket money was deposited with the housemistress each term and on Saturday mornings we could write a “cheque” to get cash to spend at the local shops (escorted by matron for the first couple of years). If we requested too much, we’d be asked why: we always said tampons. We also wrote to companies for badges, stickers, and booklets to use in school projects. We knew the truth of Iris Murdoch’s saying, “One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better”, before we’d heard of her.

Contact with home

Incoming post was put in pigeonholes that we’d see as we descended the stairs in the morning. We had to write home every weekend and leave letters on the hall table. The housemistress checked everyone had written one, but didn’t open them. Occasionally, we put out empty envelopes and removed them before they were taken to the postbox.

There was a single payphone for 30 of us. It was in an open alcove on the main stairs, and the hours we could use it were limited, so there was a queue and no privacy. New girls weren’t allowed to use it for the first fortnight, lest it unsettle them. We usually reversed the charges or said “Hi Mummy” in the few seconds before the pips, and waited for her to call back.

We were allowed two weekend exeats home a term, plus one somewhere else. They were noon on Saturday till late afternoon Sunday - we had to do our weekend homework first.

Rule-breaking

We were pretty good, especially in the first five years. A minor breach earned an order mark (deducted from house points) and three in a term earned detention, but neither were widely issued. I don’t remember anyone running away. Midnight feasts, done per dorm, were the main thing, and staff sensibly turned a blind eye. Buying and hiding the food was exciting, then tiptoeing downstairs and enjoying it. There were occasional pranks: the worst was making a dummy that looked as if she were leaning out of the window after lights out. Matron came in, grabbed the “girl” by the shoulder, and it fell out of the window. Far more upsetting for her than we intended.

Sex

For most of my time, we were remarkably ignorant (there was a one-off sex-ed session in biology class) and starved of opportunities. We used to joke about bromide in the tea, but I always doubted it was true. Even our Shakespeare was Bowdlerised, but we didn’t realise until we went to a performance and noticed unfamiliar lines about going to bed. But we lapped up the problem pages of teen magazines. Crushes weren’t a big thing, and a couple of teachers were widely known to be in a relationship, but it wasn’t a hotbed of lesbianism among staff or pupils (although my closest friends from those days are mostly single or in relationships with women). There was more lusting over a couple of the groundsmen. The only male teacher was the very unsexy head of music, plus a few visiting instrumental teachers who taught only a few hours a week.

In the early years, we had compulsory country dancing lessons, but they were no use for the occasional, and excruciatingly embarrassing cattle market discos with a nearby boys’ boarding school in the final two years.

Sixth form

Most of the above applied to ages 11-16. For the final two years, boarders lived in twin rooms in a separate building, but still aligned to their original house. We could wear smart mufti to lessons, but not trousers or anything denim. Many took up smoking (I didn’t) to the extent the residents of a nearby road complained and the school opened a smoking room - until it made the newspapers. The bigger thrill was sneaking down to town for pubs and picnics. We hitched back. Fortunately, nothing bad happened.

And now?

I went to the centenary celebrations a few years ago, with friends. Like all such schools, it's changed a lot. Very few girls board full-time now unless they live overseas. The boarding houses have carpet, central heating, TVs, games consoles, and cooking facilities. There is no bath timetable, there are showers after sport, the pool is heated and indoors, there’s a proper theatre, and there are lots of clubs, activities, and outings. The uniform and hair rules are more relaxed and Muslims can wear headscarves and trousers - but the summer dresses are unchanged, though it seems to be only the junior school girls who wear them now. The girls are generally richer, posher, and more fashion and beauty-conscious. I wouldn’t fit in.

I don’t think I fit the stereotypes of former boarders except the veneer of confidence that many privately-educated people have (but it is a veneer) and perhaps a desire to seem helpful. The main impact is lifelong friendships, enriched by shared memories. Any meet-up has an element of “do you remember…?” and laughter. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have sent my own child to board, even if we could have afforded it.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 4 out of 5]

In her introduction to this book, Nicola Shulman muses upon how to classify this book: is it memoir, anthropology or comedy? It’s truly a mix of all three, and will probably be most appreciated by those readers (particularly women) who are fascinated by mid-century British culture and its ‘products’. I think that ‘product’ is probably the right choice of word, because if there is anything that this book concludes it is that the girls who went to single-sex boarding schools during the years between 1939 and 1979 (or the ‘advent of the duvet’) were moulded into a discernible type. And even though there were ‘happy’ schools and disastrously miserable ones - the chapter about school ‘auras’ was one of my favourites - the experience of growing up in a boarding school setting was profoundly influential.

Although she does not shy away from revealing the ‘horrors’ of these bygone boarding school days - and I would put food, the cold, and ‘games’ at the top of the list - Graham’s fondness for her subject (I should probably say ‘subjects’) is apparent on every page. As is her humour and wonderful turn-of-phrase. And although some of her interviewees had ghastly experiences at their boarding schools, even more seem to have developed an inner toughness, empathy for others, good manners and life-long friendships. The education, it has to be said, seems to have varied hugely; and yet Graham identifies cultural appreciation and a hunger for lifelong learning as characteristics of the boarding school survivor.

In the final chapter ‘Boarding-School Women’, Graham acknowledges that her book describes a lost world. ‘The cruelty, the hopelessness, the cardigans, the chilblains, the filthy food: all these are gone from boarding-schools now’. But she also pays homage to a loss of ‘innocence’, ‘eccentricity’, and ‘the most well-meaning of the amateurishness’. I wouldn’t for one minute wanted to have gone to any of these schools, but without a doubt they did their part to form what has been most beloved and admired in the British ‘character’. I think it’s worthwhile to share one of Graham’s final observations:

These women were trained not to see themselves as the centre of the universe, but always to think of others, even when it came to the method for being passed the salt. They learned early that ‘it’s not all about me’. This lack of self-centredness is, I think, the biggest difference between privileged childhoods fifty or sixty years ago and privileged childhoods today. Yes, these boarding-school girls came from affluent families, but they did not go on skiing holidays every year, and they were not given the idea that things should be arranged mainly for their benefit and delight. Their schools taught them that their duty was to be of service to the community: they learned to look outwards and away from themselves rather than to wallow in introspection. Thus they grew into an unselfish, un-self-pitying generation.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and scathing account of what passed for education for the better class girl at English boarding schools in the middle of the last century through the 1970s! It's horrifying, saddening and explains a lot except not why girls were written off for so very long.

[lixy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many of these reports are funny and vividly bring back the ridiculous rule-driven, damp-ridden, no-hair-washing times in the school I attended for a few years. HOWEVER, the writing drips with privileged assumptions, leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I understand the author didn't set out to write a sociological study of British Girls' Boarding Schools, and, in a way, the circumscribed similarities of many of the experiences illustrate the confined nature of many of these schools. I do wish she had made a small effort to locate and interview some of the 'different' pupils, eg girls of color, (non-british) girls from abroad, or queer girls...or even ask some teachers what they saw/thought of their charges. There were glancing mentions of the few "poor", or Jewish girls--I would have liked more interviews with them, to get fuller insight. All in all, an admirable, but often narrow, indulgent and elitist collection of anecdotes.

[SueKich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Old Girls spill the (mouldy) beans!

The rather wonderfully named Ysenda Maxtone Graham has collected the childhood reminiscences of a host of Old Girls who attended British boarding schools in the decades up to 1979; the advent of the duvet is the author’s cut-off point.

It’s an interesting idea for a social study illuminating, as it does, the snobbery of the era, the attitude towards women at that time, the importance (or not) of education, the belief that physical hardship was good for the backbone, the ghastly food and, last but by no means least, the lasting consequences of what was, effectively, banishment from home and family at a tender age.

Parents took very little interest in the choice of schools for their daughters; one can only take from this that a girl’s education simply wasn’t that important. And an academic education was hardly a top priority for many of the schools themselves: “Deportment at these schools was part of the curriculum: it was said that you could spot a Heathfield girl anywhere in the world by the way she got into and out of a car.”

The most snobbish teachers of all were the convent school nuns: “Mother Bridget taught Latin to the juniors and she kicked off the first Latin lesson of the new 11-year-olds in 1976 with this ice-breaker: ‘Now, hands up any of you whose house is open to the public.’”

This book is an education.

[Schopflin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book and it evoked beautifully both the reality (as far as I know) and the variety of boarding school life. But I felt it was let down by the nostalgic last chapter. I think the book demonstrated that boarding schools of the era weren't good places for children to grow up. They provided a poor education for most and in many cases damaged the confidence of a whole generation of pupils. Fascinating to read about, and wonderful to hear the voices of those who were there, but not something to idealise.

Edit, to add a personal note. I went to a highly academic private girls' day school. I feel now that the sacrifices made to send me there were also a substitute for having oversight into our experience: the school promised and delivered results and neither of my parents were bothered if the experience was unpleasant for us. I think this book shows that the boarding school experience is this times a thousand. Not for everyone, obviously but given that most of our life chances are determined by our privilege regardless of the school we went to, paying for a substitute is a means of shrugging off parental responsibility.

[Lesley Botez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm afraid I abandoned this non-fiction on life in British girls' boarding schools. As one of those former girls myself, I found it too depressing. The tales of standing in the passageway for an hour, punishment for talking after lights out, the lumpy food all of which had to be eaten, the pressure to be popular, the cold, the uniforms with their pairs and pairs of knickers, the censured letters home and the rules and regulations, brought it all back. I was lucky that my divorced parents never missed an exeat - they had one each - and that I received an excellent education, unlike many of the interviewees in the book. There were positive points too, particularly for girls like me who escaped an unhappy home situation and were given a sense of security at boarding school. I had a rabbit and then a pony, not allowed at home. And I was able follow a wide range of subjects. I would have liked a more nuanced view and lighter touch than I found in this book.

[Daisy May Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a delight.

The second of two boarding school histories that I've breezed through recently, Terms & Conditions is an absolute delight. The first - Alex Renton's Stiff Upper Lip: Secrets, Crimes and the Schooling of a Ruling Class was a much more different experience, focusing as it did upon the male experience of boarding school life and wrapping this around his own experiences. I found Stiff Upper Lip a dry read; interesting, yet I skipped over a substantial chunk of it.

Terms & Conditions, however, wasn't anywhere near long enough. I loved it. I devoured it. I suspect my different reaction to the two books is partially due to my own research interests and angle of interest, yet Maxtone Graham writes with a sheer verve and narrative drive that can't be denied. This is an honest, warm-hearted, genuine and sympathetic book.

Ending just before the popular arrival of the 'duvet', that blessed piece of night-time warmth, Maxtone Graham ranges through a series of tightly structured chapters constructed around the recollections of her interviewees. Being a big children's literature fan, I was delighted to find that Judith Kerr functioned among these. What's great is that Maxtone Graham admires these women that she works with and talks to, and she admires them openly. It's so interesting to me, this complex ideal of the boarding school woman - of women, generally - because as they grow older, they are expected to be less visible. Less forthright. Yet as Maxtone Graham comes to articulate, these are the women that have remarkable stories - ranging from being pummeled outside in the dark as part of a new girl ritual, through to spending the night on the Kings Road with boys and making it back to the convent school in time for morning. I welcome anybody who works to make these stories visible, I really really do.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of anecdotes about life at girls' boarding schools in England between 1939 and 1979. (It took me far longer than it should have to realise that the title is a pun.) If you have any interest in that subject at all, you will enjoy this book. The anecdotes are delightful or horrifying or sometimes both; there's a real commitment to showing not just that the schools themselves were not all identical, but also to capturing something of the feelings and experiences of women of a certain type. It's full of love and respect for the real women it talks about, and wants you to feel that love and respect too.

My own complaint, and the reason I didn't give this five stars even though I had a wonderful time reading it, is the chapter on sex. There's a cheerful admission that at least some of the teachers were in same-sex relationships, but is suddenly and deeply weird about the idea that any of the students might have been. It's not the focus of the book, but I personally had a "uh, if you're happy to say these teachers were queer adults, where exactly do you think queer adults come from?" moment. I can believe that perhaps none of the ex-students interviewed for the book discussed queer experiences, but I'd have appreciated a note that that doesn't mean none ever existed.

Otherwise, though, this is cracking. Interesting, well constructed, and entertaining as hell.

[Debbie Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

I worked at one of the schools mentioned in this book for 13 years, later than the era covered by this book, and had heard so many stories from the old girls from that period. The clever title, and the fact that it was the Christmas bestseller in the bookshop nearest said school, made me keen to read it, so I was very glad to receive it as a birthday present from a thoughtful nephew.

I really liked the author's tone and take on the schools, although I agree with other reviewers that the sample of old girls interviewed and the schools represented was really very small, and I suspect happened to be mostly those already in her social circle, so unlikely to be a representative sample of all the different products of such schools.

It was easy to read, well organised and signposted, and made for an enjoyable couple of evenings. While scratching the surface of the topic, the author suggested various other books to read, particularly histories of schools written by staff and pupils, and I shall be looking up those to continue my research for a series of novels I plan to write set in a girls' boarding school.

[Robin Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This non-fiction look at British all-girls' boarding schools is charming, bizarre and perfectly representative of a very weird world. Great for anyone who wants to write a series of boarding school books ... (14+)

*Please note: this review is meant as a recommendation only. If you use it in any marketing material, online or anywhere on a published book without asking permission from me first, I will ask you to remove that use immediately. Thank you!*

[Catullus2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went to a girls boarding school from 1976-81 so my time there was at the end of the period covered by this book. Still, the culture she describes is eerily familiar. Inadequate science teaching, low career expectations, freezing cold dormitories, some very bizarre teachers, but also great friendships, much laughter, self reliance, a surprising lack of materialism. For better or worse I would have become a very different person if I hadn’t gone to boarding school.

[Ginni · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found out about this book from ‘Too Marvellous for Words’, Julie Welch’s autobiographical history and account of Felixstowe College, another girls’ boarding school. ‘Terms and conditions’ was for me a very funny book, and I did laugh out loud quite a lot. Of course, I too went to boarding school in the 1960s, so much of this was familiar territory. It was consoling that there were other schools worse than the one I went to (which was not one of the schools portrayed in ‘Terms and conditions’.)

It was also rather chilling, in its portrayal of the English class system in all its cruelty and narrow mindedness. The attitudes of English parents, and particularly fathers, to their daughters’ education as portrayed in the book is frightening. I should say that the author has a chronological cut off point of ‘the introduction of the duvet’, around 1979, so the attitudes described are now historical. There are some splendid portraits of teachers and headteachers, both good and bad, and many descriptions of the curious rules adopted by the staff, and the strange traditions and practices practised by the girls themselves.

This book is a portrayal of a narrow slice of English society, now gone, and the author concludes that it is probably best that the boarding school life shown here is now a thing of the past. She does however have some interesting views about the valuable characteristics formed by the experiences in these schools, giving rise to a particular type of Englishwoman. Worth reading either if you experienced this sort of education, or for curiosity value, and just for the excellent writing and sharp humour.

[Louise Culmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly entertaining book about girls' boarding schools in the mid 20th century. The author interviewed girls from a wide range of schools from the fiercely academic Cheltenham Ladies College to smaller more laid back establishments where girls could get away with doing very little work at all (one of those would have suited me). Although quite interesting, there is a lot of repetition (one girl's homesickness is much like another for instance). At times I found the author's tone jarring. For instance, she laments the fact that so few girls could aspire to become doctors in those days, instead having to fall back on being a nurse. Oh dear. I wonder how the author thinks hospitals would function without nurses? Much is made of the privations these girls suffered, sleeping in cold dormitories and getting up in freezing weather to go and do lessons. Probably not less agreeable than getting up in freezing cold to, say, go to work in a factory, or scrub someone's floors (what many girls from a lower social strata would have been doing at that time). Towards the end of the book she laments that few girls went to university from boarding school, she blames the fathers for this, mothers being helpless ""Deferring to one's husband was still taken for granted in their generation" she writes. This made me think of my own mother. Of many adjectives one could use to describe her, 'deferential' is not one that springs to mind, she was about as deferential as Queen Elizabeth I in a bad mood.

[Tiana Hadnt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. It was a delight from start to finish. I listened to it in audiobook format. The narrator was excellent as well.

The writing is simple, elegant, and not at all as dry as a lot of histories tend to be. Like so many girls, I’ve read stories of boarding schools and always thought it would be great fun to go to one. After reading this book, I’m glad I didn’t! While Ysenda Maxtone Graham says that things are much improved and changed in modern times, they wouldn’t have been when I was there. This is a very honest portrayal of boarding school life, and the Old Girls were only too ready to share.

I love that it’s split up by situations or areas of life, rather than by specific schools. It paints a much broader picture that way, and I really feel that you get a sense of what it was like across the board. I laughed frequently, but I was also moved by some of the ordeals they had to suffer. The weather, the headmistresses, the bullying of/by other girls, and the separation from family were terrible. I appreciate the honesty in this book, and admire how she was able to deal even with hard topics in a way that was interesting to the reader. I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who has a fascination for boarding schools, or for historical information. It’s well worth your time.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The topic of this book (life in English girls' boarding schools in the mid 20th Century) is right up my alley, as I love to learn about archane institutions. Luckily the writing didn't disappoint - this is a very entertaining book, based on the recollections of women who are now in their 50s, 60s and even their 90s.

The women's experiences really reflect a bygone era, and just as well too - there were many examples of parental neglect, incompetent teaching, emotional abuse, and wasted potential. This is the incredibly sad undercurrent that lurked beneath the comic reminiscences of eccentric teachers and schoolgirl pranks, and the glories of lifelong friendships.

One unfortunate aspect of the book is that many of the Old Girls mentioned are not well-known outside of the UK. Including brief biographies of these women would have enriched my reading experience - trying to google them all became tiresome quite quickly.

Despite acknowledging that the reality of boarding school life was often a rude shock to girls brought up on Mallory Towers and Chalet School books, the author has written this as a loving tribute to a lost (and very British) way of life - one that had created generations of upper-class women who were selfless, practical, unfussy, and dependable - far from the indulged and materialist world inhabited by the privileged classes today.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really charming and lovely read. Very much enjoyed.

[Sharifeh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having been educated at a British boarding school in the 1960’s, I could identify with this very entertaining book that brought back many memories of my school days. This is definitely a must read!

[Noits · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mildly interesting, rather clichéd and a little too mawkish for my tastes. I was completely enthralled by boarding schools as a child and the manner in which this little history has been written resembles some of that childhood fiction, but with none of the charm. A little self-indulgent and lacking in objectivity.

[Flora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to on audible (excellent narration, with just the right sort of RP accent).

On the one hand, eat the rich; on the other, but aren't they fascinating? Similar pleasure to reading about the Mitford sisters (in fact, Debo's daughter turns up in a cameo: it's that sort of book).

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of the material for this book was obtained through interviews of graduates from girls’ boarding schools. Each chapter is based on an aspect of life at school such as sleeping arrangements, educational ethos and teaching staff. These consist of a series of personal stories many of which I suspect would be little different from those of girls and boys from day schools. Whenever old school mates renew acquaintances stories of their school days abound. Reading any ‘old boys’ magazine confirms that there is an abundance of anecdotal material should one want to write a historical account of school life. The difference for boarders was the dislocation from family and sleeping in. Whilst interesting there was little surprising in the content; some teachers are good, some are bad and many have idiosyncrasies.

In many ways it reminded me of “The Bletchley Girls” in its style of writing and way the content was assembled. Both felt like an extended form of journalism based on interviews with the graduates from their respective institutes. Readable, engaging but relatively superficial in content.

[Nura · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I found most interesting about this book is that it feels so... partial.

It’s a history of life in a girls boarding school between 1939 and 1979, told by “Old Girls” who were students there and then. But despite spanning multiple schools and many a decade, it doesn’t feel like we get a large variety of actual voices.

By this I mean; we hear about so much of what boarding school is like in terms of isolation, what it’s like to feel different, and what it’s like to get on with your schooling despite difficulties, but from a very select group of people. There are is many a reference to the Jewish students and their m anti-semitic teachers, or the lesbian teachers and girls who teachers assumed were gay, or the “European princesses” who were viewed as “exotic”, but we never hear about life at the school from these people. It feels very much like we hear about boarding school, and the lives of all the varied students, from a very unvaried set of voices.

What was it like to be lonely and isolated, as these women were, for the girls who realised they were queer? How many of these schools formally barred entry to prospective Black students? How did the population of the student body change through the decades this book spans? Did they become more or less diverse?

I think it’s interesting, and not just an oversight, because I can’t help but think that there is a reason the author couldn’t get ahold of these people or figures.

It feels very much like the women in this memoir simply did not mingle with people different to them, or more likely, could not given the context of which they were education. It feels as though the homogeneity of these voices a testament to the fact these private boarding schools failed fundamentally to provide students with a wide range of world views.


In all, this novel is perhaps not one that looks into the lives of students as deeply or diversely as I’d wish it to, but it’s still a fascinatingly niche area of history I was happy to learn more about.

[Pogo Dragon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've seen this book enthusiastically endorsed by a few friends recently. I went to a girls' public (fee paying) school, starting in 1977 - so just at the end of the period covered by this book - but not a boarding school.

I read the whole of this book waiting for the good stuff to start appearing, but it never quite did. It's a long series of linked anecdotes which get very very samey after not very long at all.

As other people have said, the book drips with assumptions and is very much written from a position of utter privilege. Unsurprisingly perhaps as these schools were only for the very well heeled (have a look at the current cost of sending a pupil to Wycombe Abbey School if you want to raise your eyebrows!)

I think, for me, it's the lack of any kind of commentary, no examination of the anecdata just the bald reporting that killed it for me. Until the last section which is basically a hagiography of 'boarding school girls', which does offer a small amount of examination of the phenomenon, there is nothing of substance here.

If you want to read about misery, neglect and wasted potential in the words of the people on the receiving end then this is a book for you. I am just not convinced that it really offers anything very insightful. It's a good set of notes with which to write a much more interesting book.

[Sarah Hearn · Rating 5 out of 5]

For someone like me, raised on boarding school stories by Enid Blyton and Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, this book was a revelation. Instead of “dormy feasts” and tricks played on the French Mistress, there are chilblains, terrible, horrible, and meager food, lacrosse in a howling gale, bullying, and little to no actual education. The women who emerged from these boarding schools - some of them, the most prestigious in the land - are self-sufficient, uncomplaining, do-ers. These are the women who organize fêtes and sales of work, who visit the elderly, run meals-on-wheels, and countless other charitable events, who married army officers, diplomats, and clergy and ran their resulting spheres of influence with aplomb and energy. These are the last generations who were refused further education (by their fathers who thought educating girls was pointless) because they were girls, and they are the first generations who had any sort of “job” before marrying - sometimes ridiculously young - and becoming wives and mothers. I will never believe a school story again.

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and fun account of life in girls' boarding schools in the "pre-duvet" era. I knew, of course, that boarding schools at this time were nothing like the Chalet School, Malory Towers or even Trebizon, but I was still surprised to learn of the conditions that some of these girls (the daughters of extremely wealthy parents who paid extortionate amounts to send them to school) had to put up with. With the type of fees these schools charged, it's interesting that they were often unheated and shabby and served horrible food.

I most enjoyed reading about the contrast between the committed, caring staff who really were married to their jobs, and the harsh, bitter ones who had clearly never envisaged spending their lives bringing up other people's children - the story of the poor little girl who had her doll literally torn limb from limb had me in tears.

Such a clever title too!

[Kit · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very relatable and recogniseable look at british girls' boarding schools, however the author's insistance that boarding schools nowadays are cosy havens for children are annoyingly inaccurate and ignores the very real experiences of isolation, institutional racism, homophobia, neglect, bullying, self harm and coverups of abuse that continue in boarding schools today. The experience may look different and in many ways may be different but as someone who went to one such school in the 2000s it is very hurtful to have the experiences of younger generations dismissed as though all the institutional problems of the past are long since fixed and bigotted or abusive behaviour now deemed 'unthinkable'.
Very sad the author was not willing to truly acknowledge the continuing complexity of boarding schools in britain...then again they do often have rather good lawyers, so maybe its not surprising.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure this isn’t the sort of book I would have picked up without warm recommendations and favourable reviews, never having been to boarding school (or been a girl, for that matter). It’s a warm, witty but unblinkered view of an almost vanished world of hundreds of girls boarding schools ranging from the frankly terrifying but academically rigorous Cheltenham Ladies College and the intensely sporty Roedean to establishments that were lackadaisical, unsafe, maverick or mad. Awful food, arctic temperatures, complex and barely understandable rules were common features, but so were the lifelong friendships forged in the schools. Ysenda Maxtone Graham interviewed many old girls for this characterful and entertaining oral history of a largely forgotten aspect of British social history.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opening account of what life like for girls who had the misfortune to be packed off to boarding school in the 50s,60s,and 70s. Jolly hockey sticks and outsmarting crooks, ala Enid Blyton, it wasn't. Some of the boarding schools described seem disturbingly similar to the Lowood Institute that Jane Eyre had to endure.

I grew up in Malvern, which used to have several private schools (many of which are referenced in this book). There was a real sense of "them and us", them being the "stuck up" posh kids who went to the imposing private schools and "us" being the kids who went to the drab looking comps. We were well aware that the private school kids had more money and, well, privilege than we did. So reading this book has been interesting to realise that it may not have been quite as rosy as it seemed.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️
Love this book but there is some romantising going on, so not quite a five star read for me

[Arpita (BagfullofBooks) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars