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Jak wytresować lorda. O elitarnych szkołach z internatem
Na jakie krzywdy brytyjski rodzic jest w stanie skazać dziecko, żeby mogło zrobić karierę?
Gdy Alex Renton opublikował w "Observerze" artykuł o tym, jak był krzywdzony w swojej szkole z internatem, otrzymał setki listów z podobnymi historiami. Stały się one punktem wyjścia do książki, która jest jednocześnie reportażem, autobiografią i publicystyką.
Prywatne szkoły, w których czesne wynosi kilkadziesiąt tysięcy funtów rocznie, to dla Brytyjczyków ważny symbol przynależności do elity, a dla reszty świata - bajkowa rzeczywistość rodem z Harry’ego Pottera.
Tymczasem Renton odsłania zupełnie inne oblicze szkół z internatem. Pisze o sadyzmie nauczycieli, wyrachowaniu dyrektorów, panującej w tych placówkach zmowie milczenia na temat działalności pedofilów. O tym, jak kilku i kilkunastoletnie dzieci molestowane seksualnie przez opiekunów były dotkliwie karane za jakiekolwiek próby ujawnienia procederu. I o smutnej przyczynie legendarnej angielskiej "flegmy", czyli narzucanej przez wieki brytyjskim elitom kulturze trzymania fasonu bez względu na wszystko. Ale w tej historii najbardziej zdumiewające jest, dlaczego brytyjscy rodzice, którzy sami przeszli przez piekło szkół z internatem, posyłają do nich własne dzieci.
Gdy Alex Renton opublikował w "Observerze" artykuł o tym, jak był krzywdzony w swojej szkole z internatem, otrzymał setki listów z podobnymi historiami. Stały się one punktem wyjścia do książki, która jest jednocześnie reportażem, autobiografią i publicystyką.
Prywatne szkoły, w których czesne wynosi kilkadziesiąt tysięcy funtów rocznie, to dla Brytyjczyków ważny symbol przynależności do elity, a dla reszty świata - bajkowa rzeczywistość rodem z Harry’ego Pottera.
Tymczasem Renton odsłania zupełnie inne oblicze szkół z internatem. Pisze o sadyzmie nauczycieli, wyrachowaniu dyrektorów, panującej w tych placówkach zmowie milczenia na temat działalności pedofilów. O tym, jak kilku i kilkunastoletnie dzieci molestowane seksualnie przez opiekunów były dotkliwie karane za jakiekolwiek próby ujawnienia procederu. I o smutnej przyczynie legendarnej angielskiej "flegmy", czyli narzucanej przez wieki brytyjskim elitom kulturze trzymania fasonu bez względu na wszystko. Ale w tej historii najbardziej zdumiewające jest, dlaczego brytyjscy rodzice, którzy sami przeszli przez piekło szkół z internatem, posyłają do nich własne dzieci.
480 pages, Paperback
First published April 6, 2017
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February 19, 2018
Back in the early 2000's, I received a glossy leaflet from my old school.
It was about the time the whole Harry Potter phenomenon was taking off, and the leaflet was clearly aimed at prospective parents:
"Does your child love Harry Potter?" it asked (or words to that effect). "Then they may love boarding school!"
My heart sank to my boots when I read those words, for, years earlier, I had been to boarding school, and had hated the experience.
In his excellent new book, "Stiff Upper Lip", which started life as an article for the Observer magazine a few years ago, journalist and former boarder Alex Renton identifies the popularity of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books as at least partly responsible for arresting what had been a gradual decline in British parents choosing to send their children to board. Boarding's rediscovered popularity (at least for parents) is, as Renton uncovers, a tragedy, because British boarding schools have too often been havens of emotional neglect, moral hypocrisy, and abuse.
Renton was a pupil at Ashdown House school in the late Sixties and early Seventies, and in 2013 a newspaper article about some of its former pupils launching a civil case against two of its former teachers for "horrific attacks" moved him to tears. For he had known those teachers, and had suffered abuse himself at the school.
The book takes in the history of the British public school ("public", confusingly for non-British readers, as Renton explains, actually meaning "private" in this context), and its great flourishing in the Victorian era, when young boys were trained up to run the Empire.
He mentions "Tom Brown's School Days", the first and most famous of all boarding school novels, in which the titular hero suffers privations and hardship but ultimately is shaped for the better by his experiences. It is classic propaganda, of course - and Renton, through years of painstaking - and painful - research, speaking to ex-boarders who have been damaged by the experience, and to the counsellors and therapists who have tried to repair that damage, lays bare the cruelties of the system ("like a surgeon's saw or a dentist's pliers", he says at one point) in sometimes eye-watering detail.
For years, abusers and paedophiles used many of these schools as places to prosecute the most horrendous of crimes, licensed or otherwise - sexual assault, beatings and floggings - safe in the knowledge that they were never likely to be caught or punished, for the system protected its own. If parents complained about a teacher, the worse they could expect was being quietly sacked, only to emerge soon afterwards at another boarding school somewhere else, to continue with their crimes.
This would be awful enough, but though thankfully not all boarders have suffered such horror, what Renton argues I think irrefutably is that the problem with boarding schools - the emotional damage they do, quite apart from anything else - is ultimately systemic. No other country in the world sends so many children away to board, and at such an early age (children can start boarding in the UK at the age of seven): "Nowhere," he writes, "in societies traditional or modern, are the children separated from their blood relatives for eight or more months of the year for ten years, from the age of seven or eight." Nowhere, that is, except Britain. The individual stories he has collected - of heartbreak and homesickness, of the damage wrought by the feeling of abandonment by one's parents, supposedly one's protectors, at the school gates - underscore the work of psychologists and therapists, that "what a growing child needs is a reliable loving figure and a sense of continuity and security... what no school gives is hugs".
Nowadays, psychotherapists have identified "boarding school syndrome", and believe that "the abrupt breaking of attachment that happens at the door of the boarding school [is] unique, and provably damaging". Adult sufferers are often shut down emotionally, unable to express their feelings, and develop a carapace that can cause relationship and work problems, and mental or emotional distress.
Even nowadays, with safeguards supposedly in place, and housemasters and mistresses now referred to as "house parents", there is plenty of evidence for the distress of children who board - eating disorders, self-harming. On returning to Ashdown House, forty years after he left, Renton encounters a "diffident and teary" seven-year-old who he is told is "having trouble settling in".
Renton also has a response for those who shrug their shoulders at the thought of suffering at public school (there is other, and worse, suffering elsewhere in British society after all): "If this was how the ruling class cared for its children, no wonder the public institutions of Britain that they went on to run - from the BBC to the NHS - seemed so careless, so arrogant and so prone to cover-up. We needed to find out what went wrong in the schools of the elite, as much as in Stoke Mandeville Hospital".
I am of a different generation to Renton - I started boarding at the age of 9, in 1983, and remained at the same school until I was 18 - yet so much of what he writes about so passionately and so authoritatively struck a chord with me. I'm not so stupid as to blame all the problems and setbacks of my adult life on my time at boarding school, but it seems to me that it had no small part in laying the foundations for them. How many more generations must be put at risk like this, of a disordered and unhappy adulthood? The conclusion to Renton's book, though unstated, should surely be that one day these institutions will be consigned to the dustbin of history, where they belong.
It was about the time the whole Harry Potter phenomenon was taking off, and the leaflet was clearly aimed at prospective parents:
"Does your child love Harry Potter?" it asked (or words to that effect). "Then they may love boarding school!"
My heart sank to my boots when I read those words, for, years earlier, I had been to boarding school, and had hated the experience.
In his excellent new book, "Stiff Upper Lip", which started life as an article for the Observer magazine a few years ago, journalist and former boarder Alex Renton identifies the popularity of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books as at least partly responsible for arresting what had been a gradual decline in British parents choosing to send their children to board. Boarding's rediscovered popularity (at least for parents) is, as Renton uncovers, a tragedy, because British boarding schools have too often been havens of emotional neglect, moral hypocrisy, and abuse.
Renton was a pupil at Ashdown House school in the late Sixties and early Seventies, and in 2013 a newspaper article about some of its former pupils launching a civil case against two of its former teachers for "horrific attacks" moved him to tears. For he had known those teachers, and had suffered abuse himself at the school.
The book takes in the history of the British public school ("public", confusingly for non-British readers, as Renton explains, actually meaning "private" in this context), and its great flourishing in the Victorian era, when young boys were trained up to run the Empire.
He mentions "Tom Brown's School Days", the first and most famous of all boarding school novels, in which the titular hero suffers privations and hardship but ultimately is shaped for the better by his experiences. It is classic propaganda, of course - and Renton, through years of painstaking - and painful - research, speaking to ex-boarders who have been damaged by the experience, and to the counsellors and therapists who have tried to repair that damage, lays bare the cruelties of the system ("like a surgeon's saw or a dentist's pliers", he says at one point) in sometimes eye-watering detail.
For years, abusers and paedophiles used many of these schools as places to prosecute the most horrendous of crimes, licensed or otherwise - sexual assault, beatings and floggings - safe in the knowledge that they were never likely to be caught or punished, for the system protected its own. If parents complained about a teacher, the worse they could expect was being quietly sacked, only to emerge soon afterwards at another boarding school somewhere else, to continue with their crimes.
This would be awful enough, but though thankfully not all boarders have suffered such horror, what Renton argues I think irrefutably is that the problem with boarding schools - the emotional damage they do, quite apart from anything else - is ultimately systemic. No other country in the world sends so many children away to board, and at such an early age (children can start boarding in the UK at the age of seven): "Nowhere," he writes, "in societies traditional or modern, are the children separated from their blood relatives for eight or more months of the year for ten years, from the age of seven or eight." Nowhere, that is, except Britain. The individual stories he has collected - of heartbreak and homesickness, of the damage wrought by the feeling of abandonment by one's parents, supposedly one's protectors, at the school gates - underscore the work of psychologists and therapists, that "what a growing child needs is a reliable loving figure and a sense of continuity and security... what no school gives is hugs".
Nowadays, psychotherapists have identified "boarding school syndrome", and believe that "the abrupt breaking of attachment that happens at the door of the boarding school [is] unique, and provably damaging". Adult sufferers are often shut down emotionally, unable to express their feelings, and develop a carapace that can cause relationship and work problems, and mental or emotional distress.
Even nowadays, with safeguards supposedly in place, and housemasters and mistresses now referred to as "house parents", there is plenty of evidence for the distress of children who board - eating disorders, self-harming. On returning to Ashdown House, forty years after he left, Renton encounters a "diffident and teary" seven-year-old who he is told is "having trouble settling in".
Renton also has a response for those who shrug their shoulders at the thought of suffering at public school (there is other, and worse, suffering elsewhere in British society after all): "If this was how the ruling class cared for its children, no wonder the public institutions of Britain that they went on to run - from the BBC to the NHS - seemed so careless, so arrogant and so prone to cover-up. We needed to find out what went wrong in the schools of the elite, as much as in Stoke Mandeville Hospital".
I am of a different generation to Renton - I started boarding at the age of 9, in 1983, and remained at the same school until I was 18 - yet so much of what he writes about so passionately and so authoritatively struck a chord with me. I'm not so stupid as to blame all the problems and setbacks of my adult life on my time at boarding school, but it seems to me that it had no small part in laying the foundations for them. How many more generations must be put at risk like this, of a disordered and unhappy adulthood? The conclusion to Renton's book, though unstated, should surely be that one day these institutions will be consigned to the dustbin of history, where they belong.
on-hiatus
August 21, 2020"Sympathy in the wider world was limited. It still is. We were toffs whose parents had paid for the luxury of having their children abused – we were hardly the survivors of the care homes of north Wales or Catholic church vestries. We were not noisy: we kept calm and carried on, as trained. Some of us would later untangle the memories in therapy.
There has clearly been some demand for that. By the 1990s this odd corner of the British ruling class's mechanisms had become a subject of academic study and the grounds of psychiatric careers. Now Boarding School Syndrome has a symptomology, "survivors' groups" and it's a thriving area for counsellors and psychotherapists. Private, of course. Money buys you entry: a friend who works in psychological trauma in the NHS says she's never come across this particular field.
(...)
But modern British culture has swallowed the boarding school story and digested it, caring not very much. It was an anachronism, a hangover of the imperial age, and in the 1990s, it looked as though the boarding schools were dying out. Numbers of boarders were collapsing.
Then new money and changing fashion brought about a curious revival. Another generation of the rich started sending their children away again. Once again, the little ones demanded it, they said, because of the books they had been reading. Only this time, the propaganda wasn't Enid Blyton's Malory Towers or Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings but JK Rowling (who did not go to boarding school and doesn't send her own children to one). Perhaps Harry Potter revived the English boarding school: numbers of boarding children have stayed stable since 2000 and through the recession. There's about 70,000 of them. As far as I can work out, around 4,000 of those are 10 or younger."
Quote from the author's, Alex Renton's article in The Observer in 2014, 3 years before the publication of this book.
Clearly, NO Harry Potter-vibes.
It will not be an easy read.
There has clearly been some demand for that. By the 1990s this odd corner of the British ruling class's mechanisms had become a subject of academic study and the grounds of psychiatric careers. Now Boarding School Syndrome has a symptomology, "survivors' groups" and it's a thriving area for counsellors and psychotherapists. Private, of course. Money buys you entry: a friend who works in psychological trauma in the NHS says she's never come across this particular field.
(...)
But modern British culture has swallowed the boarding school story and digested it, caring not very much. It was an anachronism, a hangover of the imperial age, and in the 1990s, it looked as though the boarding schools were dying out. Numbers of boarders were collapsing.
Then new money and changing fashion brought about a curious revival. Another generation of the rich started sending their children away again. Once again, the little ones demanded it, they said, because of the books they had been reading. Only this time, the propaganda wasn't Enid Blyton's Malory Towers or Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings but JK Rowling (who did not go to boarding school and doesn't send her own children to one). Perhaps Harry Potter revived the English boarding school: numbers of boarding children have stayed stable since 2000 and through the recession. There's about 70,000 of them. As far as I can work out, around 4,000 of those are 10 or younger."
Quote from the author's, Alex Renton's article in The Observer in 2014, 3 years before the publication of this book.
Clearly, NO Harry Potter-vibes.
It will not be an easy read.
September 17, 2020
Brytyjskie szkoły z internatem kojarzą nam się z prestiżem, wysokim poziomem nauki czy uprawianiem elitarnych sportów, a niektórym też z pełnym przygód Hogwartem. Po przeczytaniu reportażu Alexa Rentona, który sam był uczniem takiej szkoły, bardzo szybko zmieni Wam się obraz takiego miejsca.
Chyba tylko w Wielkiej Brytanii wysyłanie nawet 4latków do takich szkół jest czymś normalnym, a nawet pożądanym wśród klasy uprzywilejowanej. Dzieci w ciągu jednego dnia są skazane na długotrwałą rozłankę z rodzicami w imie edukacji. Niestety nie zawsze było to doświadczenie dające dobre wykształcenie, ale bardzo często też pozostawiające traumę na całe życie. I nie tylko przez niejako porzucenie przez rodzica czy brak poczucia bezpieczeństwa, ale również traumę znacznie silniej oddziałowującą spowodowaną znęcaniem się, biciem czy molestowaniem seksualnym.
Tak, elitarne szkoły z internatem przynajmniej do lat 80 były przechowalniami pedofilów, instytucjami, które stosując zmowę milczenia tuszowały przypadki wykorzystywania, odwodziły rodziców od zgłoszeń na policję, a oprawców przenoszono na inne placówki - (uczuli się procederu od Kościoła Katolickiego...?).
Szkoły te były dla dzieci z różnych pokoleń koszmarem. Bicie, wykorzystywanie seksualne przez nauczycieli i innych uczniów, ale też nauka ukrywania emocji i przyjmowania tego co złe z uśmiechem - „zachowaj kamienną twarz”. Dodatkowo brak edukacji seksualnej, wypieranie tematu menstruacji u dziewczynek czy wpajanie chłopcom mizoginii.
Opisane przypadki, najczęściej są relacjami ofiar, ktore mieszkały w internatach do lat 80, nie zmienia to jednak faktu, że sytuacje dziecięcego horroru w takich szkołach nadal się zdarzają i nie odwodzi to rodziców od decyzji posłania swojego 7letniego dziecka do takiego miejsca. Często też ten rodzic, sam doświadczył molestowania, mimo to posyła w to samo miejsce swoje dziecko, które być może będzie przeżywało ten sam koszmar.
Reportaż jest bardzo dobrze napisany, choć momentami chaotyczny, nie zmienia to jednak faktu, że jest bardzo dobry i po prostu ważny. Co istotne autor nie próbuje na siłe wzbudzić sensacji, wszystko jest idealnie wyważone i bez przesadnego szokowania.
Chyba tylko w Wielkiej Brytanii wysyłanie nawet 4latków do takich szkół jest czymś normalnym, a nawet pożądanym wśród klasy uprzywilejowanej. Dzieci w ciągu jednego dnia są skazane na długotrwałą rozłankę z rodzicami w imie edukacji. Niestety nie zawsze było to doświadczenie dające dobre wykształcenie, ale bardzo często też pozostawiające traumę na całe życie. I nie tylko przez niejako porzucenie przez rodzica czy brak poczucia bezpieczeństwa, ale również traumę znacznie silniej oddziałowującą spowodowaną znęcaniem się, biciem czy molestowaniem seksualnym.
Tak, elitarne szkoły z internatem przynajmniej do lat 80 były przechowalniami pedofilów, instytucjami, które stosując zmowę milczenia tuszowały przypadki wykorzystywania, odwodziły rodziców od zgłoszeń na policję, a oprawców przenoszono na inne placówki - (uczuli się procederu od Kościoła Katolickiego...?).
Szkoły te były dla dzieci z różnych pokoleń koszmarem. Bicie, wykorzystywanie seksualne przez nauczycieli i innych uczniów, ale też nauka ukrywania emocji i przyjmowania tego co złe z uśmiechem - „zachowaj kamienną twarz”. Dodatkowo brak edukacji seksualnej, wypieranie tematu menstruacji u dziewczynek czy wpajanie chłopcom mizoginii.
Opisane przypadki, najczęściej są relacjami ofiar, ktore mieszkały w internatach do lat 80, nie zmienia to jednak faktu, że sytuacje dziecięcego horroru w takich szkołach nadal się zdarzają i nie odwodzi to rodziców od decyzji posłania swojego 7letniego dziecka do takiego miejsca. Często też ten rodzic, sam doświadczył molestowania, mimo to posyła w to samo miejsce swoje dziecko, które być może będzie przeżywało ten sam koszmar.
Reportaż jest bardzo dobrze napisany, choć momentami chaotyczny, nie zmienia to jednak faktu, że jest bardzo dobry i po prostu ważny. Co istotne autor nie próbuje na siłe wzbudzić sensacji, wszystko jest idealnie wyważone i bez przesadnego szokowania.
September 30, 2017
This is not an easy book to read — the sheer breadth of the experiences described here to explain the boarding and public schools systems in the UK painfully illustrates how utterly awful and criminal these systems are and their impact on generations of children. The book explains how these systems shaped the social, emotional and political character of society, and thus serves as an insight into why societies consider this kind of education to [falsely] be superior.
January 24, 2021
Ocena: 2,5 zaokrąglone w górę.
Wrażenia: Nie wiem czego się po tej książce spodziewałam, ale na pewno nie tego. Tytuł + okładka sugerują coś raczej lżejszego, a nie okropny reportaż o bogatych, opuszczonych przez rodzinę dzieciach i ich pedofilskich nauczycielach. Książka ważna i potrzebna, nie czuję żebym zmarnowała przy niej czas, ale jest to lektura ciężka i męcząca.
Dla kogo: Na pewno nie dla kogoś, kogo triggeruje przemoc seksualna i wykorzystywanie młodszych.
Wrażenia: Nie wiem czego się po tej książce spodziewałam, ale na pewno nie tego. Tytuł + okładka sugerują coś raczej lżejszego, a nie okropny reportaż o bogatych, opuszczonych przez rodzinę dzieciach i ich pedofilskich nauczycielach. Książka ważna i potrzebna, nie czuję żebym zmarnowała przy niej czas, ale jest to lektura ciężka i męcząca.
Dla kogo: Na pewno nie dla kogoś, kogo triggeruje przemoc seksualna i wykorzystywanie młodszych.
November 11, 2019
This is a surprisingly calm, intelligently written book about an experience which is horrible, bizarre and commonplace, written by someone who survived it.
It is obvious that having been to Public School is a great advantage in British public life, particularly if the school was Eton. However, having been to Eton, and having boarded at prep school from the age of 8, Alex Renton is in a great position to reveal what an awful, unnatural childhood such an upbringing provides. In fact, though the link is not made in the book, I found a lot of insight here into the amorality, competitiveness, bullying, lack of empathy and arrogance of the current Prime Minister and his cronies.
Renton gives a history of British boarding schools, and goes on to detail the cruelties of them and the lasting psychological damage done by them. He builds up to a chilling penultimate chapter in which he interviews a convicted paedophile former schoolmaster who had been sexually abused when he was a prep school pupil.
The experience of boarding is described as inhuman in many other aspects apart from the molestation. The book opens up huge questions about the effects on Britain of being run by people thus damaged in childhood, and huge questions about why parents who have themselves suffered this system, go on to send their own children away to boarding school. Alex Renton has kept his own children at home.
It is obvious that having been to Public School is a great advantage in British public life, particularly if the school was Eton. However, having been to Eton, and having boarded at prep school from the age of 8, Alex Renton is in a great position to reveal what an awful, unnatural childhood such an upbringing provides. In fact, though the link is not made in the book, I found a lot of insight here into the amorality, competitiveness, bullying, lack of empathy and arrogance of the current Prime Minister and his cronies.
Renton gives a history of British boarding schools, and goes on to detail the cruelties of them and the lasting psychological damage done by them. He builds up to a chilling penultimate chapter in which he interviews a convicted paedophile former schoolmaster who had been sexually abused when he was a prep school pupil.
The experience of boarding is described as inhuman in many other aspects apart from the molestation. The book opens up huge questions about the effects on Britain of being run by people thus damaged in childhood, and huge questions about why parents who have themselves suffered this system, go on to send their own children away to boarding school. Alex Renton has kept his own children at home.
May 27, 2017
An illuminating and disturbing book about the effects of boarding school life on generations of children and adults. Renton draws on his own experience and a wealth of research, and asks the questions all of us ask who didn't share that experience - how was it allowed, and is still allowed, to continue. It makes us look at our wealthy rulers in a different way.
October 7, 2019
I thought this was a well written book, thoughtful, and interesting. The writing style made it very easy to read, although the subject matter - sexual and other abuse - might be difficult for some people to read.
However, I have some observations, which are not specifically a criticism of the writer, who had a specific scope, and he stuck to it, and to a large extent, my observations lie outside the scope.
It's also worth pointing out that my observations veer into the territory of sweeping generalisations, which is unfair to certain individuals, but nevertheless, I believe are valid in general.
He is looking specifically at abuse in boarding schools, mainly sexual abuse, although this can't be separated from other physical and emotional abuse, bullying and beating. He expresses some surprise of the absence of sexual abuse in girls' boarding schools - although he does mention other forms of cruelty. The simple fact is that women don't commit sexual abuse. Over 90% of sexual abuse is committed by men, and almost all women implicated in sexual abuse are acting as an accomplice.
I don't know if girls' boarding schools have male teachers. I attended an all-girls state grammar schools in the 80s and we had some male teachers, no more than 1 in 10. There was never any suggestion that any of them were in the slightest bit sexually abusive; to be honest, some of them were more prey than ever predator. All decent men, they would have known that they would be watched like a hawk for any improper behaviour, and, furthermore, a significant number of the women teachers would have finely honed instinct for any sort of dodgy behaviour.
Secondly, he realises towards the end of the book that most sexual abuse takes place within a family setting. He doesn't make the leap that this is mainly girls, nor does he ponder why there appears to be greater success in prosecuting public school teachers than there is in prosecuting the abusers of girls, whether it's family members/friends, or grooming gangs, or 'peer on peer' abuse. It's because posh ex-public schoolboys are given the courtesy of being believed, whereas girls and women often aren't.
Mind you, they weren't believed by their families. This was because their parents were so desperate for them to be in Prep schools, to get into public schools. Why? Because they wanted to buy privilege. They thought they were better than us, the 93% of the population who go to normal schools. We weren't good enough to mix with their precious offspring.
And the result of that - they get an easy passage into Oxbridge, displacing people like me. Who knows, I probably wasn't bright/academic/intellectual enough, but when you see the intellectually incurious/lightweight David Cameron being offered a place for the same course at the same University at the same time as I was rejected - not least because he did a seventh term Sixth Form and I was in my fourth term. And the Oxbridge rejects from public school turn up at Oxbridge Reject universities such as Nottingham - or East Midlands Finishing School as my sister-in-law memorably called it - with an attitude of arrogance, superiority and pure snobbishness.
This carries on through life. I mentioned Cameron above; add to that Johnson, but also all the damaged, inhuman public school people who don't become Prime Minister but effortlessly achieve positions of influence within politics, media, business, and so on, The sort who think they and their class are better parents than the lower middle and working classes, the sort that condemn single mothers, the sort that destroy people's lives with their austerity politics and their not believing women complainants about sexual harassment.
So, no, I don't feel awfully sorry for these victims. Granted, I don't know the long lasting toll of sexual abuse, except by observation and reading. But there are other awful long-lasting effects of childhood trauma. None of them lived in insecure or substandard housing, none of them went hungry through necessity. And none of them grew up in an environment of urban decay, gang violence or war.
Yet, despite their expensive, supposedly superior education, the majority of them don't seem able to amass experience, learn about other people's lives, and are incapable of empathy. I absolve the writer from this; by writing the book (And doing the journalism) he needs to have some of those qualities, and, anyway, he rejected the system before he was an adult, and doesn't send his own kids away to board.
But we all enter adulthood lacking in life experience, living in our bubble (which we haven't chosen), naive and not even with a fully mature brain, but we enrich ourselves by reading, in our workplace and/or University, by listening to other people, by mixing with people from varied backgrounds. Not this lot, though. They're still completely hung up on what public school they went to, or what college within a University, while normal people are moving on and making their own lives, defining themselves by their occupation, their nuclear family or their hobbies and interests.
Sure,there was the sad story of the sexually abused ex-public schoolboy who became an alcoholic and begs in the town centre, but, unfortunately, this cuts across society, and is an argument for better mental health provision. It's an argument for better Safeguarding, which the author makes, however indirectly, so, as I say it's a very good and interesting book.
However, I have some observations, which are not specifically a criticism of the writer, who had a specific scope, and he stuck to it, and to a large extent, my observations lie outside the scope.
It's also worth pointing out that my observations veer into the territory of sweeping generalisations, which is unfair to certain individuals, but nevertheless, I believe are valid in general.
He is looking specifically at abuse in boarding schools, mainly sexual abuse, although this can't be separated from other physical and emotional abuse, bullying and beating. He expresses some surprise of the absence of sexual abuse in girls' boarding schools - although he does mention other forms of cruelty. The simple fact is that women don't commit sexual abuse. Over 90% of sexual abuse is committed by men, and almost all women implicated in sexual abuse are acting as an accomplice.
I don't know if girls' boarding schools have male teachers. I attended an all-girls state grammar schools in the 80s and we had some male teachers, no more than 1 in 10. There was never any suggestion that any of them were in the slightest bit sexually abusive; to be honest, some of them were more prey than ever predator. All decent men, they would have known that they would be watched like a hawk for any improper behaviour, and, furthermore, a significant number of the women teachers would have finely honed instinct for any sort of dodgy behaviour.
Secondly, he realises towards the end of the book that most sexual abuse takes place within a family setting. He doesn't make the leap that this is mainly girls, nor does he ponder why there appears to be greater success in prosecuting public school teachers than there is in prosecuting the abusers of girls, whether it's family members/friends, or grooming gangs, or 'peer on peer' abuse. It's because posh ex-public schoolboys are given the courtesy of being believed, whereas girls and women often aren't.
Mind you, they weren't believed by their families. This was because their parents were so desperate for them to be in Prep schools, to get into public schools. Why? Because they wanted to buy privilege. They thought they were better than us, the 93% of the population who go to normal schools. We weren't good enough to mix with their precious offspring.
And the result of that - they get an easy passage into Oxbridge, displacing people like me. Who knows, I probably wasn't bright/academic/intellectual enough, but when you see the intellectually incurious/lightweight David Cameron being offered a place for the same course at the same University at the same time as I was rejected - not least because he did a seventh term Sixth Form and I was in my fourth term. And the Oxbridge rejects from public school turn up at Oxbridge Reject universities such as Nottingham - or East Midlands Finishing School as my sister-in-law memorably called it - with an attitude of arrogance, superiority and pure snobbishness.
This carries on through life. I mentioned Cameron above; add to that Johnson, but also all the damaged, inhuman public school people who don't become Prime Minister but effortlessly achieve positions of influence within politics, media, business, and so on, The sort who think they and their class are better parents than the lower middle and working classes, the sort that condemn single mothers, the sort that destroy people's lives with their austerity politics and their not believing women complainants about sexual harassment.
So, no, I don't feel awfully sorry for these victims. Granted, I don't know the long lasting toll of sexual abuse, except by observation and reading. But there are other awful long-lasting effects of childhood trauma. None of them lived in insecure or substandard housing, none of them went hungry through necessity. And none of them grew up in an environment of urban decay, gang violence or war.
Yet, despite their expensive, supposedly superior education, the majority of them don't seem able to amass experience, learn about other people's lives, and are incapable of empathy. I absolve the writer from this; by writing the book (And doing the journalism) he needs to have some of those qualities, and, anyway, he rejected the system before he was an adult, and doesn't send his own kids away to board.
But we all enter adulthood lacking in life experience, living in our bubble (which we haven't chosen), naive and not even with a fully mature brain, but we enrich ourselves by reading, in our workplace and/or University, by listening to other people, by mixing with people from varied backgrounds. Not this lot, though. They're still completely hung up on what public school they went to, or what college within a University, while normal people are moving on and making their own lives, defining themselves by their occupation, their nuclear family or their hobbies and interests.
Sure,there was the sad story of the sexually abused ex-public schoolboy who became an alcoholic and begs in the town centre, but, unfortunately, this cuts across society, and is an argument for better mental health provision. It's an argument for better Safeguarding, which the author makes, however indirectly, so, as I say it's a very good and interesting book.
May 10, 2018
This was a very painful book to read
Author Alex Renton claims to be a fifteenth-generation public school student on his mother’s side (and only a third-generation public school student on his father’s) which means his ancestors have been getting sent off to boarding school since the fifteen hundreds, give or take…
He’s broken that chain with his children and a hundred pages into the book you can see why.
The problem is the book goes on to four hundred pages, and they make for some impossibly painful reading.
So if you want to read about what it’s like to be dropped off at school at age six, what it’s like to tell your parents about the abuse you’ve been getting only for them to tell you it’s good for you, what the precise caning rituals are at Eton (the author speaks from first-hand experience), what the modus operandi of paedophiles is and how they justify their actions to themselves, if you want to gain an insight into the omerta that is to be observed, the price for breaching it or the worst possible offence a public school boy can possibly commit (lying) then you’ve come to the right place.
On the other hand, if you’ve already made up your mind that you’re not sending your kids to boarding school, avoid. The price you pay to satisfy your curiosity regarding public school is far too high.
I can see why the author wrote it: he clearly suffered enormously at Ashdown Park and Eton; sharing his experiences (supplemented with very extensive research) with the roughly one million of his peers who went through this ordeal must serve as some sort of catharsis. As a member of the general public, on the other hand, you need to be some sort of sadist to enjoy reading this.
I’ve always admired the upper class in this country (and the US, for that matter) for not spoiling its offspring. I now realize that that’s only one side of the coin.
Author Alex Renton claims to be a fifteenth-generation public school student on his mother’s side (and only a third-generation public school student on his father’s) which means his ancestors have been getting sent off to boarding school since the fifteen hundreds, give or take…
He’s broken that chain with his children and a hundred pages into the book you can see why.
The problem is the book goes on to four hundred pages, and they make for some impossibly painful reading.
So if you want to read about what it’s like to be dropped off at school at age six, what it’s like to tell your parents about the abuse you’ve been getting only for them to tell you it’s good for you, what the precise caning rituals are at Eton (the author speaks from first-hand experience), what the modus operandi of paedophiles is and how they justify their actions to themselves, if you want to gain an insight into the omerta that is to be observed, the price for breaching it or the worst possible offence a public school boy can possibly commit (lying) then you’ve come to the right place.
On the other hand, if you’ve already made up your mind that you’re not sending your kids to boarding school, avoid. The price you pay to satisfy your curiosity regarding public school is far too high.
I can see why the author wrote it: he clearly suffered enormously at Ashdown Park and Eton; sharing his experiences (supplemented with very extensive research) with the roughly one million of his peers who went through this ordeal must serve as some sort of catharsis. As a member of the general public, on the other hand, you need to be some sort of sadist to enjoy reading this.
I’ve always admired the upper class in this country (and the US, for that matter) for not spoiling its offspring. I now realize that that’s only one side of the coin.
December 21, 2020
Gdyby pokusić się o dosłowne tłumaczenie orginalnego tytułu książki Alexa Rentona, zamiast lekkiego i zabawnego "Jak wytresować lorda. O elitarnych szkołach z internatem" otrzymalibyśmy "Zachowaj kamienną twarz. Sekrety, zbrodnie i edukacja klasy rządzącej.", który to tytuł znacznie lepiej oddawałby zawartość tej książki. (Stiff Upper Lip można by też przetłumaczyć bardziej opisowo jako Zaciśnij zęby i wytyrzymaj, nie daj nic po sobie poznać.)
Nie rozumiem tej zabawnej okładki polskiego wydania z żartującymi wioślarzami z Eton. To nie jest zabawna książka, to nie jest książka lekka, to nie zbiór anegdot o bogatych i znanych, nie jest jest też książka o pełnym przyjaciół i przygód internacie Hogwartu.
To książka o instytucjonalnej przemocy, o problemie klasowości, o problemie powściągliwości i problemie z seksualnością. Przede wszystkim o przemocy przekazywanej z pokolenia na pokolenie i o przyzwoleniu na przemoc, przyzwoleniu które niszczy ludzi i rodziny. Straszne to i smutne, zwłaszcza, że ofiarami są, podobnie jak w sierocińcach w Kanadzie, oderwane od rodziców dzieci. Owszem, tu bogate, ale nadal samotne i przerażone dzieci, które, w wielu przypadkach zostały wysłane do internatu przez świadomych zagrożenia rodziców, którzy sami kiedyś przeszli przez to samo.
Nie rozumiem tej zabawnej okładki polskiego wydania z żartującymi wioślarzami z Eton. To nie jest zabawna książka, to nie jest książka lekka, to nie zbiór anegdot o bogatych i znanych, nie jest jest też książka o pełnym przyjaciół i przygód internacie Hogwartu.
To książka o instytucjonalnej przemocy, o problemie klasowości, o problemie powściągliwości i problemie z seksualnością. Przede wszystkim o przemocy przekazywanej z pokolenia na pokolenie i o przyzwoleniu na przemoc, przyzwoleniu które niszczy ludzi i rodziny. Straszne to i smutne, zwłaszcza, że ofiarami są, podobnie jak w sierocińcach w Kanadzie, oderwane od rodziców dzieci. Owszem, tu bogate, ale nadal samotne i przerażone dzieci, które, w wielu przypadkach zostały wysłane do internatu przez świadomych zagrożenia rodziców, którzy sami kiedyś przeszli przez to samo.
September 4, 2017
Renton mixes memoir and anecdote with deeply researched history… this is a brave and necessary book – Sam Leith The Guardian
A thoughtful and sensitive indictment of one of the cornerstones of the British establishment – Andrew Anthony The Observer
Gruelling and gripping – William Moore Evening Standard
[It] kept me absolutely enthralled… Even if you never went near a public school, the book is a phenomenal read: it kept me up all night – George Hook Newstalk Ireland
Renton has the thirst for truth, and for exposing depravity, of a Gitta Sereny – Ysenda Maxtone Graham The Times
At last, a scrupulously honest insight into private boarding education in Britain – ranging from the abuse to which it subjects the child, and the family, to the abuse of Britain’s social order in laying the foundation to buying your child’s way to the top – Jon Snow of Channel 4 News
[A] masterful expose of private school perversion – Sam Kiley Sky News
A thoughtful and sensitive indictment of one of the cornerstones of the British establishment – Andrew Anthony The Observer
Gruelling and gripping – William Moore Evening Standard
[It] kept me absolutely enthralled… Even if you never went near a public school, the book is a phenomenal read: it kept me up all night – George Hook Newstalk Ireland
Renton has the thirst for truth, and for exposing depravity, of a Gitta Sereny – Ysenda Maxtone Graham The Times
At last, a scrupulously honest insight into private boarding education in Britain – ranging from the abuse to which it subjects the child, and the family, to the abuse of Britain’s social order in laying the foundation to buying your child’s way to the top – Jon Snow of Channel 4 News
[A] masterful expose of private school perversion – Sam Kiley Sky News
September 25, 2022
I have never attended Renton's prep school in Sussex . Friends have told me that in 1990s that it was " quite nice " .
I have heard that prep-schools , known at Eton & Harrow as "privates " f " private schools ",
& at Winchester as " t'others " f " the other school " , were barbaric bastions of bullying & over-stewed canned food .
They were far removed from glamorous images perceived by those who never went there but thought that these alumni were privileged to go there .
Most of the working classes thought so , while continuing to think very outdatedly that the atmosphere portrayed outdatedly by " Tom Brown's Schooldays " tv serials still lingered .
October 24, 2018
Definitive
A brilliant comprehensive study of the British boarding school system which provides vital incisive informed commentary on a perverse outmoded divisive system of education. I was gripped throughout.
A brilliant comprehensive study of the British boarding school system which provides vital incisive informed commentary on a perverse outmoded divisive system of education. I was gripped throughout.
January 28, 2023
Another book to read if you are looking to explain the British ruling classes. This is a shocking look at abuse, emotional, physical, and sexual, that appears to be endemic in the boarding school system to varying degrees. As well as examining the cultural impact on this system of schooling over the last 500 years. Very interesting, upsetting, and brutal at times.
May 8, 2024
3,75
niby się szybko czyta, ale jakiś taki zastój mnie wziął przez te ciażką tematykę, od połowy mam wrażenie, że autor traktuje o tym samym przywołując jakieś opisy z innych dzieł nie do końca związane z głównym tematem
niby się szybko czyta, ale jakiś taki zastój mnie wziął przez te ciażką tematykę, od połowy mam wrażenie, że autor traktuje o tym samym przywołując jakieś opisy z innych dzieł nie do końca związane z głównym tematem
September 27, 2020
3.5, warto szczegolnie jak ktos aspiruje, jesli nie do eton, to do dowolnej brytyjskiej szkoly z internatem, bo jest, hmm, brytyjska szkola z internatem
April 21, 2023
Nie oceniam historii przedstawionych. Oceniam sposób napisania reportażu, który nie za bardzo mi się podobał
December 21, 2025
3,5!!!
Czuję że osobiste doświadczenia autora psują tą książkę, niestety.
Czuję że osobiste doświadczenia autora psują tą książkę, niestety.
June 6, 2021
give it up for dzień dobry tvn for recommending this to me
June 16, 2018
This book provided me a thought provoking insight into what I had previously believed to be the superior school system this world has to offer. Reason for leaving the review at three/five is that I find it very much to be covering the side of the abused and question myself, if the book truly paints a complete picture of the situation. However, I now feel inspired to seek more insight on the topic.
March 19, 2019
Interesting
Some bits more interesting than others but overall worth a read for the discounted price. For those who went to boarding school it will make you think about your memories.
Some bits more interesting than others but overall worth a read for the discounted price. For those who went to boarding school it will make you think about your memories.
February 18, 2018
Well, this is powerful stuff - personal and painful. I was actually at school with the author, who did indeed have a hard time of it (though not at our school). Not an easy read by any means.
January 16, 2021
A huge part of the book is basically about paedophilia. I'm not saying this isn't an important issue, especially in the context of public boarding schools, but it's just not quite what I expected.
September 28, 2021
Interesting but I thought the book was badly planned. Often repetitive and it wasn’t clear what the author wanted to say.
June 10, 2025
I read this book with great enjoyment and learnt many things, who would have thought that JK Rowling's Harry Potter books would revive not simply books about boarding schools for children but be, apparently, responsible for arresting the decline in British parents choosing to send their children to boarding school? Personally I find that assertion rather dubious. I have no doubt the Harry Potter books have led children to me amenable to the ide of being sent to school but I think the roots of the revival have more basic economic reasons, the seismic shift back towards thee acceptance of gross inequality in income and opportunity beginning with Margaret Thatcher's 'reforms'. In addition the traditional 'public' (which in the UK means private) schools have been no slouches at promoting themselves, a process which began when Radley School allowed the BBC to make a fly on the wall documentary in 1079 (see an excellent article on some of the boys featured at: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-ra...).
I also discovered, or Renton did, that British boarding schools have too often been havens of emotional neglect, moral hypocrisy, and abuse. Who would have thought it? Does no one read 'Decline and Fall'? Even at their supposed height there was no shortage of tales about the crippling effects of a public school education? In my distant 1970s youth a pro-boarding school novel was almost unheard of and the nail in the coffin was provided by the 1977 'The Old School Tie: The Phenomenon of the English Public School' by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy.
The problem with Renton's book is that it is more recapitulation of the 'old' horrors as he experienced them in the 1960s and 70s. What doesn't really get to grips with the way these schools have changed in line with the way the UK and international elites have changed. The UK public schools have changed, they are more like Le Rosey and other Swiss schools as the holding pens/dumping grounds of the children of the international kleptocrats who run so many of the countries who hire the likes of ex PM Tony Blair to burnish their image.
Perfectly good, but far from a great book, there is a story to be told about these privileged institutions in the 21st century but this it isn't in this book.
I also discovered, or Renton did, that British boarding schools have too often been havens of emotional neglect, moral hypocrisy, and abuse. Who would have thought it? Does no one read 'Decline and Fall'? Even at their supposed height there was no shortage of tales about the crippling effects of a public school education? In my distant 1970s youth a pro-boarding school novel was almost unheard of and the nail in the coffin was provided by the 1977 'The Old School Tie: The Phenomenon of the English Public School' by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy.
The problem with Renton's book is that it is more recapitulation of the 'old' horrors as he experienced them in the 1960s and 70s. What doesn't really get to grips with the way these schools have changed in line with the way the UK and international elites have changed. The UK public schools have changed, they are more like Le Rosey and other Swiss schools as the holding pens/dumping grounds of the children of the international kleptocrats who run so many of the countries who hire the likes of ex PM Tony Blair to burnish their image.
Perfectly good, but far from a great book, there is a story to be told about these privileged institutions in the 21st century but this it isn't in this book.
June 19, 2024
Rounding up from 3.5 to 4 stars, because this is an earnestly felt and in many ways important book, even if its execution is somewhat workmanlike. But I admired Renton's candour and his mission to expose these institutions.
I was, however, frustrated and irritated by Renton's decision to specify that the Rotherham abusers were 'Asian men.' Given the way that this particular (and abhorrent) string of crimes have been weaponised by the right-wing in their racist agitating against immigration in the UK, it seems naive at worst, and racist at best, to have specified the race of these abusers - and absurdly so, given that the race of the innumerable public-school abusers (who make up the actual subject of this book) isn't specified. (There is a chapter ostensibly on 'Class, race and fitting in,' which attempts to address the role of racism in these schools crimes, but it is very brief, cursory at best, and focuses far more on class and dialect than on race.) As Renton is himself white, and his own experience is what has driven him to write this book, this isn't surprising - but it is a disappointing blind spot in the book.
I was, however, frustrated and irritated by Renton's decision to specify that the Rotherham abusers were 'Asian men.' Given the way that this particular (and abhorrent) string of crimes have been weaponised by the right-wing in their racist agitating against immigration in the UK, it seems naive at worst, and racist at best, to have specified the race of these abusers - and absurdly so, given that the race of the innumerable public-school abusers (who make up the actual subject of this book) isn't specified. (There is a chapter ostensibly on 'Class, race and fitting in,' which attempts to address the role of racism in these schools crimes, but it is very brief, cursory at best, and focuses far more on class and dialect than on race.) As Renton is himself white, and his own experience is what has driven him to write this book, this isn't surprising - but it is a disappointing blind spot in the book.
November 12, 2021
Wstrząsająca (choć przegadana) lektura.
Bo elitarne brytyjskie szkoły mogły mi się kojarzyć z uprzedzeniami klasowymi, może ze stresem dzieci odrywanych od rodzin, ale żeby z pedofilią i molestowaniem seksualnym? I to na dużą skalę?
Może to najbardziej szokuje -- że jeszcze kilkadziesiąt lat temu, szkoła mogła sprzedawać gościom zdjęcia nagich nastoletnich uczennic*. Jawnie. Bez ich zgody. [ironia] W końcu to fajna promocja, nieprawdaż?[/ironia]
*) Choć głównie jest o uczniach, to właśnie uczennice mnie ruszyły. Bo nawet gdyby męska nagość gdzieś się wymknęła? Cóż, chodziłem po Tatrach i widziałem chłopaków rozbierających się do naga by popływać w tatrzańskich stawach. Ich towarzyszki, jeśli grupa była koeducykacyjna, szukały i przebierały się skrycie w kostiumy kąpielowe. To, jakby ktoś jeszcze wątpił, że męska i kobieca nagość mają różną formę akceptacji.
Bo elitarne brytyjskie szkoły mogły mi się kojarzyć z uprzedzeniami klasowymi, może ze stresem dzieci odrywanych od rodzin, ale żeby z pedofilią i molestowaniem seksualnym? I to na dużą skalę?
Może to najbardziej szokuje -- że jeszcze kilkadziesiąt lat temu, szkoła mogła sprzedawać gościom zdjęcia nagich nastoletnich uczennic*. Jawnie. Bez ich zgody. [ironia] W końcu to fajna promocja, nieprawdaż?[/ironia]
*) Choć głównie jest o uczniach, to właśnie uczennice mnie ruszyły. Bo nawet gdyby męska nagość gdzieś się wymknęła? Cóż, chodziłem po Tatrach i widziałem chłopaków rozbierających się do naga by popływać w tatrzańskich stawach. Ich towarzyszki, jeśli grupa była koeducykacyjna, szukały i przebierały się skrycie w kostiumy kąpielowe. To, jakby ktoś jeszcze wątpił, że męska i kobieca nagość mają różną formę akceptacji.
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October 31, 2021Drawn form his own experience and those of many ordinary and well-known people the author (Alex Renton) describes, and quotes from letters and memories. Stiff Upper lip is an eye opener relating to British Boarding schools. He covers their abuse, poor food, lack of empathy and blatant unkindness shown to the boys and girls, by teachers and Head Masters at some of the most prestigious and well known School. The author mentions, names of schools and teachers. He also covers the abuse by older pupils on the younger children, some as young as four years old.
Parents, who themselves were at boarding school, and were aware of the fate that awaited children, none the less still felt it was the thing to do.
Not a happy read, you are left feeling disgusted, sad, and angry.
Parents, who themselves were at boarding school, and were aware of the fate that awaited children, none the less still felt it was the thing to do.
Not a happy read, you are left feeling disgusted, sad, and angry.
July 29, 2023
Every parent thinking of sending their child to a boarding school should read this book before doing so. No doubt there are some good boarding schools around but even so sending your child away at an early age can have an enormous impact on them. Apart from the child protection issues there are also risks to child development (eg attachment issues) that can have profound and even lifelong impact. The book is written by a ‘Boarding School Survivor’ and is quite an eye-opener. In some families it is ‘traditional’ to send children away. Alex Renton broke the long-standing tradition in his family by NOT sending his children away to boarding school. I can only hope that more parents follow his example.
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