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Sad Little Men: Private Schools and the Ruin of England
In 1975, as a child, Richard Beard was sent away from his home to sleep in a dormitory. So were David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
In those days a private boys' boarding school education was largely the same experience as it had been for generations: a training for the challenges of Empire. He didn't enjoy it. But the first and most important lesson was to not let that show.
Being separated from the people who love you is traumatic. How did that feel at the time, and what sort of adult does it mould?
This is a story about England, and a portrait of a type of boy, trained to lead, who becomes a certain type of man. As clearly as an X-ray, it reveals the make-up of those who seek power - what makes them tick, and why.
Sad Little Men addresses debates about privilege head-on; clearly and unforgettably, it shows the problem with putting a succession of men from boarding schools into positions of influence, including 10 Downing Street. Is this who we want in charge, especially at a time of crisis?
It is a passionate, tender reckoning—with one individual's past, but also with a national bad habit.
In those days a private boys' boarding school education was largely the same experience as it had been for generations: a training for the challenges of Empire. He didn't enjoy it. But the first and most important lesson was to not let that show.
Being separated from the people who love you is traumatic. How did that feel at the time, and what sort of adult does it mould?
This is a story about England, and a portrait of a type of boy, trained to lead, who becomes a certain type of man. As clearly as an X-ray, it reveals the make-up of those who seek power - what makes them tick, and why.
Sad Little Men addresses debates about privilege head-on; clearly and unforgettably, it shows the problem with putting a succession of men from boarding schools into positions of influence, including 10 Downing Street. Is this who we want in charge, especially at a time of crisis?
It is a passionate, tender reckoning—with one individual's past, but also with a national bad habit.
278 pages, Hardcover
First published August 26, 2021
130 people are currently reading
1575 people want to read
About the author
Richard Beard
47 books54 followersRichard Beard’s six novels include Lazarus is Dead, Dry Bones and Damascus, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In the UK he has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award and longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. His latest novel Acts of the Assassins was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2015. He is also the author of four books of narrative non-fiction, including his 2017 memoir The Day That Went Missing. Formerly Director of The National Academy of Writing in London, he is a Visiting Professor (2016/17) at the University of Tokyo, and has a Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. In 2017 he is a juror for Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize. Beard is also an occasional contributor to the Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Financial Times, Prospect and The Nightwatchman.
He studied at Cambridge, at the Open University, and with Malcolm Bradbury on the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. He has worked as a P.E. teacher, as Secretary to Mathilda, Duchess of Argyll, and as an employee of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In the Mendip Hills Richard Beard looked after Brookleaze, a house owned by the Royal Society of Literature, and lived for three years in Japan as Professor of British Studies at the University of Tokyo.
He is one of several opening batsmen for the Authors XI Cricket Club.
He studied at Cambridge, at the Open University, and with Malcolm Bradbury on the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. He has worked as a P.E. teacher, as Secretary to Mathilda, Duchess of Argyll, and as an employee of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In the Mendip Hills Richard Beard looked after Brookleaze, a house owned by the Royal Society of Literature, and lived for three years in Japan as Professor of British Studies at the University of Tokyo.
He is one of several opening batsmen for the Authors XI Cricket Club.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
September 10, 2021
"If in hindsight our education seems unbelievable, the consequences are increasingly apparent. Fragile, entitled, in good times and bad we revert to what we learned as boys. But what was that, exactly?"
Author, Richard Beard, takes you on a trip down memory lane to find out. He shared the same boarding school education as twenty-eight of the last thirty-two UK Prime Ministers and uses these shared experiences to allow the reader a better understanding for how the men they became were shaped from the boys they once were.
Beard was shipped to boarding school at the tender age of eight. Many years later, and in the midst of a pandemic, he returned, both in person and in memory. Some fond memories of his time at school remains, and admits that he "was good at the stuff that mattered - at lessons, emotional repression, and rugby." However, he remembers most of his time at school with disbelief and horror.
Despite not entering the school until the 1970s, little had altered since pre-WWII. A gung-ho attitude, an unshakable belief in the importance of the self, and a love for the Britannia that ruled the waves remained. Physical activities and their study also focused upon the war and the boys remained almost entirely unaware of current events or the contemporary world around them.
Upon entry, the boys lost their names, which were replaced by nicknames, and they lost their families, which were replaced by adults who didn't love them. They were raised by their peers, their tutors, and what "institutional psychiatrists sometimes call the 'brick mother'."
So why was this harsh upbringing so revered? Beard explains that the "most convincing reason to go to a private school remains to have gone to a private school, with the prizes that are statistically likely to follow. Want to be a senior judge? Sixty-five per cent of them had the same education that helped form almost half the country's newspaper columnists and two out of the last three prime ministers."
What does this mean for the country then? Unfortunately, it means that those with the authority to change it are those who have benefitted from it not changing. They have been taught not to rock the boat and to maintain the old boy's club that gave them their positions. They grew up in an isolated community of others just like them and so have little understanding for the experiences of others. They were drilled in emotional repression and so they do not contain the ability to walk in another's shoes or to understand another perspective. Their lives have been cushioned and to soldier on, never apologise, and not consider the alternative is all they have ever known.
Throughout, Beard appears unapologetically angry at this elite world, whilst also acknowledging that he too benefitted from it. He passes this anger onto the reader through his personal experiences and through the information of the disgusting privilege many receive.
Want to know why Boris Johnson or David Cameron, and so many others, remain so out of touch with the majority of British citizens? This book will tell you why.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, Richard Beard, and the publisher, Vintage, for this opportunity.
Author, Richard Beard, takes you on a trip down memory lane to find out. He shared the same boarding school education as twenty-eight of the last thirty-two UK Prime Ministers and uses these shared experiences to allow the reader a better understanding for how the men they became were shaped from the boys they once were.
Beard was shipped to boarding school at the tender age of eight. Many years later, and in the midst of a pandemic, he returned, both in person and in memory. Some fond memories of his time at school remains, and admits that he "was good at the stuff that mattered - at lessons, emotional repression, and rugby." However, he remembers most of his time at school with disbelief and horror.
Despite not entering the school until the 1970s, little had altered since pre-WWII. A gung-ho attitude, an unshakable belief in the importance of the self, and a love for the Britannia that ruled the waves remained. Physical activities and their study also focused upon the war and the boys remained almost entirely unaware of current events or the contemporary world around them.
Upon entry, the boys lost their names, which were replaced by nicknames, and they lost their families, which were replaced by adults who didn't love them. They were raised by their peers, their tutors, and what "institutional psychiatrists sometimes call the 'brick mother'."
So why was this harsh upbringing so revered? Beard explains that the "most convincing reason to go to a private school remains to have gone to a private school, with the prizes that are statistically likely to follow. Want to be a senior judge? Sixty-five per cent of them had the same education that helped form almost half the country's newspaper columnists and two out of the last three prime ministers."
What does this mean for the country then? Unfortunately, it means that those with the authority to change it are those who have benefitted from it not changing. They have been taught not to rock the boat and to maintain the old boy's club that gave them their positions. They grew up in an isolated community of others just like them and so have little understanding for the experiences of others. They were drilled in emotional repression and so they do not contain the ability to walk in another's shoes or to understand another perspective. Their lives have been cushioned and to soldier on, never apologise, and not consider the alternative is all they have ever known.
Throughout, Beard appears unapologetically angry at this elite world, whilst also acknowledging that he too benefitted from it. He passes this anger onto the reader through his personal experiences and through the information of the disgusting privilege many receive.
Want to know why Boris Johnson or David Cameron, and so many others, remain so out of touch with the majority of British citizens? This book will tell you why.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, Richard Beard, and the publisher, Vintage, for this opportunity.
January 3, 2022
This book is an attack, launched on several fronts, upon the institution that is the English public (private) boarding school. Beard draws from personal experience in two of these hallowed institutions, and weaves together a picture of the trauma they inflict on their inmates, the kind of men (in particular) they churn out, and the scale of the damage these people have done on the public life of Great Britain.
I think the strongest parts of this book were where Beard detailed his own experiences of schooling in the public school system. It could have done with more of this in my opinion. He spends quite a time parsing his inocuous-sounding diary entries from his time at school, and trying to construe how these are in fact completely disingenuous, that they in fact conceal a great abyss of misery and submission to a totalitarian regime. Indeed, this argument is employed frequently throughout the book (toffs never mean what they say). But he doesn't provide much of a key as to how their words should be interpreted besides simply thinking the worst of them at all times, which seems like a less than satisfactory rule.
For what it's worth, I think most of his points - about the emotional and psychological ills these schools do, the knock on effects of having their products lead the country/empire etc. - are sound. They're really not particularly complex or difficult to explain, and I think this book could have doubled its impact if it had halved its page count. The author unfortunately falls into the trap of, having identified a problem, portraying it as little less than the source of every evil in the world. Basically every megalomaniac dictator of the 20th century is the product of a boarding school environment - even if they didn't go to boarding school they may as well have, they were just so damn evil. His argument was severely weakened (for me at least) by overarguing ('England traditionally reserves places at the top table for louts with 0 brains.' Even if this is riffing off Molesworth, I think it's a cheap shot.) Why can't we assess the problem a little more objectively without collapsing into catastrophism? (If Beard is too emotionally attached to the subject-matter to be able to make this judgement, perhaps his editor should have.) The book would have given the impression of balance had it included some of Beard's positive remembrances of Radley, but there was almost none of this at all.
Another weakness is that, although boarding schools may well do a lot of harm to kids, much of the harm Beard describes is equally in evidence in all schools, boarding or not. Class rankings, marks, damaged teachers, trying physical demands, even beatings - these are/were hardly the domain solely of boarding schools. The trouble with this book is that it doesn't really give any light, and it's obvious why. Because even if boarding schools were abolished (as Labour wanted/wants), school would still be a difficult place. It's kind of the inherent nature of schools and more generally of childhood as an existential condition. Life happens, you're forced to leave your comfort zones, and bad things happen. But this happens to all kids, no matter what kind of school they're at. People can be plenty screwed up without having been through boarding school; however, this book really makes it seem as if boarding school is the root of all evil.
Beard doesn't even make clear what he is advocating for. Abolition? Or just strict reform?
For all this, I enjoyed Beard's writing style, which was engaging and witty, if tending caustic. Because the book's too long, he tends to cover ground multiple times, even if it's at different registers (particularly about how much boys are damaged by being stripped of their parents - often with lashings of sarcasm), which I found tedious. This stuck out to me because I read it in a couple of days, but maybe this would have annoyed me less if I'd read it over a fortnight.
It feels like this was a cathartic book for Beard to write, and I'm pleased for him if that's the case. Probably it might make cathartic reading for traumatised/repressed English public school old boys. It presents little of substance most people (surely, deep down) didn't know already, so I can appreciate it more as a work of extended autobiography than as history or polemic or whatever else. Its arguments are strained and subjective enough that it probably won't convince someone who is pro-boarding school, or even sympathetic or nostalgic about the concept.
(Full disclosure: I'm not British and didn't go to a boarding school. These are my impressions from the book itself.)
Follow me @turnsof_fraze
I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
I think the strongest parts of this book were where Beard detailed his own experiences of schooling in the public school system. It could have done with more of this in my opinion. He spends quite a time parsing his inocuous-sounding diary entries from his time at school, and trying to construe how these are in fact completely disingenuous, that they in fact conceal a great abyss of misery and submission to a totalitarian regime. Indeed, this argument is employed frequently throughout the book (toffs never mean what they say). But he doesn't provide much of a key as to how their words should be interpreted besides simply thinking the worst of them at all times, which seems like a less than satisfactory rule.
For what it's worth, I think most of his points - about the emotional and psychological ills these schools do, the knock on effects of having their products lead the country/empire etc. - are sound. They're really not particularly complex or difficult to explain, and I think this book could have doubled its impact if it had halved its page count. The author unfortunately falls into the trap of, having identified a problem, portraying it as little less than the source of every evil in the world. Basically every megalomaniac dictator of the 20th century is the product of a boarding school environment - even if they didn't go to boarding school they may as well have, they were just so damn evil. His argument was severely weakened (for me at least) by overarguing ('England traditionally reserves places at the top table for louts with 0 brains.' Even if this is riffing off Molesworth, I think it's a cheap shot.) Why can't we assess the problem a little more objectively without collapsing into catastrophism? (If Beard is too emotionally attached to the subject-matter to be able to make this judgement, perhaps his editor should have.) The book would have given the impression of balance had it included some of Beard's positive remembrances of Radley, but there was almost none of this at all.
Another weakness is that, although boarding schools may well do a lot of harm to kids, much of the harm Beard describes is equally in evidence in all schools, boarding or not. Class rankings, marks, damaged teachers, trying physical demands, even beatings - these are/were hardly the domain solely of boarding schools. The trouble with this book is that it doesn't really give any light, and it's obvious why. Because even if boarding schools were abolished (as Labour wanted/wants), school would still be a difficult place. It's kind of the inherent nature of schools and more generally of childhood as an existential condition. Life happens, you're forced to leave your comfort zones, and bad things happen. But this happens to all kids, no matter what kind of school they're at. People can be plenty screwed up without having been through boarding school; however, this book really makes it seem as if boarding school is the root of all evil.
Beard doesn't even make clear what he is advocating for. Abolition? Or just strict reform?
For all this, I enjoyed Beard's writing style, which was engaging and witty, if tending caustic. Because the book's too long, he tends to cover ground multiple times, even if it's at different registers (particularly about how much boys are damaged by being stripped of their parents - often with lashings of sarcasm), which I found tedious. This stuck out to me because I read it in a couple of days, but maybe this would have annoyed me less if I'd read it over a fortnight.
It feels like this was a cathartic book for Beard to write, and I'm pleased for him if that's the case. Probably it might make cathartic reading for traumatised/repressed English public school old boys. It presents little of substance most people (surely, deep down) didn't know already, so I can appreciate it more as a work of extended autobiography than as history or polemic or whatever else. Its arguments are strained and subjective enough that it probably won't convince someone who is pro-boarding school, or even sympathetic or nostalgic about the concept.
(Full disclosure: I'm not British and didn't go to a boarding school. These are my impressions from the book itself.)
Follow me @turnsof_fraze
I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
July 6, 2023
Richard Beard is the same age as David Cameron and a couple of years younger than Boris Johnson and, like them, a product of the English Public School system (for clarification, a Public School in the UK is actually an extremely expensive, privileged private institution).
Here, he writes a thoughtful, touching and sometimes angry examination of the effect of that system and the arrogant, damaged, driven, needy, emotionally-stunted men that come through it - men who both see power as a game, and yet feel that it is their birthright, men with no knowledge or or interest in the real world and yet who feel somehow that they are qualified to lead it.
Men who, despite coming from a tiny, privileged minority, make up a third of cabinet ministers and half of the legal profession - not to mention prominent journalists, editors. pundits and CEOs.
Beard eviscerates the supposed quality of the education itself, instead opining that such people rise to prominence by being moulded into driven, mendacious, supremely confident debaters.
The sooner we are done with such institutions the better.
Here, he writes a thoughtful, touching and sometimes angry examination of the effect of that system and the arrogant, damaged, driven, needy, emotionally-stunted men that come through it - men who both see power as a game, and yet feel that it is their birthright, men with no knowledge or or interest in the real world and yet who feel somehow that they are qualified to lead it.
Men who, despite coming from a tiny, privileged minority, make up a third of cabinet ministers and half of the legal profession - not to mention prominent journalists, editors. pundits and CEOs.
Beard eviscerates the supposed quality of the education itself, instead opining that such people rise to prominence by being moulded into driven, mendacious, supremely confident debaters.
The sooner we are done with such institutions the better.
September 3, 2021
Beard is always an interesting writer, and this look back at how both he and UK leaders like Boris Johnson were shaped by the British boarding school environment of the 1970s is no exception. I'd seen the Times review of it that rather apoplectically dismissed it as "angry" (unsurprisingly written by a boarding school deputy headmaster) and it is angry, but it's also moving and even humorous in all the right ways, too. Beard is too good a writer to let readers feel only one emotion from start to finish, but it would have been dishonest if you couldn't feel his resentment at the childhood he was dealt. Being torn away from one's home at the age of eight (!) to be raised by people who are paid to educate you but will never love you will do that.
This is a careful examination of everything else it does for those children: the privilege and the leg up, but also the class entitlement, the mummifying of one's ability to feel empathy for others who are suffering, the permanent inability to form intimate relationships, and yes, the racism and the sexism.
Beard, speaking to his own mother, hears her say that she lost her sons when she sent them away to their expensive, private boarding school and they returned to look down on her and her achievements, as she was both a woman and someone who lacked such an education herself. When she expresses her sadness that they aren't a closer family and then admits "But you didn't have us from the age of eight, did you?", I nearly wept for both mother and sons.
Boarding schools still used beatings and deprivation to punish wayward children in the '70s, all in the name of fashioning them into the kind of men Britain needed to lead it, and Beard ably ties the whole experience in to Johnson and the other men who make up positions of power in Britain today, most of whom attended similarly elite boarding schools at the same time he did. He knows and acknowledges that boarding schools are less restrictive and severe today than when he attended, but there's no getting away from the emotional damage done simply by the removal of children so young from their homes and families, no matter how nice the institution they're sent to may seem.
You finish this book with a clear understanding of why people like Johnson are as out of touch with the needs of the common people as they are, and with a hope that those like Beard who recognise the damage done to them will, in the end, find some way to overcome it. More importantly, you end up fervently hoping that those British parents still counting on the boarding school system to make their own children into successes will read this book and think better of it.
This is a careful examination of everything else it does for those children: the privilege and the leg up, but also the class entitlement, the mummifying of one's ability to feel empathy for others who are suffering, the permanent inability to form intimate relationships, and yes, the racism and the sexism.
Beard, speaking to his own mother, hears her say that she lost her sons when she sent them away to their expensive, private boarding school and they returned to look down on her and her achievements, as she was both a woman and someone who lacked such an education herself. When she expresses her sadness that they aren't a closer family and then admits "But you didn't have us from the age of eight, did you?", I nearly wept for both mother and sons.
Boarding schools still used beatings and deprivation to punish wayward children in the '70s, all in the name of fashioning them into the kind of men Britain needed to lead it, and Beard ably ties the whole experience in to Johnson and the other men who make up positions of power in Britain today, most of whom attended similarly elite boarding schools at the same time he did. He knows and acknowledges that boarding schools are less restrictive and severe today than when he attended, but there's no getting away from the emotional damage done simply by the removal of children so young from their homes and families, no matter how nice the institution they're sent to may seem.
You finish this book with a clear understanding of why people like Johnson are as out of touch with the needs of the common people as they are, and with a hope that those like Beard who recognise the damage done to them will, in the end, find some way to overcome it. More importantly, you end up fervently hoping that those British parents still counting on the boarding school system to make their own children into successes will read this book and think better of it.
December 5, 2021
The subtitle of this book lets the reader know what to expect. The author wrote this during the pandemic & in the time he was writing it he spent a lot of time walking through the school he attended. The notion of sending a child away from the ages of seven to eighteen (one of the most impressionable time of a person's life) is an extremely strange one to many cultures. The ones Richard Beard is mostly concerned with are the ones where names need to be put down at birth, the schools which are considered to the best. The likes of David Cameron & Boris Johnson are the products of these institutions and this book explains an awful lot! This was a very interesting perspective & very topical.
I'm not sure how balanced this book was. There were many abuses at independent schools but there were also good things too. I worked for many years in a Scottish independent school & although I know there were things that went on that weren't good I also know that the people I worked with, cared for those in their care. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.
I'm not sure how balanced this book was. There were many abuses at independent schools but there were also good things too. I worked for many years in a Scottish independent school & although I know there were things that went on that weren't good I also know that the people I worked with, cared for those in their care. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.
January 31, 2022
Future historians seeking the reasons for the current "burst of corruption and incompetence so spectacular that the glimmer will be visible from space", would be well-advised to read this book. Richard Beard is angry - and rightly so, having been torn away from his family at the age of eight to be subjected to the process of being "re-made", ostensibly to be turned into one of the country's leaders, in reality to be hollowed-out and damaged, possibly for life. He was one of the lucky ones in that he recognised what was being done to him. Most, however, accept their role in their belief that they are fit to run the country - but, being seriously damaged themselves, they inflict their damage on others; in the past it was the colonies, now that this option is no longer available, they are inflicting their damage on us.
This book explains why our current and recent leaders are prone to what one reviewer (who also suffered from this system of schooling) called "dissembling, hypocrisy, snobbery, moral blindness and indifference to anyone else’s suffering". It explains why Cameron could say that he had not anticipated the strength of feeling unleashed during and after the referendum - "Of course he didn't. Strong feelings were involved, and also the common people. He was struggling in a pair of blind spots, to emotion and the British public." Likewise the current prime minister is forever stuck in his school-boyish immaturity, where nothing is serious, nothing matters, everything will be taken care of, and he will survive. Because that is how little boys learn to think when they are taken away from their families at the age of eight and taught to despise other people.
This disastrous system is so deeply-entrenched that it is unlikely that we will be able to escape from it. The slippery slope to a dictatorial system (which Orwell said would of course not be called Fascism) is clearly delineated. So this book, although remarkable in its insight and analysis, is also deeply depressing.
This book explains why our current and recent leaders are prone to what one reviewer (who also suffered from this system of schooling) called "dissembling, hypocrisy, snobbery, moral blindness and indifference to anyone else’s suffering". It explains why Cameron could say that he had not anticipated the strength of feeling unleashed during and after the referendum - "Of course he didn't. Strong feelings were involved, and also the common people. He was struggling in a pair of blind spots, to emotion and the British public." Likewise the current prime minister is forever stuck in his school-boyish immaturity, where nothing is serious, nothing matters, everything will be taken care of, and he will survive. Because that is how little boys learn to think when they are taken away from their families at the age of eight and taught to despise other people.
This disastrous system is so deeply-entrenched that it is unlikely that we will be able to escape from it. The slippery slope to a dictatorial system (which Orwell said would of course not be called Fascism) is clearly delineated. So this book, although remarkable in its insight and analysis, is also deeply depressing.
October 2, 2022
Disappointing, really. I can get behind the premise and Beard is writing from personal experience, but he's got his nose squished right up against his subject (literally: he's wandering around the grounds of his own school during a pandemic mismanaged by his braying contemporaries who are undoubtedly proving his point on a national scale). It's of course biased, and also very repetitive; the research is hard to take seriously (frequent references to a few documentary films and the 1972 biopic Young Winston, thought there is a bibliography), the tone is aggrieved throughout, organisation is scant and the syntax is sloppy. It might have been better as primarily a memoir with a bit of theorising, or as a proper investigation with some psychological, educational or other expert evidence. It's not a particularly pleasant or even juicy read and I don't find that he offers anything new.
I came back to write a little review as I'm reading Yong Zhao now and am struck by how interesting his analysis of educational systems is compared to this formless (if justified) moaning.
I came back to write a little review as I'm reading Yong Zhao now and am struck by how interesting his analysis of educational systems is compared to this formless (if justified) moaning.
April 13, 2022
Some good insights, but also waffling, poorly structured, self indulgent and repetitive. Clearly evidence of author's education.
September 14, 2021
This is a really outstanding book - I was sent away to boarding school a year later than the author (at 9 rather than 8) and much earlier in the 1970s - but almost everything resonated and it brought back many long-supressed memories. Close them down!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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March 29, 2022I’m really interested in this topic, but not some white-man-ancedotal waffle. I couldn’t have been less enthused.
February 26, 2023
I have mixed feelings about this book. I think the point it's making is an excellent and important one, but I didn't really get on with the style and structure of the book. In many ways I think it's valuable to have a book like this written by someone who actually went to one of these schools, and has spent many years thinking about and coming to terms with its impact on his psyche. No outsider could possibly have that level of insight. However, it wasn't clear to me what he was actually trying to achieve with this book - it's part memoir, part journalistic style interviewing and recounting recent visits back, and part theoretical essay. Except there was a fair amount of ambiguity in the way the three were mixed up and it all just felt like a long list of random points with whichever of the three he could find to back it up: a story from his own childhood, something someone said to him or a news article he could find, or referring to one of only 5 or 6 sources that he kept coming back to again and again. I'm sorry but there must be more sources on the subject than Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, one documentary and the Molesworth books. There were also quite a few chapters which were so rambly that I couldn't actually figure out what the overall point was and had to go back to check the helpfully explanatory chapter titles. I just think this could have been a much more powerful book if more thought had been put into its structure.
I know this had a very specific focus on public boarding schools but I really think it could have benefited from some kind of contrast with other types of schools. What about non-boarding private schools? What about grammar schools? A discussion of how these schools fit into the wider picture of the UK education system was sorely lacking, especially as some of the problems he was identifying are present in many other educational settings. Calling for the abolition of public boarding schools without any kind of acknowledgment that the alternatives aren't all sunshine and daisies is very short-sighted. (I feel I should just clarify here that I do of course agree wholeheartedly with his position)
I know this had a very specific focus on public boarding schools but I really think it could have benefited from some kind of contrast with other types of schools. What about non-boarding private schools? What about grammar schools? A discussion of how these schools fit into the wider picture of the UK education system was sorely lacking, especially as some of the problems he was identifying are present in many other educational settings. Calling for the abolition of public boarding schools without any kind of acknowledgment that the alternatives aren't all sunshine and daisies is very short-sighted. (I feel I should just clarify here that I do of course agree wholeheartedly with his position)
March 12, 2022
There is the making of a powerful book here somewhere, but it would have needed a lot more editing and focus and fewer random anecdotes. This book is a mix of memoir and philosophical/political observations about English public schools. The most interesting part of the book is its first half, when the author describes the daily rituals of public school and some of the boys he knew. Then he tries to apply these personal anecdotes to British politics using high flying theory such as Hannah Arendt. That's when things go awry. I agree with his central premise that there's something deeply needy and sad about an adult who was sent away to school at 7. But to make that argument successfully you need more evidence. Instead, there's get filler and repetition, lots of repetition. And a few shots int the dark, such as him calling old schoolmates or finding accounts of their lives and deaths on the internet. The book does have references to a lot better sources on British public school such as several BBC documentary series and accounts by authors such as George Orwell.
July 11, 2022
Perfect time to read this- very accessible and what I imagine is a great introduction to the political nonfiction genre. Thoroughly recommend.
July 2, 2024
Part memoir, part investigation, and part polemic, Sad Little Men describes the emotional trauma and stunted development caused by the type of boarding schools that produced many of Britain's historical and current leaders. I felt sympathy for the little 8-year-old boys dropped by their own parents into these horrible institutions; I felt anger that the emotionally stunted men who emerged from these places have been given such power.
Richard Beard's book echoes many of the points made by George Monbiot in his 2019 article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...
Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand modern British politics and the people who run the UK.
Richard Beard's book echoes many of the points made by George Monbiot in his 2019 article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...
Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand modern British politics and the people who run the UK.
November 16, 2021
This book is a perfect combination of excellent research, backed by personal recollections to fully flesh out the author's message. Richard Beard studied at one of the elite boys' boarding schools in England in the 70s, at the same time as David Cameron, Boris Johnson, among others currently in the UK Cabinet. This book is his attempt at making sense of that defining experience, and how it shapes character-mostly for the worse.
I grew up reading books by Enid Blyton, that made boarding school life seem absolutely wonderful, with midnight feasts and pranks on sympathetic teachers and so on. Most non-fiction works about boarding school life, however, don't depict it as idyllic at all. Apart from his personal anecdotes, Beard includes psychological studies, statistics, depictions in other media, to explore these formative years of the people who constitute more than half of the senior levels of UK's justice system, bureaucracy, government, the BBC, the financial sector. A lot of the attitudes that are valorised in school stories-scoffing at people who are homesick, an absolute repression of emotions, never telling tales ( good in principle, easy to be misused to cover up actual injustices), loyalty to your school irrespective of the circumstances, viewing everyone else with a combination of suspicion and condescension; these aren't normal or desirable at all, for the real world. These attitudes were developed at a time in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the purpose of these schools was to train children for the Army or the Navy, where they were being trained essentially to kill, be killed and/or send their subordinates to their deaths, and to build an Empire where you thought you knew best for your supposed subjects. Beard however, shows that these methods of pedagogy and groupthink continue well into the 20th Century ( and probably the 21st as well), far beyond the point of their relevance. He goes on to explain the lasting influence of these attitudes and the deleterious effect when these are the views held by a majority of people with the power to influence policy.
For me, personally, this book perfectly described my schooldays, and gave me an insight into what the schools were essentially trying to do. Beard has a powerful paragraph where he writes about how the function of the school was to break a child's spirit completely till they could be moulded into homogenous pod-people, for all practical purposes. I was miserable all through my schooldays ( and I've studied in multiple schools, across the country, given the nature of my father's job), and I completely related to this book-both to the descriptions of the attitudes of the teachers with all their sarcasm, frequent and near-constant use of ritual public humiliation, arbitrary but extremely draconian imposition of pointless rules and control, from the length of the ribbons in your hair to the length of your skirt, and the behaviour of students, with loyalties that shifted suddenly, divisions into people worth speaking to and those who weren't, petty exercises of control. I can so clearly see how these behaviours are carried over into nearly every other interaction as you grow up-you never outgrow this pernicious training instilled in you at a young age, and people's reactions-at the workplace, speaking to your neighbours, in the parking lot-you're still that kid trying to show you're the one doing the bullying, and not the hapless victim.
I grew up reading books by Enid Blyton, that made boarding school life seem absolutely wonderful, with midnight feasts and pranks on sympathetic teachers and so on. Most non-fiction works about boarding school life, however, don't depict it as idyllic at all. Apart from his personal anecdotes, Beard includes psychological studies, statistics, depictions in other media, to explore these formative years of the people who constitute more than half of the senior levels of UK's justice system, bureaucracy, government, the BBC, the financial sector. A lot of the attitudes that are valorised in school stories-scoffing at people who are homesick, an absolute repression of emotions, never telling tales ( good in principle, easy to be misused to cover up actual injustices), loyalty to your school irrespective of the circumstances, viewing everyone else with a combination of suspicion and condescension; these aren't normal or desirable at all, for the real world. These attitudes were developed at a time in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the purpose of these schools was to train children for the Army or the Navy, where they were being trained essentially to kill, be killed and/or send their subordinates to their deaths, and to build an Empire where you thought you knew best for your supposed subjects. Beard however, shows that these methods of pedagogy and groupthink continue well into the 20th Century ( and probably the 21st as well), far beyond the point of their relevance. He goes on to explain the lasting influence of these attitudes and the deleterious effect when these are the views held by a majority of people with the power to influence policy.
For me, personally, this book perfectly described my schooldays, and gave me an insight into what the schools were essentially trying to do. Beard has a powerful paragraph where he writes about how the function of the school was to break a child's spirit completely till they could be moulded into homogenous pod-people, for all practical purposes. I was miserable all through my schooldays ( and I've studied in multiple schools, across the country, given the nature of my father's job), and I completely related to this book-both to the descriptions of the attitudes of the teachers with all their sarcasm, frequent and near-constant use of ritual public humiliation, arbitrary but extremely draconian imposition of pointless rules and control, from the length of the ribbons in your hair to the length of your skirt, and the behaviour of students, with loyalties that shifted suddenly, divisions into people worth speaking to and those who weren't, petty exercises of control. I can so clearly see how these behaviours are carried over into nearly every other interaction as you grow up-you never outgrow this pernicious training instilled in you at a young age, and people's reactions-at the workplace, speaking to your neighbours, in the parking lot-you're still that kid trying to show you're the one doing the bullying, and not the hapless victim.
September 25, 2021
This recently published polemic against England’s private boarding schools for boys had me riveted from start to finish. This book is a reckoning with the emotional and character damage inflicted on Beard by being sent off to boarding school at the age of eight. It is also a condemnation of the impact of these schools on the country at large, given the astonishing proportion of senior figures in public life who share this background including twenty-eight of the last thirty-two Prime Ministers (an astonishing statistic, even if the school lives of people born in the early 1800s ought to have little relevance to a twenty-first century argument).
This isn’t a balanced book: it is passionate, angry, withering, and all the more readable for it. That said, it is written with enough subtlety to allow us to feel sympathy for characters who we understand to have grown into men whose sense of confidence and entitlement is utterly out of step with their competence, with devastating (and sometimes deadly) consequences for the rest of us.
While not discussed in the book at any length, this made me view from a new perspective the frequent political talk about “British values”—a soundbite often used but rarely defined. I’ve often thought that it’s essentially a dog whistle for racism. However, Beard’s book made me reflect that it perhaps has a whole other layer, recalling the perverted “values” of class preservation and emotional repression that seem associated with these institutions.
This isn’t a balanced book: it is passionate, angry, withering, and all the more readable for it. That said, it is written with enough subtlety to allow us to feel sympathy for characters who we understand to have grown into men whose sense of confidence and entitlement is utterly out of step with their competence, with devastating (and sometimes deadly) consequences for the rest of us.
While not discussed in the book at any length, this made me view from a new perspective the frequent political talk about “British values”—a soundbite often used but rarely defined. I’ve often thought that it’s essentially a dog whistle for racism. However, Beard’s book made me reflect that it perhaps has a whole other layer, recalling the perverted “values” of class preservation and emotional repression that seem associated with these institutions.
January 27, 2022
Much of the negative criticism of this books seems to be that this 'attack' on the public school system and on the damage they inflict on the emotional and mental health of students, is too personal. For me that is actually the main strength of this polemic. Beard is able to discuss and highlight the weaknesses of this system through his own personal experience, he uses the writings of others as a support for his points, but this is presented very much as a personal view of how these schools have damaged their alumni and how this impacts upon aspects of British leadership.
It could be argued that he is making excuses for the bluster, lack of empathy, and dire leadership shown by the current government, however I think his point about the way history will hopefully view this as the final blast of imperial delusion is probably most accurate.
I would suggest reading this in conjunction with other titles looking at the same subject, in order to obtain a more nuanced view. An excellent reading list can be obtained from titles referenced here.
It could be argued that he is making excuses for the bluster, lack of empathy, and dire leadership shown by the current government, however I think his point about the way history will hopefully view this as the final blast of imperial delusion is probably most accurate.
I would suggest reading this in conjunction with other titles looking at the same subject, in order to obtain a more nuanced view. An excellent reading list can be obtained from titles referenced here.
October 19, 2021
Important book on subject I feel very strongly about, in sympathy with the writer, and for the same reasons But just a bit too one-sided to shine useful light for me. Perhaps a writer who spends the best part of a chapter comparing Boris Johnson with Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini is too angry to be analytical. The points on self-entitlement and perpetuation are well made, and make the book an important read. Beautifully written.
February 13, 2022
it was interesting and shared some really o te resting ideas and experiences but at points it really dragged and sometimes i found it hard to grasp the structure of the overall point
October 19, 2023
Interesting. Perhaps a little egotistical in attributing some general faults that appear in most people to just those educated in private schools, but an intriguing read all the same. Trying to look within and self reflect but with the conceit of seeing what this tells us about current politicians characters, so in a way it does exactly what the author is trying to stop doing. By not allowing himself to truly peruse the autobiography this book should be but instead trying to justify this book through the lens of writing about other people.
I guess it shows he got his analysis of a public school boy down pat.
Idk kinda conflicted about it and I don’t quite yet know why.
I guess it shows he got his analysis of a public school boy down pat.
Idk kinda conflicted about it and I don’t quite yet know why.
April 10, 2024
I'm not sure if this is a good book or not. The bits I liked, the recollections, I really liked. The bits I didn't like I was never quite sure how to take. It gets political, but I get the impression Beard and I would agree on much but would disagree on the reasoning behind our agreements. Does this make this book good? I don't know, but I'm glad I read it.
August 9, 2022
Hell of a read, lacking potentially in some detail in areas I think it could have benefitted from but as a record of personal experience and the value of comparison to much of the government today I think this book is undoubtedly of great value.
July 23, 2022
Written during the pandemic, while living up the road from his former public school, Radley, this is a well-written and interesting memoir / polemic about his experience of prep school and public school and what they did to his psychology. I think he rather overdoes the parallels with David Cameron and Boris Johnson (presumably put in to boost sales) but I do like the idea that Johnson is really Molesworth grown up to be Prime Minister (chiz chiz).
October 17, 2023
Wow, such an interesting book. It certainly explains a lot about UK leaders.
February 11, 2025
Wow - goosebumps at the end. Have and will recommend to everyone I meet, such a moving and vulnerable exploration of the personal and political impacts of boarding school
January 27, 2023
Not-so-hot take: after reading several books pompously titled "British Civilisation" (or variations of that) in college, I can safely tell you that THIS book is tons more useful if you want to understand that strange little island and the bizarre habits of its ruling class.
Read
August 13, 2024take a stick to fencing
January 6, 2022
Part memoir and part psychoanalysis of a whole class, Sad Little Men is written by Richard Beard who was at private school (referred to erroneously as public school in the UK) at the same time as two of the last three British Prime Ministers; David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Although at different institutions Beard suggests their experiences would have been the same or similar for the most part and explains much about the character of both men as well as the actions they took/take in office which, in his view, have not been good and of course I would tend to agree.
It is clear the author despised his own time at boarding school and finds comparisons in the institutionalisation he experienced with descriptions of tyrannical states inHannah Arednt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, indeed he describes the British boarding school as the perfect breeding ground for what Umberto Eco calls Ur-Fascism – and we see with the obsession with the British flag, the national anthem, the military and Brexit that the current mob of MPs are particularly susceptible. The pathology of the unhappiness is being ripped from and ultimately rejected by one’s own parents, to be thrust into grand but austere buildings to live an early life of strict instruction, beatings, bullying, sexual abuse (either suffered or witnessed) and emotional torture
Alongside the privations and the lack of familial warmth was a veritable order to mask any feelings of sadness or vulnerability. This is the formulation of the famous British stiff-upper-lip which is code for an emotionally retarded automaton; unworthy of love and incapable of loving by the time they become a man. Any sign of genuine feeling would be pounced upon, if not by teachers, wardens and masters then by fellow students – the nature of the places being to pick off the weakest members of the group until they either break down or become strong enough to no longer be the weakest and can in-turn join in the joyous brutality.
What kind of adults do institutions such as this produce? Ultimately, through a combination of money, influence and contacts they produce the “brightest and best” who fill the ranks of the judiciary, banks, legal firms and political parties. People who are quite literally taught that they are born to lead and yet they are people who lack the personal ability to lead in any way that is not despotic. Through their studies of Classics and Latin public schoolboys tend to revere men such as Emperor Augustus; never mind that he crushed democracy – he is strong and remembered, which are the only important things. Private schools are cruel and in their turn produce cruel men; the kind of cruel men who pay poverty wages, who implement bedroom taxes, who reject the concept of seeking asylum and who believe equality is woke pinko nonsense. We know they are still doing this too – only a few years ago an exam paper from Eton College was leaked which contained a question asking students to put themselves in the shoes of the Prime Minister and write down how they would justify the army opening fire on protesters.
It is an excellent look at the other side for people like me and explains a lot about the way our “leaders” see things, and see us. There are some interesting bits on debate nights around election times when private schools would hold fake hustings – they could never rustle up Labour candidates but they often had a novelty Socialist Workers candidate who would draw the short straw and be the figure of fun for the evening including being egged whenever they spoke – this in full view of, and with the blessing of teachers; as was the plethora of candidates for more “fringe” parties such as the National Front or the British Union of Fascists for which would-be leaders were always plentiful.
My only criticism is some of the “woe is me” elements in the book are rather self-indulgent, or at least lack a certain self-awareness. While I appreciate what the author went through, at no point does he seem to acknowledge his privilege but also fails to see that the things he was going through were also happening at state schools up and down the land – beatings, sexual assault, despotic teachers are all things that my own class can relate to. We weren’t dumped into a boarding school by our families but some of us had families we didn’t want to return home to after a day at school, however bad that day was – and while the food may have been bad at his school some of us lacked nutrition throughout our entire childhoods and beyond. Admittedly the author can’t know about what life was like in state schools and that’s not what the book is about but a little reflection on the subject would not have gone amiss.
It is clear the author despised his own time at boarding school and finds comparisons in the institutionalisation he experienced with descriptions of tyrannical states inHannah Arednt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, indeed he describes the British boarding school as the perfect breeding ground for what Umberto Eco calls Ur-Fascism – and we see with the obsession with the British flag, the national anthem, the military and Brexit that the current mob of MPs are particularly susceptible. The pathology of the unhappiness is being ripped from and ultimately rejected by one’s own parents, to be thrust into grand but austere buildings to live an early life of strict instruction, beatings, bullying, sexual abuse (either suffered or witnessed) and emotional torture
Alongside the privations and the lack of familial warmth was a veritable order to mask any feelings of sadness or vulnerability. This is the formulation of the famous British stiff-upper-lip which is code for an emotionally retarded automaton; unworthy of love and incapable of loving by the time they become a man. Any sign of genuine feeling would be pounced upon, if not by teachers, wardens and masters then by fellow students – the nature of the places being to pick off the weakest members of the group until they either break down or become strong enough to no longer be the weakest and can in-turn join in the joyous brutality.
What kind of adults do institutions such as this produce? Ultimately, through a combination of money, influence and contacts they produce the “brightest and best” who fill the ranks of the judiciary, banks, legal firms and political parties. People who are quite literally taught that they are born to lead and yet they are people who lack the personal ability to lead in any way that is not despotic. Through their studies of Classics and Latin public schoolboys tend to revere men such as Emperor Augustus; never mind that he crushed democracy – he is strong and remembered, which are the only important things. Private schools are cruel and in their turn produce cruel men; the kind of cruel men who pay poverty wages, who implement bedroom taxes, who reject the concept of seeking asylum and who believe equality is woke pinko nonsense. We know they are still doing this too – only a few years ago an exam paper from Eton College was leaked which contained a question asking students to put themselves in the shoes of the Prime Minister and write down how they would justify the army opening fire on protesters.
It is an excellent look at the other side for people like me and explains a lot about the way our “leaders” see things, and see us. There are some interesting bits on debate nights around election times when private schools would hold fake hustings – they could never rustle up Labour candidates but they often had a novelty Socialist Workers candidate who would draw the short straw and be the figure of fun for the evening including being egged whenever they spoke – this in full view of, and with the blessing of teachers; as was the plethora of candidates for more “fringe” parties such as the National Front or the British Union of Fascists for which would-be leaders were always plentiful.
My only criticism is some of the “woe is me” elements in the book are rather self-indulgent, or at least lack a certain self-awareness. While I appreciate what the author went through, at no point does he seem to acknowledge his privilege but also fails to see that the things he was going through were also happening at state schools up and down the land – beatings, sexual assault, despotic teachers are all things that my own class can relate to. We weren’t dumped into a boarding school by our families but some of us had families we didn’t want to return home to after a day at school, however bad that day was – and while the food may have been bad at his school some of us lacked nutrition throughout our entire childhoods and beyond. Admittedly the author can’t know about what life was like in state schools and that’s not what the book is about but a little reflection on the subject would not have gone amiss.
February 1, 2023
For my first non-fiction book of 2023 I wanted to read something interesting and thought provoking. What better place to start than examining the background of UK politics? The government is always in tatters, going from one negative incident to the next, and this book seemed a great way to investigate the world of the highest class, the UK elite. Richard Beard reveals what its like growing up in the best schools in the country, looking into his own privileged upbringing during the same time period as many of the men in charge now. I was excited to learn about private school, the daily lives and the secrets behind the walls. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed from this book, I was hoping for a real insight but I came away feeling like I did not gain much more knowledge than I already possessed surrounding this subject of interest.
Of course it is traumatic to separate children from their parents at a young age and that the generational trauma is repeated because we are told that this is the best option for children.
The most interesting segment for me was Beard's discussion of taught treatment and outlook surrounding gender and minorities, and how teachers encourage their students to look down upon other people different to themselves, and that they are expected to support a Tory government. I would have personally liked more focus on the treatment of others and the models of behaviour these children are exposed to throughout their educations. Overall, this book didn't make me feel sorry for Beard or any child privileged enough to go to private school, he doesn't shy away from the facts of guaranteed success or lifetime connections these schools provide and personally, I believe that the majority people privileged enough to attend these school probably wouldn't change their backgrounds, despite the few negatives he mentions. The sociological investigation into education and its effect on children is always an interesting subject, which encouraged me to read this book. However, a lot of the writing read like Richard Beard's lockdown ramblings, inspired from his walks around his old secondary school, Radley College. I was left disappointed by this book.
Of course it is traumatic to separate children from their parents at a young age and that the generational trauma is repeated because we are told that this is the best option for children.
The most interesting segment for me was Beard's discussion of taught treatment and outlook surrounding gender and minorities, and how teachers encourage their students to look down upon other people different to themselves, and that they are expected to support a Tory government. I would have personally liked more focus on the treatment of others and the models of behaviour these children are exposed to throughout their educations. Overall, this book didn't make me feel sorry for Beard or any child privileged enough to go to private school, he doesn't shy away from the facts of guaranteed success or lifetime connections these schools provide and personally, I believe that the majority people privileged enough to attend these school probably wouldn't change their backgrounds, despite the few negatives he mentions. The sociological investigation into education and its effect on children is always an interesting subject, which encouraged me to read this book. However, a lot of the writing read like Richard Beard's lockdown ramblings, inspired from his walks around his old secondary school, Radley College. I was left disappointed by this book.
October 27, 2021
The subtitle for this is ‘Private Schools and the Ruin of England’. I would argue that you don’t need much more of a summary of what to expect than that. However, a brief (and hopefully fair) description of this book would be that writer Richard Beard examines his own experience of time in an all boys “elite” Private Boarding School as the foundation for research into the correlation between that experience and the behaviour of some recent British Prime Ministers.
His argument is that the culture fostered in these institutions explains a lot of the behavioural characteristics of people like David Cameron and Boris Johnson. It explains their lack of compassion, inability to admit wrong doing, attitude towards women and their ability to walk away from scandal unscathed.
I assumed this was going to be primarily a book of political analysis, with the context of Private School Boarding. Whilst it does have lots of this, it also has a slight memoir feel to it. Not just in Beard’s personal experiences of Boarding School, but in his time researching/writing this book. Although his personal experiences of Boarding School provided vital supporting evidence, I felt the rest of his present-day ruminations were written almost defensively. At times feeling like that meme of the two Spider-Men pointing at each other (as is often the case with any sort of privileged person defending their privilege, whilst simultaneously distancing themselves from it). Yet, his points are valid, and the system can only change if those who have been through it break it. Which he is clearly trying to do.
‘Sad Little Men’ should be read close to the time it was written, in regard to the political conversation, but also the backdrop of the Pandemic happening throughout Richard Beard’s researching/ writing. Given too much distance, the importance of his views may well diminish. However, his arguments are eye opening into the mindset of people whose inner workings are normally incomprehensible and maddening (although it does little to diminish any sympathy for them in that regard).
His argument is that the culture fostered in these institutions explains a lot of the behavioural characteristics of people like David Cameron and Boris Johnson. It explains their lack of compassion, inability to admit wrong doing, attitude towards women and their ability to walk away from scandal unscathed.
I assumed this was going to be primarily a book of political analysis, with the context of Private School Boarding. Whilst it does have lots of this, it also has a slight memoir feel to it. Not just in Beard’s personal experiences of Boarding School, but in his time researching/writing this book. Although his personal experiences of Boarding School provided vital supporting evidence, I felt the rest of his present-day ruminations were written almost defensively. At times feeling like that meme of the two Spider-Men pointing at each other (as is often the case with any sort of privileged person defending their privilege, whilst simultaneously distancing themselves from it). Yet, his points are valid, and the system can only change if those who have been through it break it. Which he is clearly trying to do.
‘Sad Little Men’ should be read close to the time it was written, in regard to the political conversation, but also the backdrop of the Pandemic happening throughout Richard Beard’s researching/ writing. Given too much distance, the importance of his views may well diminish. However, his arguments are eye opening into the mindset of people whose inner workings are normally incomprehensible and maddening (although it does little to diminish any sympathy for them in that regard).
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