Boarding School realities

[Historicalroad]

Just wondering if anyone who attended Boarding Schools between the 60s and 90s would be willing to share their experiences?

So as to not drip feed, I'm attempting, though failing miserably so far, to write a novel. Purely fictional. I have my characters and a storyline but it works best set in a boarding school.

I've never stepped foot inside a boarding school. I've no idea what they're like but I want to keep it as realistic as possible. I've trawled the internet to try and get an insight into what life is like at boarding schools but I'm struggling. I don't think the plot would fair as well if it was set today, hence why I'm looking at some time between the 60s and the 90s.

part of a group of schools of which only the flagship boy's school is really well known.

Two girls’ schools now merged?

One thing - though not sure of much use in a novel: we had four streams (though there was additional setting for some subjects). As pp have said the top / second and most of the third stream were expected to proceed to university - so took academic subjects at O and A’ level. Only the bottom stream learnt typing.

Guess who got the best paid temping jobs in the early post-school years?

@wallywobbles - RICKY and his BIG RED TOOL!
in fide vade suckers

(TTT I guess Wendover, Turd)

No tv other than Top of the Pops and Wimbledon tennis.

Oh and endless changes of uniform

No sports kit in the dining room so if you had any sport before lunch it was morning uniform (shirt, tie, skirt and blazer ) for breakfast, change into spirts kit then back into morning uniform for lunch.

After lunch could also be sports so change into sports kit

No sports kit or morning uniform at supper so at least one change into afternoon wear for supper.

Uniform was strictly enforced, it had to be the official version and no substitutes allowed. The official fabrics had some synthetic fiber which was very scratchy. I wear much more comfortable clothes these days.

Agree with PP that the special language would be essential to give the right flavour, both official school words and separately the pupils words for things.

Two official exeats plus half term each term. There is a particular roundabout which still today, forty years later, makes my heart sink when I go back even though I did enjoy my time.

I was an international student at a boarding school late 80s to early 90s. It was the first time I had ever lived in England, and my whole family was abroad.
I remember queues for the phone box (although at the time I had to book a line to China, so I would use the telephone in the house mistresses study-10 minutes every two weeks and it cost 50 quid!!).
Dorms were 5-6 girls to a room for the first 4 years with 5th formers getting a single or double and allowed to have posters on the walls, as well as being allowed to study in our rooms so no more prep in the "study" where all the younger girls had their desks.
Having to sign in and sign out if we went to the village shop-where you were allowed a "fruit" account although we used to buy sweets and magazines with it :)
Having to play hockey in skirts on open fields where the wind would come howling in off the North Sea.
We used to have midnight feasts, and I remember being "corrupted" my first night, which involves the older girls going through the alphabet and listing swear words or rude things which of course as a fairly sheltered 11 year old I knew nothing of!
Lessons I remember most of the teachers being very strict except for the English teacher who was a very pathetic man-he could barely control a class of 20 girls-I remember one time we had someone hanging out of the window (second floor) when the poor man walked in-he nearly fainted!
I had a particularly terrifying geography teacher who made me cry when I couldn't point to Great Britain on the map-she scolded me with "but this is where we are from,where we live" and I remember sputtering "but miss,I live in China and that is there!" And pointing triumphantly at it on the map.

I boarded in a scholarship for my a level years.

Fucking abysmal food. Lived mainly off toast/tuck shop and microwav-able food.

Vodka hidden in sports bottles behind desks/in ceiling voids

Supervised drinking allowed if parents consented. 2 drinks per 16-17 year old, 3 for an 18 year old on a Saturday night

Leaving out sanpro (unused) when male housemaster came round to inspect rooms so he didn't look to closely

Sneaking up to the boys rooms or out in the grounds to shag

Cycling off into town/to country pubs and bumping into teachers who mostly turned a blind eye

Loads of practical jokes- people jumping out of wardrobes, grabbing your legs from underneath your bed in the dark, locking you out of you room, wrapping ALL of your possessions in brown paper

Teachers and pupils closer than in a normal day school due to the amount of time spent together-a good and a bad thing, one particular teacher I had a total personality clash with, he hated me! Buy another gave me loads of support and help to succeed in a subject I didn't have a natural flair for.

A few over-zealous perfects who tried to dish out unfair punishments, but others who would stand up for you if they saw it.

As in all schools there was a 'cool' gang but the rest of us mostly ignored them, I found it was far more acceptable to be 'keen' there than it had been at my comp.

Loads of little in words and jokes that no one else would understand.

I had an absolute fucking ball, and it always saddens me when people slate boarding, it was probably some of the most fun years of my life.

DH tells me a game called Soggy Biscuit isn't a myth < absolutely NOT envy

There was nothing very special about teacher relationships or lessons except the scheduling of them - no afternoon lessons as afternoons were for sports.
Twice a week we had 2 lessons after supper.

The amount of exercise was insane and punishments were usually to get up early and run around the cricket pitch a few times.

We had croquet permanently available on the upper quad in summertime. I can remember running our own aerobics classes to the Jane Fonda cassette 😆
But we also had fencing classes and water polo and rowing and sailing and every sport you can imagine.

Our food was provided by Trusthouse Forte, a hotel group, and was good quality. For one week each term you had to sit on the headmasters table so he could get to know everyone.

If there was ever a power cut after dark in the dining hall there would be an insane food fight as nobody could be identified for punishment.

It was standard to "break out" after curfew and have harmless larks.

We had very pretty double and single rooms that the head's wife had personally chosen the decor for - 100% Laura Ashley.

We would go to the pub all the time - certain pubs were just for masters and others just for the upper sixth but as long as you avoided these ones all good.

The first XV were viewed as nothing less than GODS by pupils and teachers alike. They were extremely physically big and there were ambulances called to most matches for the opposition.

The head boy was allowed to grow a beard.

My DH was a day boy at a boarding school in the late 80s/early 90s. He felt it didn't really prepare him for life in the real world - it wasn't socially diverse at all, and he didn't feel he was stretched academically (he's done very well in life despite the school, not because of it).

Some girls had incredible clothes compared to others but they just shared them so we were forever wearing other people's clothing.

There was a craze for all birthday parties to be declared "black tie" so that we could dress up in fancy stuff. This was in the 80s.

black tie dances with boys' schools and much snogging of other people's "boyfriends".
Post in cubby holes in the hallway and a frenzy on valentine's day.
Very few teachers with any kind of ex-lesson relationship with the pupils; virtually no pastoral care at all.
A few parents as teachers, including one grumpy chemistry (?) teacher - he lived locally enough to commute, both daughters boarded.
One girl who voodoo murdered both her parents and got her very own Netflix series as a result.

Oh yeah there was shooting at my school too, both small bore and clay pigeons. Tbh there was every hobby and activity you can imagine on offer. And if you wanted something they didn't have they would just create a new club.

Just swinging by the thread to wave to my fellow Seniors

My cousin went to an infamously progressive school in the West Country were they had no uniform and were not required to attend the lessons to encourage teachers to make the lessons more interesting.

@ArchieHarrison she was my head of house

@Hefzi please bring the bottle to the tree by the air force base. I'm sure the swing is still there

In the 60s I was a boarder at an all-girls grammar school which had a boarding house in the grounds for about 60 girls aged 11-18. Parents were mostly expats or military, some girls had parents who had split up messily or mothers who had died. It was a spartan existence, absolutely no pastoral care and quite a lot of bullying. The only staff were the house mistress, a Scottish lady (think Alastair Sim in drag) of a certain age and her sidekick, 'Matron' who I suspect had very little in the way of nursing qualifications.

We weren't allowed out during the week, we came back to the House after school to do prep for two hours, then dinner, which was a light meal like tomatoes or beans on toast. No showers but a bath three times a week. No TV but we could have transistor radios. On Saturday we could go into town, walking in a crocodile, to three shops, Boots the Chemist, WH Smiths and the sweet shop. Woolies was out of bounds until about the Upper Fourth (yr 9.)
Compulsory church on Sundays, if the weather was OK we could go out for a country walk on Sunday afternoon. Only two weekends home per term, one either side of the half term holiday.
The food was cheap and dire. Fly pie, boiled babies arms (sausage stew of some sort) margarine instead of butter at a time when marge tasted awful, and damp, tasteless sliced white. We had to go back to the House for lunch and when that was stopped and we had it at the school we were thrilled - it was so much better. We had 'tuck' kept in a locked cupboard, labelled and given out after dinner.
It was generally very cold in winter and after living in a hot country I caught cold after cold, no immunity. Ice on the inside of the windows in the mornings. In the summer it could be quite pleasant, the grounds were nice and we could use the school grass tennis courts.
On the first and last night of each term we were sort of allowed a 'midnight' feast, usually at about 10 pm 😄 for which we bought fresh crusty bread and butter, sausage rolls and cakes and drank tinned shandy or Cydrax. And pretended to get drunk on it.
I remember when I was about 15 a friend and I broke out a couple of times after lights out via the fire escape and walked into town. It was deeply disappointing, the place was dead. We also broke out to go swimming in the school outdoor pool in the summer, it was freezing.
I mostly remember being terribly homesick and lonely, my parents were living the colonial life thousands of miles away. The day girls could be nice but fairly remote as we couldn't go out for tea or anything like that or see them outside school so no real chance to make friends.

god I didn't realise she was head of house! I do remember people finding her english exercise books years later (after the murders) and thinking they could sell them to a newspaper (being naice girls, of course they didn't).

Archie I bet the tree is too! I hear, though, that the base isn't. We thrilled at the thought of men in uniform - but frankly, nothing beat sexually harrassing poor Rick-AY and his giant tool.

According to an ex boyfriend -

Sexual assault from other boys. Ignored.

Severe violence after hours. Ignored until somebody attempted murder of one of the assailants in public (big staircase, assailant ended up at the bottom of it). Then said child was described as unstable and sent away.

Lack of interest in non academic or vaguely unsympathetic children.

Nobody noticing when kids escaped.

Deliberate subterfuge in getting kids there - parents were 'just popping off for a chat with the Head', their car seen shortly after heading down the drive. The school's policy, apparently.

Slaps and suchlike from staff and nobody caring.

Kids waiting for parents to pick them up at the end of term, only for them to not arrive.

The school turning out generations of emotionally and socially stunted men who had barely repressed rage at rejection, sexual assault and violence all waiting to be unleashed upon their partners, especially if they were unfortunate enough to have a son.

Co-ed boarding at a well known traditional school in the 90s here. Like others have said, incredibly full weeks with almost no spare time.

Monday, Wed and Fri were full days - lessons until lunch, then games, then last two lessons of the day which didn't finish until 6pm - looking back at it now it was full on! In summer the afternoon lessons and games swapped so last two periods were after lunch and then games finished at 6pm instead.

Tues and thurs were lessons until lunch then games, and no afternoon lessons, so finishing about 4pm (optimistically called a half day...)

Saturday school - finishing at 12.30 but followed by lunch and matches so lots didn't finish until 4pm on a Saturday too.

Sunday - church at 9.30 so not much of a lie in, then left to our own devices for the rest of the day until prep in the evening. Prep every night except Saturday 7.30-9.15pm.

Food was generally good and lots of it. Houses were single sex, all year groups. Dorms until upper sixth when you got your own room. Phones in the corridor for phoning home in full earshot of everyone else. Tv room for evening TV after prep and the lunchtime edition of Neighbours. We used to record Eastenders during prep to watch after. House was relaxed and relatively comfortable. Generally very happy, made lifelong friends and look back at it with a good amount of fondness despite a lot of it being very weird in hindsight.

In other words MitziK absolutely nothing like the experience of the majority of posters here.

But obviously most reminiscences here will be first-hand, and from a specific period at a girls school.

@GeorgeTheBleeder - my DH went to an all boys boarding school in the late 80s/early 90s and looked astonished at MitziK 's description. Maybe he was just blissfully ignorant.

I am cheating here as I went to an excellent and old fashioned grammar school in the 1970s but many of the anecdotes sparked memories:

Backing of text books to make them last longer- either with brown paper or patterned.
Book plates-some going back decades.
Silence moving between lessons and at exam time, complete respect for teachers. Very little poor discipline, and what there was, was swiftly dealt with.
School photos - legend had it if you ran fast enough you could appear at both ends as the camera panned round.
Superb teaching. Except for the needlework lessons!
Indoor and outdoor shoes to preserve the parquet flooring