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.

@GeorgeTheBleeder totally ditching the Professor title!

Sir and Miss/Mrs Surname here too, or Dr, depending.

We called them Mrs Surname, Mr surname.
Sorry, Professor is way off the mark.

For me reading a book about a setting the author hadn’t seen is a bit annoying and tends to distract me from the story. I do understand why you are asking for help here though.

We had a strange game in dorms, where if someone had something they didn’t want they’d “quiz” it. So they’d shout “quiz” and the first to shout “eggo” got it. I’ve spelled it incorrectly I’m sure, I think it’s Latin for “who” and “I” .

Quis?

Ego?

Well, it's going to be an entirely fictitious school so I'm unlikely to ever be able to actually see it in the flesh

Our teachers were referred to as Mr/Mrs/Miss/Dr Smith, never just as Miss, and not Sir either.
I was discussing schooldays with my older brother, who also went to a well known public school like me. I said that I thought it was odd that our parents dispatched us across the country in different directions (we were just stuck on the 'school train' that was heaving with fellow pupils) without ever bothering to look at where we were going. I had never seen my school until we were disgorged from the station bus at the gates. I can't imagine any parent doing that these days to a child. Different times. You were expected to man or woman up, just get on with things and cerainly not show any sign of weakness. Stiff upper lip and all that. And I've still got it. Years of stifling your emotions makes you like that. My brother, by the way, just shrugged his shoulders and couldn't see why I thought it odd.
Because we went and returned by train, our school trunks had to be sent ahead all the time. They were collected by British Road Services, a courier service of the 60's.

@Teentimestwo - I take your point but DS's school had good oversight & lots of visits to and from home . Just to say the archetypal boarding school / children away from home story is quite common - although does not appear what OP wants to do. I do think the more modern boarding experience is a fair way different from earlier times. But - hey ho

Basilisk Oh, I agree modern experience would be way different from 60/70/80s. No modern parent would pick most schools from 60s-80s.

No sensible modern parent.

Well yes your fictional school isn’t somewhere you can visit. But these are/were real places. I’m only commenting that some mistakes “jar” if you get them wrong.

Oh I had forgotten about quiz/ego - we did that too! Usually with unwanted contents of tuck boxes/parcels etc.

The mad dash of everyone shouting “ego”! Didn’t matter if you wanted it or not! you had to get it.

Yes! A bit like the Tory leadership!

@Teentimestwo - No sensible modern parent.

Ha ha I suspect we may be in violent agreement - modern boarding is so so different but still not for all

All best Teens - Basilisk

We had a female doctor who we could see in town but if you were in the school san (sick bay) the male doctor was an old pervert who always asked girls to take your top off even if you had hurt your ankle.

@DobbyTheHouseElk yes, I agree totally. Which is why I'm determined to do as much research prior to writing. I want it to be as realistic as possible. Obviously, there's nothing I can do about the fact that I didn't personally attend boarding school myself.

I'm been given some great advice on this thread and some really helpful information as a starting point. First hand experiences of people that attended boarding school are obviously incredibly useful. I really appreciate the in depth responses here and the time people have taken to share their experiences. I'm also going to make some enquiries about visiting a few boarding schools. I've three relatively close by.

@Snog that's bloody awful! Ugh.

Harrow I think use the term beaks

@Historicalroad it didn't go any further than that with the girls as far as I know. There was so much sexism and sexual put downs for girls in society at that time that although it seemed off it wasn't particularly traumatic.

I really enjoyed boarding school tbh but my younger brother at the same school hated it.

@panapan - haha - is that DH?

Lessons were v good (compared to what DH describes at his comp) with dictated notes which we’d copy into our exercise books or ring binder folders. Did Ancient Greek and I was 1 of 2 at gcse and the only 1 at a level. It was cool reading excerpts of the lysistrata (comedic play set during the Peloponnesian war imagining a sex strike) in class - fortunately my male teacher was a sweet geeky type. People mucked around and chatted in class but no aggression. Easier to control when it was 15-20 students instead of 30.

I often wonder what school outings must have looked like to outsiders. To prevent boredom at weekends, we could sign up to shopping trips - which involved a coach load of 40 girls being taken to a shopping centre. Fortunately we were in mufti so not as conspicuous. Cooler kids met up with boys they knew of, other people went shopping. I hung out at the book store or went to a cafe. We had to stay in groups of 2 to 3 and sign in every couple of hours (usually a teacher was at a cafe and you have to turn up at a certain time to make sure everyone was there).

Lots of things were done in houses. House plays were a big thing - directed by 6th formers. House sport. My brothers school also had house song.

I boarded from age 8 1983.
Prep school was amazing. Rural, coed, I was the only girl in my year for 3 years. Boys shared baths (topped and tailed!).not me.. don't panic.
Staff were v caring. We were educated brilliantly. Climbed trees, spent a month in the winter skiing and a month in the summer walking the Alps.
Very very lucky.

Went to an all girls school at 13. Was v happy. Virtually all female staff.
Academic school.
Gorgeous homemade food
Lots of playing music in the house (dorms)
Breaking out of the house at night
Drinking screw top Lambrusco
Smoking marlborough lights
Lots of parties in London
Awesome live long friends

From my personal experience, my school wasn’t wealthy. I think that was common for the time. Massive building with lots of additional building. The facilities were very run down. The tennis court had potholes. I don’t remember lack of books or teaching equipment, but facilities were terrible. Outside loos in school hours were very real. An inside loo block was built when I was there and it was a revelation.

Our swimming pool was an converted water tank, it was under a pine tree and was full of pine needles. I remember swimming while getting poked in the face by pine needles. Obviously un heated or (solar) heated as they joked to us.

I boarded aged 11-14 in the late 70s/early 80s.

Miserable time that has affected me for life. My own DD now 12, I'm thinking about the experience a lot at the moment and how much I missed not being with my own mother each day.

I remember the quis/ ego thing. Also remember playing obsessively with jacks.

Queuing to go in for meals, youngest years being the last to go in and clearing spaces only being left on each table, meaning you had to clear all the plates for the whole table. Food was awful, bendy toast and leftover pie.

We were constantly told we were the brightest and the best. Being top of the class in many subjects was a bit shocked when I went afterwards to the local girls state school to find many children much brighter than me.

One of my friends was sent to boarding school in the 1960s. Had an awful time. Terrible food. very cold. Was bullied (head flushed down the toilet, put in a large bin and rolled down the stairs, beaten for no good reason etc..). Contacts/friends made came in very handy later in life though when they were all heads of companies or senior civil servants. Teachers smoked all the time, as did the boys. Buggery was rife apparently.