It is no secret that Charles Spencer has been one of my favourite historians for several decades. In recent years, I have had the honour of communicating with him about Stuart-era history and he has always been kind, supportive, and helpful. I’m also fond of him because he lives in Northamptonshire, where my husband, Gavin, is from (and, according to my mother-in-law, my husband’s great-grandfather worked with the horses on the Althorp estate). I have always enjoyed Charles’s books, especially those about 17th-century history such as: Prince Rupert: The Last Cavalier, Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I, To Catch a King: Charles II’s Great Escape, Blenheim: Battle for Europe, among others.
This book, however, is vastly different from those: it is intensely personal, harrowing, poignant, raw, and moving. It must have been extraordinarily difficult to open up so much of himself in this work, and I commend him for his strength of character in doing so. I listened to the audiobook version of this memoir, narrated by the author himself, and throughout the book, I kept feeling a ferocious maternal yearning to protect him and the other boys from the cruel environment in which they found themselves, anger at how such treatment (from the likes of appallingly perverse evil-doers such as Porch, etc) could have taken place, and great sadness at how much damage, physically and mentally, that particular boarding school inflicted upon so many of them. The boys needed love and nurturing, and received the opposite: a world of corporal punishment, bizarre and strict rules, and sexual and emotional abuse.
Charles was just eight years old when he was sent away from his family, his home, and everything, to go to boarding school in Northamptonshire. My daughter, Juliet, just turned eight last week. I personally cannot comprehend sending a little child away to school, but, as Charles so eloquently explains in his book, many people in his parents’ social circles thought it was the right thing to do. I recommend this memoir wholeheartedly, particularly in audiobook form. 5*
Yes, Andrea — 8 for boys and 11 for girls — until quite recently. Nowadays I understand English boarding schools take care of the children of expats who want their children to have a British education.
The idea was a Victorian one — bring up your children in teams, so they learn to depend on each other and not be tightly bonded with their parents. They would be educated into the class of people who populated and ran the Empire, either from the Government, the Church or the Civil Service — off they went by the thousands to Africa and India.
Before that the male children of the nobility went to Eton and Harrow schools, stayed with other noble families, went on The Grand Tour, and attended Oxford and Cambridge during their teens — all apart from their families.
This is a tradition which lasted centuries and is only now ending, mostly because people can no longer afford it — and Britain has lost its Empire. They need the children to bond with their parents and stay at home now.