Did anyone here go to public school?

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As in the British sense of the phrase. Question inspired by discovering that John Peel was more or less a contemporary of Peter Cook, Paul Foot and Richard Ingrams at Shrewsbury. And more recently ILx's very own Mark Sinker. Is it just coincidence that produced these iconoclasts or does a diet of latin and regular beatings help mould these individuals?

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't go to public school obviously and my viewpoint of them is moulded by Billy Bunter and Goodbye Mr Chips.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I did, yes.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I did Latin, there were slippers and canes hung on the wall to threaten the boys with. I was forced to play cricket and rugby.

We had a sister school who regarded our school as full of syphilitic, crack-smoking rapists and we thought that they were all slags. But we hung out with them anyway.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Most of my classmates are probably lawyers and journalists and politicians now and I am...an international miscreant.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:37 (twenty-one years ago)

what is "the british sense of the phrase"?

― Emilymv (Emilymv), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:38 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.atthemovies.co.uk/big/ifrrbq.jpg

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:39 (twenty-one years ago)

There's a quarrelsome thread about this somewhere

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

the british sense of the phrase is exactly the opposite of what public school means in the US

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Only one?

xpost

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:40 (twenty-one years ago)

If privately funded schools in the UK are called public schools, what are publicly funded schools called?

― Nemo (JND), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

State schools.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

because the UK is SOCIALIST

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I wish

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

me too!

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

In UK Public schools are fee paying schools, in US public schools are Municipal/state funded. I think.

massive xpost

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I went to public up until high school and then private for three years before being thrown out...then back to public.

― Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:43 (twenty-one years ago)

what is a private school in the UK?

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

oh wait Chris aren't you american?

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I went to one.

xpost

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Ok. But why are privately funded schools called "public"? Did it originally mean they were "open to the public" (that section of which who could afford them) as opposed to private tutoring?

― Nemo (JND), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Same as a public, haha. It's because of history.

xxxpost

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:45 (twenty-one years ago)

they are charities, even the ones with a grillion zillion quid like eton and harrow...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Kind of, Nemo. A lot of them were set up as charities several hundred years ago for worthwhile orphans and the like, and are now rich as hell and charge the earth.

xpost innit

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Toby asked this question earlier this year, as part of his Fee-paying schools: classic or dud

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

they are charities, even the ones with a grillion zillion quid like eton and harrow...

Which is an absolute disgrace

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Well I guess I went to private schools, actually. Very confusing.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean I didn't have to wear a boater or anything

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Top hat?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

they are talking about reforming the charities law, and putting in a "public worth" test, but not this side of an election...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

but chris' comment confuses me. he went to public then went to private then back to public? so there is something called a private school in the UK? Is it more exclusively private than a british public school? I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU ENGLISH PEOPLE'S CASUAL ABUSE OF THE WORD PUBLIC!!

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Public school = top hat wearing pederasts
State school = glue sniffing joyriders

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Chris is in Worcester, MA, Kyle.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

There are private schools in the UK, yes.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I figured. apparently his american public school education has not given him the ability to read the first post of the thread! A shame!

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

The English language is kooky.

― Nemo (JND), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

ouch

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

this "english" language is a sham. we should phase it out.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

now look here, chap, it's our bloody language and i think you'll find it's you and your countrymen who are abusing it.

british schools are either:

fee paying, usually refered to as "public" for HISTORICAL reasons, but calling them "private" is equally valid

government funded, usually called state schools.

i think this is why toby phrased his question in the way he did...

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

blah blah, i can take my public school education and beat you with it.

― Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I reserve the term 'public school' for the real old breed of boarding schools: Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc.

I went to a fee-paying secondary school, called Alleyn's. It was old, but there were no boarders and I don't know, it just feels silly calling it public school, for some reason.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 28 October 2004 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

in the us public schools are free, private you pay.

― Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Thursday, 28 October 2004 15:00 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, we understand

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 28 October 2004 15:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I went to a fee-paying school NEAR Harrow school and I would frequently see the little toffs gallavanting about town like tiny emperors. My parents used to delight in saying to acquaintances that I went to school "IN Harrow".

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 28 October 2004 15:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not taking sides. I'm just admiring the fact that one word can mean one thing in the UK and the exact opposite in the US and Canada, and yet once you explain it, they both seem logical. Kooky is a compliment.

― Nemo (JND), Thursday, 28 October 2004 15:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha, like people who go to Oxford Brookes University. How I larfed.

xpost

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 28 October 2004 15:02 (twenty-one years ago)

My school was demolished five years ago - it was only built in 1974! God, what a dump.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 28 October 2004 15:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Fee-paying schools: classic or dud

Very divisive one, this...

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 28 October 2004 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Every one fell out with everyone else on that thread

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 28 October 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

They're called public schools in the UK cos they used to be/are owned and run by members of the public, as opposed to the State. I went to a minor public (i.e.) private day school. Lots of Latin but no beatings, boaters, fagging or wall games. I can't see me sending my children to a private school - certainly not the one I went to, which tends to generate arrogant, obnoxious, snobbish, preening pricks. With one or two exceptions.

― beanz (beanz), Thursday, 28 October 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Skipping 36 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Alba, as I said above...

I nearly became the only girl at a Catholic all boys school, as it was the nearest non-state school to me and I wouldn't have had to board.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 28 October 2004 17:27 (twenty-one years ago)

adam,

So you syphilitic, crack-smoking rapists could practice calling her a slag?

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 28 October 2004 17:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry ailsa - not reading properly.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 28 October 2004 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, my parents are wacko. Which is a much better explanation for a lot of things.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 28 October 2004 17:34 (twenty-one years ago)

So I get the impression from reading this thread that the English public boarding school is a dying institution? I'm American, so the entire topic is arcane.

The very notion of such schools always struck me as a sick tradition. Or maybe that's just the warped view I have of it from only hearing about it in films. (The average American associates the English boarding school with rampant homosexual abuse, terror, and beatings, dorky uniforms, and snooty effeminate young men quaintly studying Latin.)

On second thought, Robert Graves doesn't present a rosy view of his experiences at, what was it - Eton?

William Burroughs, who attended a boarding school on the East Coast, said it like this (I paraphrase): "The only thing worse than an English public school is an American fake English public school."

So if the public boarding school is dying out in the UK, why?

― krt, Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:20 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not really dying out.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe the impression is that the stereotypical English (or British) public school is a dying institution? The schools are still there, maybe the people are different now from what it was like when I was there?

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

The average American associates the English boarding school with rampant homosexual abuse, terror, and beatings, dorky uniforms, and snooty effeminate young men quaintly studying Latin

That's what the average Briton associates it with too, probably unfairly. I don't think I met anyone I knew was from a public school until I first went to Uni, in St. Andrews. Then I went for most of a year before I met anyone from a state school.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't English state schools teach Latin?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, but you don't have to take it. I didn't and regret it actually.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Or, more accurately, perhaps, they don't have to teach it. I think it's a course schools can do, but it's not required. I think it's an alternative to one of the modern languages, but I could have dreamt all this.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Did I go to the only public school in the UK that didn't teach Latin? I did it at my state school though for a year.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 28 October 2004 22:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I got to do Latin at my state school, and it was compulsory for two years too, but I think there was only one other state school in the county that did it. I love Latin.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 28 October 2004 23:03 (twenty-one years ago)

My Latin/Classics teacher was ace. He wanted to name all his kids after goddesses but his wife wouldn't let him, on the grounds that any kid called Ariadne would get the piss ripped out of them growing up in Inverness.

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 28 October 2004 23:08 (twenty-one years ago)

All Latin teachers are ace and memorable, I think. Mine called his daughter Claudia, and was so bored of teaching Latin most of the time he let us talk to him about whatever we wanted. Just before I left school, he stopped me outside the common room and started ranting about JFK. He also told me I was a very good debater, "for a woman". Is there a teachers memories thread? There should be.

― Cathy (Cathy), Thursday, 28 October 2004 23:16 (twenty-one years ago)

There's a quarrelsome thread about this somewhere

The one in which Kate announced her prejudice against non-privately-educated people?

― Andrew (enneff), Friday, 29 October 2004 00:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I went to a public school, there was plenty of beatings and other nasty stuff but no homosexuality that I knew of, that wouldn't have gone down well at all. Most people were of the virulently homophobic and often racist rugby playing twat variety.

Boarding does seem to be dying out cos my school abolished it a few years after I left.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Friday, 29 October 2004 07:42 (twenty-one years ago)

i went to a "private" school, yes - ronan is correct, that is what we call them over here. no latin or beatings, though

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Friday, 29 October 2004 07:47 (twenty-one years ago)

The one in which Kate announced her prejudice against non-privately-educated people?

Oh that seems awfully unlike Kate - I always put her down as a rather open-minded lass. Have I been sadly mistaken all this time?

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Friday, 29 October 2004 07:58 (twenty-one years ago)

All of my Latin teachers were ace too. I think by law they have to be a bit nuts.

I wish we'd had a pet girl.

-- adam... (adamr...), October 28th, 2004 7:25 PM. (nordicskilla)(later)

We did! She'd just left school herself and worked in the library for about a year. I'm amazed she stuck it out so long. Other than that, I guess they let S0uth H4mpste4d girls in now and then when we did plays n stuff.

(adam did you do latin? H0wie M00re?)

― beanz (beanz), Friday, 29 October 2004 09:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Ronan sez:
I went to a Jesuit public school, though here we sensibly call them "private schools".

have we established whether we went to the same school or not yet? mine didn't have boarders, which means I don't think of it as being like a UK public school.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 29 October 2004 09:41 (twenty-one years ago)

my dad taught both of you...

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Friday, 29 October 2004 09:44 (twenty-one years ago)

in said jesuit school. obviously he's not a jesuit, though

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Friday, 29 October 2004 09:44 (twenty-one years ago)

it was a funny school. at FAPinefox we established that we were both in the same school yeah DV! no boarders, no. it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, etc.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 29 October 2004 09:49 (twenty-one years ago)

it can't have been a public school. There is NO WAY I am a public school boy.

Weasel - your dad did indeed teach me. Once we were studying a book by Xenophon about his teacher (Socrates), and he said we should all write books about him when we grew up.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 29 October 2004 10:46 (twenty-one years ago)

a famous Irish politician was sent by his parents to be the only boy at an all-girls' private school. where he was made to wear the school uniform. A girls' school uniform.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 29 October 2004 10:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I've covered most types: state school 5-7, private school (i.e. owned, set up and half-taught by one woman) 7-11, state grammar school (you used to take an exam at 11 and the cleverer kids were sent to this) 11-12, state comprehensive (when they abolished that exam and merged the separate schools) 12-14, 300 year old public boarding school 14-18. I then went to Cambridge (very posh) and later to De Montfort University (not at all posh) later. What a mess.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 29 October 2004 11:01 (twenty-one years ago)

That is quite impressive Martin. Which was best?

― Cathy (Cathy), Friday, 29 October 2004 11:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I went to state grammar, passed my 11-plus innit.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 29 October 2004 11:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought the difference between UK "public" and "private" schools was that they were both fee-paying, but you had to pass exams to get into a public school aswell, whereas private schools would accept anyone so long as they had the cash.

By this reckoning, the UK schooling system works like this:

GRAMMAR: Free but you have to pass exams
COMPREHENSIVE: Free and anyone can get in
PUBLIC: Costs loads and you have to pass exams
PRIVATE: Costs loads and anyone can get in

Which basically means that grammar school kids are clever and broke, while private school kids are rich and stupid.

― Huey (Huey), Friday, 29 October 2004 11:50 (twenty-one years ago)

(By the way, I realise the above is a massive generalisation and doesn't take into account the whole political point about grammar schooling etc, but I was condensing it for our non-UK friends)

― Huey (Huey), Friday, 29 October 2004 11:51 (twenty-one years ago)

It's hard to judge, as I had a weird school career: at the private juniour school, I think I missed more days than I was in, with very bad asthma - but still accumulated enough marks while there to be top of the class by a street. I was the youngest in the year, but they still bumped me ahead a year, but then they didn't want me to take the 11-plus exam at the age of 9 (maybe my health was a factor in not wanting to push me ahead, I don't know), so made me redo a year that I had breezed through once already. I lost interest completely. There wasn't any kind of culture of doing well in school at secondary school (11-14), and I did nothing and drifted. Knowing I was cleverer than that, my parents sent me to a fairly classy public school, and it was different there - you couldn't avoid doing the work, and doing well wasn't sneered at. I eventually ended up with the best A levels in the school, and getting to Cambridge - I don't imagine I'd have done that in the local comprehensive, so it was good for me academically. However, it was a less good experience in some ways - I don't think elitist schools or single-sex schools are good for building a rounded adult.

I hated Cambridge for many reasons (that elitism thing again was a big one among them), and left quickly. When I went to De Montfort, I was much older and it was not a typical university experience. It was very easy academically, but I was married and not very involved in student life. It's hard to really make comparisons.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 29 October 2004 12:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Re. grammar school/clever and broke: we weren't broke, but my main reason for opting for grammar was that it WASN'T single sex!*

*and had gorgeous female teachers to boot**

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 29 October 2004 12:22 (twenty-one years ago)

OK, I don't have time to more than skim this thread, but I have to address this:

There's a quarrelsome thread about this somewhere
The one in which Kate announced her prejudice against non-privately-educated people?

OK, let me just refresh your memories to the fact that the title of the thread was something along the lines of "DO YOU HAVE A KNEEJERK PREJUDICE AGAINST PEOPLE WHO WENT TO PUBLIC SCHOOL?"

Inverse snobbery is still snobbery, and my sartcastic reply was a pointed remark to highlight that fact.

Anyway, I'm not interested in opening that can of worms again.

Just because I have a thing for dissolute, debauched, manic depressive former public schoolboys... ;-)

― Kissing Time At The Pleasure Unit (kate), Friday, 29 October 2004 12:25 (twenty-one years ago)

*yawn*

― ilx, Friday, 29 October 2004 12:28 (twenty-one years ago)

i yawned at school a lot too

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 29 October 2004 12:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Just because I have a thing for dissolute, debauched, manic depressive former public schoolboys... ;-)

Are you playing with your hair by any chance?

― B.A.R.M.S. (Barima), Friday, 29 October 2004 12:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't go to a public school, instead I went to the mankiest state-school in Ipswich, which my girlfriend refers to as "Auschwitz" thanks to it's uncomprimising architecture and chimney which pokes out from the top.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 29 October 2004 13:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't go to a public school, instead I went to the mankiest state-school in Ipswich, which my girlfriend refers to as "Auschwitz" thanks to its uncomprimising architecture and chimney which pokes out from the top.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 29 October 2004 13:05 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.westbourne.suffolk.sch.uk/gallery.htm

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Friday, 29 October 2004 13:08 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

they are talking about reforming the charities law, and putting in a "public worth" test, but not this side of an election...

-- CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Thursday, 28 October 2004

Carsmile way ahead of the curve here!

http://news.independent.co.uk/education/education_news/article3339048.ece

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:04 (eighteen years ago)

haha antagonizing middle england is a pretty bold strategy to get new labour back in the game. hearty applause.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:07 (eighteen years ago)

I'm quietly impressed at Anthony Seldon's pronouncements. What would've sounded like possibly classist sour grapes coming from the mouth of a state school head sounds pretty powerful from a public school head.

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:37 (eighteen years ago)

i guess it would if you were overly invested in maintaining the class system, yes.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:40 (eighteen years ago)

"Classist sour grapes"?

― Tom D., Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:41 (eighteen years ago)

it's not exactly a big secret that he's revealed to the nation. but i think the subtext is something to do with academy schools and other new labour-y stuff right? private schools should run state schools, something like that, i don't know. and it's sort of what's already happening, with the academy schools, only with quangos instead of private schools. i don't know if private hospitals count as charities, but subcontracting nhs work to the private sector is how we do now, so maybe it's not such a great shock that he's floating this.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:46 (eighteen years ago)

it's times like this that I miss LJ's insights.

― caek, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:48 (eighteen years ago)

Spare us, I know more about his family history than I know about my own

― Tom D., Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:50 (eighteen years ago)

six years pass...

Muggings-force-school-ban-blazers-Pupils-22-000-year-St-Paul-s-School-attended-George-Osborne-urged-wear-hoodies-blend-local-youths.html

― نكبة (nakhchivan), Sunday, 30 November 2014 02:29 (eleven years ago)

I got sent to the local one because my dad worked for the U.N. who I think payed for it.
THis place was the one that the guy behind Bomb tHe Bass described as being populated by the sons of used car salesmen.

It was also the one that Bark Psychosis went to about 5 years behind me.
Adam Woodyatt of Eastenders fame was in my house (as in sports and other team games) a year behind me too.

― Stevolende, Sunday, 30 November 2014 12:41 (eleven years ago)

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