An English Boarding School
Listen to: An English Boarding School She said I “must get away from” him. Now, fifty years later I’m reading his diaries, page by page. Perhaps I’ll find out soon why I needed to escape. My new home, a boarding school, was ‘character-building’, they said; perhaps you know the type? Regimented and authoritarian. Our spartan, cold dormitories reeked of sweat-stale boys, or suffered the wild west wind, blasting through uncurtained windows. Our cold and cheerless walls echoed with the relentless clatter of shoes on cold, stone floors. My constant reminder of the austerity I endured. Dull and bovine seniors, Empire-quality demented thugs beat, harassed and humiliated us, sometimes naked, under freezing cold showers, from dawn until dusk. Under a crippling lack of welfare, I longed for someone to be decent, to know me and care. Once vibrant and curious, I withered like a fire-blighted pear. Fear gnawed at my stomach and tore at my mind. Often I hid, alone and alert, ready to flee at unfatho