You may leave school but it never leaves you, says J.R.H. McEwen – the character formed by a fine education is instantly recognisable
For several reasons unconnected with the merits or otherwise of the place itself, when I left school 27 years ago (crikey!), I was glad to leave and expected never to return. Unlike some of my contemporaries, already discussing whether their unborn children of unmet wives might receive the same education, I had no inkling that one day I might be a parent and, in any case, I had no idea how I might ever make any money at all, let alone enough to pay school fees. All in all, school seemed to represent an unfortunate if necessary episode in life, an appropriate theatre in which to stage those awkward years but demanding to be immediately forgotten about, and sometimes even denied.
In view of this initial bad and unappreciative attitude, I have been surprised to find that school is still not merely present in my ageing mind but seems to have become a positive and welcome presence. I have not started to intone those tragic words about the happiest days of one’s life — the happiest day of my life so far was last Friday — but my school continues to make, even now, an affirmative and unexpected contribution to my life.
I have never revisited (though I did once whizz through in a car to be amazed by the free hand the school has given to architects since I was around) and have no desire to do so but the school remains in a sense unleavable, and I am glad of it. This fact is brought home to me not so much by a growing awareness that it was a good enough education, and some teachers were fantastic, but by chance meetings with fellow old boys — they are, almost invariably, such fine fellows!
While parents, even of boarding-school children, are now supposed to be by far the most important elements in education, and while the decade we traverse from 20 to 30 is meant to be the decade which defines us (if born in 1960, you are a man of the eighties), the old school still seems somehow to provide the most easily recognised and long-lasting badge of identity.
And all schools must do this, independent or not — invade the DNA, create a sort of caricature; without knowing much about the establishments in question, no one would trouble to match school — Eton, Kirkcaldy High School, Fettes, Rutlish Grammar — to recent Prime Minister. You could guess from the way each man stands which school was his. His walk would confirm your opinion, his talk would clinch it.
And its shape perhaps becomes more visible with age not less, especially to those who have been subject to the same, rather mysterious, forces. A middle-aged product of Woldingham supplies a ready stream of adjectives: her old school-mates, she says, are notable for being, ‘bubbly, kind, caring, excellent organisers, open-minded, generally optimistic, looking for a better world and doing all they can to help achieve that, eager to please. While some have been content to stay at home, some are very ambitious and have achieved huge amounts using heaps of charm…’
Precise in her generalisations, she speaks with doubtless justified confidence. But how her school has managed to develop character so consistently that one can speak of ‘a typical Woldingham girl’ must remain something of a mystery. Likewise, the reasons why St Paul’s girls will always be so brilliant that delegating becomes difficult, or why Highgate boys have always been the most charming of the lot, will never be precisely known.
Whatever the unpindownable truth of the matter is, the stain of school will not be removed and if parents are puzzling over which school to choose, they could do worse than spend some time in the company of middle-aged people from each candidate establishment; your child, if you choose that school, will one day definitely in some way resemble this old geezer.
So what was this school of mine which produced these curious, courteous specimens who clearly did not go to Eton, who rarely seem to make much money, who listen? Why, Ampleforth, of course.