Thomas W. Hodgkinson

Sink or swim | 15 June 2017

Alex Renton finds our attachment to boarding schools inexplicable — despite being himself one of Eton’s finest ‘products’

issue 17 June 2017

I used to worry that I would never be a good writer because my childhood wasn’t interesting enough. I now think there must be some other explanation. Because the truth is that, when I was still pretty young, my parents banished me to an isolated community where for years on end I was compelled to dress in heritage costume, endure the uncanny absence of women and participate in ritualistic group activities, often of a physical or religious nature. That’s right. I am an Old Harrovian.

On the face of it, this seems like an odd choice for my parents to have made for me — although it isn’t as bat-cave crazy as Alex Renton tries to suggest in Stiff Upper Lip, his rich, righteous diatribe against the public school system. ‘This is not a book about me,’ he announces in his opening sentence, but that’s not entirely true. All books are to some degree about their authors.

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