Cambridge IGCSE First Language English
Text 3A
A boarding school student's view
I remember vividly that cold, dark Sunday evening 50
years ago when my parents first drove me to my new
school, where the head received us in his study. Having
only a few weeks earlier travelled by ship from East
Africa, East Yorkshire in January was a shock. After
pleasantries over a cup of tea, my parents left to make
the long journey back to Dar es Salaam. I shall never
forget that feeling of being left utterly alone. I remember
tears welling up and the head telling me that I would
have to grow up. He and I were never to get on. The
following term, for no reason I could ever discern, he
confiscated my favourite miniature car, which I kept in
my locker. I never got it back.
For a child who had spent all his previous life in tropical
open spaces, the north of England was an awful place.
Where I came from, the Sun shone, there were palm
trees, white sandy beaches, mangoes, houses with big
gardens. I never saw a mango in Yorkshire; houses were
joined to each other in terraces, and it was eternally
dark and cold. Short trousers were a trial for an 11-year-
old with hypothermia. I worked my way along corridors
pressing my knees to radiators to restore circulation.
Life improved in some ways, but the long separation
from the land that was home to me was something
I never came to terms with. Like many others of my
generation sent away to school in England, there was to
be only one trip home a year, which was for the summer
holiday. At Christmas and Easter I was parked with
various relatives in unfamiliar towns. They took good
Adapted from ‘A boarder’s view’, in The Alternative Old Pocklington Bulletin, by Donald McGregor.
© Cambridge University Press 2018
Comprehension and Summary
care of me but they were strangers, albeit of a different
kind. The school, with its long-established traditions
imbued with an ethos fresh from the 19th century,
was a place I never came to terms with. If you were
academically able or good at cricket – or better still,
both – it served you well. If not, that was your problem,
not the school’s.
Boarding school certainly makes one self-reliant, which
comes in handy later in life. After that experience I had
no problem surviving military academy. It was noticeable
how much better the ex-boarders tended to fare in
training than those who had been at day schools. But
it can impair the parental connection – I never forgave
mine for sending me away. For some reason I held
my father to blame, which created a rift which was
never properly mended, despite his very best efforts.
I understand now, of course, that from my parents’
perspective it would have seemed the most sensible
course of action at the time.
My own experience and that of my wife Geraldine
(who was sent to a convent boarding school) turned
us against boarding for our own three children (even
assuming we could have afforded it). But the world has
changed markedly for the better. I have no doubt that
these days boarding schools are far kinder places than
once they were. And by the way, if anyone finds a coin
under the floor of the dormitory on the top floor, it’s
mine; it rolled across the floor and dropped between the
floorboards in February 1958.
Unit 3 To board or not to board