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ON THE RESPONSES TO “700 BOYS, 40 GIRLS”

In the autumn issue of Intelligent Life, Rebecca Willis recalled the challenges of being one of the first girls to attend an all-boys school in the late 1970s. The response from readers has been staggering ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

About a year ago, I was in the London office at Intelligent Life chatting with Isabel Lloyd, another editor. We discovered that we had both been among the first girls to attend boys' private schools a generation or more ago. Isabel had been to Westminster for her last two years of school and I had gone to Charterhouse. At the time we had suddenly found ourselves inside male bastions that, while ready to accept some girls, had not evolved socially or pastorally in order to do so. Some of these schools had been all-male for centuries. Tim de Lisle, our ever-alert editor, eavesdropped for a bit and then said, "You realise there's a piece in this, don't you?"

I think he was probably right, but lately I have had cause to wonder. My article appeared in the autumn issue of Intelligent Life and was reprinted in the Daily Telegraph on November 25th, and the responses have been overwhelming. By the end of November, 95 comments had appeared on the Telegraph site and many more had arrived by other routes. Some are full of anger, judgement and a sense of betrayal. Others have been sympathetic and supportive, including a courageous and touching admission from one of my teachers. A few, by former schoolmates who don't give their names, have been personal and quite nasty. And others, mostly e-mailed to me, confess to deep scars and still-open wounds.

In Intelligent Life, my article was accompanied by two interviews with women who had similar but more positive experiences–Daisy Goodwin, who enjoyed Westminster so much that she sent her daughter there, and Tracey Camilleri, who was happy at Bryanston (where, significantly, they had a separate girls' house from the start). The three accounts were intended as an interesting piece of social history, comparing the different ways in which girls were catered for in these guinea-pig years. The Telegraph chose to run only my section and, as newspapers do, they gave it a more sensational headline: "the unhappiest days of my life".   

I had always thought I might write about this part of my schooling, but had shied away. It felt like walking down the street naked. I wasn't sure anyone would want to read it (a lot of people, it turns out, didn't). But as I grew older and possibly wiser, and as the world grew more open–both technologically and emotionally–and particularly as I had children of my own, my sixth-form years began to seem curiouser and curiouser. Viewed from the 21st century, they seemed like a through-the-looking-glass experience, in a distorted, distant world. And so long ago that no one would object if I recorded them for posterity, right? Wrong.

The subject of so-called public schools–actually private, and fee-paying for most pupils–presses all of Britain's buttons. Our hierarchies go way back, and private education raises the spectres of class, privilege and money in a way that only fox-hunting and the House of Lords can hope to compete with. There's an understandable feeling that people who have what look like great opportunities shouldn't complain, however bruised they may have been

What has surprised me most is how much bitterness people have read into what I wrote (calling it an "unfair" and "unwarranted attack" on the school). For me it was a factual account of my experience and its consequences. Thanks, then, to a commentator called Charles ("a foreigner to the UK") for seeing "an honest, balanced portrayal" of my experience, which clearly allowed "for others who had different experiences, and for changes that may have taken place". That is what I had hoped to offer.

Some comments left me thinking I'm in the wrong career. I am "unstable", "too sensitive", a dangerous feminist trying to destroy men, and the writer of a "salacious" article. There are lots of posts of the shit-happens variety–“toughen up", "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Then there are the comments from people who claim to have known me and feel that I misrepresented teachers they loved, who sound very angry and say that I had a great education, was popular and successful at school, and therefore should not whinge.

I wish I had written more of the positive side of Charterhouse, but I thought it went without saying that a school where the fees were equal to Eton's would offer a top-class academic education, as it certainly did. I did benefit from this, but my point is that with adequate pastoral care it could have been more humane and more rounded. You can have a good academic experience and still feel that your school failed in its duty of care. Mine put four 16-year-old girls into a boarding house of about 70 boys that was effectively unsupervised.

A letter to the Telegraph came from the current head girl of Charterhouse and her deputy, the delightfully named Milly and Miffy respectively, who said that girls today have "their own beautiful facilities" at the school and they find it a hugely welcoming place. They were "saddened that [I] had not enjoyed my time at Charterhouse" (in fact I did enjoy aspects of it). But I would much rather they felt gladdened that they are able to reap the benefits of it. Otherwise what was the point? It would be awful if the school had not learnt lessons from its first stab at taking girls. I am happy that they are happy.

I tried to make clear that it was a very particular constellation of circumstances that made my house a cruel place, but some readers took it as an indictment of the whole school throughout all time. My housemaster was not an unkind man; he was entertaining and by all accounts an excellent teacher in the classroom. But his personal life did not allow him to excel at pastoral care and discipline. One commentator points out that he is dead and cannot defend himself. It's true that I wouldn't have been quite so candid if he were alive, but equally I'm not sure that he would argue with the words I used to describe him.

Another pained web comment came from the daughter of the then headmaster, who said that my description of her father is not one she recognises. I should have made it clear that it was my housemaster who detailed me to make tea for her and her siblings, but my point was that the school made the assumption that simply because of my gender I would know how to deal with bereaved children. I did not. She deserved better–they should have asked an adult.  

For a few days after the article was published, I was horrified by the vehement rage I had unleashed. Perhaps I had been too open. Perhaps I should have written the article anonymously and not named the school. But if I had done that, I would not have read all those other comments–the supportive ones, the ones that spoke of similar experiences, the ones that apologised, the ones from people who had been bullied then, and one from a pupil who is suffering now. (He received compassionate advice from "Dave the Rave".)

"I could almost have written it myself," wrote JSmith. "How your experience at Charterhouse resonates with mine at Shrewsbury," offered someone else. And another, encouraging: "Send your boys to Charterhouse. it is families like yours that schools like Charterhouse need."

Through More Intelligent Life, I have received a slew of hear-hear e-mails: "my sentiments exactly," wrote a beautiful girl I remember, and "well done for writing it" from a boy who was kind to me in my first term. Several say that the article was helpful to them. An Old Carthusian aged 42 wrote: "Although I am male I can still relate to many things you experienced. And your article really helped me see where some of my ways of relating to women were born." "Just like the 1950s!" exclaimed an older old boy. And another: "I was really dismayed to learn from your article that 17 years after my own time there things had not improved at all."  

One contemporary of mine writes that he is now the head teacher of a school that is soon to open a co-ed sixth form, just as Charterhouse did. "I was so touched by the piece," he says, "that I am going to insist that all my senior management team read it. They may even end up subscribing to Intelligent Life!" So some good may come of all this painful emotion that I seem to have stirred up, and not just for the magazine.

I do feel stung by stepping on this hornets' nest, but the salve is this posting from BRS, my old art teacher and house tutor:
 

Rebecca. An article which pulls no punches and is certainly correct in all it portrays. We, your teachers at the time, let you and other girls down, for which I apologise. I just hope that things are a lot better for the present girls at Charterhouse and other similar schools.
 

What a brave thing for a teacher to write. He was attached to the house I was in, he saw what I saw but with adult eyes, and he has validated it. Two of the things I have learnt this week: School can cast a very long shadow. And never underestimate people.

Picture credit: Jon's pics (altered), timparkinson (both via Flickr)

(Rebecca Willis is associate editor of Intelligent Life and a former travel editor of Vogue.)