On 13th September 1975, I arrived at Sedbergh School awkward and self-conscious, still limping from a badly broken leg earlier that year and embarrassed by the brace on my teeth. My trunk and tuck box, veterans of five prep-school years, came with me. Nicknames stuck almost immediately: Hoppety, Boots, then the more cutting Booties. Later, old enemies revived the hated prep-school name Granny.
We hauled luggage up to Winder House, past Chapel and the squash courts, into a building that smelt of cheap polish. My brother showed me the 'boys' kitchen and how to make hot chocolate, then vanished into his own circle. I was placed in the one open dormitory — twelve beds lined up, no privacy. The older boys enforced the pecking order through fagging duties, though I got off lightly: polishing a shoe each morning. Others were not so lucky.
Meals were hearty but routine, grace was said, and rugby dominated everything like a religion (and there was religion). I believed in neither. That first evening ended with the boys who had never been away from home before, with the inevitable pillow fights, slipper fights, and matches on fire under pyjama farts — childish to me, the thing to do for all the others, already five years hardened by prep-school life, I had hope for more, for better and never got it. From day one, I was counting the days. It took me just under three years to get out of the place.
The overriding emotions of that day were fear, embarrassment, and resignation: a new, broken start. If my thirteen-year-old self had been forced to write one line, it would have been:
Here we go again. Let the fight for the top begin once more.
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