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At a young long time , Simon Fairlie rejected the rat subspecies and embarked on a new trip to find his own path . He dropped out of Cambridge University to thumb to Istanbul and wheel through India . He established a commune in France , was cop multiple times for squatting and civil noncompliance , and became a moderate figure in protests against the British regime ’s road - building program of the 1980s and — afterwards — in legislative battles to help people procure access to demesne for low impact , sustainable living .
The following is an excerpt fromGoing to SeedbySimon Fairlie . It has been adapted for the web .
By the clock time I was eight I had lived in ten homes and been to six schools , plus a period of ‘ home schooling ’ . This seemed normal , and not the least bit upsetting : I was astonished to be separate that some kids never move family at all . I had got pretty good at adapting to new schooltime , but this did n’t prepare me for what was to follow .
As far as I can gather there was an arrangement between my parents that my Padre would have the last word about the Department of Education of his Logos , and my mother about her daughters . This meant that at the age of eight , against my mother ’s better judgment , I was sent to a ‘ preparatory ’ boarding school , whereas my babe went to local day schools .
embarkation schools are gregarious . In the 1950s , Seaford , a small town on the South seacoast between Brighton and East- bourne , was to embarkation schools what Hay - on - Wye is to bookshops today . There were about eight boys ’ prep school , plus a twosome for girls , each with about one hundred pupils . You could see all of them in their institutional finery on Sunday mornings , when crocodile lines of uniformed children would meet on St Peter ’s church , where the vicar top a extra schoolhouse military service , for which he was rewarded with a heap of bags full of threepenny bits in the collection tray .
The purpose of these prep schools was to ‘ ready ’ their charge for public school , then Oxbridge ( ideally ) and a career in the upper stratum of British society . This require endowing them with a authoritative education and instilling them with moral fibre , through a regimen founded on discipline and privation .
Not that St Wilfrid ’s , my schooltime , could rival the levels of brutality that George Orwell sustain in his pre - war prep school in Eastbourne . bodily punishment was meted out with a measure of moderation , and small apparent sadism : I book the respected perspective of most sack male child in the school in my last year , with just eleven beatings to my mention , though the previous incumbent had received more than thirty .
Instead , life at St Wilfrid ’s was characterize by relentless regimentation of a kind one might have expected at a borstal – the prisons I have since stay put in have all had regime more relaxed than that of my embarkation school . Everything , from the bit you fire up up in the dormitory in the dawn , to the moment lights become out in the evening was structured and supervise .
Everything had to be visit and ‘ croak ’ . Matron passed your back to see you had properly entered the cold shower , and then again to ensure that you had dry out it ; you bared your tooth before her and showed both sides of your hands to prove that they were clean ; the student residence monitor passed the bottom shroud of your bed as you made it , then the seam - devising in its entirety , the brushing of your tomentum and the knotting of your tie .
At breakfast , master sit at the death of each table , checking that you ate the food you were given . Then , during an asylum holler ‘ sunup prep ’ , the registry was translate out while pupils performed what might have been call homework were there a home to go to . When your name was read out you were given a ‘ ticket ’ , a metal numeral from one to ten bed to a piece of Mrs. Henry Wood the size of a cigarette box .
This was the number of the toilet where you were theorise to go and take a crap . If you did n’t want to perform , you had to make believe to , because the master - on - obligation would be prowl around checking that every boy was doing his duty . So instill was this institution that the school euphemism for taking a prick was ‘ having a slate ’ .
And so it drop dead on throughout the day , everything time to the minute , scrutinize and passed : assembly and morning service , drill , lessons , wash for lunch , finishing your food , changing for sport or Scout , then rinse and changing back again , more lessons , tea , eve homework , more washing and washup , till lights out . And so it proceed for twelve interminable week at a time .
divergence from the prescribed routine was regarded as rebelliousness , if not rising . You could run , but only at allocated times in allocated space – i.e. at sports and drill ; not down the corridors . If you find out the piano you had to commence with ‘ Dancing Round the Maypole ’ and fine-tune to ‘ Für Elise ’ ; attempting to wager pop song or experimenting with boogie - woogie riffs would earn you a negative mark .
The only comics allowed were the wholesome Hulton Press publications Eagle and Swift , and a sorry black and blanched throwback to the Edwardian era call Arthur Mee ’s Children ’s Newspaper . sweetness were rationed to four a Clarence Day , while money was strictly forbidden , and not much use anyway , since the only time you were allowed out was on the hate crocodile - geological formation walk of life .
sweet were therefore the currency of the school ’s calamitous economy , and could buy illicit comics , protective friendly relationship , or a bet on a cavalry in the ‘ sweet- stakes ’ on Derby Day . The ration of four sweets a day was doled out by ‘ sweet monitors ’ , senior boy whose sought after position provided ample scope for bribery and corruption .
There was some easing from this on the three weekends in the middle of a terminus when your parents were allowed to inspect and take you out for the good afternoon . And of course there were the holidays . The difficulty here was meeting other tiddler , since for most children the main conduit for meeting friends is their day schooltime . As for daughter , I did n’t cope with any . Aside from my younger sisters , my humans until the historic period of thirteen was a girl - free environment , not a great help in the years to come .
The other welcome form of escape was to fall ill and be charge to the sickroom , a couple of minor residence hall in the bean where none of the normal rules applied . Here , there were no moral , no sports , no pressure to finish up your repast , no cold showers , or regiment ablutions and defecations .
Instead there was a radio and a huge pile of Beano , Dandy , Beezer and Topper comic annuals ; even a few of the highly prized War Picture Library . And here , Matron revealed herself to be quite a nice person . It did n’t weigh how ominous you felt , it was well than being at school .
But the in effect matter of all about the sickroom , was that you met male child of a different age . An intrinsical failing of many school system is that they stream pupil accord to age , so they rarely get the chance to socialize with older or younger kids ( especially at a boarding school ) . In environments or commonwealth where school day is less prevalent you find children of all ages running around together . The younger kids learn from the older ones , and the sure-enough kid look after the immature one .
The sickroom was my only opportunity to socialise with older boys , who down below would n’t be see stagnant by their peer talk to a squirt like me , unless it was to exercise prefectorial authority . Here I instruct about crystal radios , and Airfix kits , and why Elvis Presley was cool than Tommy Steele . Here I played ‘ Dare , Love , Kiss or Promise ’ for the first time .
And here , if anywhere , was where I learnt the facts of life . It was , after all , in the sickroom during my first term at the school , that Susan , the lentiginose sixteen - year - old from town who work as one of the maids , was discovered intrust some unspeakable act with one of the older male child , and summarily give the sack . After that , the school apply only dumpy middle - aged Spanish cleaning woman – and all further capers , of which there were many , were homosexual and tacitly allow by the housemaster .
Because of the paradise in the attic , I spent a batch of my time and energy trying to be ill , and got quite just at it . Never a full term went by when I did not enjoy some time in the sickroom . I may even have benefited from it , as I now come along to have a strong resistant organization . But at the time it never occurred to me that there might be something perverse about an upbringing that made me require to be ill .
To maintain sanity in this slightly grim world you need something upon which to ground your self - obedience . It might be academic achievement , or art at sports , or popularity with your mate . It might be something less publicly acknowledged , such as an power to draw , or an interest in the workings of model steam locomotive engine .
But if you did n’t have anything like that and were at a loss , there was no family to support you . There were boys who had been dumped there by parents living on the other side of the world and who saw them perhaps once a twelvemonth .
There were boy of eight or nine who were so unbalanced they wet their seam at night – not a apt thing to do in a dormitory full of your equal . There were boys who were bullied and in the absence of parent had no one to turn to .
At one point there was a sudden spate of boy scarper away – three in one terminus . None of them issue forth back . After the third escapee , the headmaster delivered the school a sermon on the matter in the school chapel , emphasising what a cowardly thing it is to run aside . ‘ And I must warn you all , ’ he exclaim in ending , ‘ that any son attempting to run away aside will be immediately expel . ’
The absurdness of invoking expulsion as a deterrent was not suffer on us , and we bed that the real Coward were those who did not have the guts to run aside .
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