The Boarding School Story

As requested, here's the story of how I ended up doing a year at boarding school in England between high school and college. Looking back, trying to recall details, has been an interesting exercise!

My high school was a fairly small private school outside Boston (my graduating class was 62 students, for reference), and at least in the mid-80s, felt very strongly that all its students would go on to college (aka university: I at least tend to use the terms to mean the same thing). I had no idea what I wanted to do (isn't that a theme, hey?), so I was politely resisting the pressure. I guess that was part of my teenage rebellion? All I remember is that I didn't see the point, so why bother doing all the work of searching and applications. Funny story, my mother remembers them calling her in to discuss it with her--bless her, her response was why force me?

 You know, I'm a pack rat, I may still have the list I clipped out of the school paper, which said where everyone was going, and my line read:

C_______ R____ did not apply.

Ha! Sounds as if they were washing their hands of me. But they didn't quite. Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, they found a boarding school in England that was looking for not-quite-exchange students to attend. I wonder why they were? My school suggested that this was something I could do, though again, why did that make them feel better about me not trotting off to college? I guess at least they wouldn't have to say I went from their hallowed halls to work in a McDonald's.

It's funny to look back on the facts, at least as I remember them, and wonder now about the reasons why...

I flew to London in the spring of 1986, so that the school and I could have a look at each other. You know, I see no reason not to name it: Benenden School, which is in the countryside in Kent, south of London. And if you're wondering what kind of place it is, just know that when I did an online search for it, it suggested the question, "What royals went to Benenden School?" (For the British royal family, btw, the answer to that is Princess Anne, well before my time.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The school and I agreed that we liked each other well enough, and in September, my mother and I flew over to get my trunk fitted out, metaphorically speaking*, with all the uniform requirements at Peter Jones (a department store, in US terms), the list for which had much amused us over the summer. (I wonder if I kept that list, as well?) I can bring a tuck box, can I? Oh, and I should pack a cagoule, should I?

*We had actually packed a trunk** full of the things from home that I thought I would want/need, and sent it across the ocean on a boat, which I thought was so crazy. But the uniform itself we had to shop for in London.
**I kept that trunk until I moved to Florida six years ago. It made a good coffee table!

There were two other Americans there when I was, one in my year (six-one) and one who got put in the year above us (six-two). But there was no American enclave: different years and/or different houses meant I was immersed in Norris House first, six-ones second. The six-ones had a hallway of little studies, so we did mingle there, and weren't only reliant on our shared dorm rooms for our stuff, as you can see.

I spy with my little eye ... the Bruins, Depeche Mode, Calvin & Hobbes, Swatch watches, books...

In the dining room, we sat by house for one meal a day (was it lunch, was it dinner? I think it was dinner), and the tables rotated so no one house complained about their spot. When I was leaving, I encouraged my friends to lift one of the blocks for me, a possession I still treasure. Whoops, here I am, admitting to the theft! I hope the statute of limitations has passed. 

But what was it like, you are probably wondering. It was overwhelming to me, and even with the shared language, the culture shock was considerable; I was badly homesick. Plus, I was both a fairly sheltered, not quite 18-year-old who had essentially been an only child since my brother moved out, and had been gaining independence, driving myself to school for a year, going into Boston with friends, etc. Suddenly I'm sharing a room (the first term I think my dormie had five of us? all ages), following so many rules, "cabined, cribbed, confined" (to quote Macbeth) .... it was a lot of change!

One of the first days I was at Benenden, a teacher saw me going upstairs and asked where I was going. I said I was going to my dorm room, and she said we weren't allowed to go to our rooms during the school day. I was baffled. Because I had to figure a lot of things out by guesswork, and I didn't always guess right. I came from a mixed-gender high school where most of my friends were boys, and we had no uniform, and I was plunked down into this:

My treasured school photo! Can you pick me out? (So hard to get a photo of it without reflections on the glass! Is there a trick to that?)

In fact, the year after I was there, my two closest friends, who were still there for their six-two year, sent me a booklet the school had put together with various rules and guidelines, and I was incensed: where was this when I needed it last year! All that time I spent reading notices on bulletin boards, trying to figure out how things worked...when the assumptions each side doesn't realize they are making don't align, it's grinding-gears time.

So, yeah, it was certainly an experience, and not one I regret having, but a lot of my memories are of frustrations and feeling in over my head. I was more comfortable going up to London for the half-term break than I was navigating the school at times! And I still shudder to think about how I was dropped in a classroom full of younger girls to supervise their prep period (aka homework) without the slightest idea how to (or, as it turned out, the ability to) maintain order. But then there are better memories:

• my two friends, who I'm still in touch with today (thank you, FB), and memories of going on walks, playing very loosely scored tennis, climbing trees, writing stories--one of my friends wrote a fabulous story that both was and wasn't about us, and I so wish I had a copy of it
• classes that went into subjects in much more depth than I was used to, so that we first read through Measure for Measure without stopping, then went through it again stopping constantly to discuss meaning; or read the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, olde English and all; or introduced me to art history or sewing or piano or or or, so much more (including acting in productions of The Snow Goose and of another play whose name escaped me, in which we had to be the least convincing middle-aged Englishmen chatting over their drinks ever [with watered-down Coke for Scotch])
• the thrill of getting letters from home; was mail ever better?
• turning 18! feeling both so grown up and not at all grown up

I went back to visit a year later, seeing the school afresh after a year at UMass (yes, I finally decided I might as well go to school and put off getting a real job, and wasn't that experience a huge change from this one). And I was back in England two years later, visiting my friends at school (Cambridge and Newcastle) before going to Rome to visit another friend doing a year abroad there. 

I did go back to Benenden one more time, in 2008, for Seniors' Day (aka reunion, for what we would call alumni, in the US), because who could resist? 

You know, a school reunion with HRH, why not? How can you miss that? I've been meaning to frame the invitation and put it up next to the photo.

So, any follow-up questions, let me know!

P.S. Following onto the idea of sheltered/protected kid I was, the summer after I got back was when I got called to jury duty, and ended up serving on that murder trial. No wonder it was jarring!