Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
Lately it seems like I’ve done nothing but sew, apart from working and driving up and down the A3. There are lots of lovely flowers on the verges and the central reservation. I have no idea what most of them are, and if I wasn’t driving I’d take photos of them. It would be unnerving for other drivers if I sailed past them snapping away. But sometimes there’s a traffic jam and that’s fair game. It’s just that they hardly ever have traffic jams where there are lovely flowers to photograph.
Our house has been taken over by a very large thing which will eventually be a tree. Lots of people have felted and knitted pieces for it, and we’re sewing it all together so it can be hung up in Ryde Library. We’re making it as part of Ryde Arts Festival, and in commemoration of the centenary of the start of First World War. And because we can.
Training for the exigencies of trench warfare
I went to a school that would have been very good training for the exigencies of trench warfare in that very war. It was one of those Victorian boarding schools, the ones that became jumped-up Public Schools (not proper ones like Eton or Rugby). They advertised themselves to the aspiring middle-classes as training schools for service to the Empire, either in the armed forces or the civil service.
My school believed in large draughty dormitories sleeping over 40 smelly boys with all the windows open all year, PE at dawn, very few and basic sanitary arrangements, an extensive rule book and lots of imaginative punishments. I knew one particular prefect who used to make me lean with my knees bent against a wall as if I was sitting in an imaginary chair for an interminable time. I can still feel my legs shaking uncontrollably.
They took to it like dervishes to whirling
I wasn’t entirely suited for the life, I have to say. The most frightening thing was that there were many who were. They took to it like dervishes to whirling. I was the shy retiring type, I just wanted to read and ask questions. Luckily I wasn’t good-looking even then, so I avoided some of the more traditional dangers lurking in all-male institutions.
I learned that you can be lonely when you’re on your own, but you can only be truly alone crammed in with 500 others who don’t seem to be having the same experience as you. But it made me the man I am today.
Full of second-hand cars and over-grateful parents
Just like so many other all-male institutions, everything was skewed in strange ways. The uniform was a terrible mish-mash. The education was very good, but only in parts. Science teaching was terrible. Traditional Arts subjects like English and History were well-covered, although much of their success could be attributed to small class-sizes and the fear of letting the parents down, given what they were sacrificing to pay the fees. Nobody at my school was rich. On Open Day the car park was full of second-hand cars and over-grateful parents.
That was in the days of deference. I wasn’t allowed to study English and Geography at A Level because they were timetabled at the same time. My parents made me change to History because they were incapable of complaining. They wanted their three sons (me the youngest) to get on in life, and boarding school was our ticket. They didn’t dare rock the boat.
A beautiful prison, admired by all but the inmates
I only went back a couple of times, several years later. It does look impressive, all red brick with turrets and stained glass in the huge Chapel windows, and a terrace with a breathtaking view over the Sussex countryside. It always makes me think of a beautiful prison, admired by all but the inmates.
Other things were skewed as well. I was given no guidance on such vital matters as cooking, or nutrition, or financial management, or even the basics of personal relationships. I learned to march and wear uniform in the Combined Cadet Force, and I was endlessly lectured about the importance of Church and State. I certainly learned nothing about dress-sense from the uniform, and the virtue and value of personal cleanliness and hygiene were hardly encouraged by the weekly change of clothes and the primitive washing facilities.
Not being equipped with a crystal ball
But I did learn to iron and to sew. Nobody taught me this, I had to work it out for myself, preparing for endless parades and uniform checks and having to sew on my own buttons and badges, not that I won many of those. These things are possibly the most useful skills I learned there. The rest I’ve had to pick up more or less afterwards.
Would I have learned these skills if I had gone to a different kind of school? I have no idea, of course, not being equipped with a crystal ball, and fully understanding that there may be an infinite number of parallel universes, but I only live in this one. Or this one. Or this one. But I’m sure I would have had a less troubled adolescence.
Picking up tiny hedgehogs without gloves
Lately I’ve been using my sewing skills to help create the commemorative tree in (actually all over) our living room. It’s been a huge task and it’s taken ages. The beauty of it is that as objects go, it serves no actual purpose, nobody’s being paid anything to make it, it’s not worth anything, and it’s enormously labour-intensive.
My fingers feel like I’ve been picking up tiny hedgehogs without gloves for weeks, the house looks like an explosion in a haberdashery, all my spare time (what spare time?) has gone, and right now I’m heartily sick of the whole thing.
But all the same, every time I think about it, I break out into a huge smile and I feel so proud, and so good. I can’t wait to see it up on the wall in Ryde Library.
So at last I do have something to thank my school for.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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