| Ties That Bind: Boys’ Schools in Edinburgh - Alasdair Roberts |
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“Which school did you go to?” the confident Harrow “old boy” asked the newcomer at a party I attended some 40 years ago.
“Eton, actually,” he replied modestly, thus causing a severe case of “dinner party blight”. With a quarter of Edinburgh’s secondary pupils attending literally dozens of fee-paying schools, the nuances and complexities aroused in the answer is amusingly handled in Ties That Bind: Boys’ Schools Of Edinburgh by Alasdair Roberts, a worthy follow-up to Crème De La Crème, his book about Edinburgh girls’ fee-paying schools .
All you ever wanted to know about the origins, education, traditions, personalities and particular “esprit de corps” of each school is examined. Incidentally, “old boys” in Edinburgh are known as FPs, former pupils.
The chapter on discipline shows just how much school life has changed. We tend to think young people today are “naughtier” than they once were. Not a bit of it. “Theft, violence, bullying and desertions” plagued Heriot’s early history, we read.
At the High School each master was a law unto himself where discipline was concerned. “Ephors” or prefects at the Academy were permitted to beat boys with canes right up to the 1960s for untidy desks or not wearing a cap.
Rugby was to become the defining sport of these private schools. Rugby in winter and cricket in summer became compulsory and the fixture lists for matches between the schools grew longer.
Ball games apart, the playground included such activities as Cuddyhunkers with one team jumping on another scrummed up against a wall. Hoppy-bowfie was a one-legged shoulder charge and Puddex a sort of cricket played with a porridge spurtle.
The first cadet corps to be formed in Edinburgh was established at Merchiston in 1884 and quickly spread to the other schools. In 1908 the first Officers Training Corps was formed — cannon-fodder as it turned out.
The section on the First World War is unbelievably sad. The life expectancy
of a second lieutenant
was two weeks. Later, the effect of the Second World War was to have the Academy identified as a military target on German maps.
This book is brought up to date with a description of private education today and the question is posed — will fee-paying schools survive the current economic crisis? That remains to be seen.
This is a lively and thought-provoking account which must surely appeal to all those who still ask, “Which school did you go to?” |
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