The Spectator
Apr. 30th, 2004 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
favorovMy great escape
David Hargreaves says that running away from school
was one of the best things he ever did
Thirty years ago this month I ran away from school. I was not quite 15
and had been at boarding school for over five years by the time I left. A
turbulent puberty and a delayed recognition that years of searing
unhappiness were damaging me — both helped to shape a decision made
one lonely night in my dormitory.
The next morning I slipped away in between lessons. The distance
involved was nearly 200 miles, but the first 200 yards were the most
hazardous. Stonyhurst in 1974 was not Dotheboys Hall, but still a tough
proposition, and it was difficult to pass through its extensive grounds
undete cted. I discarded my school uniform in a dormitory, climbed down
a fire-escape and, a few breathless minutes later, found myself on the
main road between Clitheroe and Preston.
The next issue was money. My escape
fund consisted of 10p — not a lot, even
then — and I disbursed half of it on a
Cadbury’s creme egg. This was good for
morale, but did nothing to eat into the miles
that lay ahead. By dint of walking and
hitch-hiking, I reached Preston after a
couple of hours and managed to take £5
out of my bank account. By two o’clock
that afternoon, I was in a second-class
compartment of a British Rail train pulling
out of Preston station, drawing deeply on a
fresh packet of Disque Bleu (of course).
As I lurched in an old green United
Counties boneshaker bus on the last leg of my journey through the
Northamptonshire countryside, I tried to frame an entrance spee ch
appropriate to the occasion. The choices were restricted: anything
studiedly casual (‘God, Lancashire’s depressing’; ‘I don’t think daily
Mass i s me somehow’) might have sounded good when part of family
folklore two or three decades down the line, but that was to look further
ahead than was wise. Yet the truth (‘I’m pretty comprehensively
unpopular. Oh, and by the way I think I’m gay’) was terrifying. Anyway,
that was then and this is now. Back then, those were thoughts I couldn’t
bear to frame, even to myself.
I remember the compassion in my mother’s eyes as she opened the door
to my knock, and the love with which she took me in her arms. I
remember catching the profile of my father at the same moment, as he
crouched by the telephone in the front hall, and the timbre in his voice as
he said to the person on the other end of the line, ‘Thank God. He’s just
walked in through the door this moment.’
So they gathered me in their arms, ran me a hot bath and made me
supper. There was no cross-examination. I remember my father saying
gently, ‘The school may not want you to go back, you know’, and me
replying, ‘I’m not g oing back, Dad.’ That was all. We watched a lot of
television that night — Colditz, Play for Today, and I felt calmer than I
had for many months. I went to bed late and slept dreamlessly — unlike,
I am sure, my parents. I was aware of murmured conversations in the
kitchen and of telephone calls conducted in the privacy of their bedroom,
but everything in my world bore a reassuring normality. The next day I
helped my father in the garden, and on Monday he asked me to clean my
mother’s car and sweep the garage. Every evening, we sat and ate
together and, an inveterate chatterbox, I talked freely of everything save
my immediate circumstances.
My parents were disciplined at concealing their anxiety. They were also
pragmatic. The only school was four miles down the road — a big
ex-secondary modern, newly comprehensive. It was rough and rustic, but
there was tacit agreement between us that, having made my choice to
come home, I must adapt to the consequences. On the Saturday before I
began my new school, my father bought me a school blazer, tie and a
black plastic briefcase. He was jolly enough, but there was a flash of
steel as he signed the cheque, and it did not take a genius to read the
runes: time to lie low and melt into the background.
It turned out better than any of us dared believe. Against the odds, I
made friends quickly and easily, started to do some decent work and,
three years down the line, won a place at Oxford. I am a late child of
that generation in which parents expected unselfconsciously to have the
last word and so living at home was sometimes combustible. But
underpinning everything was the absolute certainty that my parents’
commitment to me was limitless, apparently devoid of resentment, and
grounded in love.
Now, as a teacher with more than 20 years’ service, I’ve had ample
opportunity to see new generations of adolescents wrestle with their own
demons. Undoubtedly, some things are easier: adults are less frightening,
so ciety less restrictive and censorious, and authority less arbitrary. But
the journey to adulthood is still seldom less than complicated, and often
harder than that. Peer pressure is as great as ever, and draws much of
its inspiration from our world of strident materialism and moral relativism.
And that last point applies to a new generation of parents with a
vengeance. Because they love their children, when fond dreams (or
illusions) are shattered, most work bravely to subordinate their own
disappointment and concentrate on the needs of their sons and daughters.
But I’ve seen some ugly egoism over the years — rotten parenting cuts
across all the usual boundaries of class, education and ethnicity, and in an
age characterised by secularism and affluence the dangers of losing a
sense of proportion are rife. I’ve never forgotten bumping into the father
of a very bright ex-pupil of mine at some dinner. ‘I haven’t spoken to
Henry for six months,’ he told me. ‘As far as I am concerned he has
wasted his life.’ Shocked and sorry, I asked what on earth had happened.
‘He got a second,’ came the reply, voice shaking with indignation. ‘The
third generation of our family at Trinity, and all of us with firsts. I can’t
even look at him.’
There are so many obnoxious elements to this incident that it may be
more merciful simply to pass on. For a moment, I wanted his son to be
struck down by a passing lorry or fall victim to some wasting disease,
simply so that his father could get some instruction into what real grief
was all about, as opposed to a spurious dent to his vanity.
As I say, it’s 30 years since I made a decision as big as any I’ve made in
my life. I see again how it was a choice fashioned by the certainty that I
was loved and loved well. Like all lucky children who have grown into
mellow middle age, I am overawed by the blessing of good parents who
alone stood between me and disaster. In my own way, I hope I can still
repay some of that. ›
David Hargreaves says that running away from school
was one of the best things he ever did
Thirty years ago this month I ran away from school. I was not quite 15
and had been at boarding school for over five years by the time I left. A
turbulent puberty and a delayed recognition that years of searing
unhappiness were damaging me — both helped to shape a decision made
one lonely night in my dormitory.
The next morning I slipped away in between lessons. The distance
involved was nearly 200 miles, but the first 200 yards were the most
hazardous. Stonyhurst in 1974 was not Dotheboys Hall, but still a tough
proposition, and it was difficult to pass through its extensive grounds
undete cted. I discarded my school uniform in a dormitory, climbed down
a fire-escape and, a few breathless minutes later, found myself on the
main road between Clitheroe and Preston.
The next issue was money. My escape
fund consisted of 10p — not a lot, even
then — and I disbursed half of it on a
Cadbury’s creme egg. This was good for
morale, but did nothing to eat into the miles
that lay ahead. By dint of walking and
hitch-hiking, I reached Preston after a
couple of hours and managed to take £5
out of my bank account. By two o’clock
that afternoon, I was in a second-class
compartment of a British Rail train pulling
out of Preston station, drawing deeply on a
fresh packet of Disque Bleu (of course).
As I lurched in an old green United
Counties boneshaker bus on the last leg of my journey through the
Northamptonshire countryside, I tried to frame an entrance spee ch
appropriate to the occasion. The choices were restricted: anything
studiedly casual (‘God, Lancashire’s depressing’; ‘I don’t think daily
Mass i s me somehow’) might have sounded good when part of family
folklore two or three decades down the line, but that was to look further
ahead than was wise. Yet the truth (‘I’m pretty comprehensively
unpopular. Oh, and by the way I think I’m gay’) was terrifying. Anyway,
that was then and this is now. Back then, those were thoughts I couldn’t
bear to frame, even to myself.
I remember the compassion in my mother’s eyes as she opened the door
to my knock, and the love with which she took me in her arms. I
remember catching the profile of my father at the same moment, as he
crouched by the telephone in the front hall, and the timbre in his voice as
he said to the person on the other end of the line, ‘Thank God. He’s just
walked in through the door this moment.’
So they gathered me in their arms, ran me a hot bath and made me
supper. There was no cross-examination. I remember my father saying
gently, ‘The school may not want you to go back, you know’, and me
replying, ‘I’m not g oing back, Dad.’ That was all. We watched a lot of
television that night — Colditz, Play for Today, and I felt calmer than I
had for many months. I went to bed late and slept dreamlessly — unlike,
I am sure, my parents. I was aware of murmured conversations in the
kitchen and of telephone calls conducted in the privacy of their bedroom,
but everything in my world bore a reassuring normality. The next day I
helped my father in the garden, and on Monday he asked me to clean my
mother’s car and sweep the garage. Every evening, we sat and ate
together and, an inveterate chatterbox, I talked freely of everything save
my immediate circumstances.
My parents were disciplined at concealing their anxiety. They were also
pragmatic. The only school was four miles down the road — a big
ex-secondary modern, newly comprehensive. It was rough and rustic, but
there was tacit agreement between us that, having made my choice to
come home, I must adapt to the consequences. On the Saturday before I
began my new school, my father bought me a school blazer, tie and a
black plastic briefcase. He was jolly enough, but there was a flash of
steel as he signed the cheque, and it did not take a genius to read the
runes: time to lie low and melt into the background.
It turned out better than any of us dared believe. Against the odds, I
made friends quickly and easily, started to do some decent work and,
three years down the line, won a place at Oxford. I am a late child of
that generation in which parents expected unselfconsciously to have the
last word and so living at home was sometimes combustible. But
underpinning everything was the absolute certainty that my parents’
commitment to me was limitless, apparently devoid of resentment, and
grounded in love.
Now, as a teacher with more than 20 years’ service, I’ve had ample
opportunity to see new generations of adolescents wrestle with their own
demons. Undoubtedly, some things are easier: adults are less frightening,
so ciety less restrictive and censorious, and authority less arbitrary. But
the journey to adulthood is still seldom less than complicated, and often
harder than that. Peer pressure is as great as ever, and draws much of
its inspiration from our world of strident materialism and moral relativism.
And that last point applies to a new generation of parents with a
vengeance. Because they love their children, when fond dreams (or
illusions) are shattered, most work bravely to subordinate their own
disappointment and concentrate on the needs of their sons and daughters.
But I’ve seen some ugly egoism over the years — rotten parenting cuts
across all the usual boundaries of class, education and ethnicity, and in an
age characterised by secularism and affluence the dangers of losing a
sense of proportion are rife. I’ve never forgotten bumping into the father
of a very bright ex-pupil of mine at some dinner. ‘I haven’t spoken to
Henry for six months,’ he told me. ‘As far as I am concerned he has
wasted his life.’ Shocked and sorry, I asked what on earth had happened.
‘He got a second,’ came the reply, voice shaking with indignation. ‘The
third generation of our family at Trinity, and all of us with firsts. I can’t
even look at him.’
There are so many obnoxious elements to this incident that it may be
more merciful simply to pass on. For a moment, I wanted his son to be
struck down by a passing lorry or fall victim to some wasting disease,
simply so that his father could get some instruction into what real grief
was all about, as opposed to a spurious dent to his vanity.
As I say, it’s 30 years since I made a decision as big as any I’ve made in
my life. I see again how it was a choice fashioned by the certainty that I
was loved and loved well. Like all lucky children who have grown into
mellow middle age, I am overawed by the blessing of good parents who
alone stood between me and disaster. In my own way, I hope I can still
repay some of that. ›
