From The Times
May 17, 2008
The dark ages
Kate Muir

Late evening, and I’m writing this in bed with a load of Old Etonians. I’ve just cooked dinner from a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (OE) recipe; I’m lounging in pyjamas from Johnnie Boden (OE); and on the bedside table is a book by Neal Ascherson (Scottish nationalist OE). I have eschewed more silly stunts by Bear Grylls (OE) in order to view the American hospital drama House, whose grouchy British star is Hugh Laurie (OE).

Watching telly at the other side of the bed is my husband, who has written a book about Ian Fleming, an Old Etonian. But it is freakish, no? The way Etonians are spreading everywhere, like MRSA. And I can’t even complain: I’m going on holiday with an OE and his family this year. Twice. He’s a publisher with a bestseller on Richard & Judy. The stranglehold is tightening.

Obviously, one has always suspected that Old Etonians were lurking everywhere in the British Establishment. Everyone knows about the dark scholastic past of David Cameron and a couple of gents in his shadowy cabinet. “I think what matters is not your backstory but where you are going,” Cameron once said, in an attempt to wriggle out of his OE branding. But the Etonian percolation from politics into all walks of life – from the organic kitchen, to US drama, to Britart (Jay Jopling), to ecology (Zac Goldsmith, expelled at 16) – is more surprising.

Recent events have focused the mind on the spreading tentacles of that school somewhere near Slough, notably the ascent – or possibly descent – of Boris Johnson from Etonian King’s Scholar to Mayor of London. Boris is now in charge of more people than Alex Salmond (Linlithgow Academy) who runs an entire country in the north. Scarier still, Johnson has the Olympics; Salmond only has the Commonwealth Games.

If you’d asked me twentysomething years ago, when I left that country in the north, whether I’d ever want to meet an Old Etonian, let alone share a metaphorical bed with so many, I’d have said: “Ewww! No way.” I was bristling with lots of pent-up prejudices, many of which were absolutely reasonable, and I have enjoyed airing them in a novel I’ve just written about class and Scottishness, about the journey from haggis in batter to sushi in Soho.

On the other hand, now that I have burned my Westbourne School blazer, I don’t see why anyone should take the rap, or credit, for their school. We do not choose our schools in the way we choose jobs, friends, universities, Juicy Couture tracksuits or huge 4x4s. Instead, our parents, economics and the government are to blame. Therefore one’s scholastic history should not be used as a weapon of mass derision. Schooling is a clue to a person’s story – but it’s a fact of life, like a big nose, not a personal decision.

Think about your own school – and probably few do with unalloyed joy. Mine was a stuffy, mediocre grant-aided school in Glasgow which died a justified death. Its uniform consisted of huge purple gym shorts and hairy socks made of iron filings. I have no urge to represent it in the wider world.

A few unreconstructed Etonians from Eton, Harrovians from Harrow, Wykeham-ists from Winchester and Ruggerbuggers from Rugby possibly still use their school as a meal ticket, but the rest wish, in these days of inverse snobbery, that they were like the cabinet brothers Miliband, who can shout “Haverstock Comprehensive” to the skies.

Like many only children, I was desperate to escape the silence at home for boarding school, but we couldn’t afford it and the suggestion was considered bizarre. I was, however, fully informed of its delights by Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers and the Chalet School series, in the days before Potter.

It seems to me that boarding-school pupils are successful in the wider world, not because of better teaching, but because of early orphaning. What more does a thrusting man or women need than cruel separation from parents before puberty? How useful is it being left to stand up for yourself? Getting used to uncomfortable, archaic clothing is ideal for professionals, and, for future parliamentarians, boarding school inculcates a secret fondness for institutional food and deals done in long corridors.

Boarding school also encourages lifelong tidiness. Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy High) could learn from this. He is famous for messy desks. When Brown’s student flat in Edinburgh was burgled, the police thought it had been trashed, but Brown said nothing had been moved. It explains a lot.

kate.muir@thetimes.co.uk

Kate Muir’s novel West Coast is out now (Headline, £16.99)