MovieChat Forums > If.... (1969) Discussion > I went to that school

I went to that school

posted 16 years ago by nef1150
32 replies | jump to latest

I went to Tonbridge School, as did David Sherwin who wrote the screenplay, which was based on his book Crusaders, which was inspired by his time at Tonbridge in the '50s. So it predated actual school shootings by several decades. More info here: http://www.blakefriedmann.co.uk/filmClients/_289/

I'm afraid the film was quite accurate: the arcane rituals, the Latin terminology, the bullying, the beatings and so on. (Actually the bullying was much, much worse when I was there in the '70s.) And we really did have a school armoury. The only surreal bit is when the boys break into it and start using the weapons. Oh, I suppose the chap in the drawer is a bit far-fetched. But somehow it seems plausible.

The producers asked permission to shoot the film at Tonbridge, but were refused.

E.M. Forster also went there and was badly bullied. He never spoke about the place and refused to go back to give lectures after he became a successful novelist.

I hear the place is much more pleasant these days :)

[–] idgreenwood 16 years ago

As of course did Colin (later Sir Colin, later Lord) Cowdrey. Now that will have a few Americans scratching their heads!

The remarkable thing about the fictional College, the real Tonbridge, Cheltenham, or wherever you went in the 1950s-1960s, was how very similar they all were, in all the respects you mention. Only the precise terminology seemed to differ. It is, however, depressing that you mention the bullying being much worse in the '70s. I had this vague feeling that public schools picked up and began to get their act together and be more accountable, more civilised, the moment I left (in 1965)!

Clearly not.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] the_amblers 14 years ago

I was at Bedford School in late 70's early 80's. Similar in many ways - founded in 1552, Cadet Forces, Prep rooms, prefects etc. Very definitely no bullying. Actually we all seemed very happy there and I have vague memories of we older boys occasionally reading bed time stories to the 4th form. As a younger boarder at a different school I remember one of the 6th formers walking the dormitories late at night trying to find me an aspirin for a toothache We heard horror stories from some similar schools who we played at rugby but thought they must be exaggerating....

[–] chasing_squirrels 13 years ago

I just watched this and came on here to say how much it reminded me of my school. I also went to Bedford School, but very recently, I began as a 4th form boarder in 2002 and left in 2007. Its amazing to see how many traditions and rituals are still left today. I can tell you, even in 2002, there was still a lot of bullying going on in the boarding houses. Bedtime stories, there were not.

The bullying was just something that was hard to erase altogether since it is handed down year to year. Frankly, my year was more mature than others, and by the time we got to 6th form, we realised how much of a ridiculous thing it was.

There is an armory and the CCF, which is mixed sex, is still ceremoniously aggressive. It is a very sports oriented school and this has a lot to do with why I hated it so much. Far too many competitive types with arrogant, conceited personalities. Needless to say, I was very much a Holden Caulfield...

[–] DrBenjaminTwist 8 years ago

It's interesting because when I was boarding in the 1970s, I felt that bullying was much less prevalent than, say, when my father was there in the 1950s. There was still some bullying of course (heads down the toilet etc - and that was just by the masters. Haha!) but it was far less common than it had been. In my father's day being there was about being bullied constantly from day one and hoping one survived long enough to rise to the top when one could be the bully rather than the bullied. That certainly wasn't true in my day.

There was, though, a pervading atmosphere of "potential violence"; I suspect that's what you get when you shut 700 testosterone-fuelled alpha males up and leave them to get on with life.

Oddly, I think bullying has been far worse in the schools in which I've taught since the 1980s. The bullying today is not nearly as physical, but the emotional bullying that I have witnessed among some of my pupils is far worse and far more pervasive than anything I witnessed as a pupil in those "barbaric boarding schools", and, in the co-ed schools in which I've worked, far worse among girls than among boys. Today's pupils really are far nastier to each other than we ever were.

[–] Colkitto 16 years ago

Somebody, I forget who, once said that the class divide in Britain was defined by the question "Did your school have an armoury?"

Mine did, and it was a (private) day school in the middle of a city.

____________________________
"An inglorious peace is better than a dishonourable war" ~ John Adams

[–] Tony-166 16 years ago

From what I understand, most inner city schools do have armouries in the form of weapons evenly distributed amongst the pupils.

I went to a "good" grammar school in the 60's. It was ruined for me by the fact that 99% of the staff desperately wanted the place to run like a public shool.

So, masters in gowns, beatings, bullying, a fixed heirarchy with archaic rules.
Rugger only. Latin. Cold showers. Miserable old farts dishing out lines.

And if you came from a humble council-estate background like me, there were plenty of folk who went out of their way to make your life hell. That was both staff and pupils.

I would love to turn back the clock and drop a socking great atom bomb on the place.

[–] idgreenwood 16 years ago

Latin! Hey, Tony! One of the few things I thank my private schools for was an education in Latin. (And good wickets to bat all afternoon on. And, er,... that's about it.)

[–] Tony-166 16 years ago

Well, what little Latin I learnt has only really proved useful in some of the cryptic clues in The Times crossword.

Glad I ended up playing rugby though.. At the time my all time hero was George Best, and I could so easily have followed him into a downward spiral of drink, bonking glamour models, fast cars, money and a pop-star lifestyle. No, I avoided that and spent 30 years up to my neck in mud every Saturday afternoon on a rugger pitch on Hackneys Marshes. Still, he's brown bread, and I ain't (yet).

Fide et Fortitude - My old school motto.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] lukeypukey52 15 years ago

Did they really have the pretend war events at the school? I thought that was a really weird practice at the school.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] idgreenwood 15 years ago

This is all very sad, Mr Sapphic - you're forty years on from me and nothing much seems to have changed, except for the exemption letter they (by law these days) have to send your parents. I've read your posts with interest, and I assume that If... must resonate pretty powerfully still.

The cooking and hockey options suggest Tonbridge has gone co-ed, like so many others - indeed I took you at first for a girl (of a certain orientation), reading rather too much into your name! I suppose Sapphic Lament is a popular song or beat combo... (they usually are, and they catch me out every time).

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] idgreenwood 15 years ago

Of course it is. And as I said I was thrown by the name "Sapphic Lament", which must surely be a sad song sung by a maiden who has lost her heart to, well, another maiden, no? Obviously not. Nor a song or beat combo, either. I have no idea what to take you for, Mr Lament!

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] BlakAdder 15 years ago

Cradle of Filth, lol lol lol

"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong"-Oscar Wilde

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] marshaul 14 years ago

Denied.

[–] Aerlix 14 years ago

I watched this for the first time recently with a couple of friends who both went to public boarding school. I went to quite a progressive London public school - Dulwich, which I think has always prided itself on working against some of the more stifling traditions of the 'old-school'. That said there was still something there that was profoundly familiar, and at the end I think all three of us were quite affected.

Latin, rugger in the rain, the school service, remembrance day, houses, CCF, being berated for being a scruffy, insignificant useles little 'boy' (in that voice only a stuffy old master can muster) who should be thoroughly ashamed of his un-tucked shirt...

I also spent a year in a local state run school, and the entire experience was so different, a world apart in so many ways. The public school system is something all British people are familiar with, but I think everyone who went to one carries something with them for the rest of their lives, and If.... will probably touch something with most of us.

Has anyone seen the Ripping Yarns eppisode ''Tomkinson's Schooldays'' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0686867/ an interesting companion piece I think

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] nef1150 14 years ago

Of course - they're just military exercises. The military are always having exercises - and the CCF (Combined Cadet Force) at the school was a branch of the military. It was pretty harmless stuff, just one afternoon a week, with no compulsion to join the real military when you left school. It was great - all subsidised by the ministry of defense - you got to fire real weapons, go on asssault courses, all that stuff. I was in the Air Force section and was trained to fly gliders. (We had our own glider sat the school.)

All this was supposed to encourage us to join up when we left school, but there was no compulsion. It still goes on - all British kids can join the cadets, whether they are at posh schools or not. If your school doesn't have its own branch of the CCF you can still join your local branch of the Army, Sea or Air Cadets. It's like the boy scouts, but with guns.

[–] a_heathen_conceivably 14 years ago

It's like the boy scouts, but with guns

DYB DYB DYB, DOB DOB DOB, DUM DUM bullets.

"Oh look - a lovely spider! And it's eating a butterfly!"
'' ,,

[–] idgreenwood 14 years ago

I think you may be wittily referring to what were in my day called the 'Wolf Cubs', as opposed to 'Boy Scouts'. Whether today's version of Cubs still ritually call out "Dyb dyb dyb!" I do not know. It seems unlikely. I should say that calling out "Dyb dyb dyb!" seemed to me in 1959 as utterly stupid as it seems now. Perhaps that is why, though a Leaping Wolf, I was never a Sixer.

[–] csider 14 years ago

My uncle was a pupil at the school (Cheltenham College?) at the time they filmed this and so was used as an extra. There's a scene where the boys are all singing hymns and there's a close up of a david hockney lookalike with black rimmed glasses (maybe one of the black & white segments). Well that's him.

anyway, he turned out alright.

great film.

[–] amac4165 14 years ago

The alot of interiors (dormitories, dining hall, showers and toilets and the gym which was an old chapel) filmed at Aldenham School - mostly School house. Which gives the film an odd look to me because people go from one room into another which are in effect hundreds of miles apart !

I was there about 8 years after it was filmed. Mentioning the film used to wind the house master up no end!

[–] markrob-3 14 years ago

My old flat mate went to Aldenham School about that time I think. He was OK but I found a lot of his friends pretty strange.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] idgreenwood 13 years ago

Hey, Rafterman, there are still over 200 grammar schools in this wonderful country of ours, and I have devoted the past 16 years of my professional life trying to get children into a few of them!

That said, I entirely agree that the 11+ is socially divisive and educationally indefensible. It just happened that I got a job in a borough which retained the bloody thing. A mortgage is a wonderful engine for compromising principles. (I also teach children to pass public school exams, too.)

[–] Freedom_Spark 13 years ago

I'm currently reading a biography of the brilliant comedian Peter Cook and I have to say that life in boarding/public schools in the 50's has been brought to life vividly for me, it's pretty disturbing stuff.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail-R.W Emerson

[–] ronfirv 12 years ago

I did not attend public school but attended a State school whose then Rector sought to run it on what would be regarded now as elitist grammar school lines, but 40 years on, the man was on the right track. Trouble was many of the teaching staff worked against him (unknown to us until years later)and he retired early.
I completely identify with the bullying, a few of the rituals, the beatings, the Prefect system definitely,the House system & House colours, staff all wearing gowns of course,school slang peculiar to the senior school of the junior school, compulsory rugby even on severely cold, snowy days,(read = builds moral fibre!) & although the school was mixed, there was very little mixing in reality - separate corridors for each of the sexes and when we had to mix, we sat at different ends of the classrooms, and in assembly, different sides of the hall.
All of this has gone but with the disappearance of the early exposure to discipline, morals and a certain code of conduct, look at British society, especially some of the youth. No respect for law & order, and lost their way.
The beatings were wrong as was a lot of the bullying too, but some of the other aspects of this centre of excellence which have gone, I mourn.

[–] marktayloruk (2378) 2 years ago

Had a supervisor in the 80s who'd been to.Tonbridge - said he'd played cricket with one of Colin Cowdrey's sons.