Anything but a Mess
My stepson attended Eton College.I know what you are thinking, how did this come about? How does a truck driver afford to send his son to Eton? Names are deliberately left out for privacy.
I thought I would share this story with you and at the same time give you all an insight to arguably the country’s foremost educational institution. My son arrived in the UK from Ukraine in 2005 with his mother at the age of 9 years. I thought it better for him to spend time learning some basic English before attending Primary school and kept him at home for 3 months. Wanting to be able to communicate he spent almost the entire time sat in front of the TV watching Sponge Bob Square pants and cartoon films all with subtitles and remarkably began to speak, read and write English. I could not believe his progress and placed him into the local Primary school.
To fast forward to his 2nd year in the local, rather poor at that time, Secondary school. At the end of term his class tutor spoke to us telling us he was wasted there and we should find him a place in Private School education. After I emitted a huge guffaw of laughter the tutor suggested that bursaries, subsidised scholarships and financial help was possible for pupils that showed promise. So with a somewhat sceptical attitude I thought “what the hell” and began to research all the local Private schools and found nothing. Even with financial help none offered enough to enable us to cope with the extra finance needed by ourselves. I had really given up but more out of fun and curiosity clicked on the Eton website and saw at that time the annual fee was £30,000 but nevertheless there were different scholarships available at differing levels of financial assistance. Then eureka! There it was, to be introduced the next year, a 100% scholarship for 2 pupils only from a Secondary school who were able to pass an entrance exam.
The scholarship donor was a wealthy young hedge-fund manager in the city who himself had a scholarship education. We talked it over with our son and after he showed interest and excitement an application was filled out and excepted so we attended a tea and biscuits affair at the school with 11 other families along with the Headmaster. It was explained that the boys would overnight and spend 4 days at the school taking exams in seemingly every subject possible and after an interview by each teacher and the Headmaster a decision would be taken. He was successful along with another boy and given his starting date for September.
I must explain here the school is divided between 25 Houses with 50 pupils to each so 10 pupils to each year. So the next stage was to spend a day at the school deciding on which House to join out of a random choice of three. Meetings were arranged with the three Housemasters concerned and then we had to make our choice. One Housemaster appeared to have no interest in accommodating some tyke with unknown quantities and the second I thought was a complete knob but the chosen one was a real down to earth guy with an brilliant sense of humour but gave off a strong sense of authority. He also had received his education with a scholarship and so related well to my son.
Moving on a week before starting we paid a visit to Eton’s allocated tailors, sports shop and stationers on Eton’s high street. Prices were not what you could call economical as they had a captive shopper so to speak. The most frightening was the tailors for the made to measure school uniform and all its accessories like collars and collar studs and cuff links which you have no doubt seen at some point. Price was £1200 and it was suggested that you had two. Hahaha!! Wasn’t expecting that and was quickly calculating how much overtime I would need to do to afford this. Luckily the tailor must have noticed my large intake of breath, sweaty brow and wobbly body language and made it known that some pupils rented second hand uniforms, adjusted to fit free of charge of course sir, the cost for that was £40 monthly and uniform would be changed annually. Relieved I thankfully opted for this welcome alternative. The total annual cost for extras outside of the school fees, which were paid by the scholarship, was around £2500 which included school trips etc of which there were many.
So start day, we rocked up to the school in the 14 year old SAAB 9000 adorned with huge dent in a rear wing courtesy of a motorcyclist who used the car instead of his brakes to stop himself. I gingerly parked between a Bentley and an Aston Martin. Believe me that school car park was like a limousine and premium sports car motor show. Suffice it to say I was beginning to suffer penis envy at this point. Off to the House and wine and canapes and exotic sandwiches were on offer to parents by the inhouse chef and we milled about small talking shit with nothing in common with landowners, city bankers, stockbrokers, QC’s and even one of the Queen’s direct relatives whose son was in this same house. It worked out alright as we met a self made businessman who manufactured double glazing and seemed as uncomfortable as we were. So likeminded alliances were formed. There were many more of these parents days and garden parties over the years and slowly a strange bond formed among us parents over our mutual interest in the boys education.
To finish up our son ended his time at Eton with 10 A* O levels and 4 A’s in A levels and went on to Uni to study, of all things, Art. He is now a freelance digital artist so no city banker or the like for him. Was it all worth it? Well I would say, yes. Not only because he gained enough exam passes to take whatever path he chooses but also he is a much rounded individual who thrives with confidence in any given situation or public speaking. He has said himself that he would not have changed anything and was glad he saw it through.
I can at the risk of boring you, write another article giving you that insight to how life was while he was in school and the strange practices, to me anyway, that was the structure around his school life.
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