Once our oldest son was born in 1985, I put him down for Eton, and I did the same for boy number two when he joined in 1987.
Looking back, I can see that I suffered at best from an extreme form of wishful thinking, at worst from absurd delusions of grandeur.
Even then, I realized it was very unlikely that I would ever be able to afford the fees, which now stand at a cool £ 48,501 per boy per year.
Indeed, back in the 1980s, when me and Mrs. You were permanently on our toes, the registration fee alone almost broke the Utley bank – and if my memory serves me, it was a meager £ 15 for each boy (mention it about £ 38 in today’s money).
But then I told myself that anything could happen to change my financial circumstances in the 13 years before the boys would be old enough to start at Eton.
Once our oldest son was born in 1985, I put him down for Eton, and I did the same for boy number two when he joined in 1987. Looking back, I can see that I have at best suffered from an extreme form of wishful thinking, at worst from absurd delusions of grandeur
Maybe a long-lost grandfather would die childless in some remote corner of the globe, leaving me with his diamond mines. Or — who knows? – I can even write that best-selling novel (to which I have not yet fully added, 40 years later).
Suffice it to say that by the time Utley boys number three and four entered this world, in 1991 and 1993, I had come to earth with a bump. I realized there was not the ghost of a chance that I would ever be able to send any of our boys to school, and I saved myself the money it would cost to register these new arrivals.
Shameful
Note – and here’s a shameful confession – I always thought the £ 30 I invested in registering the first two was well spent money. It was because it gave me bragging rights for 13 years, which enabled me to crawl, when people asked me where we were planning to send them: ‘Actually, we’m not quite sure yet, but they are off for Eton. ‘
Shameful, I grant you (though perhaps not as shamelessly as a former newspaper diary friend, who usually wore an Old Etonian tie, despite the fact that he had never been near the place).
So why did I choose Eton as my first choice?
Well, I want to convince you – to convince myself, if I have to be completely honest – that my main reason was that it is an extremely good school, and always has been.
I have only been there twice in my life. Once was for the celebrations on Founders’ Day, June 4, when I was the guest of family friends who had a son at Eton. The other time was for the 21st birthday party of my college friend Robert McCrum, whose father was then the principal. The party was held in the wonderful house that matched his father’s work.
On both occasions I loved everything about the place – the history, the traditions, the venerable old buildings, the awesome facilities, the acres of playing fields on which the Iron Duke of Wellington said the Battle of Waterloo was won.
All this brings me to my sadness over the news that the traditional annual cricket match between Eton and Harrow will be banned from Lord’s, where it has been played since the first match in 1805.
To this day, I remember the lavish picnics that emerged from the boots of Bentleys and Rolls-Royces on June 4th. It was not picnics like I was used to, awkwardly crouching on mats, sticky with spilled Lucozade, swaying wasps among the crumbs of sausage rolls and egg sandwiches.
These were real banquets of lobster and salmon, juicy beef, strawberries and profit rolls, served on picnic tables with crisp, white, linen tablecloths and rinsed with champagne, cooled in silver buckets.
One day, I thought, one day I will come here in my own Bentley to see my own boys rowing down the Thames in flower-strewn boatmen, and the traditional refrain rumble as they first look at one bank of the river, then the other: ‘Hats off, Eton! Hats off, Slough! ‘
But what I particularly liked about the school, which was shaped from my own experience of several Ancient Etonians, was that it seemed to benefit brainboxes and thickos equally. The academic-minded were offered the best of teaching, while the dunsels were imbued with that distinctive Ethonic confidence – OK, to arrogance, if you prefer – that apparently kept them happy in their own skin.
illustrate
Above all, I wanted my boys to be happy – and whether they were bright or dull, Eton seemed to offer the best guarantee.
Or at least that’s what I said to myself. But I can just as well admit, since I have no secrets from readers (well, not many), that I was also attracted to the sheer social cachet of the place.
It’s true, my own school – Westminster – is also very old, very expensive and very good (it was rarely out of the top three in the country’s exam league tables, and often came in at number 1).
Like Eton, it has its glorious reputation of famous old boys, from Christopher Wren to Andrew Lloyd Webber, with six premieres in between. But let’s admit it, Westminster is a distinctive middle-class, academic incubator compared to the much larger Eton, which has an even longer list of well-known alumni – including, dammit, no less than 20 premieres.
This week’s game, which ended in a victory for Harrow, was perhaps the last clash ever between the two schools on the ground known as the home of cricket. And all in the name of ‘inclusivity’
Yes, I know it is terribly unfair that some children in this country enjoy great benefits by no merit of their own, but simply because of the birth accident that gave their parents rich enough to send them to posh schools. But as I am far from the first to see, life is unfair – it always has been, always will be.
Indeed, I would go further and suggest that attempts to make the poor richer by hammering the rich and abolishing privilege have almost always made everyone poorer. Add to that the fact that I delight in the glory of our history and traditions, and you will see that I am quite out of step with the egalitarian, Britain-bashing spirit of the time.
joy of death
All this brings me to my sadness over the news that the traditional annual cricket match between Eton and Harrow will be banned from Lord’s, where it has been played since the first match in 1805. This took place shortly before the Battle of Trafalgar, with the poet Lord Byron appearing for the Harrow team.
In the true spirit of the times, the MCC – never known in the past for its commitment to egalitarianism – decided that the competition should be replaced by the final round of boys ‘and girls’ Twenty20 competitions, open to all secondary schools . Indeed, this week’s game, which ended in a victory for Harrow, was perhaps the last clash ever between the two schools on the ground known as the home of cricket. And all this in the name of ‘inclusivity’.
Oh, for heaven ‘s sake, I ask you: What damage has this match ever done? Was anyone seriously offended by it – anyone, that is, except a manic minority of killjoy class warriors on Twitter, who thrive on hatred of the rich and privileged (who is the one phobia apart from contempt for Britain’s history, who is considered acceptable in the waking society)?
For good cause, the MCC also banned the annual Varsity contest between Oxford and Cambridge, which since 1827 has provided innocent pleasure to thousands at Lord’s.
I am with Henry Blofeld, the former commentator of the Special Test Match – he with the impossibly posh accent and outrageously awful dress code – when he says: consult. There is a nasty taste to this. ‘
Which bastion of privilege will be next for the chop? The Henley Regatta? Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot? The opera at Glyndebourne (where that class warrior Angela Rayner was seen last week while sipping her champers)?
God saves us from a world of gloomy uniformity, in which neither of us can strive for even a foretaste of how the other half lives.