Boarding school

Are there things that you can remember taking from London to Northumberland to Cheltenham and then potentially to London? Is that where you went to next?

Well, then I went to boarding school in Hartford, just outside London.

And then I went back to the northeast to train as a journalist.

I lived in Africa for a year.

It was a green stripe on a white background with yellow flowers and it had matching curtains and wallpaper.

It's really fascinating how the just the thread of sort of our stories as people.

just weaves through all of these different places, you know, when you're talking about Africa and Paris, and I'm sure that, you know, you had all of these things happen while you're in these places, but just how that's then impacted the way that you think about home? Did you? And then when you went to boarding school, did you feel like that was like a sense of freedom? Or did you yearn for sort of your home with your mother? I

liked boarding school because I felt I felt quite free there and that we were a bit centurions and we played up to that.

My understanding is

you went to boarding school at five.

Yeah.

Now, my

own story, I had an opportunity to go to boarding school at 13.

I was not emotionally ready for that.

I didn't go.

But

okay welcome to an evolving man podcast episode 175. today i'm excited to be speaking to paul frey nicola freeman and guy much paul frey is a retired neuroscientist and computer engine entrepreneur busier than ever with projects in business and the arts he is a director of boarding school concern a safe haven and support for all former borders and he is an editor of sent away the boarding school concern anthology of boarding school poems nicola freeman is a psychotherapist who works with ex-borders and adults with childhood trauma she enjoys poetry film and scandinavian dramas and guy much as an engineer who specializes in material science he enjoys travel poetry and currently lives near manchester welcome everybody thank you great to be with you

pierce yes

yeah i also live near manchester so i'd be fascinated i'm hebden bridge myself

So I'd love for us to begin by you just sharing a little bit how the poetry anthology came about, please.

Sure.

Well, I think it's widely accepted now, in most quarters, that being sent away to boarding school at an early age can lead to lifelong damage.

And writing poetry can be part of a way to develop compassion for the self.

calm a stress nervous system and with luck rebuild a love of life.

We arrived at the school.

Now there, there was only a boarding school for boys, not girls.

No.

There was no boarding school for girls.

No.

Only boys.

So he called us, he said, there is a school for girls.

This is in Kasempa district.

And then my mom divorced.

then she came back home and i i must say she always look looked after me and then as she took me to a boarding school

yeah

and that's when now i oh this is after my great-grandmother died and then now when she passed she said okay cool she called my grandmother

But when you look back, you're like, she just didn't know what she was doing.

And she just had no clue how damaging her words were to me.

And my mom picked it up and then she said, you're going to boarding school.

And then I left to a boarding school.

No, it shattered pretty quickly.

Which brings us to the most brutal part of this story, the boarding school backlash and the realization of what Christopher later called the empty fame.

This is the major turning point in his life.

Everything changes here.

It really does.

The text notes that Christopher's feelings about his fame didn't just slowly fade away.

They violently fractured when he went away to boarding school.

Because the environment changed drastically.

Perhaps you're the cell organizer.

What would you call that? It's like being in a boarding school.

They usually have some adult who's in charge of your particular house.

If you're in Slytherin or Hithering, whatever they're called.

I don't know if they were being to a boarding school.

I only know about them from Harry Potter movies, which I know is not very realistic, and from old children's books about boarding school.

Their parents are sick to death of them, so they send them to boarding school and say, hello, will you teach him and also give him his breakfast and his lunch and his dinner, or teach him how to fend for himself even better, and then shove him in a bedroom.

I don't know what goes on in boarding schools.