Old Princethorpians

When I crossed the familiar Princethorpe threshold last month, it had been almost 40 years since I had last done so.  OPs Secretary, Melanie, had kindly agreed to indulge my nostalgia during a rare visit to the UK from Nairobi where I now work for the British Council.  I was at Princethorpe between 1974 and 1977.  My Dad’s job had already taken me to eight different schools by the time I landed in Princethorpe as a second year full-boarder. I always felt I had vivid memories of the school and the people I shared it with – but I wasn’t prepared for just how familiar the place would feel and how much more would come back to me.

Any ex-boarder of my era will remember the splinters from the creaking floorboards in the second year dormitories (now the IT department); loading the dishwashing machines in the precious time after supper when it was your table’s turn on the rota; stealing up in among the organ pipes of the chapel, or even into the heating conduits below the floor, or, on special occasions, into the tower itself;  the nerves and frost on the rugby pitches during a Saturday morning home match; the acrobatics and injuries around the decidedly unheated swimming pool in the summer (you can still see its outline from the third floor, beside the orchard wall). 

Any school is of its time, and this is a gentler time than those days.  Being hit on the head by a board rubber if you were foolish enough to talk in history, and picking potatoes in the local fields if you were unfortunate enough to miss your holiday visit home, were part of the life.  But so was the staff’s unerring firm but fair guiding of the boys; so was the emotional literacy and thoughtfulness of approach encouraged by Father Clarkson in his teachers; so was the sense of family.

I’m grateful to Princethorpe for all of it, and gladdened by the way that it has flourished since then on those values.