William Boyd - Bamboo - Essays and Criticism

Because of the isolation of the school we did not participate in the life of the local community in any significant way. We were too far away from most boys’ homes to make any half-term break practicable. It was not difficult to pass an entire three-month term without ever leaving the school grounds. As one grew older this unnatural segregation became more irksome. My abiding memory of my final two or three years is of a sense of life going on elsewhere. I felt as if I were experiencing a form of internal exile. A few away matches with teams only seemed to sharpen the sensation of missing out, of being bypassed.

The school grounds were capacious, the houses scattered randomly about the estate. I had a friend in a house so far away — over two miles — that I could rarely be bothered to visit him. The scale made it logistically difficult to creep out at night. I believe this is something that happens in most public schools. Here, escape is indulged in for its own sake, not as a means to some illicit end. In our case, and to reduce the risk of discovery, the nearest safe town was eight miles away. To drop from a dormitory window, change into civilian clothes, cycle the eight miles in order to snatch a pint of beer before closing time, then cycle back, was too arduous to make it worth while.

The summer was always better. We were very near the coast, and it was not difficult to spend a fragrant afternoon hidden among the gorse on the endless sand dunes, replenished with food and drink bought from stores at nearby caravan sites. Summer meant tennis too. The school tennis team was a member of a league that operated among tennis clubs in that area of the north-east. We would play against clubs in places like Inverness, Forres and Fochabers. The great advantage was that these games were played mid-week, in the evening. There was something unreal about these matches. The six of us in the team would get into a minibus at about half-past five on a Wednesday or Thursday evening and be driven to a small county town. There we would be dropped at the local tennis club. The matches were so regular that often no master accompanied us. For some reason — perhaps it was to do with the nature of the league — we often played against mixed doubles, sometimes against women’s teams. Here, at last, was life as most people led it. I have the most idyllic recollections of these warm summer evenings: long shadows cast across the red clay courts, the sonorous “pock, pock” of the balls in the air, the punctilious courtesy of our game (“I’m not sure if that was out — play a let!”), a few idle spectators — two girls, a dog, a ruddy man with a pipe. And then, afterwards, in the small clubhouse, with the glowing, perspiring wives of dentists and solicitors, all of us still in our dusty tennis whites, drinking half-pints of ginger-beer shandy, chatting, laughing in the palpitating dusk. There was, at least to us boys, a tender, bourgeois eroticism about these encounters, which was much analysed on the bus ride back to school. We often got back late, well after ten, with the school in bed, all curtains drawn vainly against the sunny northern evenings. We felt immensely proud of our exclusivity and were the source of great envy. Although I was a very keen sportsman at school, I find it quite easy to understand why tennis is the only game I play today.

The two main vices were drinking and smoking. Drugs were taken too, mainly marijuana, but were not anything like as prevalent as they are today. Smoking was completely banned, drinking almost so. A senior boy might get a glass of sweet sherry or a half-pint of beer off his housemaster if he was very lucky. These drinking restrictions must seem positively antediluvian to today’s public schoolboy. I recently sat down to dinner with a housemaster at one of our grandest schools, and the three boys who were invited seemed to drink as much wine as they wanted.

The underworld life of the school, then, was concerned almost exclusively with trying to procure and consume alcohol and tobacco without getting caught. Smoking was the most common. I would say that 95 percent of boys smoked at some stage of their school career, regardless of rank and position. Like any law that is consistently broken by a majority, it became impossible to enforce. Most colour bearers — who probably smoked themselves — turned a blind eye. All they asked for was a degree of discretion. I remember my study overlooked a road that led to a nearby wood. Every night after prep I could see the hardened smokers, in all weathers, in all seasons, trudging off for a “drag in the woods.” From time to time I’d ask them where they were going, to get the reply, “For a walk.” There was nothing illegal about going for a walk. You could always tell the smokers because they chewed gum and reeked of Brut aftershave — a brand unanimously endorsed by schoolboys of my era for its wholly effective smoke-obliterating pungency.

Smoking was cheap, fast and easy to hide. Drinking, possessing none of these attributes, was consequently less frequently indulged in. Usually it took place outside the school grounds. Journeys to and from school at the beginning and end of term were drunken binges. Dances, school celebrations, open days and the like were also opportunities for excess. We tended to prefer neat spirits for speed of effect. I remember after one school dance a friend of mine drank half a bottle of gin. Apart from a euphoric light in his eye he seemed fine when he sneaked back to his dormitory. He was caught the next morning when he woke up in a rank and befouled bed to discover that at some time in the night, without his realizing it, he had not only pissed and shat himself but had also vomited all over his pillow.

There was a certain illicit trade in sex magazines. Scandinavian magazines that showed pubic hair were particularly prized and could be sold for high prices. One enterprising boy who ran the school film society for a term was sent blurry but lurid catalogues from blue-film makers which, as far as we were concerned, were the last word in shocking explicitness. Certain novels were censored: Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The Ginger Man, Last Exit to Brooklyn. But what was permitted varied from house to house. As a fifteen-year-old I once got into fearful trouble with my housemaster because he discovered me reading Harold Robbins’s The Adventurers. It was confiscated on the spot. When I boldly asked for it to be returned on the last day of term I was told it had been destroyed.

Apart from thieving, the only genuinely illegal act that occurred with any regularity was joyriding. In my house two boys used frequently to take the assistant housemaster’s car out late at night. They would disconnect the mileometer and drive through the dark countryside for an hour or two. The owner of the car never noticed. This was an act of real daring, not to say foolhardiness; the consequences of being caught or of having an accident would have reverberated beyond the school — and yet it was not a rare event. All manner of cars were parked around the school buildings overnight. People would use them. The penalty for this crime would have been instant expulsion, but the staff, I am sure, never suspected that it went on. People could be expelled for theft, sex (homo or hetero) and consistent smoking or drinking or the taking of drugs. Few boys were expelled while I was at school: two went for having sex with school maids (the maids were sacked too); a small clique of drug-takers departed and a few heavy smokers. Boys often left of their own accord. Occasionally there would be “scandals” that made the newspapers — boys vandalized a girl’s flat on a rugby tour once, I recall — and also demanded the ultimate penalty. The boy who blacked out the RAF station also made the local newspapers. He was a simple, pale, gangly soul called Clough. He had made hundreds of pounds selling copper and lead pilfered from the air base to local scrap-metal merchants. The school, although properly outraged, had, I think, a sneaking regard for his entrepreneurial drive. His father, who did not want him at home, came up to plead for leniency with the headmaster. Clough’s punishment was to dig up all the tree stumps on the estate, a task that occupied all his free time for about two terms.