THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
A Times, Spectator and Waterstones Book of the Year
'Shocking and moving' Guardian
'Top marks for its searing frankness, framed in wistfully beautiful prose’ The Times
At eight years of age, Charles Spencer was sent away to one of England's most England's most exclusive boarding schools. Here he reveals the strange secrets of the school, and the culture of cruelty and abuse he experienced in his five years there as pupil.
Spencer reflects on the misery, hopelessness and abandonment he felt aged eight, viscerally describing the intense pain of homesickness and the vicious brutality of a boys' school in the 1970s. All these years later, Spencer's bafflement at the teachers' motivations to inflict such cruelty on young children in palpable. As is his fury that, even if somehow he had spoken up, he'd never have been believed.
Charles Spencer's book 'A Very Private School' was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 11-03-2024.
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A Very Private School 9780008666088 Hardback
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A Very Private School by Charles Spencer
This memoir by a member of the British aristocracy describes Charles Spencer’s experience at a boys boarding school. He describes in shocking detail the abuse the boys experienced on a daily basis, from frequent beatings by pedophile masters ( of which the headmaster was the worst) to verbal bullyin…
This memoir by a member of the British aristocracy describes Charles Spencer’s experience at a boys boarding school. He describes in shocking detail the abuse the boys experienced on a daily basis, from frequent beatings by pedophile masters ( of which the headmaster was the worst) to verbal bullying and insults. The cult of abuse perpetrated at this school- and one has to assume is typical of many like schools- was kept under wraps, and parents and visitors were deliberately kept away so no one was aware of what was going on. Comment from pupils at the school whom Charles interviewed later in life indicate the deep and lasting trauma experienced by these young men. It is a sad and terrible indictment of a cult of abuse by men in whom unknowing or negligent parents put their trust. As a boarding school survivor myself, the story resonated with me and made me sad. The author has to be commended for his presumably truthful and searing account of a damaging experience.
- Publication Date:
- 14/03/2024
- Authors:
- Spencer, Charles
- Year Published:
- 2024
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Format:
- Hardback
- ISBN:
- 9780008666088
- Number of Pages:
- 304
- Publisher:
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication Date:
- 14/03/2024
- Place of Publication:
- London
- Language:
- English
- SKU:
- 9780008666088