A visitor’s view
I should tell you right now that I’m not looking forward to this. A visit to a boarding school. With the word ‘Hospital’ in its name. To interview its teachers and, please help me, its pupils.
I never went to a boarding school. They were austerely miserable places, usually about nine hours away by train, where posh kids were sent away to be posh together. I’m assuming nothing’s changed, save for the introduction of GCSE Wizardry.
Arrived and registered, we start in the Business Hub. I have no idea what it is, but I’m quite certain we didn’t have one in my day. In walk two students, one older and dressed in a gown, the other younger and in a blazer.
“Hello, I’m Jack” says the gown, clamping my metacarpals together with surprising force. “This is Gooders.”
Talking with the boys is made all the easier because the boys can talk. Not in that annoyingly arrogant, preppy way but with a conviction and confidence that’s really quite disarming.
I soon realise that I’m the only apprehensive person in the room. They are the ones comfortable to be here. They are the ones putting me at ease with their stories and good humour. It’s already obvious. There’s something very odd going on here and I intend to find out what it is.
I begin to get a clue when I step into a Headmaster’s Office for the first time since 1986, when I put a cricket ball through the window of the science block.
I find him imposing yet welcoming, hugely proud of his students and their achievements. He tells me that their confidence comes from a community spirit, forged in the boarding houses, in which they learn to support themselves and each other. I believe him.
As Headmasters go, he looks and sounds the part. In fact, now that I think about it, so do all the staff. Only he must have got to them first because there are no dissenting voices or personal agendas. Worse still, they’ve obviously been copying each other’s notes because they all say the same things.
“Results are important but not more important than the student.”
“Every step is a preparation for the one that follows.”
“It’s the activities that set the school apart.”
“We don’t shy away from success. We applaud it.”
I queue with the boys for lunch in the Dining Hall and ask the 11-year old next to me where the clean plates are. “Would you like mine?” he replies, without a second’s hesitation. Of course he does, because this is Old Swinford Hospital and in that moment, it becomes one of the most uplifting, soul-restoring places I’ve ever been.
I’m politely chaperoned between meetings until the end of the day. In Prospect House, where the youngest boarders spend their first year at the school, Housemaster Clive collars the first three he can lay his hands on. “Come and talk to this man about your school” he says, before leaving us to it. I know by now that’s all he needs to say, but it still takes some getting used to.
“It’s a bit daunting at first but you soon get to know everyone,” says 11-year old Josh, neatly encapsulating the boarding experience with his first attempt. Just like the teachers, he seems so natural, so sure of his place. I, meanwhile, am borderline incredulous.
“If you want it summed up,” says Clive, “Just look at that.” As the early summer evening unfolds, the whole school, it seems, is making the most of it.
“They’ve organised their own 5-a-side. Those are Year 12s helping Year 9s in the nets. And there you’ve got two lads from different Houses playing tennis. And who’s supervising it? They are.”
Don’t get me wrong. This school isn’t perfect. It can’t be. There’ll be no Champions League football in Foley House tonight until the Housemaster finds out what happened to that guitar.
But I leave feeling it’s as close to it as I’m ever likely to see and it lifts my spirits just knowing it’s there.
Rob Johnson visited Old Swinford Hospital in June 2008 to conduct research for this website.
