If you were to ask me if I as homesick, while at Dunhurst, I would, (of course), say that I wasn't. It's quite remarkable that, approaching 65 years of age, I'm still bound by that inability to admit that, at times, I struggled. I remember my first night in the dormitory: it was hard to sleep, because the room was cold and the bed was uncomfortable. I cold hear somebody sobbing into their pillow but, as I didn't know my new dorm-mates well, I couldn't tell which of them it was. I resolved not to start crying, myself, so I just lay there for what seemed like hours, cold, uncomfortable, listening. In the morning we all asked who it was who had been crying in the night and, of course, nobody owned up to it. I remember worrying that people thought it was me and that I was the one who was lying. My parents lived an hour's drive from Dunhurst, so I knew I would be going home on most Sundays. there was a rule, as I recall, that we couldn't go back home on the first weekend of term. I think it was to help us to integrate into Dunhurst and to make friends. Once the visits home started and the routine became normal, I would say that I accepted the time to return to school, every Sunday evening. Why is it, then, that certain TV theme tunes from Sunday afternoon programmes, still make me feel so unhappy: 'White Horses' and the theme from The Onedin Line? It's because the end of that TV programme was the signal to get back into the car and head back to school. Boarding school syndrome, for me, is my inability to confide in anyone, even my family and close friends. At school, I didn't have anybody to confide in because to share confidences or secrets would inevitably result in betrayal: those secrets and confidences would be talked about and laughed at by others, even those who were 'friends'. I wasn't bullied but I knew that I was as likely to be 'teased' as anyone else: after all, I did my share of 'teasing' too. 'Split-self'..? maybe, but my school-self soon outgrew my home-self and left it behind. I remember that going home on Sundays became awkward, as did telling my parents that I didn't want to any more.
Jon, thank you so much for sharing this honest and incredibly poignant comment. Many will relate to it, I'm sure. I can really feel the effect on you of those Sunday TV theme tunes and I so understand the 'inability to confide'. I guess it's what I'm finally doing (big time!) by writing The Drying Rooms. I find writing brings unresolved, unarticulated thoughts and feelings into the light.
Oh my... I wasn't exactly homesick there, but knew that I didn't 'fit in' with those in my dorm who had started at the school before me. Coming into an established pack was hard and I remember getting a few 'apple pie beds'... one with a mouldy apple core...
However....I arrived after unkind matron, so I am thankful. Also, I had been to a pretty grim boarding school somewhere else, so 🙃 🤷 it was a bit of a relief. Same year as your big sister C.
I can well imagine how homesickness would lead to a "split-self", Emma. I was reminded of @obsidianblackbird's account of boarding school in New Zealand:
"For my first month, I was very lucky and was allowed to shiver, cold, and crying alone in the darkness with homesickness and hideous dread without anyone on the bunk above to hear my piteous whimpering.
"After a while something inside me died and I couldn’t cry anymore as I had gone totally numb and I would fall asleep to the sounds of other little abandoned ten year olds crying silently, alone in the darkness."
I guess I was one of the lucky ones , firstly I was not so young (13) and my parents were always telling me , (when I would burst into tears the day before term began) that I could come home at any time. Also I was at Tring to do what I loved best (dancing). Although maybe some stigmas do stick , as like you , I find sharing rooms and toilets difficult, but I put that down to egocentric old age!!
Good for your parents, Karen! Just knowing that you could opt for coming home must have been such a security blanket. And, I'm guessing that being at Tring doing what you loved felt more like your parents giving you the gift of fulfilling your dreams rather than abandoning you. Thank you for this upbeat comment.
Thank you for this post, Emma. I'm a fellow boarding school victim as is my husband, who was sent away at 7, me at 11. I'm familiar with Joy Schaverien's book and the TV programme but it is salutary to be reminded of the long lasting effects of homesickness, and what it can do to one's identity and sense of self. I have a problematic relationship with time and place, nostalgia and separation, sleeping in dormitory like situations - I had panic attacks in 2023 when, aged 57, I was recovering from major cancer surgery in a hospital ward of 8 - the size of my first dormitory at school. It was hell; the emotional pain far worse than the physical despite the fact that I'd lost half the contents of my abdomen and was left with a disability. My fear of separation has held back my career, my relationships with friends (I never voluntarily choose to part with my husband, although I do cope OK when he travels for work or leisure). It has massively exacerbated empty-nest syndrome, which I still grieve as though bereaved, instead of proudly delighting that my children are independent and well. We were not in a position financially to educate our children at boarding schools even had we wanted to, but we know many people who did send their kids away for reasons of 'giving them the best' etc. This is in the 20teens, when the psychological effects of boarding were already known.Of course many of those parents who use boarding schools are repeating what they know, something reassuringly familiar for all the damage it inflicts. Society is a strange thing. It astounds me that for reasons of 'getting ahead' people are prepared to ignore the risks of permanent emotional scars for their children. In some cases this ambition grows, I believe, from a sense of inadequacy left by the emotional parts of the self that have withered or needed to be excised after intolerable pain. Sorry for the rant, and thank you, again, for touching a nerve. I've been meaning to start a substack of my own - perhaps expiating my sorrows on this subject would be a good place to begin... for me, at least, if not my readers!! X
Thank you, fellow Emma, for this insightful and heartfelt comment. Not a rant at all! Your description of the dormitory PTSD that was triggered when you were in the hospital ward is so powerful. It reminds me of something I read recently by an ex-boarder who said that he needed more courage to return to boarding school after the holidays than he did to return to fighting in the war. Let me know if you start a Substack. I'd love to read it.
Thank you beloved sister. I have never forgotten your almost phobic misery at being returned (by me!) to your own first boarding school. It was horrible having to leave you there.
If you were to ask me if I as homesick, while at Dunhurst, I would, (of course), say that I wasn't. It's quite remarkable that, approaching 65 years of age, I'm still bound by that inability to admit that, at times, I struggled. I remember my first night in the dormitory: it was hard to sleep, because the room was cold and the bed was uncomfortable. I cold hear somebody sobbing into their pillow but, as I didn't know my new dorm-mates well, I couldn't tell which of them it was. I resolved not to start crying, myself, so I just lay there for what seemed like hours, cold, uncomfortable, listening. In the morning we all asked who it was who had been crying in the night and, of course, nobody owned up to it. I remember worrying that people thought it was me and that I was the one who was lying. My parents lived an hour's drive from Dunhurst, so I knew I would be going home on most Sundays. there was a rule, as I recall, that we couldn't go back home on the first weekend of term. I think it was to help us to integrate into Dunhurst and to make friends. Once the visits home started and the routine became normal, I would say that I accepted the time to return to school, every Sunday evening. Why is it, then, that certain TV theme tunes from Sunday afternoon programmes, still make me feel so unhappy: 'White Horses' and the theme from The Onedin Line? It's because the end of that TV programme was the signal to get back into the car and head back to school. Boarding school syndrome, for me, is my inability to confide in anyone, even my family and close friends. At school, I didn't have anybody to confide in because to share confidences or secrets would inevitably result in betrayal: those secrets and confidences would be talked about and laughed at by others, even those who were 'friends'. I wasn't bullied but I knew that I was as likely to be 'teased' as anyone else: after all, I did my share of 'teasing' too. 'Split-self'..? maybe, but my school-self soon outgrew my home-self and left it behind. I remember that going home on Sundays became awkward, as did telling my parents that I didn't want to any more.
Jon, thank you so much for sharing this honest and incredibly poignant comment. Many will relate to it, I'm sure. I can really feel the effect on you of those Sunday TV theme tunes and I so understand the 'inability to confide'. I guess it's what I'm finally doing (big time!) by writing The Drying Rooms. I find writing brings unresolved, unarticulated thoughts and feelings into the light.
Oh my... I wasn't exactly homesick there, but knew that I didn't 'fit in' with those in my dorm who had started at the school before me. Coming into an established pack was hard and I remember getting a few 'apple pie beds'... one with a mouldy apple core...
However....I arrived after unkind matron, so I am thankful. Also, I had been to a pretty grim boarding school somewhere else, so 🙃 🤷 it was a bit of a relief. Same year as your big sister C.
This is so poignant. It's hard to understand how such cruelty to small children can be dressed up as 'doing what's best' for them.
Yes. Unbelievable, really.
The question now, that we all face, is the impact that those terrible days have had on our entire lives… very hard.
Yes. That is indeed the question. Not sure if I have the answer - yet.
The cruelty of it all. So sorry about your nightmares, Emma. I hope writing about them will help them to disappear from your nights. X
Thank you, Chris. The writing definitely helps.
I can well imagine how homesickness would lead to a "split-self", Emma. I was reminded of @obsidianblackbird's account of boarding school in New Zealand:
"For my first month, I was very lucky and was allowed to shiver, cold, and crying alone in the darkness with homesickness and hideous dread without anyone on the bunk above to hear my piteous whimpering.
"After a while something inside me died and I couldn’t cry anymore as I had gone totally numb and I would fall asleep to the sounds of other little abandoned ten year olds crying silently, alone in the darkness."
His full piece is here:
https://obsidianblackbird.substack.com/p/boarding-school-the-saga-begins-3cb
Thank you so much for introducing me to obsidianblackbird, Wendy. Clearly a kindred spirit.
I guess I was one of the lucky ones , firstly I was not so young (13) and my parents were always telling me , (when I would burst into tears the day before term began) that I could come home at any time. Also I was at Tring to do what I loved best (dancing). Although maybe some stigmas do stick , as like you , I find sharing rooms and toilets difficult, but I put that down to egocentric old age!!
Good for your parents, Karen! Just knowing that you could opt for coming home must have been such a security blanket. And, I'm guessing that being at Tring doing what you loved felt more like your parents giving you the gift of fulfilling your dreams rather than abandoning you. Thank you for this upbeat comment.
Thank you for this post, Emma. I'm a fellow boarding school victim as is my husband, who was sent away at 7, me at 11. I'm familiar with Joy Schaverien's book and the TV programme but it is salutary to be reminded of the long lasting effects of homesickness, and what it can do to one's identity and sense of self. I have a problematic relationship with time and place, nostalgia and separation, sleeping in dormitory like situations - I had panic attacks in 2023 when, aged 57, I was recovering from major cancer surgery in a hospital ward of 8 - the size of my first dormitory at school. It was hell; the emotional pain far worse than the physical despite the fact that I'd lost half the contents of my abdomen and was left with a disability. My fear of separation has held back my career, my relationships with friends (I never voluntarily choose to part with my husband, although I do cope OK when he travels for work or leisure). It has massively exacerbated empty-nest syndrome, which I still grieve as though bereaved, instead of proudly delighting that my children are independent and well. We were not in a position financially to educate our children at boarding schools even had we wanted to, but we know many people who did send their kids away for reasons of 'giving them the best' etc. This is in the 20teens, when the psychological effects of boarding were already known.Of course many of those parents who use boarding schools are repeating what they know, something reassuringly familiar for all the damage it inflicts. Society is a strange thing. It astounds me that for reasons of 'getting ahead' people are prepared to ignore the risks of permanent emotional scars for their children. In some cases this ambition grows, I believe, from a sense of inadequacy left by the emotional parts of the self that have withered or needed to be excised after intolerable pain. Sorry for the rant, and thank you, again, for touching a nerve. I've been meaning to start a substack of my own - perhaps expiating my sorrows on this subject would be a good place to begin... for me, at least, if not my readers!! X
Thank you, fellow Emma, for this insightful and heartfelt comment. Not a rant at all! Your description of the dormitory PTSD that was triggered when you were in the hospital ward is so powerful. It reminds me of something I read recently by an ex-boarder who said that he needed more courage to return to boarding school after the holidays than he did to return to fighting in the war. Let me know if you start a Substack. I'd love to read it.
A vivid and precise account of homesickness and its lasting effects. As a fellow sufferer it was therapeutic to read it
Thank you beloved sister. I have never forgotten your almost phobic misery at being returned (by me!) to your own first boarding school. It was horrible having to leave you there.