Carlos FresnedaLondon Correspondent

London Correspondent

Updated Monday, April 8, 2024-02:16

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Sending your children to

boarding schools

has been a status symbol in the

United Kingdom

since time immemorial . More than 630,000 children continue to attend today the 2,500 centers spread across Britain, almost all of them with strict separation of the sexes and rigid discipline. Eton, the most coveted

boarding school

, has been attended by members of the royal family and 19 prime ministers (including Boris Johnson and David Cameron).

"Going through boarding school has been for us something as inevitable as death and taxes," says novelist

Louis De Bernieres

. "It was the sword of Damocles that hung over the head of every child from a privileged family." The author of

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

has been the latest to join what is beginning to be the

#MeToo

of abuse and corporal punishment, taking up the baton of Charles Spencer,

Lady Di

's younger brother , who has broken the taboo with a book,

A very private school

.

"It's been like the floodgates opened," admits Spencer, 59, inundated with hundreds of messages from Britons willing to share their boarding school horror stories. The late Diana's brother, who was sent to Maidwell Hall at the age of eight, describes his experience as

"hellish"

and claims to have needed psychological treatment for the "migraines and nightmares" caused by writing the book and reliving the trauma.

Spencer recounts how she was a victim of

sexual abuse at the age of 11

at the hands of a boarding school governess described as "a voracious pedophile." The director of the center,

John Poch

(who died two years ago), is described as

a sadist

"who took sexual pleasure in violence" and who inflicted systematic punishments every day with his cane on the asses of children and more children who offered him like fresh meat.

A

very private school

attacks

"the culture of cruelty"

rooted in British boarding schools in the 70s and against the feeling of "despair and abandonment" that Spencer himself carried for years and that left him with serious consequences in the form of depression, emotional blockage and difficulties in forming relationships.

"It is a fact that many of the figures who lead public life in the United Kingdom today have had the privilege of such a private upbringing," Spencer writes. "While some prospered thanks to benevolent principals and teachers, others were hurt during their formative years and have inadvertently passed on the

poisonous legacy to society

," says Spencer, with a long career as a historian. "I can't help but think about the effect these schools have had on our society, or the empire, or whoever was in charge."

"To survive in these environments, a part of you has to die," emphasizes the count, who has interviewed former students who still bear physical scars from abuse and punishment. "Being

brutalized

at that age has an impact on empathy and what is and is not acceptable behavior. The effect can be devastating."

The political class has not yet signed up to this

#MeToo

, but the "floodgates" opened by the book have already resonated especially in the

Tory

seats in Westminster, populated by illustrious students from British boarding schools. Maidwell Hall School has meanwhile lamented "practices that were seen as normal or acceptable in their time" and has stressed how education has changed significantly and how priority is now given to

"the safety and well-being" of children

.