I had already been well adapted to the idea of boarding schools: from the age of nine in fact, and I had now reached that ripe age of thirteen. But Eton was different to Ludgrove in that it was so much larger. It was more like going to live in a town, rather than a school, but the townspeople were all related to one another - in the sense of belonging to the same community. The Lower boys tended to know all that needed to be known about those at the top of the school: especially about those who were in Pop, and were so readily to be distinguished by the coloured waistcoats and the chequered sponge-bag trousers which they wore. Heroes all of them, at the pinnacle of their life's achievement. That was the ambition of all of us, when we first arrived. We wanted to emulate their achievement, and to emerge just like them.

Apart from the most visible distinction of wearing top hat and tails, another vast difference between Eton and Ludgrove was that I now had my own room, where I could brood over my own problems as I might see fit - in contrast to a mere classroom and dormitory, where all problems were relatively in public focus. There were some things which I didn't greatly appreciate - like having to get up in time for early school, before we'd even had breakfast; and the huge emphasis upon getting into good training for eternal repetitions of the Eton Field-game, (at which I was a strictly moderate performer.) But there was far less supervision to life than I had previously experienced, and I regarded that as a considerable blessing.

It was suggested to me, after my first few weeks at Eton, that I would soon learn to appreciate how it was preferable to be a small fish in a big pond, than a large fish in a small pond. This was asserted gravely by the Captain of M'tutor's, who had come up to my room shortly before lights out, to warn me that I appeared to be having difficulty in adjusting myself to the subservience that was expected of any Lower boy at Eton, and that it would be in my best interests to amend my ways before more drastic methods of persuasion were applied. But it struck me at the time that his logic was at fault, for I never did comprehend the anticipated pride in being a small fish anywhere at all.

Muted by the darkly threatening bark of stark
authority, I harken with half an ear, fearing
the dire sequel to chronic disobedience,
and speedily learning to pull my woollen forelock.
Shorn of head, I rest shrivelled up -
like testicles chilled on ice - filled with silly
recollections of a chest spread with medals,
steadily popping like half-stitched buttons.
Cutting a feeble figure now, King
Kong of long ago, deflated, burps
a last belch, apologising for the way
days have changed - or just arranged to age.
Nostalgic glories from the beaker spilled,
with what shall now my drinking horn be filled?

For those who have not read the first volume in this autobiography, it should be stated that I had emerged with some status from Ludgrove, as Captain of the School. Ludgrove had specialised in preparing the young gentry for their further education at Eton, with a mere ten percent of its pupils destined elsewhere: the idea of leadership qualities and sportive prowess prized greater perhaps, than any mere scholastic excellence. And because there were so many Old Ludgrovians at Eton, over that period, there was initially some manner of a Them and Us syndrome with which those newly arrived might have to contend.

This was the Michaelmas half of 1945, immediately after the war had ended, and the particular friends who had come to Eton from Ludgrove at the same time as myself were Jeffreys, Dent-Brocklehurst and Faulkener. I was initially far more concerned to meet up with them, to play Eton fives for example, (a game at which most Ludgrovians were already proficient in that there were two such courts in the old school;) and there were a number of traditional chores to perform - like the long trek to the statue of the Copper Horse in Windsor park - before it could be said that one was a real Etonian. Such things seemed important at the time, and it was only natural that we should perform the task together, for we were still oriented towards the life we had shared, rather than gearing ourselves to the future.

I felt isolated to some degree, in that there were no Ludgrovians of my own age in the same tutor's as myself. It was the house called Wayneflete, which was situated on the fringe of the town, at the start of the Dorney road and almost where the countryside begins. Mr Leslie Jaques had been chosen as my Housemaster - for no more profound reason than that my father had known his wife's brother; and after Mr White-Thompson's death in a mountaineering accident, Jaques had inherited his brother-in-law's list. Poppa Jaques as he was sometimes known, (or the Colonel, dating from his prolonged period as head of the Eton College Junior Training Corps,) was in fact a big, bald-headed, avuncular figure whom I always liked very well. It is also true to say that he liked me, condoning the self-centred egocentricity in my personality, while fastening instead upon my sensitivity, and general eagerness to tailor myself to the prescribed image of public school decency.

But I was far from popular as a new boy at Jaques': neither with my contemporaries, nor with those older than myself. What it all boiled down to was that I simply didn't know my place. I was bumptious, or too full of myself. I gave the impression to my contemporaries that I thought I merited their esteem, when there were no achievements to my credit which might distinguish me from the rest of the throng. It took me several halves to accept the Etonian principle that Lower boys should remain deferential at all times to those senior to them, and I horrified two of my newer friends at Jaques', (Mander and Timpson,) when I suggested that we resolve an argument as to whether Lloyd-George had been Liberal or Conservative, by putting the question to someone of senior standing.

It was too cocky a piece of self-assertion, by Eton standards, and both Mander and Timpson were lagging way behind when I set off in search of such an adjudicator. The person I found was Arnott, a member of Debate. On hearing my question, he turned from the notice board where he had been standing, to give me a withering stare before slouching off in silence to his room. Mander and Timpson were then full of dire premonitions that all three of us would be summoned to the Library for a beating up that evening. But in the event, it was myself alone who received the quiet lecture previously mentioned, about not seeming to appreciate that I was now no more than a small fish in a big pond - even if this was a status which should be regarded as going up in the world.

Perhaps the error in my ways can be rendered more vivid by quoting, from the diary which I kept during this first half at Eton, a passage which throws light upon my attitude towards fagging. I had been bidden by Alan Clark, who was then a member of Debate, to go and fetch some fish cakes that he had ordered from Rowlands. His supposition was that he would be eating them nice and hot for his tea. But it seems that I found myself in the vicinity of Rowlands much earlier in the afternoon.

When I think about this episode in retrospect, it amazes me that I ever supposed that I might get away with such an attitude for very long. People who are brought up outside any such system may imagine that it would be only too easy to reject all authoritarian instructions of this nature; and in particular, they imagine that the prospect of a beating up, as a punishment, would be something to which any boy of character would decline to submit. I know from experience that any such incipient attitude would most surely and rapidly have been suppressed. And the general feeling on emerging from several years of this ordeal was, in most cases, that we had all benefited from the masochistic experience.

But there can be little doubt that, by Eton standards, there was much that needed to be drubbed out of me within the personality that I first presented to the school. I wasn't even liked by the mess-mates that I chose for myself, during this first half: (selected I suppose because they came from preparatory schools that I readily recognised as rivals to Ludgrove.) They were Winslow who came from Petersfield, and Napier minor who came from Sunningdale; boys who were more athletic than myself, but from removes lower than my own. They shared the view (well-justified) that I was unsympathetic as a personality, and there were soon small outbursts of friction when they endeavoured to mob me up. But I was no push-over, as they rapidly discovered. I had after all excelled in the boxing ring back at Ludgrove, and the situation never deteriorated into anything worse than a few semi-serious trials of strength.

A graver threat to my dignity arose when Simpson, who was the dominant figure within the group slightly older than myself, enquired how it was that nobody saw fit to cut me down to size. And as if in response to this exhortation, [A] and [B] minor came into my room that evening and announced that they had come to mob me up: then proceeding to walk round my room, upturning pieces of furniture. [A] appeared to be the ringleader, so I told him that I'd hit him if he continued. He continued - so I hit him on his nose, which then gushed blood. A scuffle ensued, while [B] stood sheepishly on the sidelines. I got the better of him, and the two of them then agreed to leave my room without further ado. There were no further attempts to cut me down to size after that, although I remained as unpopular within M'tutor's as ever.

I was faring much better within the school arena outside M'tutor's, where I was grouped into a division with all others who had just arrived at Eton, after taking Middle Fourth. We were up to Mr Taylor, who was especially good at bringing the best out of younger boys. He told us for example that we were a far brighter group of boys than those who might normally have been expected to take Middle Fourth. He declared that we were definitely of Upper Fourth calibre. And for the first time for several years, I found myself eager to excel in scholastic competition. I in fact came equal top in the final order at the end of the half, with a First in trials - which was a considerable improvement upon my recent performances at Ludgrove. And I had been encouraged by Mr Taylor especially, to regard myself as a potential poet: something which never really developed while I was still at Eton, nor for many years in fact. But the seed had been planted within my self- imagery, which was to remain dormant for a long while.

I was also fairly popular within this particular crowd of school contemporaries. We were all striving to establish our new identities, and the exhibitionistic streak in me served my purposes well. It was only when I came into contact with boys that were already established within the Eton tradition that my weakness in adaptability gave rise to problems: both for them and for myself, it must be true to say. I simply didn't know how to contend with the overt hostility from boys just slightly older than myself, who flung unpleasant comments in my direction for what seemed to me to be the most trivial of misdemeanour; like the occasion when Reed, Turner and Koch de Goreyend took it upon themselves to tell Jack, who ran the sock shop near the fives' courts, that he should ignore my request for an ice cream to be served to me. "Don't give it to him Jack. Let him wait for it. He's far too full of himself!" Needless to say, Jack declined to take sides on the issue. But it alarmed me to find that there were Upper boys who went out of their way to be unpleasant to me.

However I did not regard myself as being unhappy in this new environment. There were both positive and negative aspects to my new situation in life. Given the time, I felt fully confident that I'd prove able to contend.

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