When the steady expiring has ebbed its last, as water no longer bubbles to produce steam, as the turbines slow amongst the cooling liquids, what then will be left of man's spurious, plastic world?

A bolts-and-all account of a renegade Public schoolboy, and his war against a system that denies self-knowledge: (by Toby Adams)

And what of those high ideals that were present in my parents' minds when little Toby was first introduced to the headmaster, purportedly taking on new promise? Did they really believe that the outcome of their endeavour, not to say huge financial investment, would lead to both academic and moral advancement? What do parents expect of their child, squeezed through such a system? And might it not have been better to have asked them first?

My own parents, hardly high born, shepherded ideals of class mobility and gentility; ideals lost on my brother and I, quickly in step (in his case, not mine) with the social mores of boarding school life, and the utter sharpness of its reality: anything but gentile and polite, except when addressing a teacher of course, and boy how we mastered the tone of conformity when pressured, with absolute aplomb. One readily masters 'teacher-speak' quickly; it gets you out of trouble.

My reappearance at Rochester after so many years, I liken to that of a dog-owner, who, after the wretched creature's demise, takes it upon himself to have it remade in taxidermy, so it is in all particulars the same animal, but bereft of every essential that enabled you to engage with it, other that the outer dishevelment of fur, now washed and uncharacteristically clean. All life appears to have been expurgated.

I recalled then how the crunch duly came as it inevitably does, after just three days of my initial incarceration in 1980, when during school service the congregation was enjoined to embark upon the school song; that rousing obligatory whose wording reveals so much. No singular moment before or since has brought home to me the pipe dream of public school life with the bringing to full voice words laid down at a far earlier part of that century, seemingly but erroneously, believed to have relevance to its conclusion, and this particular contingent of mercenaries, shortly to be sent before their 'time into this breathing world scarce half made up': 'Alma mater of the scholar, scion of the holy rood'.

I stood there in the audience mouthing nothing at all, and nearly died; reddening with embarrassment at the words and the exultancy of the teachers and nonchalant acceptance of the pupils, disbelieving I had been forced to partake of this diabolical right. Reality had stopped, delusion had begun, and I'd better start believing in it or I'd be out on my ear. Soon my apparel of normality was to be ripped clean from me, and in its place I put on a monk's habit and readied my sneer. I could never just 'be' again. I was forever to be remoulded and subject to cruel scrutiny by my peers, and brusquely brought into line by the shapeless monster that represents the ways and mores of the public school abyss.

How vividly I recall, on going as a troupe into Chatham, an elderly gentleman whom I acknowledged casually passing along the High Street; an action punished immediately by my contemporaries. I suddenly felt as though I had been forced to strip off my team shirt and play for the other side. From assuming intrinsic to society, I was goaded into feeling 'apart' and 'other'. The people on the street to whom I could once relate, now seemed hostile to my changed way of thinking. I couldn't understand this 'difference' also drip-fed subliminally, as I was forced to consider ordinary folk, of whom I thought myself one, my adversary.

The world beyond was no longer my friend. Old companions were dead. I was a stranger in a strange land. And in my own skin.

The nightmare really began when I returned from Kenya, having stuffed my O'levels (bad attitude, zero work, and a self-pitying angst), and had to begin the sixth form in 'greys'; not the 'blacks' (suits) of the qualified worthy. I was thenceforth and for evermore for my time at King’s, drenched in ‘thickness’.

It followed my every waking hour. It was there in the morning when we herded for a shave. It was there at night as lights-out brought quiet. But it was strange on my ears, as, though not myself academic, I have high creative problem solving skills (something I only properly understand later), the filter through which should otherwise have enabled competence in just about any subject I applied myself.

This did much to strengthen my sense of isolation, as did arriving at the sixth form common room after some gruelling months lying on a white sun-drenched beach, to find myself asking why it was that I had enforced friendships; akin to battlefield camaraderie in the face of terrible odds, but there being no war. It was safe and cloistered, and utterly unreal. But on reacquainting myself with my fellow alumni, it was a bit like finding the devil and his entourage are the welcoming crew into Paradise.

Who were these people anyway? Did I like them? Or them me?

Except I was indeed at war, and I was going to fight it to the death. The all-pervasive arrogance and insidiousness at Kings School Rochester, the lack of empathy and compassion (not that I was overly blessed in this department, more below), the ugly opportunism of my tormentors to spot ‘a classic’: a minor infringement or error of judgement, be it a slip of the tongue, or some small physical incompetence, lead to my refusal to become what I hate, and as I said to a day-school friend, kind enough to advise I just laugh off their piss-take, and as a consequence found myself the butt of every cheap shot (mistaken for intellectual repartee), something which I never did: ‘I’m not playing by their rules!’

And I’m still not playing by them. My determination remains absolute.

Then only 18, I used sheer aggression to defend my stance, acting out (and sadly at times believing) a hardness of character that were never really mine. With plenty of sport and enough weight-training, I soon had the muscle to back up my stance, leading on one occasion to the hospitalization of a member of the lower forms, himself richly deserving of a beating after repetitive warnings against the merciless bullying of a friend who seeked help, though perhaps not the life-support machine to which my pummelling admitted.

The headmaster was persuaded against an expulsion, on this occasion, though not my housemaster, who demanded my immediate removal on at least three separate times over the course of two years as my behaviour deteriorated, and as I tested just about every regulation aimed at peace and order. Roy Ford was as decent and effective a headmaster as could have been asked for, as was Lin Davies an honourable housemaster. Indeed, if I may stress this point on behalf of the staff, they were all very well meaning and all had the best interests of all the pupils at heart, bar none! Our effective headmaster would not have allowed otherwise.

But I believe it was the headmaster’s wife who happened on the truth, related to me by her long-suffering husband on the only school reunion I attended, he himself having moved on to be a tour guide at Canterbury Cathedral, a post infinitely beneath his academic brilliance having achieved a double-first at Oxford: ‘What was it about that little school that brought out the worst in everyone?’. More damning words having never been uttered against these institutions than from the lips of the captain of this particular ship of fools, though I personally portion no him no blame, but on the system. I might also add his next words were, disliking me intensely (and who could blame him, though he was never unfair): ‘…it brought out the worst in you!’

With more bad attitude, zero work (add alcoholism) and self-pitying, I went on to achieve thorough incompetence in my A-level’s as well, squeezing, by the skin of venomous fangs, into a business studies course that took me three years to complete, my reign of terror finally coming to an end when I found myself subpoenaed to Crown Court after being involved in a vicious knifing, though I neither wielded the blade nor abetted its use.

Well, we’ve all peered through the veil of time, haven’t we, and experienced just how it distorts things, recalling events so at odds with our perceptions: the room of a former home so much smaller than expected, the mirror on the wrong side of the room, the lampshade you’d completely missed. So it is as I recall a particular event that brought home to me, as I thought then, the awful distance between the life of a public school and the rest of us.

About 20 years ago, after spending some hours in a café in Maidstone where I went to write, I returned along the river Medway to my Land Rover parked upstream. Coming along the towpath I noticed some very young oarsmen, their expressions devoid of enquiry, completely participant in their fate, as two school teachers, a male then a female, met me at the noisy bridge a side channel to the river obligated. I realized, of course, that these were King's people, my brother having often rowed there, and, in my naivety, expected some sort of acknowledgement, the kinship of school still there after much time, whatever the nature of my rebellion.

However, I was somewhat put out by the response, half-expecting at least a smile of ‘hello’, but as they stomped passed, rather pretentiously I figured, as though to be gazed upon with awe across the battered aluminium, I received all but a cursory wave of the hand by the male, half an acknowledgement of my patience, but seemingly more: ‘You just wait there!’

Somewhat angered, this small event was further exacerbated by the sudden and very loud shout of the female, with something like: ‘Smithers, you’re crabbing your oars!’, a call that, whilst waiting for them to pass, for I was in line with their rowing protégés, seemed to go straight through me, as though not recognizing that I was there at all.

I realized then just how invisible and insignificant I was, but worse, it confirmed absolutely as I then saw it, the school’s attitude towards ordinary members of the general public: alien, low-born, beneath contempt; waiters at their table.

It could be that I was unfair in my assessment, for they had no means to recognize I was an old-boy, if I were ever to have taken, and I do not, the partisan view, some bitterness resultant of a change in circumstances leading me to actively look for error in my fellow man, but I still think they were very rude, as though I should make way for them since royalty was in town, in spite of the towpath being for general use by The Great Unwashed.

It’s a strange lens I look through but, I think, since my perceptions cottoned on to this bloated sense of entitlement, and the attitudes it engenders early on, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that my evaluation of them was correct, and the furniture of my memory was laid out as I have stated.

If they’d stopped and chatted (I’m glad they didn’t, I admit, as I was pleased to have my prejudices confirmed), and discovered I was a former King’s Boy, I wonder how their attitude would have changed, and how long it would have taken to elevate myself (if that is what is happening) up to their level, and drop down again as I confirm my very genuine enmity against the Public School system, and them in particular!

The problem then, when separated out from my personal demons (if not entirely vanquished then most certainly caged) is this: public schools bring out the worst in its alumni because they allow them to believe they have special rights and privileges, thus denying self-knowledge; so they think they are empowered to behave towards those not on their presumed intellectual plane (and even with a lifetime’s knowledge behind us, who among us can ever really be sure, for let us not forget that intelligence is not limited by genetics but also by circumstance and conditioning.), in a supercilious, condescending, and more than common sense should permit a downright contemptuous manner.

The pupils are under two kinds of pressure: a) to succeed academically, and b) to uphold the customs of school life by asserting their pseudo superiority. It's a bit like being awarded medals for a prowess you are going to achieve, but before venturing into battle. They are being denied self-knowledge because they have no fixed point-of-reference with the outside world.

Knowing yourself is the capacity to let others understand and share your misfortunes, and laugh at them together. Humour here is not a weapon! But a lack in this department will mean your partner-in-crime will delight in an insidious game of tell-all, and rumour-mongering to your detriment.

Sandhurst was set up in 1812, but a 100 years later public school boys, wrongly assumed of a natural authority, were fast-tracked to the officer class to rapidly fill the vacancies of WWI, but sending men under their command over the top, and all too regularly, to their needless deaths. Then, as now, confidence was born of ignorance, unable to see themselves reflected in their own actions. But without self-knowledge how can you be responsible with the knowledge you have obtained, or later with the power that same knowledge bequeaths? Those denied self-knowledge become either victim or tyrant, or victim first followed quickly by the latter.

In a world more than ever reliant on 'intra' as well as 'inter' personal skills, what advantage can there be with self-awareness entirely denied? You may think they'll learn better when they finally leave their alma mater, except, as I have seen on too many occasions, that the attitudes prevalent in their youth has conditioned them for life. You could put a school uniform back on each of them, and forgetting the effects of age, see a perfect fit.

Pity then the poor employer, having to interview his way through a medley of these insidious creatures, very unsure as to whether the standard of 'emotional intelligence' and 'soft skills' necessary with dealing with others, notwithstanding the job requirements, is commensurate with their qualifications on paper. Their circumstances bearing either little or no relation to the outside world, their final assimilation can hardly be said to be seamless, bringing to mind the wrong but apt analogy of the spatial reference of lemmings to their proverbial cliff. It's a bit like forgetting an essential component of a recipe, adding it too late, and then wondering why the underdone ingredient has destroyed the entire concoction.

Perhaps the public school masters and mistresses encourage these environments, not simply for the students, but for themselves; to be cosseted against reality’s waves breaching their banks. This is a forgivable human weakness not wanting to deal with the mess and confusion beyond one’s bower, made inevitable by the opaqueness of an insular and fatally blinkered institution. As the American philosopher John Dewey once said: 'The educational systems are orientated to maintaining the existing social and economic structures, instead of transforming them'.

All cultures of the world hate arrogance; but when combined with insidiousness they go on the attack. By rebelling against the system I retained the capacity for self-knowledge, floored and weakened perhaps, whereas those who did not, did not, unless of course they avoided the degradation to their personalities by the force-field of unremitting work.

Too many of my former 'friends' (God! The idea!) of this place have experienced life's hard edge. That is not usually expressed in financial hardship, but merely one of singular experience, as, having incurred the unnecessary wroth of some poor innocent, they received a physical answer to their spite. Such occurrences with ex-public school boys are common. It's the incidents that we aren't looking for that teach us the profoundest lessons, and as Karen McCowan said in her excellent book 'Self-science: the emotional intelligence curriculum', 'experiencing one's self, in a conscious manner, that is gaining self-knowledge; an integral part of learning'.

And as I would say: because and no matter what, you still have to hang your hat in the real world! Thus all adolescents need to see themselves as essential components of society, and not apart from it!

Certainly there was as level of sophistication and groundedness in the Comprehensive that I came from, but going up (?) to a Public School, was actually a considerable step down in standards to judge by the appalling immaturity of my new associates, and, in truth, the communicative abilities of the staff, inculcated in outmoded pulpit styles of teaching, and failing to touch that necessary base where ideas are successfully transmitted, and thus learned. To 'be seen to be teaching well' is a bit like a goalkeeper being seen to make a fabulous effort to make a save, though the ball still goes through his hands into the back of the net.

And here's the rub: you can learn decency from the common man! Early interaction does as well to provision you with the necessary skill-set for life. You should never be taught 'specialness', but attain it meritocratically, where there is means to fare and reasonable comparison, not prejudiced by asocial but illusory pre-eminence. There are checks and balances in everything, and society (real society, not invented to accommodate the imagined utopia of elitism without merit) offers corrective measures to our behaviour.

What is required then is confidence without arrogance, and standards without snobbery. These attitudes are not beyond the remit of educational establishments, knowing, as they must, that the grace and good will of society at large, if not involved then communicative with the resident masters and pupils, will enable them to create that sense of 'normality' and 'belonging' so important to stave any sense of alienation, or worse: a defensive but highly malicious superiority. As the sane majority gladly grants: your actual standing in the world is inversely proportional to that which you internally perceive!

If you allow adolescents to believe they have special rights and privileges you will deny them self-knowledge (a knowledge from which all else proceeds), and they will become arrogant and insidious. But it still goes on, doesn't it, year after year polluting the job market with its vile seed. The odious school I went to, and all its kin, so bring the failings in peoples' characters to the fore, it is impossible to know who they really are, then or now, or indeed in the future!

Give me a child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man,’ said St Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Jesuit order…or, as I would have him agree with private education: ‘Sacrifice your innocents from as early as eight, and you’ll be presented with the sly, devious swine he’ll always remain, bereft of the soft-skills necessary to handle the job-market, forever stuck in his clique, toadying for approval from like-minded contemporaries, as spiteful as he is careless, and never able to pull the sutures from his Frankenstein upbringing!'.

[Since first posting this essay six years ago (2018), I have received NOT A SINGLE counterargument, nor any kind of rebuttal to the claims laid out above from any of the hundreds of former alumni visiting this site, nor those currently schooling there, nor indeed from any of the masters, those still living, nor those currently working...NOT ONE!]

I will leave the final words to Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, an Arab Muslim polymath who lived during the Islamic Golden Age:
‘We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth and to assimilate it from whatever source it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and foreign peoples. For him who seeks the truth there is nothing of higher value than truth itself; it never cheapens or debases him who reaches for it, but ennobles and honours him.’