A Very Private School

THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ''Shocking and moving'' Guardian ''A tour-de-force'' Washington Post At eight years of age, Charles Spencer was sent away to one of England''s most exclusive boarding schools. In this courageous and beautifully written memoir, Spencer offers a clear-eyed, first-hand account of the strange secrets of the school, and the culture of cruelty and abuse he witnessed and experienced in his five years there as a pupil. Drawing on the memories of many of his schoolboy contemporaries, as well as his own letters and diaries from the time, the book is his attempt to come to terms with the deep emotional scars inflicted upon him. Spencer reflects on the misery, hopelessness and abandonment he felt aged eight, viscerally describing the intense pain of homesickness, the vicious brutality of a boys'' school in the 1970s and the appalling inescapability of it all. The book cracks the code of the unpoliced regime that ran the place and provides important insights into an antiquated boarding school system. He gives vivid portraits of the teachers and other staff placed in loco parentis, their casual cruelties and toxic obsessions. All these years later, Spencer''s bafflement at their motivations to inflict such cruelty on young children is palpable. As is his fury that, even if somehow he had spoken up, he''d never have been believed. Charles Spencer''s book ''A Very Private School'' was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 11-03-2024.

About the author

Charles Spencer was educated at Eton College and obtained his degree in Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was a reporter on NBC’s Today show from 1986 until 1995, and is the author of four books, including the Sunday Times bestseller Blenheim: Battle for Europe (shortlisted for History Book of the Year, National Book Awards) and Prince Rupert: The Last Cavalier.

Product details

• Authors: Charles Spencer
• Publisher: William Collins
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 03.03.2025
• EAN: 9780008666118
• ISBN: 978-0-00-866611-8
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 198 mm x 30 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Biographies, autobiographies; England, Biography: general, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Survival, Memoirs, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Violence in Society, True stories of heroism, endurance & survival, Independent schools, private education, c 1970 to c 1979, c 1970 to c 1980, True stories of survival of abuse and injustice, Child abuse, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs, EDUCATION / Schools / Types / Private