Did you have your own posture mistress?
Cool!
Status report Page 4,342
Quote: lofthouse @ March 5 2012, 9:59 PM GMTRascal
Kids today huh?
Yeh they're berzerk for werthers originals.
Quote: Harridan @ March 5 2012, 10:00 PM GMTWell, my parents were killed and I was living with my aunt and uncle and cousin in a cupboard under the stairs...
No, I was just overly sentimental so they sent away to become a cold emotionless screw-up
tres tragique
Yeh lifes funny like that.
Social services found me living in a bread bin.
I was 30 at the time.
Quote: sootyj @ March 5 2012, 10:02 PM GMTSocial services found me living in a bread bin.
I was 30 at the time.
That must have been crumby.
Quote: sootyj @ March 5 2012, 10:02 PM GMTYeh lifes funny like that.
Social services found me living in a bread bin.
I was 30 at the time.
She was referring to Harry Potter! 
Quote: Shandonbelle @ March 5 2012, 10:12 PM GMTThat must have been crumby.
Ba Dum Tsschh!! 
Quote: Shandonbelle @ March 5 2012, 10:12 PM GMTThat must have been crumby.
My childhood was scone with the bin.
Quote: Marc P @ March 5 2012, 10:14 PM GMTShe was referring to Harry Potter!
And I was referring to my real life.
You know the stuff that doesn't happen in your fancy books.
Pardon my ignorance but what is a 'free' boarding school (apart from List D, Borstal etc.)?
one where you don't have to pay, you donut!
Means-tested fees, about 5% of parents pay full whack, about 65% go free. Mostly free boarding school
What age were you? Have to say I consider boarding schools as a form of child cruelty.
11-17. I wouldn't say they were child cruelty - it's hardly Tom Brown's Schooldays! My only criticism of them is that there isn't enough 'bringing up' of children once they get there, you go from living with your parents to living with 50 kids (including a few 18 year olds) with a couple of teachers patrolling you. I was completely institutionalised when I left, though, took a couple of years to adjust.
Institutionalisation is the problem. I once blackened my copybook with someone when I compared boarding school to children's home in that the residents become so institutionalised they end up in the army - another institution. Then discovered her brother had been in boarding school and progressed to the army.
I do think people who send their kids to boarding school from age 5 are insane. But I assume/hope that's pretty rare.
A lot of people have the attitude that they want children but don't want to have to do the work of parenting. And if you have the money you get other people to do the bits you don't like. Whenever I'm job-hunting I see dozens of adverts from parents who want 24/7 nannies for their babies where the baby sleeps in the nanny's room. My dad went to boarding school when he was 6 and his parents lived in Kenya and visited him so infrequently that he didn't recognise them. That's how you turn out stiff-upper-lipped empire-builders.
Yikes. 
(Just accidentally called Harridan's grandparents insane. Oops.)
Quote: Oldrocker @ March 5 2012, 11:57 PM GMTGlad to see the maths lessons were up to scratch !
The remaining 30% paid somewhere between nothing and full whack 