This meant I was looked upon with some favour by the teachers. My way of dealing with the punishment and humiliation was to become particularly good at cricket and rugby. I’d get black marks as part of a system of minuses and pluses, and I was often called up in front of the whole school to be ticked off. I wasn’t a very good student, and I was in trouble all the time. There was lots of discipline, shouting and people telling me what to do. I didn’t want to go and I was very homesick, finding the regime very oppressive. Then aged seven, I was sent to boarding school in Sussex with my brother. I enjoyed football, rugby and just messing around in the playground, and so I became an outdoor child, rather than an indoor one. Instead, I found something else I liked, which was playing sport. I wasn’t very good at it, and so I left the world of books behind. It wasn’t about sparking the imagination, it was simply about being examined - punishments, red lines, standing in corners - and occasionally the cane. I thought school would be a continuation of that, but the teaching in those days (and I have to say, to some extent these days) was all about tests. My mum had read to me often, and Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky had given me the idea that words, poems and pictures were quite fun. Copying out and rote learning was deeply disappointing to me, because I was fond of books and stories instead. If I knew that there was some sort of financial buffer, it would make life so much easier.It was in the 1940s when, aged five, I went to a primary school in Earl’s Court that was very strict. Our daughter is so looking forward to starting the new school and I want to be as excited as she is but it’s hard, under the circumstances. We also have to work out school uniform and school bus costs and all the little extras we will have to cover on top of the fees, but my husband refuses to discuss it. He won’t consider re-mortgaging and just says we’ll have to make more cutbacks, but as almost all of my income already goes on the children and their never-ending needs and costs – school trips, new trainers, after-school clubs – there’s hardly anything left afterwards. My husband’s pride is, in some ways, admirable but I know that when the invoices come in for the school, he’s going to get very stressed about it all. I know they have other grandchildren they would probably want to help too and also that they have helped his brother, who doesn’t have any children, numerous times, without complaint. He says it makes him feel uncomfortable, which I can understand, but I wish he would at least talk to his parents about how he is feeling. ![]() My husband refuses to talk about it though and shuts me down with a wave of the hand when I try to raise the subject. It’s now that we need the help, or rather, our children do. I think it would be much more worthwhile for them to provide some sort of financial support now than holding on to their assets for years to come. My mother- and father-in-law are in good health, live in a large old rectory and own several other properties. We’ve found a lovely, nearby school in 100 acres of land with lots of marvellous facilities – a swimming pool, tennis courts and small class sizes – but when we signed our daughter up earlier this year, I thought my husband was going to speak to his parents about having some sort of financial backing. She has also made some unwise friendships, which we have a few concerns about. ![]() She is quite shy but they haven’t really done much to help her with that. ![]() The school our daughter is currently at, a small village primary, is reasonably OK but the large class sizes (there are 28 in her current one) and the mixture of kids and abilities mean she is mostly just surviving rather than thriving. My husband gets very stressed about money and we have been trying to cut back on other day-to-day things, but it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference. We have, like many other families, felt the squeeze of inflation in recent months, from our weekly shop to petrol and, most of all, our mortgage, which has gone up by almost £500 a month. My father and stepmother aren’t really in a position to help us, but if they were I would certainly ask. The new school is, however, going to put our already stretched finances under more pressure but my husband, who is the proverbial breadwinner, refuses to ask his parents for any financial help. We have two older children, both boys, who managed to get into our local grammar school with a bit of tuition, but I’m not sure whether our daughter would pass the 11-plus, nor how well she would manage in such a competitive environment. This September our eight-year-old daughter starts at a new school – a private one – and I am already worrying about how we’re going to cover the fees.
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