There'll Always Be An England: Wymondham College Remembered.

August 7, 2002 8:52 PM

There'll Always Be An England: Wymondham College Remembered. Where matrons are called Scrotum; food is delightful torture; nicknames and slang surpass anything in "How To Be Topp"; staff cars look like Dinky toys; strange and cruel rules and punishments are perversely celebrated - and smoking is de rigueur in the best bicycle-shed fashion. Before anyone mentions the playing fields of Eton, they should know that aptly acronymed WC is a comprehensive school, i.e. public and free, as opposed to "public" schools which are (of course!) private, exclusive and expensive in the UK. And it's only about 50 years old, though it feels and looks like 500. Anyway, it's a sooper, smashing website, full of the real flavour and fun of olde England. Well, East Anglia actually, old fruit! (These few links I've suggested don't even begin to do it justice. Talk about Monty Python; I nearly died!)
posted by MiguelCardoso (6 comments total)

jolly hockey sticks.
posted by johnnyboy at 12:57 AM on August 8, 2002

Sounds like the boarding school I went to.
posted by Hall at 4:15 AM on August 8, 2002

Interesting post. Molesworth books including "How to be Topp" were among my favourite as a child. Recently re-read them (especially "Whizz for Atoms") and found much that touched me as an adult. I was in New York on business early last year, randomly wandering somewhere in Manhattan when I came upon a movie poster shop run by some hilarious, bickering frummers (can't remember what it was called - anybody?). An original poster for the 1960 Terry Thomas movie, "School for Scoundrels" caught my eye, principally because of the beautiful Ronald Searle artwork and I grabbed it there and then along with another original one-sheet for Stanley Donen's "Charade" (horrid-looking remake coming soon starring Mark Wahlberg).
The first link reminds me of Orwell's essay "Such, such were the joys" about his prep school (and the brutalities suffered there) and the related sections of Connolly's "Enemies of Promise". The former convinced me that Orwell is the greatest writer of non-fiction in the English language. Strongly recommended.
posted by Dan Brilliant at 5:36 AM on August 8, 2002

I grew up in Norfolk and a few of my contemporaries went to Wymondham (pronounced Win-dum) College. I never could work out how you won/were given a place but those who went generally tended to be hard bastards.
posted by niceness at 5:58 AM on August 8, 2002

Blimey. I didn't even know there was such a beast as a state boarding school in this country. I went to a normal comprehensive, and that was bad enough. This must have been like Colditz, but with more shoving of heads down toilets.
posted by ninthart at 6:28 AM on August 8, 2002

our school ....our school.....blah .....blah .....blah ...blah


anyone seen ripping yarns?
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:15 AM on August 10, 2002