On boarding schools and cancer

Anthony Wilson,
A blue NHS sign displaying Heamatology Centre Entrance

Two big stories in the media this week, neither of which I wanted to write about, but which now seem unavoidable. I was putting off writing about the King’s diagnosis of cancer, partly because, well, what does it really matter what I think, and partly because Simon Parke has done such a beautiful job, whatever I have to say will be rendered superfluous. Perhaps most of all, I am tired of the way that cancer is still portrayed in the culture at large as a ‘battle’. Even my beloved New Statesman is at it. (What the Daily Mail is up to, you will have to research for yourselves.)

So when Kate Middleton announced the news of her cancer diagnosis this week, my heart sank in anticipation of more of the same. (To be clear, this is not an anti-royalist rant. Her age, 42, has special resonance for me. And I can fully relate to the effort she has made to take time to explain her illness to her children.) Because it still needs saying: we do not need to persist in using war metaphor when we talk about cancer.

Parallel to this story, and perhaps only tangentially connected (but very connected for me), are the revelations of bullying and abuse brought to light in the recently published memoir of boarding school by Charles Spencer. As Gaby Hinsliff puts it in the Guardian:

This bleak educational culture, [Spencer] argues, was the petri dish in which so much of Britain’s current ruling class grew during the 1970s and 80s; a regime originally designed to cauterise young men’s emotions before sending them off to exercise power over far-flung corners of the British empire, and whose influence seemingly lingered well after the empire itself was gone.

The temptation at this point is to speculate as to the impact that such an education has had on, say, certain ex-prime ministers – or even senior members of the royal family. (That is also a rant for another time.)

Cancer will affect one in two of us, while only 0.5% of British schoolchildren go to boarding school. But as letters to the Guardian about Gaby Hinsliff’s article reminded us this week, the privilege these places offer does not guarantee escape from what Nick Duffell calls ‘normalised neglect’. To quote from my conversations with a fellow boarding school survivor, being sent away is no different to being put in care, albeit, in my case, with use of one of the world’s most picturesque cricket pitches. I realise not everyone will sympathise.

Where these stories come together, for me, is that they are the things I found myself talking about, repeatedly, to friends, colleagues, and with a therapist prior to and in the aftermath of my mother’s death in 2020. The cancer I thought I had dealt with; but no. (Much later I realised I hadn’t even scratched the surface of the boarding school stuff.) All of this went through me when I opened the paper this morning and I saw Kate Middleton’s picture staring back at me and I said without thinking ‘Doesn’t she look pale?’

Published by Anthony Wilson

I am a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. I work in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. My anthology Lifesaving Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2012 I published Riddance (Worple Press), a collection of poems, and Love for Now (Impress Books), a memoir, about my experience of cancer. The Wind and the Rain, my sixth collection of poems, is available now from Blue Diode Publishing. My current research project, funded by the Foyle Foundation, is Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library.

11 Comments

  2. Thank you for this.

    Diagnosed with cancer at 40 and now living with metastatic disease at 57 – which is currently being well controlled (if not curable), I am very aware that many live with cancer as a chronic condition.

    I am uncomfortable with the “heroic” label that living with cancer affords me and the misty-eyed sympathy I am sometimes afforded.

    Of course it’s difficult living with uncertainty at scan time, and the side effects of medication are tiresome, limiting and unpleasant. My lifespan will inevitably be shorter than I’d hoped. I have friends from Christie’s Hospital here in Manchester who are already counting the months they have left. Cancer can be totally awful. But type 1 diabetes is horrible to live with. Rheumatoid arthritis can be very nasty. Heart disease also kills people ‘before their time’. Et cetera.

    If 50% of us are going to be affected by cancer in our lifetime, perhaps we not only need to stop using the metaphors of war and heroic journey, but spread our sympathy a little wider.

    Sarah

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    1. Dear Sarah,
      Thank you so much for your response to my blog post. I am very sorry to hear that your cancer is metastatic.
      You make a great point, that many conditions without the label of cancer are nasty and debilitating to live with but which do not attract the same language of heroism, bravery and/or war metaphor. (I also think of strokes, and stroke-recovery in this regard.) Our sympathies do indeed need widening.
      With much appreciation and best wishes
      Anthony

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  3. I cannot comment on British public schools for boys – though am against them – but I went to a convent boarding schools for girls in Windhoek, Namibia, between 1966 and 1972. It was bleak, brutal, and completely the wrong kind of environment for young girls going through puberty. The bad effects the place had on me have lasted all my life. I still have bad dreams sometimes, and am almost 70 now… However, in 2022, 50 years after we matriculated, some of my old classmates reorganised a reunion. Not everyone was able to attend, as some now live in South Africa and others live elsewhere in the world. The amazing thing was that everyone instantly connected again, either in person, on zoom, on Facebook, or via email or Whatsapp. That connection has continued, and we have created a wonderful network of support for one another as we head into old age. I am deeply grateful and know that significant healing has been able to take place in many of us, even so many decades after our traumatic adolescence.

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    1. Hi Patricia, thank you as ever for your wholehearted engagement with my words. I can identify with your story, even though mine is different. I’m also glad that you have maintained good relationships with your peers and this sustains you. I have kept contact with two of mine -and it tends to be a rather large part of our conversations in the infrequent times that we do meet up. Having scratched the surface of the boarding school syndrome literature (Joy Schaverien’s phrase), it does not seem at all unusual for individuals to still be processing these events in their 70s. Andrew Motion, in his review of Charles Spencer’s book in the New Statesman last week, makes exactly the same point. As ever, I send you best thoughts and peace, Anthony

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      1. How kind of you to reply, Anthony. I am raising my fist and saying, ‘Solidarity’! It’s never too late to address childhood hurts, with the help and encouragement of those who care.

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