Famously Relaxed and Liberal

Radio 4's Book of the Week this week is Dr John Rae's The Old Boy's Network, extracts from the diaries of his time as headmaster of Westminster School. The continuity announcer described Westminster as being renowned for its "famously relaxed and liberal" atmosphere. Well, it was definitely "something" and liberal, and it seems likely that the phrase was one cribbed from the Wikipedia article, which, in turn, is quoting The Good Schools Guide. I was not exactly sure what that is supposed to mean, although the notion that sprang immediately to my mind was that it is some kind of euphemistic reference to an attitude, unusually relaxed even for one of our great public schools, towards pederasty. Westminster apparently has a reputation for tolerating "eccentricity", which would seem to confirm my original notion, although perhaps it is an allusion to Dr Rae's support for girls at Westminster, not restricting scholarships solely to British Christians, STOPP and the SDP.

Tim Pigot-Smith unctuous tone - apparently Dr Rae did have something of a plummy voice in real life - did little to stop my class hackles from being raised. Surely after the revolution one of the first tasks of the Council of the People's Commissars will be the abolition of the public schools.

Rae was rather catty about Keble, but smugly obsequious about Christ Church, the traditional sister of Westminster in Oxford. We weren't treated to this particular passage, but perhaps tomorrow:

Saturday, December 15

The dean of Christ Church telephones to say that X has not done well enough in his history papers to be offered a place but the college like him and are anxious to do well by him, especially in a year when we have sent them such a good crop of candidates. Would X be willing to read geography instead? On X's behalf I say yes, and the dean promises to consult his geographers. Just as well Roy Hattersley does not overhear this conversation.

(After reading the Daily Telegraph extracts of which the above is just one entry, the Weasel was moved to exclaim of Rae: "What an odious sh*t he is".)  We were however this morning treated to a discussion of the various issues surrounding open and closed entrance scholarships, held at Christ Church for Oxford in Westminster's case. But this was the early 1970s, a very different world from today, and thus, one would have thought of, a matter merely of historical interest (the early 1970s probably represented the zenith in terms of both the academic standard and the Byzantine opacity of the procedures to be negotiated required for Oxbridge entrance). And yet immediately after the programme had ended, the continuity announcer stated that the Oxford entry procedures described in it had ended in the mid-1980s. This is absolutely extraordinary and quite without precedent in my long experience of Radio 4. Why was it felt necessary to issue such an editorial clarification? At whose behest was it inserted? Fair enough if it had been the editor of the diaries placing the entry in its historical context within the programme itself. I can only assume that some producer or editor heard the programme and decided that it was likely to have the tendency to bring  Dr John Rae, Westminster School in particular and the public school system in general or Oxbridge entrance into disrepute and decided to head off any potential criticism at the pass with a preemptive strike. But it attempting to do, it seems to me that the BBC have merely succeeded in summoning ancient grievances from the grave. They will not quickly be laid to rest again.

Comments

[Celestial M Weasel]

"To Winchester for an unpublicised meeting of eight major public schools: Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Harrow, Rubgy, Charterhouse, Shrewsbury and Marlborough. We dine in the warden's lodgings and before and after dinner we talk about the threats to the future of our schools at a time of rising fees, falling numbers and political hostility. We agree that whatever happens, we eight will act in concert. The unspoken agenda is that our schools must survive even if other independent schools go to the wall."

Wasn't there talk at the time that if the public schools were made illegal, they would set up on foreign soil?

[PMC]

I do think there was. Rae was opposed to the Direct Grants Scheme, but supported some kind of nationalisation of the public school system.