I think that Norma Cradock (Letters, 1 February) must have been very unfortunate in her peer group at Haberdashers’ 77 years ago. I was at Haberdashers’ on a direct grant place 12 years later. I came from a very modest home, and my experience was totally different. Nobody ever made me feel inferior for not being fee-paying. Quite the contrary – as I recollect it, DG places were awarded without means testing and their recipients were considered “clever”. Having such a place was a matter of pride. If there was snobbery it was academic, not social. Pupils with DG places had free travel with yellow tube passes, whereas fee-payers had ordinary pink season tickets. I have a friend who still acutely remembers her pink one marking her out as non-DG.
Haberdashers’ was not perfect by any means (eg, its careers advice was non-existent and it gave too little encouragement to those who were not among the most seriously academically gifted), but the idea that it was full of arrogant people “born to rule” is unrecognisable to me.
Brenda Sufrin
Emeritus professor, School of Law, University of Bristol
