Richard Beard’s book extract and accompanying interview made for interesting insights into the current Tory government and his own experience of boarding as a boy was clearly traumatic (“The childhood of a leader”, the New Review). However, newspapers focusing on the experiences of that generation of men who were made unhappy by their education helps perpetuate the myth that all boarding schools in 2021 continue to churn out repressed, inauthentic individuals with no interest in creating an equal world.
Whatever your views on private education as an idea, many modern boarding schools are deeply committed to educating children from all over the globe with strong values of service to others, teaching them that “with your privilege comes responsibility”. As a mum of three teenagers at a co-educational boarding school, I can also tell you that today’s boarders are home each weekend and FaceTiming for a catch-up every night; the days of not seeing your parents for weeks on end are long gone.
Finally, where are the voices of women? Boarding in the 1970s was not exclusively a male experience, yet I cannot remember reading in any newspaper about the female boarding experience, which I suspect was a more positive one.
Natasha Baker
Penn, Buckinghamshire
Richard Beard’s piece reminded me of the motto of Eton College – Floreat Etona (May Eton Flourish). The school’s primary concern is to preserve itself. Is it any wonder, with this message having been instilled in them at the age of 13, that our two most recent Etonian prime ministers have focused so much on their own financial interests and that of their friends – to the detriment of others?
Matthew Handy
Harrogate
Put PE centre stage
Rightly dissatisfied Labour councillors should support two proposals (“Tories ‘squandering Olympic legacy’ as school PE declines”, News). First, that physical education should be promoted from foundation to core status in the national curriculum so that no pupil misses out through the demands of examination preparation, the priority of other subjects or the temporary loss of facilities for other needs. Core subjects get more time and attention and receive more intensive monitoring and inspection. Funding for professional development is also greater, and time spent on core subjects in primary teacher training is far more than that for foundation subjects. Second, that the school day should be lengthened to provide more time for sport, music, drama, community service and the like.
Malcolm Tozer
Portscatho, Cornwall
In squirrels we trust
The password system I use (credit to Radio 4) makes every password different and yet easy to remember (“Need a strong password? Put three random words together”, News). Take a word, let’s say squirrel, add a number, 13 and a punctuation mark, !. Squirrel13!. That’s your formula word. Now insert the first three letters of the system/site for which you are creating a password (eg a Guardian account) after the first three letters of your formula and finish off with the rest: Squguairrel13! I defy any hacking system to guess that one.
Shira Rüb
Lower Ashton, Exeter
Walking back in time
Like Will Hutton, my wife and I went walking in the Yorkshire Dales and found evidence of an even earlier invasion than the Normans (“The view from Wensleydale: old paths, dry-stone walls and Norman subjugation”, Comment). Returning to our pub in Dentdale, the landlord asked where we had been and I described the long, wide, grassy path that overlooked the valley. “That’ll be the Occy,” he said. The occupation road.”
“The Normans?” I asked. “No. The Romans. It linked two of their forts.” Yorkshire folk have long memories.
Jon Lander
Devizes, Wiltshire
Unite to beat climate crisis
Your article about Alok Sharma declaring that Cop26 is our “last chance to save the planet” did nothing to reassure me that our future is in safe hands (“We’re on brink of catastrophe, warns Tory climate chief”, News). Even while global events are painting a clear and vivid picture of runaway climate collapse, Sharma and the majority of the public, including many working in the area of sustainability, still remain unsure about this increasingly obvious fact.
To provide worthy global leadership at this crucial point in history, the UK government should create a cross-party emergency government and demonstrate to the world that we in the UK can work together effectively for a common purpose. Furthermore, it should commission all media to get involved in an adult re-education exercise to help people understand that we all need to embrace rapid “degrowth” and a minimalist lifestyle. Such action would be an appropriate response to the code-red IPCC report that was published on Monday.
Barbara Williams
Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire
A matter of perspective
Lovely account of London’s Camley Street Natural Park (“Wild at heart”, Magazine) except for the phrase: “As prostitutes plied their trade.” That should be: “As men abused prostituted women.” It’s all a matter of perspective.
Jane Lawson
London SE7
Plight of Pakistani exiles
Your report “Dissident Pakistani exiles in UK ‘on hit list’ ” (News), highlighting the plight of Baloch nationalists living in Europe under the Pakistani intelligence agencies’ death threat, will be much appreciated, not only by Balochi but by freedom-loving people everywhere.
The Balochi are fighting for independence from Pakistani rule. Before 1947, Balochistan’s political status was similar to that of Sikkim, Bhutan and Nepal. It declared its independence from Britain in 1947, only to be occupied by Pakistan in April 1948 and has remained so ever since.
Under the Pakistani occupation, thousands of Baloch people have been massacred, hundreds of thousands made refugees and thousands more have disappeared or been tortured and jailed, often without trial. The assassinations of Karima Baloch in Canada and Sajid Hussain in Sweden are merely the tip of the iceberg.
It is a pity that, while the international community leaves no stone unturned to publicise human rights violations in Kashmir, Gaza and the West Bank, it chooses to remain silent when it comes to denouncing such violations in Balochistan.
Om Prakash Shabbi
Jalandhar, Punjab, India
Goodness? Gracious me
Reading Catherine Bennett’s piece (“Allegra Stratton leads by example in saving the world… she doesn’t fancy it just yet” (Comment) reminded me of the words of St Augustine in his Confessions: “Please God, make me good, but not just yet.”
David Hughes
Bath
