Dear Prince George,
The Burning Bush is neither burning nor a bush. In fact, it’s a lamppost outside School Library. Judy’s Passage and Nolan’s Crack aren’t euphemisms, they’re shortcuts to the English and Maths departments.
And The Bill isn’t an inventory of costs – it’s a list of students to be punished by the Deputy Headmaster who goes by the name ‘Lower Man’ and may well give you a ‘Georgic’ – writing out 500 lines of Latin hexameter.
But don’t worry too much because, when you arrive for your first day at Eton College today, along with 250 other 13-year-old boys, this most extraordinary of schools will feel foreign to you all. It doesn’t matter whether you were raised in a castle or a council flat, Eton is a world unto itself.
Of course, things have changed since I joined in 1981. Back then we still had ‘capping’ – a custom which involved boys raising a finger in greeting to schoolmasters outdoors, echoing the tipping of top hats.
But while some things change, so much of Eton has proudly stayed the same. And that’s why the first task of any Etonian is to pass the Colours Test, a forensic examination of a new boy’s knowledge of everything from the names of historic buildings to the 25 house colours, flags and – of course – Eton’s own dictionary.
You’ll soon learn that masters are called ‘beaks’, lessons are ‘divs’, weekends at home are ‘short leave’ and the terms – Michaelmas, Lent and Summer – are called ‘halfs’. Mid-morning snack is ‘chambers’ and the mid-afternoon meal is ‘mess’. The evening assembly is called ‘prayers’ though God doesn’t figure.
College refers only to the house of the 50 or so scholars. Everyone else is an ‘Oppidan’. Agars and Dutchman’s are sports fields. Dry Bobs play sports on firm ground like cricket. Wet Bobs are rowers.
‘When you arrive for your first day at Eton College today, along with 250 other 13-year-old boys, this most extraordinary of schools will feel foreign to you all’, writes Will Nutting
Fourth of June is a major celebration of George III’s birthday but is almost never actually held on June 4. A Keeper is the captain of a sport or club. Pop are prefects. A Reader is when a boy doesn’t have a div. And so it goes on. But don’t worry, because by Long Leave, it’ll all feel perfectly natural. Long Leave is half term.
Etonspeak is a language of its own; you will soon be fluent and it will never leave you.
You will be joining F Block, known as Year 9 to the rest of the country. All being well you will progress up the alphabet each year to B Block. As you come to terms with this new world, lean on the experience of the older boys, especially those in your house – after all, they’ve been through it all themselves. Respect ‘block priority’. The archaic practice of ‘fagging’ in which younger boys acted as servants to older boys, even warming their loo seat, may have been abolished, but F Block is still expected to show reverence to their elders and carry out chores including delivering newspapers and cleaning the B Block common room known as Library.
You will already have had your uniform fitted at one of the three tailors on the High Street: Tom Brown, Billings And Edmonds or New & Lingwood. Never annoy your tailor. They’ll come to your aid when you lose yet another collar stud.
Tourists will take pictures of you in uniform. Not because you’re heir to the throne, but because you’re dressed like a penguin in a black tailcoat and waistcoat, pinstriped trousers and a stiff collar you attach to the shirt with two fiddly studs.
Ascend to a position of authority in your final year and you’ll be able to wear stick-up collars and maybe even a coloured waistcoat and different trousers along with a bow tie, too.
People will mock your uniform. But traditions matter. Not because they are old, but because they connect people who otherwise would never meet. Enjoy them without becoming impressed by them. Wear the uniform. Do not let the uniform wear you. Every boy is assigned a house. There are 25 houses, each with around 50 students, ten in each Block. The House is led by the House Master. Listen and respect him, even when you believe he is wrong. For many years later, you’ll realise he’s seen it all before and was probably right all along.
Keep your bedroom clean or endure the wrath of the Dame, who looks after the pastoral side of the house. Never mistake the Dame’s inquiries for nagging, for when everything feels like it’s going wrong and you miss home, she’ll be the one to comfort you.
Your house is your home. You will do almost everything with those nine other boys in your year, including sports. On which note, try the Wall Game once, a violent rugby scrum against a wall, but beware it is within the rules to scrape your opponent’s face against the brickwork.
Play the Field Game, a cross between rugby and football, not only because it’s enormous fun but because – except for some POW camps during the war – it’s never been played elsewhere.
It doesn’t matter whether you were raised in a castle or a council flat, Eton is a world unto itself
Throw yourself into some of the 80 clubs on offer, known as ‘societies’, which are run by boys and bring in some of the best speakers in the world on topics from sport to politics, theatre, engineering and design. Don’t fail the swimming test in your first week – when new boys are thrown into the pool fully clothed.
If you drown, you will be forbidden from rowing on Dorney Lake, which was used for the 2012 London Olympics.
Tread the boards in the 400-seater Farrer Theatre – where Damian Lewis, Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston took to the stage as schoolboys – make noise in the professionally kitted-out recording studio and don’t spend too much time in Tap – Eton’s boys-only pub for sixth formers.
Its ancestry stretches back to a Victorian cellar club in which boys were initiated by drinking from a yard glass.
Back in my day, Bulmers, Brew XI and Pils could be combined into something exceptionally fierce, and exceptionally unwise. That particular horror may have disappeared, but its lesson remains: what is permitted and what is sensible are not always the same thing.
Work hard in your ‘divs’ and at least make an effort with Latin and Ancient Greek, for you’ll quickly realise this is where everything else begins. While good work is praised generously, bad work results in a ‘rip’ in which the beak will literally rip your paper in two.
Don’t be late to lessons or you’ll be placed on Tardy, meaning you’ll have to get up early and report to the College Porter, likely missing out on the best of the bacon in the school dining hall, known as Bekynton.
Above all, learn to think for yourself. Read beyond the syllabus. Listen carefully to people with whom you disagree. Beaks at Eton will regularly set homework – known as EW – which has no bearing whatsoever on the GCSE or A-level syllabus. One day you will realise this was the whole point of going to Eton in the first place.
They say the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Whatever battles you face in your life, your ability to meet them will in no small part be defined by what you take from the next five years.
Make friends. Make mistakes. Laugh at yourself and laugh with others. Write home to your mum and dad. They will miss you more than they will ever let on.
Eton began as a place intended to educate poor scholars. Remember that. Being fortunate is not something for which to feel guilty. It is something for which to feel responsible.
And if the collar feels unbearably stiff on the first morning, remember that thousands of boys before you thought exactly the same thing.
Good luck, Will.
Will Nutting is the founder and CEO of Nutstuff, a no-nonsense, investment newsletter read by leading fund managers and investment advisers.
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