THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER''Shocking and moving'' Guardian''A tour-de-force'' Washington PostAt eight years of age, Charles Spencer was sent away to one of England-s most exclusive boarding schools.In this courageous and beautifully written memoir, Spencer offers a clear-eyed, first-hand account of the strange secrets of the school, and the culture of cruelty and abuse he witnessed and experienced in his five years there as a pupil.Drawing on the memories of many of his schoolboy contemporaries, as well as his own letters and diaries from the time, the book is his attempt to come to terms with the deep emotional scars inflicted upon him. Spencer reflects on the misery, hopelessness and abandonment he felt aged eight, viscerally describing the intense pain of homesickness, the vicious brutality of a boys- school in the 1970s and the appalling inescapability of it all.The book cracks the code of the unpoliced regime that ran the place and provides important insights into an antiquate
