Boarding school (WAS: Re: No Sex, Please, We're British (was ethics in the WW )

[Timothy Collinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 83328







"Shaun Hately" <drednort at alphalink.com.au> wrote:

>But the fact that what is going on, only seems to be at a low level -
>likewise, that doesn't seem problematic to me. It seems perfectly
>plausible.


Absolutely agreed here.


>I'd certainly be very interested to hear from anyone whose experiences
>were at schools even closer to the Hogwarts model - but I'd say mine
>are closer than most of the people on the list, even though they were
>in a different country.


I'm in the UK and went to boarding school.  I'd have to say that with the
possible exception of the unsupervised evenings (we had "prep" every
weeknight), and of course magic, Hogwarts could pretty much be my school.
The houses, the rivalry, the bullying, the 'old world' feel, teachers (and
even prefects) handing out detention and so on, it's all there.  Indeed
some of my memories - such as crawling around under the floorboards of the
main school and climbing into the organ loft and swapping similarly sized
organ pipes around until we couldn't get them back correctly which caused a
lot of trouble at Saturday morning choir practice could come straight out
of some of JKR's chapters.  OK, one other difference: our food wasn't up to
much...


As for the interest in the opposite sex - it was there but I agree with
Pshemekan that Rowling has it about right right.

I understand what Arya is saying and don't doubt that you weren't
exceptional in your culture - but your description is very alien to my
experience.  (I was *very* 'backward' with girls at this age [1] - but most
of the people I knew were pretty similar.)  There were exceptions but
again, I'd say JK is spot on.


>Arya--who wonders what magic there is to replace the batteries in her love
life.

Nice line - I shall have to remember that one.


tc



[1] certainly compared with what I see portrayed on American tv programs!