[HPforGrownups] Smeltings' sticks

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 168910

On 17 May 2007 at 15:54, justcarol67 wrote:

> Dudley and his fellow Smeltings students wear uniforms that seem to
> be
> a parody of British public school uniforms (maroon tailcoats,
> orange
> knickerbockers, and boaters), but they also carry "knobbly sticks
> used
> for hitting each other when the teachers weren't looking" (SS Am.
> ed.
> 32). Clearly, it's a boys' school and Uncle Vernon hopes that it
> will
> make a "man" (i.e., an even bigger bully) out of Dudley.
> 
> Does anyone (preferably British list members) think that JKR is
> poking
> fun at British public schools, especially boys' schools, here? What
> do
> the Smeltings' sticks suggest or correspond to?
> 
> Thanks in advance for your input on this question.

Not British, but did attend a British style Public School in Australia, and very interested in 
such schools, their history, and their depiction in literature.

She is certainly making a statement about such schools, but I'm hard pressed to say what it 
is precisely. Hogwarts itself, is in many ways, based on the British Public School model in my 
view - http://home.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/HSWW.html to see my analysis of this - so 
she has ample scope to point out the foibles of such schools there and generally doesn't. So 
perhaps she felt the need for some sort of balance.

But when I read the description of Smelting's uniform, what comes to mind most strongly for 
me - so strongly that I really do wonder if this is what she may have been parodying - is Roald 
Dahl's description of his first encounter with his school uniform for Repton as described in the 
first volume of his autobiography 'Boy: Tales of Childhood'. It's too long for me to fairly quote 
the whole thing, but he spends over two pages of the book describing his shock at the 
'amazing fancy-dress' he was expected to wear. White shirt with detachable white butterfly 
collar, as stiff as perspex, trousers that were black with grey pinstripes, held up by braces 
with brass clips, black waistcoat, and black tailcoat ('the most ridiculous garment I had ever 
seen', and finally a boater.

When his sisters saw him in it, they fell all over the room laughing and remarked that he 
couldn't go out looking like that, he'd be arrested for sure.

As for specific parallels to the Smeltings sticks, I can't think of anything specific, but some 
schools did historically have walking sticks, and furled umbrellas, as part of their uniforms, 
(as well as for any utilitarian purpose) and I have certainly encountered descriptions of these 
being commonly used as weaponry.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia