Eton College Documentary (1991) Part 1 of 2

the worst thing about being at public school and especially about being at Eton is that you become cut off from the real world it's like being in a monastery you're very enclosed when you go into town it's it's a bit like going abroad you've tried desperately to fit in but the people consider you is some sort of upper-class freak it's quite sad really so you can tell them to tell you tomorrow that's not all my mum says it's not but then that's not fair because I a lot of them aren't but because you know to the end she ever say that that's good so that looks but that's you know when the tales I mean it there's over the gods tell you what's happened in my life I've gone to the motional school from five to eight and then I went to prep school and then I went to Eton my father said when he left when he left even there that he wouldn't he wouldn't send his children tea he doesn't know anything else really does he what no it's not it wasn't that it was because he felt he could couldn't not send me to Israel schoolyard we go this is the main fit this where the Queen playing sir yeah the Queen stood on that step over there standing on and that's the founder the bloke he made he blesses yeah you have to walk on certain side of it the wrong way around a hundred another you it's very easy to scarf a tradition but actually tradition is a tremendous strength do you go to the Scottish country dancing on Santa night well actually the mistress is the dancing teacher from him we've never assumed that an academic education is enough of itself and those of us who teach and do so I think because we feel that we are dealing not just with buyers minds but with people's personalities but I think that in a boarding school you do learn quite a lot about human nature by living together with other people and I would hope that a boy would leave eaten with quite a good understanding of other people and also of course with some of the values by which good men have lived in the past Eaton is said to turn out these great individuals that stride forth and leave the nation what it actually does is that factory churning out the same sort of people over and over again and very few people because of the restrictions placed on the - school managed to break out of the mold that's imposed on the people kind of say oh I'm gonna give it language stand out be something fine it's just much easier to conform it's just much easier just because you know there's so much pressure everyone else does it and after was that 550 years of being told how that's the best school in the world it's a believes it and expects you to be part of the best school in the world if you don't conform eventually I'll end up being thrown up the school doesn't care cuz this takes two seconds for them school summer then you will conform and take your place okay very Swift I'm sorry what is it again there's a pain things there's the booking Hall okay Switzer John Steve that was a tailor coat hanging up and over in a bag don't sell a rail and where is the other camel okay yeah or better get it then so we'll be doing that in a few minutes time but the main thing is tailcoat have you know we've got yes incidents in today on the ball now oh yeah overall there but in that case teeth the tail coat is in the other house is another a look yes we will call him well yeah mrs. rubadoux starting that's terrific support yes yes it my study in two minutes my study in two minutes ah - lastest English that he thought it's not going to be close to his heart better say bye-bye they do well we'll see you yes when they first left feel a bit bits a bit scared it's kind of sense that you have to just make your own way now we just stop here for a moment this building this building that you can see here is school hall now if you look in your timetables your notice you're all going to school hall tomorrow morning you see what it is the headmaster is getting talk to you tomorrow in this very large building now we've got the stud in first in the back through that little gap you see so that the flat piece is on the inside because that goes against your neck and you fix the collar on the inside like that now we get the front start then the collar of that side next oh yeah and then that tucks down and at the end of all that it should look like that that's what you look like in the morning when it's on surprise that brown don't leave the office till you seen it please ready yeah next please good color inside UK please right yeah well it's lifted its Rumble well done that's good now too much Karen please new boys are processed pretty quickly in the first couple of days it's the same for everybody except over in college where the King scholars have some sort of secret ceremony at least that's what they say but the rest of us have never seen it ago Martinez Michael Carroll espero topless famous field proposals Foucault leggy it's not a secret ceremony at all in fact it's the first opportunity for the new colleges to meet the Provost these are the cleverest boys at Eton and are officially accepted into the foundation by him and he employs a Latin citation which is supposed to include words used by Henri the six gave them Christum Dominum Nostrum amen it means something roughly along the lines that you should be good and truthful and when you've grown up we hope you'll be a service to God in the state you'll shake in your room scolari Umrah Aramco leggy vocalist said Vera condos the caste integrate we're Alaskans into a koalas choice or tandem ex killari disciplina Varis highway so nesters sacked a tree are useless and Maori end a glory and a liaison Christum Dominum Nostrum amen that's it thank you very much gentlemen and congratulations on becoming colleges in the five hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the college and you go back in direct descent to the original foundation of Henry the sixth just as I do now I hope you all have an absolutely marvelous time here and I may say I think I'm very lucky to be in college there's more ceremony and ritual in college but given that it's the oldest part of Eton that's hardly surprising and the fact is we we really rather enjoy it it has to be lost and Gloria Oh but someone coming to Easton who's paying the full fees wouldn't get much change out of ten thousand pounds a year but the parents of a king's scholar would pay a maximum of half fees and if the parents feel that they have a good case for further support then this is always forthcoming from the school so we find that quite a large number of boys in college are paying virtually nothing at all in order to get to eatin boys have to fast the common entrance exam or do very well on the scholarship exam but Etan's of a wealthy institution and about 20% of all boys at Eton gain some form of financial support from school I reckon my cooking career really took off when I devote I realized that that the frying pan was out and the casserole was in that was the first step this is college I'd like to show you one little tiny thing out there sometimes yes then you fall backwards and hit your wicket if you come through here I want you to come to this wall I try to gather round come round everybody can you see this panel here now you remember I said to you that Queen Elizabeth used to come here and watch plays before Shakespeare well when she came she liked to give the boys presents and if you actually see this Queen Elizabeth huh can you read that that's in Latin ed knows what is that no see to to us that's right gay can you read that up to October 10 that's right 10 to lows in a mess 1596 know what is amiss what is amiss it's like tea because you're all investors aren't you even though even though you're not in college this was written by a boy in 1596 mr. Meredith showed us where all our school rooms were the next day where the chapel was and where all the game shields were that so many in it quite hell to find you always feel at the beginning of the term at this time everything is possible people come back very much inclined to feel that this is a fresh start I very much enjoy the start of the McComas half because it is the beginning of everything again hello it's concerning this monster honey you got a letter from our house master we got a right here of science in time to you know find them well let's just say as if we take the later plane we'll get caught up in the middle of long so much long leave starts yes that's right yeah what I wasn't clear famille never was what what is the purpose of the trip is this project for a lab or not I mean it's is this robot that they're all very keen on it done this jihad well you've got a whole week long me you find you need an extra day well it's just a relieve mean just for the flights really cuz I'm well cuz the flight that we'd have to miss probably the whole is optimist the whole morning I think yeah so I must say what you wrote seemed a very good scheme so I think I'll say yes I thank you very much to tell you housemaster right yeah thanks look thank us sir we are a privileged school we're very lucky we have wonderful buildings we have a very good staff we have a very good tradition which helps tremendously it would be quite wrong if we aim to be anything other than a very good academic school so we do pay a lot of attention to that we do expect buyers to work hard to expect masters to teach well and hard I'd like to start by welcoming very much the new boys were here this morning had certainly been traditional Eden to educate the whole man I think it's probably only in the last 30 years or so that the academic part of that education has been considered as important as it now is may I suggest that you write a very brief note to the lower master and he's prepared to accept them and he and I will see that any ideas you have are considered along with the others and I'd like to tell you all about the changes in the teaching staff just so that you know who people are if any of them teach you but I have great great pleasure in introducing you to Tanaka son who is joining us from Musashi High School in Tokyo first Japanese teacher here second son nice to meet you you must be proud of you are serving you are the first 16 boy who took up something Eterna has been eager at all for 550 years now when I call your name please answer hi hi in Japan you okay hi hi it's me yes yes so raise your hand and height how do I pronounce this name who do you trust do you trust the flatters pushy beggars in green whatever a pretty girl comes up to you and says oh I really love you Charles when you can't really trust her can you I mean you you mind you I think she looks very beautiful you might say she's fine but suppose she wants to be queen you know it's a very tricky situation now this is the situation that Shakespeare is beginning to introduce to us in Richard ii meanwhile louis xviii hauled himself into his corsets and vamoose quickly across the Belgian frontier it wasn't a very good recommendation for the Bourbon succession instead of standing firm he sent ney off to bring Bonaparte back in a cage and said of that name of course joined him and meanwhile louis xviii took refuge in belgium there's a characteristic tension about Eton which is that it is clearly a school with a great history and a great tradition which is avid to be part of the modern world now go all the way up to 40 on the calibrated scale okay discount it gave it to me I promise speak I do cancel that window you've got showing now lift your mouth up move it forward on the table laughing it's quite easy but I pulled up to work each night or something that the three chefs can love what good it's not too bad yeah I like the run feet to the foot exactly and work-wise I mean there's a lot to do but then you've got to work harder that's good they said it's lots of work um in your old school you were told what to do another set times to do it but here you just do your work when you want to there is a lot too much work here and I'm definitely too much work I mean you get so much of it for a lot of people the frustration that can be caused by being shut up all the time and not being able to express yourself not be able to do what any other person of your age would probably be doing is that your work suffers once your insects form you'd expect to be treated more grown-up and have more to look forward to we are still treated like 12 year olds in that we're locked up in our houses every night I mean I always call looking forward to serve things like tap I mean tap I finds him it's a bit of a huge anticlimax it's full of endless people talking about football and talking about what they're there drinking and you got legend the under eyes the phone tall okay I used to be the state school and quite honestly we weren't too happy with what they were teaching so my parents looked into other schools that I could get through three music scholarships and we discovered Izanami so I took a music scholarship and they said they would give me a place it's on the anymore turn so speed you take this very so you get it absolutely when I first came I didn't realize when you're in the last block you're really sort of the under people you feel expected to do or nasty jobs and things you're gonna do after 10th oh oh that's only twice that speed you've easily gone into our Suites right again as I come from a state school that's quite unusual my accent wasn't quite sort of what they were used to so they weren't too keen when I get home I see all my best friends and they tell me that my accents changed when I first arrived here it's very hard work but they also it just wasn't you know the sort of line till 3:00 you go home nothing else for the rest of the evening the place where you always get in the wrong place it's just all day work second times we're not doing the repeating okay one two I play for first orchestra the first band a big band or I'll scream and I sing in the choir and occasionally you get plays which need music complements so I do this as well there's a lot of sports you can do here it's just I don't have time because of music right numbering you can swim can you reap it yeah I'm sure this this is the test you know what you've got to do um he could have d3 that to me he's got to dive in or jump in swim down to the end turn around come back on your front so that's two lengths on your front yeah and then when I say go you swim one length on your back it's easiest to do a sculling stroke keeping your hands beneath the water otherwise you sink down to the end climb out and if you do all that you've passed so in your own times no race it's easier to impress straight Rupert it took me about a month to feel at home and settle in probably a month so you could go downstairs and talk to the older boys if they asked you a question you could answer it without kind of feeling oh I mustn't say this honestly say that I enjoy the sport most because that's what I'm naturally quite good at I'm not very bright by the standard seer but I enjoy a sport there's lots of use today okay just read water there for easy so is it easy yeah Tarek how's the football going you're gonna get in the scene yeah I think team but with one two three we go for c1 hope Oh Tom I don't let anybody get much of jobs right on your back to the end and remember keep your hand underwater it a lot easier most people are eaten are members of a club or Society of some kind my friend Tom's just taken over as editor of the Arts Review magazine he's got really interesting plans for it I mean it's not smutty it's just a boy sense of humor we tried to get interviews which boys would find interesting um we got an interview with Ridley Scott the film director and that was really good right now I'm going to interview dr. Boyd the school psychiatrist I'm actually a psychiatrist who has specialized in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry that's my background and for many years I've worked with adolescents in a residential unit at one of the teaching hospitals in London sometimes the very young boys when they first come to this school feel pretty daunted by the size of the place and they feel rather incapable of coping some youngsters are frankly very homesick at the start and really don't want to be at this school and that's a difficult one then he goes on to the middle range of the school who get involved in difficulties like drinking too much alcohol or even experimenting with drugs and wanting to talk about this to a very neutral person who they know will not pass the information on because they're obviously bit scared to talk to anybody else about him how'd you normally deal with most of your boys problems I mean the most common ones do you just talk them out what I try to do it first is to understand really what is bugging the boy so to speak what's upsetting him and when I can get to the bottom of that and I can explain it back to him he then begins to recognize it and says yes that's right that is how I feel that is what it's all about in the middle of every morning masters gather in chambers as it's called it's really necessary because there are something like hundred and thirty six masters and the only way of getting information around is islet ascend 136 notes or to gather people together once a day you

Channel: tituscaesar

Views: 489,185

Keywords: Eton College, English Public Schools

Id: r75ajf6UEhU

Length: 26min 32sec (1592 seconds)

Published: Thu May 17 2012