It’s Monday, so my day started with an early-morning Latin test. I obtained a mark of 24 out of 25; and so far from being conceitedly pleased by that result, I am ashamed of my failure – for which I shall be appropriately punished.
If anyone should find it strange that I am not merely accepting the imposition of a Latin test but also accepting punishment for any lost marks, the point is easily explained: I am merely a young boy, only just eleven years old, so of course I accept such things. And I am at school, so such things are not just accepted but expected. (But isn’t this the middle of the school holidays? Not in my case, no: I don’t have school holidays – I don’t deserve them, don’t need them, and wouldn’t know what to do with them.)
Now, since this blog is intended to tell the truth – and the strict truth, too – as boys should always be required to do, I had better add that I am in fact fully adult and fully consenting to the life I am required to live: it is required of myself, by myself, for myself. And yet, while legally and physically adult, it is perfectly true to say that I am a boy of eleven. That is not fiction or fantasy: it is real – real in all the ways that are possible. I am not, of course, physically a boy; but I am psychologically a boy. And I am subject to the style of life for a young boy as it was in conservative circles some fifty or sixty years ago – including every aspect of discipline.
Why should I wish to live such a (to most people) eccentric life? Because I am a boy. Such a life is normal and natural for a boy of my age and character. But, in particular, why should I recreate a life out of history – when a boy’s life was governed by imposed rules not negotiated targets, and his behaviour was adjusted by caning and not by counselling? Because I am a boy of that era, still belonging to that culture. I am not a reactionary who wants to bring it all back for everyone. But the boy within me has simply never left it.
So the truth – the strict truth – is that I am partly an adult and partly a boy. I have to maintain, to some extent, the adult self that my legal age and physical shape dictate, as I must engage to a necessary extent with the adult world. (So I do not answer the front door dressed in short grey trousers and a school tie – however much I might wish to do so.) But I am also a boy, and my existence as a boy is perfectly real. It’s not role-play or practical joking: it’s intensely serious – witness the fact that I am in all seriousness about to be punished for that silly mistake in my Latin. Indeed, it is my boy self that is the predominant part of my psyche. I feel better as a boy.
My life, consequently, is run as far as possible as a young boy might have lived it in a caring but conservative boarding school somewhen around the middle of the last century. The school is also my home, and there is no distinction between the two. It is a life of rules and routines, school lessons and boarding-house fagging duties, all governed by strict traditional discipline – to which I submit completely.
Now please excuse me: I must go and take my punishment for that piece of carelessness in a Latin test...
If anyone should find it strange that I am not merely accepting the imposition of a Latin test but also accepting punishment for any lost marks, the point is easily explained: I am merely a young boy, only just eleven years old, so of course I accept such things. And I am at school, so such things are not just accepted but expected. (But isn’t this the middle of the school holidays? Not in my case, no: I don’t have school holidays – I don’t deserve them, don’t need them, and wouldn’t know what to do with them.)
Now, since this blog is intended to tell the truth – and the strict truth, too – as boys should always be required to do, I had better add that I am in fact fully adult and fully consenting to the life I am required to live: it is required of myself, by myself, for myself. And yet, while legally and physically adult, it is perfectly true to say that I am a boy of eleven. That is not fiction or fantasy: it is real – real in all the ways that are possible. I am not, of course, physically a boy; but I am psychologically a boy. And I am subject to the style of life for a young boy as it was in conservative circles some fifty or sixty years ago – including every aspect of discipline.
Why should I wish to live such a (to most people) eccentric life? Because I am a boy. Such a life is normal and natural for a boy of my age and character. But, in particular, why should I recreate a life out of history – when a boy’s life was governed by imposed rules not negotiated targets, and his behaviour was adjusted by caning and not by counselling? Because I am a boy of that era, still belonging to that culture. I am not a reactionary who wants to bring it all back for everyone. But the boy within me has simply never left it.
So the truth – the strict truth – is that I am partly an adult and partly a boy. I have to maintain, to some extent, the adult self that my legal age and physical shape dictate, as I must engage to a necessary extent with the adult world. (So I do not answer the front door dressed in short grey trousers and a school tie – however much I might wish to do so.) But I am also a boy, and my existence as a boy is perfectly real. It’s not role-play or practical joking: it’s intensely serious – witness the fact that I am in all seriousness about to be punished for that silly mistake in my Latin. Indeed, it is my boy self that is the predominant part of my psyche. I feel better as a boy.
My life, consequently, is run as far as possible as a young boy might have lived it in a caring but conservative boarding school somewhen around the middle of the last century. The school is also my home, and there is no distinction between the two. It is a life of rules and routines, school lessons and boarding-house fagging duties, all governed by strict traditional discipline – to which I submit completely.
Now please excuse me: I must go and take my punishment for that piece of carelessness in a Latin test...
I was very interested to read your blog and would like to contact you for further dialogue.
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