I was so looking forward to going to boarding school. I’d told my friends and they were impressed. It was for rich kids, they said. I was proud of my family and pleased that I’d be living up to the dreams and ambitions of my grandparents who, I had been told, were taking financial responsibility for this great step into the upper echelons of British society, a place they very evidently occupied. We, children of their second, dissolute son, were at the margins of such society. This would ensure our place. The daughters of lairds and lords, viscounts and barristers. We packed our trunks, metal boxes belonging to my mother’s father which he had used to carry his belongings during the war, and which had been painted for us, blue for my sister, red for me, with care. Bed linen. Underwear. Toiletries. Uniform. Pets. My Guinea pig, Arthur, was coming with me (named after King Arthur. Maybe… what will you call him? I’ll call him after …. Arthur? That’s nice. No, wait… but he was christened then and there. A lovely black sleek animal that quivered and talked to me and within weeks of my arrival at the school would be dead.
The next term was less benign. I recall clinging to the bannister when told it was time to go back to school. My mother unhooked my fingers one by one.
Why did no one ask what was wrong? Did they just think I was a cry baby? Why could they not see that I was broken, afraid, terrified of the humiliation, the shame, the bullying and the secrets?
Know Yoga Ireland 