{A trip to Scotland [continued]}[17th August 1971]

[Redbook1:218-219][19710817:1915a]{A trip to Scotland [continued]}[17th August 1971]

17th August 1971

7.15pm [continued]

            I don't know when I first became more aware of P; at one time those three children all seemed to be in troubles at once and his name came up a lot.  I believe M and N used to get together and tell each other about their respective troubles; so I got some of his as well as most of hers.  P’s failure [to get into the school of their choice] staggered me: he was, and is, a remarkably bright child, and I am sure that the result was due to a mistake by [the school] or simply an accident on his part.  That he should be sent to Eton instead seemed doubly hard.  I do not wish to seem prejudiced about Eton, but it seems to me that if you are to come out of it better and not worse in the eyes of your contemporaries from elsewhere, you must be more aware of the pressures in the school than are most thirteen-year-olds.  The circumstances seemed bound to bring disastrous results for P.  In addition, in my first term at [my college] I was annoyed by the extent of anti-Etonian feeling among undergraduates (-- but I always excuse men from Harrow.)

            I was so worried that I not only spoke to P at Christmas -- which I'm afraid may have worried him more than forewarned him -- but also wrote him a letter, which was foolish.  I regretted it afterwards; and it was the beginning of the Postal Strike, so it probably didn't get there in time anyway.  Before I sent it, it seemed to me necessary once in a while to act on one's charitable impulses; afterwards it struck me as unwarranted interference in the affairs of another family.  [....]

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