Saturday, December 4, 2010

Tonbridge School boys sent home for "pilfering" from local shops....

I was shocked to read the piece in a newspaper clipping: Under the headline: "Top School Sends 3 Boys Home: Three public school boys have been suspended for the rest of the term for shoplifting. They were sent home from Tonbridge School (fees £360 a year) after complaints from shop keepers in the town...." it goes on to say that "...the boys have been severely dealt with..." and that the shopkeepers have been completely reimbursed. I for one was flabbergasted to hear this of the well heeled boys who, let's face it, probably want for nothing in life. I blame their lack of respect on the demise of fagging myself! But let's not be too harsh on the school; the clue should have have been in the annual school fees which, so I understand, are more like £30,000 these days. This newspaper clipping is from the Daily Sketch (which doesn't even exist anymore,) from December 5th, 1962! It just happened to fall out of a book about the history of Tonbridge School. I wonder if the boys, who weren't named in the article, went on to be members of the government or captains of industry. We will never know....

4 comments:

Callum James said...

What a sight into the past... If this was to happen these days the kids might've got a weeks suspension and a slap on the wrists from the police.
Nice find Mr Books

Anonymous said...

Brilliant!

Paul Bailey said...

These days, their social worker would have told the court, "It wasn't their fault; they came from a priviledged background"!

Hopefully, back in the 60's, they got a good thrashing, before being expelled.

Anonymous said...

I thought the normal procedure for a top private school was to avoid scandal, usually by giving a glowing reference for the perpetrator to teach somewhere else.

As for the three boys, best to just say that they have been expelled, without actually cancelling the (these days)£90K p.a. they bring in.

Although the taxpayer supports private scools through tax breaks, they are businesses after all.