I bring electrifying news for feminism, ladies: Eton and Harrow may be going co-ed. Potentially not for another 50 years. But still: admit girls into two of the country’s leading public schools, and who knows what progress will follow?
The suggestion has come from a teacher who has previously taught at both Eton and Harrow. Alastair Chirnside is warden of St Edward’s School in Oxford, already co-educational, and says that today’s “equality, diversity and inclusion” drive will ultimately change the status quo at single-sex schools. More specifically, Mr Chirnside claims that Eton and Harrow’s social events – such as dinners and dances with nearby girls’ schools – fail to “compensate” the poor lads who have nobody to flirt with across the Bunsen burner.
He didn’t say that last bit, but that’s how I imagine chemistry lessons at a co-ed school. I didn’t go to one, see, which means I was subjected to these social events, or “socials” as they’re known. Once a term the sixth formers at my all-girls school were bussed to a nearby boys’ school, or they came to us, and we would bat our heavy eyelashes and sway to a Spice Girls CD in the gym before being bussed back to our respective dormitories. It was sort of Malory Towers meets Strictly.
But after Mr Chirnside’s proclamations, socials appear to be under threat – and while this may be a great step forward for mankind, it would also mean the loss of one of the more eccentric traditions of the public-school system.
These were character-building, crucially informative events. Had it not been for our Caledonian Society socials with Eton, I would never have learned to Scottish reel – and I think we can all agree a working knowledge of the Gay Gordons is vital in 2022. Had it not been for our socials with Wellington, where boys lined up either side of us on our arrival to shout ratings out of 10, I would never have learned that much of what boys say to teenage girls is nonsense.
One Saturday evening, after we had excitedly slapped on our orange foundation and been fed the usual pre-social dinner of lasagne and garlic bread – designed to discourage physical mingling – our housemistress announced that there would be no bus from Radley College at all since not enough boys had signed up for the trip (my school was considered nerdy and strait-laced, and much less popular than other girls’ schools). This, too, was a useful early lesson in romantic disappointment. A further boys’ school was banned from visiting after they arrived in our gym carrying hip flasks sloshing with sloe gin and several girls failed to make it to chapel the following morning.
A friend who went to a Somerset boarding school says she learned a similar lesson, having stockpiled 13 litres of alcohol ahead of a social, half of it mead pinched from a local pupil’s father. “Holly!” cried the disappointed housemistress, having discovered the sticky arsenal of fermented honey under Holly’s bed. “I wish you’d told me about this. If I’d known before now you could have had it chilled!”
It was important to learn that certain drinks should be served cold, just as it was important that I learned never to accept a swig from anyone called Barnaby. And to think that all of this wisdom may be lost merely so girls and boys can sit alongside one another in lessons every day. What a pity.
