Felsted School

A Memory of Felsted.

I entered the Prep (Junior) School in 1956, passing to the Senior School in 1960, finally leaving in 1965, the year after the then Queen Mother joined in the 400 year celebrations.

My memories are of a school run by the prefects, overseen from a distance by Masters who had little to do with day to day discipline. The life was challenging but caring. Discipline was clear, punishment instant and all knew where they stood within the hierarchy. Today's liberals would preach fire and damnation about our experiences but in the main they were good. We learned to look after ourselves. We took care of others within our peer group and we took responsibility in our turn. It was still a system that Tom Brown would have recognised but it was not brutal.

Today's pupils will be experiencing a very different schooling, but they are growing up in a different era with standards that would have seemed very strange in the post war society of the 1950's and 1960's.

Some friends I made at Felsted School are still friends 50 years later. Some have gone on to great things from becoming Generals to running Barclays Bank and becoming surgeons. They have spread all over the world and are testimony for the education that Felsted provided.

Our own sons were given a similar education here in the North of England, but I fear the next generation will be priced out of the market as access to such schools becomes ever more elitist, but perhaps it always was?

With family connections in Felsted only now finally dying out I have been privileged to see the school grow and change over the years as I have returned a few times every year. I can only hope that this form of education will survive and continue to create leaders as it has so many times in the past.