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A Very Private School

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A Very Private School

By: Charles Spencer
Narrated by: Charles Spencer
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About this listen

'Shocking and moving' Guardian

'Top marks for its searing frankness, framed in wistfully beautiful prose’ The Times

At eight years of age, Charles Spencer was sent away to one of England's most England's most exclusive boarding schools. Here he reveals the strange secrets of the school, and the culture of cruelty and abuse he experienced in his five years there as pupil.

Spencer reflects on the misery, hopelessness and abandonment he felt aged eight, viscerally describing the intense pain of homesickness and the vicious brutality of a boys' school in the 1970s. All these years later, Spencer's bafflement at the teachers' motivations to inflict such cruelty on young children in palpable. As is his fury that, even if somehow he had spoken up, he'd never have been believed.

Charles Spencer's book 'A Very Private School' was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 11-03-2024.

©2024 Charles Spencer (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers Best of 2024 Child Psychology Children's Studies Developmental Psychology Europe Great Britain Politics & Activism Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Royalty Social Sciences Heartfelt Inspiring

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Most relevant
What a honour to listen to this story of honesty and integrity and strength and spoken in his own voice thank you

Outstanding

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Well done Charles for coming forward with this. Unbelievable that these things were happening in the 1970s.

A shocking story

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Kept thinking of his tragic sister off screen. The first school she and Charles attended was a Victorian dame school which failed her leading to low self esteem and mockery. Both were victims of selfish inadequate parents. And the royals also haunt his memoir. Bravo Charles you have seen the upper class for what they are. But their cruelty and ignorance cost Diana her life.

DIANA IS THE GHOST IN THE ROOM

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As an ex pupil of the prep school system. This brings back memories of my time at school (also designed to put kids into Eton) l in the 1980s which had sadistic headmasters and staff that hid in these systems.

Thanks for writing this account, of your times and very brave of you.

The issue and I am sure he would agree is that the school has never called out the vicious headmasters or the abusers that roamed their hallowed halls. Whilst boarding schools probably have had to tidy up their acts to survive, they should acknowledge the abuses of the past.

Tragic but true

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I was weeping before he even got to this monstrous school. But beautifully written and to hear it in Charles Spencer’s own voice even more moving

A broken childhood - explains a lot about current establishment figures

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