Marlborough College has developed something of a reputation for churning out wives for the great and the good. It is wrong, though, to assume the place operates like a ‘girls in pearls’ finishing school, where everyone practises their deportment or learns how to arrange flowers, while waiting for their prince to arrive.

Instead, Marlborough girls leave school knowing how to build a fire, camp on a hillside and fire a gun. CCF is popular. I have happy memories of mock exercises on Salisbury Plain. Equally happy are memories of our self-defence lesson, which was given to girls in Upper Sixth.

We learned how to deliver a blow to the nose using our palms – and then practised on each other

I remember it well: the 14 girls in my house (Morris – named after William Morris, despite the fact that he hated the school) gathered in one of the sports halls. Our coach was a man who specialised in martial arts. It all felt rather ridiculous. When might we need these skills? But it was an amusing way to spend an afternoon.

We learned how to deliver a blow to the nose using our palms. The coach said that we should push our hand upwards as it made contact, for maximum impact. We then practised on each other, but of course we had to stop just before the crucial point of engagement.

Inevitably, one girl didn’t quite pull back in time. Her partner was swiftly packed off to the sanitorium, with a wodge of tissue shoved up her nose to stem the flow of blood now dripping onto her house top – or ‘stripe’. Our house colours were blood red and bone white, anyway, so a little blood wasn’t the end of the world. We liked our stripes to have some character; some girls even cut off the arms for a more rugged look.

Next, we were taught how to deploy a house key as a weapon, with it lodged between our fingers like a corkscrew.

QOSHE - Take that - Lara Prendergast
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Take that

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14.03.2024

Marlborough College has developed something of a reputation for churning out wives for the great and the good. It is wrong, though, to assume the place operates like a ‘girls in pearls’ finishing school, where everyone practises their deportment or learns how to arrange flowers, while waiting for their prince to arrive.

Instead, Marlborough girls leave school knowing how to build a fire, camp on a hillside and fire a gun. CCF is popular. I have happy........

© The Spectator


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