Listen to a sample
A Very Private School
- Author
- Charles Spencer
- Narrator
- Charles Spencer
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date
- 12 March 2024
- Run Time
- 8 hours 27 minutes
- Format
- x-book®
- Genre
- Memoirs, Independent schools, private education, Child abuse, True stories of survival of abuse & injustice
- Rating
- 4.8 (6 reviews)
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What to expect
THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
A Times, Spectator and Waterstones Book of the Year
'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.
Critics Review
-
'Top marks for its searing frankness, framed in wistfully beautiful prose’
The Times
‘Spencer is acutely observant of the myriad power imbalances at play within this imperial throwback. There has been a steady stream of books about boarding schools in recent years… but two things mark Spencer out from the crowd. First, he is by title and birth the ultimate establishment man, but he’s still prepared to take on the shibboleths of his class and upbringing. Second, his turn of phrase is often delightful. A painstaking and traumatic process, but one for which any reader must surely give a cheer'
Daily Telegraph
‘Moving… A heartbreaking memoir of a childhood endured at a boarding school ‘without love’, where abuse was shockingly commonplace’
Financial Times
‘This is a story with a clear remit: to confront the British school system with the abuses it has long enabled. There are many graphic details in this book but the allegations have the most impact when read here as a grander narrative about power and how it is abused. As an individual testimony to the abuse that scarred a lifetime and hobbled his marriages, it is a tour de force'
Washington Post
‘Moving and beautifully written, what Spencer’s courageous book reveals will be horribly familiar to the thousands of us who endured the same vile abuse in dozens of schools that were clones of each other. Most of us will go to our graves with the wounds unhealed'
Louis de Bernieres
'This is a powerful, unforgettable story of childhood trauma, and the dark secrets and savagery of the past, told with a searing honesty and clarity that is ultimately redemptive'
Justine Picardie
User Reviews
Book 4.8
Narration 4.7
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5.0 5.0
Very good listen much appreciated was the deepest of this book
kimmylam 2025-04-20 -
5.0 5.0
Well it appears I have a huge amount in common with the Author. Surprisingly I’m female but attended a mixed sex boarding school in the 1960’s. From 11-16 so older but so many things were the same. The author is brutally honest in his representation of the school. How any of us survived this atrocious treatment is near a miracle. I cried and laughed in equal measure. And yes it was very hard to finish as it erupted many memories. Thank you Charles.
retreat 2024-12-31 -
4.0 3.0
Disturbing details about British boarding schools. Having been to one myself in the 80s I can see some similarities although not the violent abuse suffered here thankfully.
susiesocial 2024-10-07 -
5.0 5.0
I thoroughly recommend this book; to ex boarders struggling to come terms with their experiences, to their friends and families who may be affected by their behaviours, and to anyone with an interest in the strange eccentricities of British society and its sometimes terrible consequences. Thanks to author Charles Spencer for the well crafted words, and excellent delivery of the audio book.
Dougie 2024-04-01
Details
- Author
- Charles Spencer
- Narrator
- Charles Spencer
- Duration
- 8 hours 27 minutes
- Release Date
- 12 March 2024
- ISBN
- 9780008666101
- Format
- x-book®
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Genre
- Memoirs, Independent schools, private education, Child abuse, True stories of survival of abuse & injustice
- Rating
- 4.8(6 reviews)
- Narration
- 4.7(6 reviews)
Synopsis
THE #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A Times, Spectator and Waterstones Book of the Year '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.
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