Aside from Simon Hoggart’s brilliant Saturday diary in the Guardian, and Jay Rayner’s marvellous Observer restaurant reviews, my favourite newspaper reading has to be The Times’ obituaries – often so very moving, humbling and inspiring.
One such, recently, concerned an elderly lady who had done remarkable things in the war. But I smiled at the following paragraph:
Aged 12 [she] was sent to a small exclusive private school in Malvern, called the Malvern Lycee, run by two elderly women, whose main purpose was “to turn out young ladies”, with a good knowledge of English, French and art. [Her] father then sent her [aged 16] for a year to the then world-famous Swiss finishing school at Neuchatel, whose 40 or so pupils included the daughters of the elite of Europe and America.
Both institutions sound as if, with a little variation, they might be perfect scenarios for weekend-long scenes. Or, indeed, as the basis for an A Level question in History (corporal punishment module):
“With evidence based on your studies of similar schools, describe the disciplinary regimes that would have been likely to have been effect in each establishment.”