Very Private School

Charles Spencer was educated at Eton College and obtained his degree in Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was a reporter on NBC’s Today show from 1986 until 1995, and is the author of seven books, including the Sunday Times bestsellers The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream (picked as a Best Book Of The Year by The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Daily Mail And The Daily Express), Blenheim: Battle for Europe (shortlisted for History Book of the Year, National Book Awards) and Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I.

'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