Richard Beard - Sad Little Men

Richard Beard - Sad Little Men (How Public Schools Failed Britain)

4 ⭐

Genre: Non-Fiction, Politics, Education, Society  

Pages:  278

Format:  Paperback 

Publisher: Vintage 

Date Published: 7th July 2022

Book Blurb: 

In 1975, as a child, Richard Beard was sent away from his home to sleep in a dormitory. So were David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

In those days a private boys' boarding school education was largely the same experience as it had been for generations: training for the challenges of the Empire. He didn't enjoy it. But the first and most important lesson was to not let that show.

Being separated from the people who love you is traumatic. How did that feel at the time, and what sort of adult does it mould?

This is a story about England, and a portrait of a type of boy, trained to lead, who becomes a certain type of man. As clearly as an X-ray, it reveals the make-up of those who seek power - what makes them tick, and why.

Sad Little Men addresses debates about privilege head-on; clearly and unforgettably, it shows the problem with putting a succession of men from boarding schools into positions of influence, including 10 Downing Street. Is this who we want in charge, especially at a time of crisis?

It is a passionate, tender reckoning—with one individual's past, but also with a national bad habit.

My Review: 

It is a very interesting take on British private/ boarding schools and their realities in the 1970s and beyond. As someone interested in education and teaching, this book gives a lot of insight and a different perspective on how the British education system, especially private, changed over the years. It also taught me how private school education in the 1970s shaped not only the level of education that students had but also had a strong effect on student's emotional intelligence and mental capacity.

In this book, Beard talks mostly about his experiences as a kid in preparatory and then boarding school, where he spent most of his childhood and teen years. He discusses the harsh conditions, mental and physical damage that it caused to him over the years, the old-fashioned style of teaching and education, as well as outdated viewpoints that are taught to students and social expectations put on students over the years from their fellow peers. The author also recognises how much damage young adults in boarding schools did in the 1970s, especially being away from family, feeling that they don’t belong anywhere and need to compete to survive the harsh academic and social environment. It gives some understanding of how politicians who once attended those boarding schools in the 1970s and later, take those experiences, overcome them or use them whilst being in political power. Beard also acknowledges that education in the UK changed over the last 40-50 years and boarding schools are not as harsh or rough as he experienced them but states that there is a still big gap between private and public education in England.

I think the one let-down of this book is that the author repeats himself quite a bit and keeps going on to discuss the same subjects but in different ways throughout the book. I think more of his experiences would’ve made this book much better and would be helped avoid quite a lot of the repetition.

Overall: It is a very interesting book that is good to read if you are interested in the education system and educational changes in the UK, mainly in England. Also, if you are interested in how private and boarding schools influenced our politics and our higher society, this book gives a very good insight into that as well. The author draws from his own experience, which made this book less of a dry read. I personally really enjoyed this book because I didn’t know much about private education in the UK, especially how it was in the past, and was is a good short introduction and summary to it, that is also not a dry textbook read.

About the Author:

Richard Beard’s six novels include Lazarus is Dead, Dry Bones and Damascus, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In the UK he has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award and longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. His latest novel Acts of the Assassins was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2015. He is also the author of four books of narrative non-fiction, including his 2017 memoir The Day That Went Missing. Formerly, Director of The National Academy of Writing in London, he is a Visiting Professor (2016/17) at the University of Tokyo and has a Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. In 2017 he is a juror for Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize. Beard is also an occasional contributor to the Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Financial Times, Prospect and The Nightwatchman.

He studied at Cambridge, at the Open University, and with Malcolm Bradbury on the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. He has worked as a P.E. teacher, as Secretary to Mathilda, Duchess of Argyll, and as an employee of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In the Mendip Hills, Richard Beard looked after Brookleaze, a house owned by the Royal Society of Literature, and lived for three years in Japan as a Professor of British Studies at the University of Tokyo.

https://www.richardbeard.info/