In the summer before university, I rode a minibus to Blandford Forum in Dorset to attend a Greek summer school. Sitting next to me was a boy with Scout badges pinned to his polo shirt. ‘I like your costume,’ he told me, eyeing my blouse. ‘You look just like an air hostess. Or a Barbie doll dressed as an air hostess. All my girlfriends look like air hostesses.’
Poor Sebastian. He didn’t need to tell me that he came from a boys’ school in a remote corner of Kent. It was painfully obvious that he had never spoken to a girl in his life. But the sad truth was, I wasn’t much more experienced. I’d just mastered the art of concealing it.
I hadn’t taken a gap year. Too many of my friends had found the world too exciting ever to settle into university afterwards. So my little Dorset adventure with Sebastian was the closest I came to preparing myself for the transition from school to university life.
And so we rode on, he scaling an even higher wall of mock bravado, me dreading the next fortnight. At the end of the road sat the grand, Norman Shaw-designed Bryanston School. Roughly 300 budding classicists poured into the building, most of us on the advice of teachers who said that the Greek course (‘Geek camp’, ho ho), an intensive residential language course held in Bryanston each July, would be the making of us.
I had lots of friends taking summer language courses at the same time, many of them abroad. The idea was to get our grammar and vocab in good shape by the time we enrolled at university the following October.
That was the idea. In practice, although I learned a lot from some fantastic teachers, I was just as grateful for the early introduction to a certain kind of boy. And to a lack of privacy: I shared a dorm with a girl who ate chicken in bed. And to really terrible wine. All these things would soon be the norm.
The most exhilarating experiences were the ones in which school rules were most obviously flouted. Despite being on a school campus, we were allowed to drink, which most of us learned to do with some skill. We had teachers, but we could address them by their first names, and we only had ourselves to blame if we fell behind. There was dancing every school night.
Greek isn’t for everyone, but a short residential course is a great way to fill the gap between school and university. There’s no point in jetting off to Chile to teach if you haven’t learned to learn — and to unlearn. Obviously no one wants to arrive at university worn out having spent his entire summer working. Nor does anyone with an iota of self-awareness want to mark himself out as an oddball with his opening gambit. A printmaking workshop, or a poetry course, or something parallel to the forthcoming university course may provide, above all, the opportunity to shape opinions and forge a unique connection to the course — and to other people.
It seemed to do the trick for young Sebastian, anyway. On the last night at Bryanston, I pottered down to the Greek theatre to watch the student play. As I took my seat, I caught sight of him, perched on the front row, lip-locked with the female lead. The last time I saw him, as an undergraduate, he was in much the same-position.
From the Spectator’s Independent Schools supplement September 2013
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