Marlborough College has developed something of a reputation for churning out wives for the great and the good. It is wrong, though, to assume the place operates like a ‘girls in pearls’ finishing school, where everyone practises their deportment or learns how to arrange flowers, while waiting for their prince to arrive.
Instead, Marlborough girls leave school knowing how to build a fire, camp on a hillside and fire a gun. CCF is popular. I have happy memories of mock exercises on Salisbury Plain. Equally happy are memories of our self-defence lesson, which was given to girls in Upper Sixth.
We learned how to deliver a blow to the nose using our palms – and then practised on each other
I remember it well: the 14 girls in my house (Morris – named after William Morris, despite the fact that he hated the school) gathered in one of the sports halls. Our coach was a man who specialised in martial arts.
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