Privately Educated Eejits
When I went to Glasgow University 52 years ago from my comprehensive school in a scheme in the People's Republic of Glasgow (and I'll fight anybody who dares to suggest Crookston Castle was a 'bog-standard comprehensive'), it was still fairly unusual for state-educated young people to go on to higher education.
I remember wee bits of matriculation day even now. I was with two other girls from my school and we'd no idea what we were meant to do. At one point, I found myself waiting to sign some sort of register, which involved giving my father's occupation. I briefly wondered what his occupation had to do with the university - or me, for that matter - and why my mother's occupation wasn't requested, and then I gave myself a mental shake and wrote: 'shipyard fitter.' Only then did I notice all the earlier entries in the register seemed to be made up of words like 'lawyer', 'doctor' and 'engineer.'
But, just as should be the case, I took up my place at university on the same basis as every other student. I made friends - all from other state schools - and only came across the many privately educated students in tutorials and in the ref. The ones I saw in the refectory hung about in what were clearly 'school' groups. There were gangs of them in first year. Fewer of them in second year and from then on, the herd thinned out till almost all of them were gone. And if they weren't gone, they were very quiet...
Years later, a few friends of mine went to work in posh boarding schools in rural Scotland, minor public schools in England and in selective grammar schools in England and Wales. It was only then that I got to grips with what private education (weird how parents paying money gets a school called private in Scotland but public in England) was about. In effect, exam results - the crucial issue and a major source of stress for those of us educated in the state sector - were not a major worry for those who were educated in private schools. Exams seemed to be the teachers' problem. Teachers sweated blood over exams in these places. Yes, they had some very bright students but they also had heaps of total dough-heids whose parents still thought they were entitled to go on to higher education.
Some of the folk I met at Glasgow University fell into this category. They were used to being what was then called 'spoon-fed' by their teachers. In university tutorials, they hadn't an idea to bless themselves with. While I was hiding out in the school library throughout 6th year poring over books by the 'Great Russians', unreadable Victorian novelists and the classics of French 19th century literature, the privately educated eejits hadn't really read anything much and at university preferred to spend a lot of time hiding out in the QM or in pubs down in Byres Road.
I didn't have the money for the pub. I worked on a Saturday and wasn't about to spend my hard-earned cash on drink. Saturday sadly was when the Modern Languages staff at the university seemed to schedule 'tests' back in those days. So my education regularly cost me my Saturday wages. That's why I was outraged when a lecturer handed me back a translation in which I had scored 44 out of 50 and asked me if I'd translated this passage before. I couldn't see the PEEs having that problem.
A lot of the PEEs either flunked out of university or took their ordinary degrees and ran for the hills. Neither situation would be a problem for them: they had contacts who would give them jobs. Their ambitions, if they had any, weren't academic.
Years later, I would come across some of them - and their children - in various settings. I met them as parents of my pupils. As colleagues (one an English teacher who once corrected a student's essay from 'would have' to 'would of'). I even met them in the Labour Party. When I was out canvassing for the Labour Party, I also met them as rude, entitled Tories (one slowed down in his car long enough on a Scottish island to flick me a v-sign). They went into the estate agency business or sold cars. They called themselves 'self-made men' and later 'entrepreneurs'. Some went into politics.
Every time I switch on my TV, I see these people on the news. I don't know them but I know the type: almost all men, lazy, not very bright, and smug - oh boy, are they smug. A very clever friend of mine used to compare these guys to the Master of the Universe described by Tom Wolfe in 'Bonfire of the Vanities': a man who could command Wall Street but got entangled in the lead while walking his wee dog.
That's who is running the UK right now. You don't need me to give you a list. Channel 4 News had several of them on the screen tonight. At one point, I thought Matt Frei (also privately educated but from a European background) was going to swat one of them around the head with his papers. These politicians have led the UK into disaster. They really don't give a rat's arse about the future of most of us. They seem to live in the rarified atmosphere of a third rate English private (public) school. Their Oxbridge education seems to have done no more than exaggerate what they learned at school.
Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times gets right down to the basic problem in this article. Read it and weep.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-historians-will-not-believe-sheer-ignorance-of-brexit-supporters-1.3695347?fbclid=IwAR1PjgSaH-9ErnGwaLI0NkU6YNZeisNWkpxJEl4Uv745y_M6o4Vd8iQwLAM
I remember wee bits of matriculation day even now. I was with two other girls from my school and we'd no idea what we were meant to do. At one point, I found myself waiting to sign some sort of register, which involved giving my father's occupation. I briefly wondered what his occupation had to do with the university - or me, for that matter - and why my mother's occupation wasn't requested, and then I gave myself a mental shake and wrote: 'shipyard fitter.' Only then did I notice all the earlier entries in the register seemed to be made up of words like 'lawyer', 'doctor' and 'engineer.'
But, just as should be the case, I took up my place at university on the same basis as every other student. I made friends - all from other state schools - and only came across the many privately educated students in tutorials and in the ref. The ones I saw in the refectory hung about in what were clearly 'school' groups. There were gangs of them in first year. Fewer of them in second year and from then on, the herd thinned out till almost all of them were gone. And if they weren't gone, they were very quiet...
Years later, a few friends of mine went to work in posh boarding schools in rural Scotland, minor public schools in England and in selective grammar schools in England and Wales. It was only then that I got to grips with what private education (weird how parents paying money gets a school called private in Scotland but public in England) was about. In effect, exam results - the crucial issue and a major source of stress for those of us educated in the state sector - were not a major worry for those who were educated in private schools. Exams seemed to be the teachers' problem. Teachers sweated blood over exams in these places. Yes, they had some very bright students but they also had heaps of total dough-heids whose parents still thought they were entitled to go on to higher education.
Some of the folk I met at Glasgow University fell into this category. They were used to being what was then called 'spoon-fed' by their teachers. In university tutorials, they hadn't an idea to bless themselves with. While I was hiding out in the school library throughout 6th year poring over books by the 'Great Russians', unreadable Victorian novelists and the classics of French 19th century literature, the privately educated eejits hadn't really read anything much and at university preferred to spend a lot of time hiding out in the QM or in pubs down in Byres Road.
I didn't have the money for the pub. I worked on a Saturday and wasn't about to spend my hard-earned cash on drink. Saturday sadly was when the Modern Languages staff at the university seemed to schedule 'tests' back in those days. So my education regularly cost me my Saturday wages. That's why I was outraged when a lecturer handed me back a translation in which I had scored 44 out of 50 and asked me if I'd translated this passage before. I couldn't see the PEEs having that problem.
A lot of the PEEs either flunked out of university or took their ordinary degrees and ran for the hills. Neither situation would be a problem for them: they had contacts who would give them jobs. Their ambitions, if they had any, weren't academic.
Years later, I would come across some of them - and their children - in various settings. I met them as parents of my pupils. As colleagues (one an English teacher who once corrected a student's essay from 'would have' to 'would of'). I even met them in the Labour Party. When I was out canvassing for the Labour Party, I also met them as rude, entitled Tories (one slowed down in his car long enough on a Scottish island to flick me a v-sign). They went into the estate agency business or sold cars. They called themselves 'self-made men' and later 'entrepreneurs'. Some went into politics.
Every time I switch on my TV, I see these people on the news. I don't know them but I know the type: almost all men, lazy, not very bright, and smug - oh boy, are they smug. A very clever friend of mine used to compare these guys to the Master of the Universe described by Tom Wolfe in 'Bonfire of the Vanities': a man who could command Wall Street but got entangled in the lead while walking his wee dog.
That's who is running the UK right now. You don't need me to give you a list. Channel 4 News had several of them on the screen tonight. At one point, I thought Matt Frei (also privately educated but from a European background) was going to swat one of them around the head with his papers. These politicians have led the UK into disaster. They really don't give a rat's arse about the future of most of us. They seem to live in the rarified atmosphere of a third rate English private (public) school. Their Oxbridge education seems to have done no more than exaggerate what they learned at school.
Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times gets right down to the basic problem in this article. Read it and weep.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-historians-will-not-believe-sheer-ignorance-of-brexit-supporters-1.3695347?fbclid=IwAR1PjgSaH-9ErnGwaLI0NkU6YNZeisNWkpxJEl4Uv745y_M6o4Vd8iQwLAM
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