I cannot emphasise enough how, at Goring, it was the boy / pupil cuture that was dominant. That culture was formed of certain very powerful boy-led conventions. These were all important to life at Goring. They were much more important than the influence of the masters / authorities, more important than personal relationships, more important than background, more important than parents, brothers etc. Was this because the school was a boarding school? Perhaps.
Here I am going to talk about one aspect, perhaps one of the most important, of this boy led culture - the Lad hierarchy.
I will only generalise now. There was more complexity than I will write below. Hopefully this will come through in these memoirs generally. However the basic structures, as below, hold true.
There were three types of Boy, in terms of acceptance / success in boy culture terms at Goring: the "Lad", the "Try-Hard" and the "Square". Simply put, the "Lad" was someone seen as a success by the all-powerful boy-led cuture - the "square" was the opposite. Try-Hards - made up probably the majority of the population. They were boys who would like to have been one of the "lads" but did not (quite) make it. They often spent much time and energy seeking approval from the "lads".
There were, crudely speaking, two types of "Lad": the Slob and the Sporty lad. Sometimes they combined but not often. If anything the Sporty Lad was a slightly higher lad - in status.
The Sporty Lad was very good at one of two types of sport - Rugby or Cricket - with Rugby very much the most important of the two. In the sixth form he was either in the 1st XV Rugby or the 1st XI cricket. Let us quantify what this means for a moment: The above is c 30 boys vs nearly 300 pupils in the sixth form. That means that there was about one of these per year per house.
However it was not quite so clear cut as that. In practice some sporty lads would have been accepted as such whilst not always being in the top team (sometimes dropping into the second XV rugby, for example). Probably there were 1 or 2 top sporty lads in each house/year unit. I remember there being one in mine.
The 'Slob' lad was of a different kind. He tended to be a large boy, normally tall, sometimes large waisted as well - but always physically big. He tended to have long unkempt hair. He was almost always a smoker (from the start, aged 13) and thus often had the pungent smell of tobacco on his clothes. He had a violent presence, threatening. A main habit was that of "hoicking" up phlegm and spitting it out on the walkway so that the walkway often had patches of this substance dotted along it. He was a "rebel" type, much more likely to be in trouble with the authorities than the sporty lad. Due to his being (normally) older-looking than his age he was often the boy who went down to the local off-licence and managed to get hold of bottles of vodka etc. which he would drink himself or sell to less mature looking boys.
In my house year (as a representative sample of 12 boys?) there was one of these.
The 'slob' lad might be recognisable to many as featuring in most schools with adolescent boys. I remember one of the slob lads identifying strongly with the T-Birds gang image in 'Grease'. The ideas seen in the latter: cigarette smoking, grease-hair styling, leather jacket, cars, trying to seduce the women, being deliberatly cool, having a strong "cool" image etc. These things the Slob lad was more orientated to. A slob lad would like the idea of being leader of the gang but in practice 'gangs' did not exist. However there was probably more a culture of slob lads from different houses hanging around together than sporty lads doing the same.
In some ways the slob lad was more interested in being cool, for its own sake, and being a 'slob' was part of this. In contrast the sporty lad was admired for the physical prowess that he (naturally) possessed. This might explain some of the reason why the Sporty Lad had a slightly higher place in the Goring boy popularity culture. The auhtorities also placed high importance on sporting achievement.
There are some parallels between the two lad types in the american teen film, "The Breakfast Club" with Emilio Estevez playing the sporty lad and Judd Nelson playing the slob lad (the third boy is a 'square' / brainy 'geek'). There are differences however. Most notably the film blames the misery of these teenagers on their parents' daily treatment of them, pushing them to be how they are. Also the presence of girls makes a marked difference. Perhaps the greatest difference, however, is that of self-image. In the American film both of these types, whilst confident and outspken, show considerable self doubt during the film. And, if anything the sporty lad is more slef doubting than the slob lad. At Goring the "lad" was supremely self-confident and happy with his position, aboev all the sporty lad.
Both types of Lads had physical strength in common. Both lads had status and, on their own right, popularity. Because of the "cool" status that they both held they wre happy to recognise each other and talk together in common areas such as meals. However they did not "hang out together" much.
Sometimes a slob lad would make a leap upwards into the rank of "Sporty" lads. This was done by the slob lad applying his considerable brute strength to sports (instead of only to slobbing). At this point the Slob lad, for example, got into the 1st XV rugby. He then made an example of a combination of both types, as he would never fully give up his slob side. I do not remember sporty lad giving up sport and descending into the ranks of the slobs - but I suppose it must have happened.
In later years the slob type was more likely to get very drunk at the pub and get involved in fights etc. He tended to have especially foul language. He also tended to talk of women as purely objects designed for his genital gratification. He was an open user of pornography etc.
In contrast the sporty lad was not so outwardly a violent and unpleasant personage. However, in my 5 year experience I would not say that one was more kind than the other. The "lad" or "cool" status seemed often to be hand in hand with a disdaining attitude towards the "uncool".
I mentioned above that in practice gangs did not exist. A little more on this. I think the public school, and in particular, the house system meant that gangs could not really exist. One can't really form a "leader-type" gang from only 12 boys. It might be more realistic to form a "cool" gang of boys (say 8 strong) from a social grouping of say 100. Our year group was c 140 boys so this could have been possible. In practice the division into 12 houses, and the cultural and 'domestic' importance of the house structure meant this was impossible. In its place was the "lad" system. In general the house system failed in its key original aim - of making a family type environment due to the mix of ages / years being housed together. However in this respect, that of preventing the gang culture, it was effective.
I have attempted to describe the typical features of a 'lad'. The 'system' was that these boys were recognised by the rest of the boys as the ones who were most to be looked up to and admired. Other boys in the year did not insult them but sought to praise them and gain praise from them, or kept out of their way (the latter being the 'squares').
More on lads, try-hards and squares to come
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