London visitor

After a two-year hiatus, The Crown is finally about to make its return for season three on Netflix, with Olivia Colman taking over royal duties from Claire Foy. Peter Morgan’s chronicle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II is packed with insights and emotional details that offer viewers an addictive glimpse at the human reality behind the crown—but some fans may want to delve even deeper. Fortunately, there’s a wealth of books out there to quench that thirst for royal knowledge, from exhaustive biographies, to illustrated coffee table books, to dishy accounts from former palace staffers. Here are 10 of the best books you can read about the queen.

ELIZABETH THE QUEEN: THE LIFE OF A MODERN MONARCH

Sally Bedell Smith

Sally Bedell Smith has written biographies of towering figures on both sides of the pond, including Princess Diana, John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and most recently Prince Charles. Her take on the queen was praised as “an excellent, all-embracing new biography” by the New York Times.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: THE QUEEN, THE DRESSER AND THE WARDROBE

Angela Kelly

To be fascinated by the Queen is to be fascinated by her wardrobe, and The Other Side of the Coin is a must-read for anyone wanting the inside scoop on those impeccably coordinated suits. Angela Kelley is the Queen’s personal dresser, and was given permission to share this exclusive glimpse into the royal costuming process, complete with never-before-seen images.

If you were gripped by season two of The Crown’s deep dive into Elizabeth and Philip’s once-troubled marriage, you’ll want to prioritize this one. Seward delves into the couple’s 70-year long marriage with a lightness of touch, detailing their courtship and ups and downs as well as their formidable bond.

If while watching The Crown, you’re simultaneously fact-checking each episode, this is the book for you. Written by the show’s historical consultant, Robert Lacey, it offers an in-depth look at the true story behind the drama.

Similar to Seward’s text, this special edition of Town & Country centers on the Queen and Prince Philip’s romance, and features the true story of their courtship and 70+ year marriage alongside rarely seen photosof the royal couple.

This beautiful coffee table book by Welsh journalist Sali Hughes offers a photographic voyage through nine decades of the Queen’s wardrobe, and more importantly her color schemes.

Admit it, this one had you at the title. Though this book isn’t exclusively about Queen Elizabeth’s famous collection of corgis (disappointing), it’s still a fun, deliberately lightweight collection of trivia and tidbits about royal life.

THE RELUCTANT KING: THE LIFE AND REIGN OF GEORGE VI, 1895-1952

Sarah Bradford

In order to fully understand Queen Elizabeth, and the turbulent circumstances of her ascension to the throne, you need to understand her father, King George VI. Now most famous as the subject of 2010’s The King’s Speech, George was forced to become King after his brother abdicated the throne, a saga which Sarah Bradford chronicles in fascinating detail.

THE QUEEN MOTHER: THE OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY

As important as King George VI is to Queen Elizabeth’s story, the Queen Mother played a far more central role in her daughter’s reign, having lived to see its first five decades. William Shawcross’s official biography, published seven years after the Queen Mother’s death in 2002, is a weighty tome packed with details and insight into her daily life.

JUBILEE LINES: 60 POETS FOR 60 YEARS

Carol Ann Duffy

Though not technically a book about Queen Elizabeth at all, Jubilee Lines is nevertheless an evocative portrait of her reign. In this collection, published in 2012 for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, 60 poets are each assigned one of the 60 Jubilee years, and write a poem related in some way to the events or reality of that year.

If you happen to find yourself in London sometime soon and are eager to cut a chic path through the city or just want to leave a trail of postcard-worthy Instagrams in your wake, then commit these photogenic hotels and eateries to memory. From millennial pink pancakes to quiet conservatories that prove to be a veritable garden of delights, here are the best places to eat and be seen in London right now.

 

Mare St Market
If the gelato, flowers and pizza don’t inspire you, the chandelier room just might. As the name suggests, dozens of chandeliers hang from the roof, catching the light and making this dining spot one of London’s most Instagrammable. Scattered among the tables are antiques of all kinds, all available (as are the lighting fixtures) for purchase, belonging to Pure White Lines Shoreditch. If you like a side of history with your slice of pizza — or banana split — this spot is worth a visit.

 

Rumours
If you’re still tickled by millennial pink, then Rumours in Mayfair should be at the top of your list for good fare and positively on point interiors. While the food is exceptional, crab-filled donuts with mango and wasabi powder sit alongside poke and vegan Pavlova, it’s the interiors that draw in the crowd. Pink accents, an Instagram-worthy flower wall and painfully chic bathroom are just some of the interior moments worth capturing while you’re there. The eatery opens for brunch and stays open late.

 

The Pilgrm London
For the weary traveller, The Pilgrm hotel offers comfortable and modern surrounds thanks to its pared back aesthetic and neat rooms. Available in a range of sizes (including a practical bunkbed offering), the rooms have been finished with historic touches in the period lighting and 200-year-old parquet flooring – they’re nothing but a fresh and calm breathe of air nestled in the heart of Paddington. Likewise, the hotel’s lounge and terrace (open to the public) are plush spots to enjoy granola or a bacon butty while watching London pass by.

 

Barbican Conservatory
Home to some 2,000 species of plants and trees, the Barbican Conservatory is a delightful way to spend an afternoon, especially if lazing beside koi ponds in the heart of London is your thing. Only open to the public on selected Saturdays of each month, be sure to check availabilities before you go but do stay for the afternoon tea or cocktail hour among the cool house orchids.

 

Artist Residence Hotel
You’ll find the Artist Residence Hotels spread across England, with locations in Brighton, Oxfordshire, Penzance and London. Initial budget constraints led the owners to call on artists to decorate the first location in Brighton in exchange for board. Now dripping in art, each location is a tribute to creativity and no two rooms are alike. The perfect place to seek out an Instagram or two.

 

Farm Girl
This Australian-owned chain offers up brunch (yes, avocado toast — but also pancakes and rose or lavender lattes) all day in its four locations in Knightsbridge, Chelsea, Soho and Notting Hill. While all the venues deserve a visit, your best bet for content can be found at the Knightsbridge and Chelsea cafes, each with a decidedly pastel colour palette that will flatter all feeds.

 

The Culpeper
Book a table or a room at this pub-hotel and enjoy the rooftop garden that hosts sunset yoga, as well as terrarium how-to classes and astronomy sessions. The rooftop wine menu offers up the best British drops while the restaurant and pub both serve up traditional English fare, including a must-try Sunday roast. The rooms themselves present the perfect place to crash or snap.

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, like other modern London boroughs, was born out of the London Government Act of 1963.  It was formed from the Municipal Boroughs of Barking and a large part of the Municipal Borough of Dagenham.  Following World War I and World War II, the borough became increasingly residential as housing projects exploded for returning soldiers.  As such, the attractions tend to gear themselves more to suburban life and aren’t the most exciting.  However, there’s still a lot to do in Barking and Dagenham, and we’ve outlined our ten favorite places to visit.

BECONTREE ESTATE

The first planned housing development in the borough, the London County Council developed Becontree specifically to provide returning World War I soldiers with homes.  Becontree represents 24,000 of the Council’s 145,000 planned homes and are a model of similar housing schemes throughout the United Kingdom.

SPOTTED DOG PUB

The Spotted Dog is one of the oldest pubs in the borough, and this Victorian structure is a great place to stop for a pint and some traditional British food.  The pub was built in 1870 and next year will celebrate its 150^th year.  Legend has it that tunnels in the basement once led to Dagenham Docks (before they were blocked up) that were used by smugglers.  It’s also believed that the pub could be haunted.

DAGENHAM & REDBRIDGE FC

Also known as the Dag & Red, Dagenham & Redbridge FC is the borough’s local squad.  The club formed in 1992 from Dagenham and Redbridge Forest and calls The Chigwell Construction Stadium in Victoria Road home.  While the team may not have the biggest following, it’s still worth checking out to have a real London football experience.

WELLGATE COMMUNITY FARM

Different from the city farms that have been covered in other articles, Wellgate Community Farm exists to give people a chance to “grow, make a positive contribution and promote social cohesion.”  Activities available include volunteering, farming programs for youngsters, knitting groups, and allotments for people who want to grow their own veggies.  The farm also puts on events throughout the year, so be sure to check out their calendar.

VALENCE HOUSE MUSEUM

The Valence House Museum is the last surviving of five manor houses in Dagenham.  In addition to exhibits about the house itself, the museum also features a number of displays discussing the history of Barking and Dagenham.  The house also features a café, shop, herb garden, and a moat and is open from 10 am to 4 pm Tuesday through Saturday.

THE BROADWAY THEATER

Once the Barking Assembly Hall and part of the Barking Town Hall, The Broadway is managed by Barking & Dagenham College to promote the arts in the Borough.  As such, it sees a number of productions throughout the year including comedy shows, stage productions, and concerts.  In fact, Neil Young recorded parts of his best-selling album Harvest when it was still Barking Assembly Hall.  Be sure to check out the schedule to see what’s on and support the local arts.

CENTRAL PARK

Central Park is one of the biggest public parks in the borough at 51 hectares.  Such a large space has a number of excellent features including Roman ruins and ancient crop circles.  There’s also plenty of sporting and games from tennis courts and football pitches to miniature golf and a basketball court.  It’s also absolutely gorgeous and worth a grand stroll to check out the flora and fauna.

BARKING ABBEY RUINS

Barking Abbey was once a royal monastery that was established as early as the 7^th Century, and the Abbess was usually chosen by the Crown.  Unfortunately, the abbey that once existed here was another victim of King Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries and the only buildings that survived were St. Margaret’s Church and the three gates, including the Curfew Tower, a Grade II listed structure.

EASTBURY MANOR HOUSE

One of the grandest estates in Barking, Eastbury Manor House is owned by the National Trust and operated by the borough council.  The home was completed in the 1570s and was built on land that was once part of Barking Abbey.  The inside of Eastbury Manor House acts largely as a Tudor museum and has a number of exhibits dedicated to its history, including being one of the locations where conspirators planned the Gunpowder Plot.

THE CHASE NATURE RESERVE

The Chase Nature Reserve is managed by the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham and is so large it actually extends over into the Borough of Havering.  The reserve is also Site of Metropolitan Importance of Nature Conservation and as such is full of wood, ponds, marsh, grassland, and other natural habitats featuring an abundance of wildlife with over 200 different species of birds and iconic British species including badgers, great crested newts, and water voles.

Transport for London estimates that 1.37 billion people ride the Tube every year moving through the network’s 249 miles of track and 270 stations.  And while thousands of people pass through every day going to work, home, out, or just sightseeing, they don’t often reflect on the history of the stations.  If you stop for a moment, we think you’ll find that London’s ten busiest Underground stations are some of the most fascinating.  Numbers are based on data collected from 2016 by Transport for London.

PADDINGTON – 49.48 MILLION

Paddington was built as the London Terminus for the Great Western Railway, and the Great Western Hotel (now Hilton London Paddington) was constructed along with it.  The Underground lines were added in 1863.  Perhaps the most famous aspect of the station comes not from its trains, but the Paddington Bear children’s books created by Michael Bond.  Today, a statue of Paddington Bear on Platform 1.

CANARY WHARF – 54.79 MILLION

One of the newest stations on this list, Canary Wharf was a business district that was constructed to revitalize the London Docklands in the 1980s.  However, the area was pretty poorly served by public transport, and the Jubilee Line Extension was constructed in the 1990s to accommodate the commuters.  The station opened officially in 1999, and the area’s success is the reason why it is such a busy Tube station.  Canary Wharf is also home to the longest escalator in the Underground and has appeared in notable films such as 28 Days Later and Star Wars: Rogue One.

BANK & MONUMENT – 64.26 MILLION

Bank & Monument actually refer to two interlinked stations named for the Bank of England and the Monument to the Great Fire of London, respectively.  They were constructed as part of the Metropolitan Railway and District Railway in 1884 and eventually became the Circle Line in 1949.  One of the more tragic events in the stations’ history was during the London Blitz when a German bomb hit the booking hall, and the explosion traveled downwards to the platforms.

STRATFORD – 67.05 MILLION

Stratford was constructed in 1839 as part of the Eastern Counties Railways and today is a multi-level interchange for the Underground, Crossrail, the Overground, and National Rail.  The station has no connection to Stratford-upon-Avon and to distinguish it; it is sometimes referred to as Stratford (London).  Stratford is preparing for the future when full Crossrail service replaces TfL Rail in 2019, making the station part of the most advanced rail network in the UK.  Stratford also has the shortest escalator at 4.1 meters.

LONDON BRIDGE – 70.74 MILLION

Named for the nearby London Bridge, the station was built in 1836 as part of the London & Croydon Railway.  While the London & Greenwich Railways opened stations before L&C opened London Bridge, those stations’ closings make London Bridge the oldest active Underground station in the network.  Both London Bridge station entrances were damaged during the Blitz.  With the more recent construction of the Shard, London Bridge Station got an overhaul with a new entrance and roof on the terminal level.

LIVERPOOL STREET – 71.61 MILLION

Liverpool Street was constructed to be a new terminus in the city, one for the Great Eastern Railway.  As with Paddington, a hotel was constructed as part of the terminus known as the Great Eastern Hotel (now known as the Andaz London Liverpool Street).  At first, it was thought that the station was a waste of money, but it wasn’t ten years before the station was at capacity and needed expansion.  The station has a couple of monuments to World War I and World War II and was one of the stations attacked on 7 July 2005.

OXFORD CIRCUS – 83.26 MILLION

Found at the junction of Regent Street and Oxford Street, the Oxford Circus Station was opened as part of the Central Line in 1900.  The Bakerloo Line station opened six years later, and both of them are Grade II listed buildings.  Ten years ago, Oxford Circus went through a major renovation that removed the 1980s murals and replaced them with white tile similar to what the station had when it opened.  One attraction that garners much attention, as well as a lot of Tube travelers who work there, is BBC Broadcasting House.

VICTORIA – 83.5 MILLION

London Victoria Station was constructed in 1860 and was meant to serve the Chatham and Brighton Lines.  The two parts of the station were built two years apart, and as such, have always felt like two stations rather than one.  Victoria was one of the last stations to see steam trains, which were eventually phased out in the 1960s.  One of the most innovative aspects of the station was its Gatwick Express train, which included check-in desks for the airlines at the platform.  With over 80 million people using the station each year, Victoria has been scheduled for upgrades to its service.

KINGS CROSS ST. PANCRAS – 95.03 MILLION

King’s Cross St. Pancras is one of the oldest in the Underground, opening in 1863 as part of the Metropolitan Railway.  Its location and connection to the King’s Cross Railway Station make it the second-busiest Underground station in London.  In possibly the worst tragedy in the Tube’s history, the wooden parts of the station’s escalators caught fire and resulted in the deaths of thirty-one people.  The fire resulted in a major renovation of the station in the 1980s.  The above rail station is most associated with the Harry Potter series as the gateway to the Hogwarts Express.

WATERLOO – 100.36 MILLION

Seeing 100.36 million users in 2016, Waterloo Station easily takes the cake for the busiest in the whole Underground.  It was constructed in 1898 as part of the Waterloo & City Railway, now known as the Waterloo & City Line.  Part of the reason for its use is that it connects four different lines, which besides Waterloo & City Line includes the Jubilee, Northern, and Bakerloo lines.  The area around the station is also home to several major landmarks including the London Eye, the Imperial War Museum, and Southbank Centre, amongst others.

The world’s most famous school has produced 20 British prime ministers – Boris Johnson being the latest addition. But as old boy Christopher de Bellaigue learns when he goes back, it is trying to reinvent itself as an agent of social change. From the archive

One of Simon Henderson’s first decisions after taking over last summer as headmaster of Eton College was to move his office out of the labyrinthine, late-medieval centre of the school and into a corporate bunker that has been appended (“insensitively”, as an architectural historian might say) to a Victorian teaching block. Here, in classless, optimistic tones, Henderson lays out a vision of a formerly Olympian institution becoming a mirror of modern society, diversifying its intake so that anyone “from a poor boy at a primary school in the north of England to one from a great fee-paying prep school in the south” can aspire to be educated there (so long as he’s a he, of course), joyfully sharing expertise, teachers and facilities with the state sector – in short, striving “to be relevant and to contribute”. His aspiration that Eton should become an agent of social change is not one that many of his 70 predecessors in the job over the past six centuries would have shared; and it is somehow no surprise to hear that he has incurred the displeasure of some of the more traditionally minded boys by high-fiving them. What had happened, I wondered as I left the bunker, to the Eton I knew when I was a pupil in the late 1980s – a school so grand it didn’t care what anyone thought of it, a four-letter word for the Left, a source of pride for the Right, and a British brand to rival Marmite and King Arthur?

To judge from appearances in this historic little town across the Thames from Windsor Castle, which many tourists think is worth a visit between the Round Tower and Legoland, the answer is actually not a lot. Aside from the fact that there are more brown, black and Asian faces around, the boys go about in their undertakers’ uniforms of tailcoats and starched collars, as they seem to have done for centuries, learning in the old schoolrooms and depleting testosterone on the old playing fields before being locked up for the night in houses they share with 50 of their peers (each boy has his own room). As the absence of girls demonstrates, Eton considers itself exempt from the modern belief in the integration of the sexes that so many independent schools now espouse. And it remains a boarding school – a form of education which is in decline, and which some people consider a mild form of child abuse. Add to all this the statue of Henry VI, who founded the school in 1440, amid the uneven cobbles of School Yard, and the masters cycling in their gowns to their mid-morning meeting, resembling nothing so much as a synod of ravens, and you get the opposite impression to that conveyed by Henderson: one of solidity, immobility – anything but dynamism.

To the question, “which is the ‘real’ Eton?” – the laboratory for progressive ideas about social inclusion, or an annexe to Britain’s heritage industry – the answer is of course “both”.

All schools are defined by their intake, but none more so than Eton, which for hundreds of years received the pipsqueak sons of the ruling class and disgorged them to become statesmen and administrators. (Nineteen Old Etonians – OES – including David Cameron, have served as prime minister.) This has now changed, and a new admissions policy has brought in poor clever boys, foreign boys and “new money” that the school would not have welcomed in the past. A recent parent described his surprise at finding out that the most common name at the school was Patel.

At the same time, many elements of the timeless, traditional Eton have been preserved. They’re among the reasons new parents send their sons here, along with the belief that the school will coax and push and cajole the best out of the boy – that Eton is, as the headmaster puts it, “unashamed in its pursuit of excellence”. The school aims to educate the elite, as it always has, but it has reshaped itself in order to accommodate a new elite defined by money, brains and ambition, not pedigree, titles and acres.

A delicate relationship seems likely to exist at Eton in the coming years, between deserving boys of modest background who enter the school on bursaries, often in the face of incredulity or even opposition at home, and the poised, prepared, nutritionally optimised children of the new upper class whose parents are expected to finance all this largesse – not simply by paying their fees, but also by responding to pretty much continuous appeals for money. The latest “exciting and strictly limited opportunity” is the chance to have your name inscribed on a stone around School Yard, costing £10,000 spread over four consecutive tax years.

Eton’s rich and poor coalesce and become each other’s raison d’être in the context of the school’s ambition to be “needs-blind” in the manner of Harvard – that is to say, able to offer a boy a place regardless of his parents’ ability to pay. Eton’s big plan was evoked succinctly by William Waldegrave, the provost (head of the governing body), when he told me, “what I hope is that this school will continue to produce the prime minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and entrepreneurs of all sorts, but that three-quarters of them will have been here on bursaries.”

Waldegrave and Henderson may be the latest advocates of Eton’s transformation, but the process began a generation ago. Over the past quarter-century many places have opened up to poorer families, with some 270 of the pupil body of 1,300 now receiving substantial or complete fees remission and the school recently taking out a £45m loan to raise this number further. The school can also draw on a very large endowment by British standards. As of August 2014 it had investment and property portfolios worth £300m and an annual income from school fees of around £45m, not to mention all the immovable assets and art collections. For all that, many more millions need to be wrung from parents and OES if the school is to become genuinely needs-blind.

As the school mediates between the aspiring rich and the deserving poor, a third group fights for survival: old “Eton” families who have been sending boys to the school for generations. This group dominated the Eton I attended in the 1980s, when the school was still a barely-selective rite of passage for the descendants of Britain’s Edwardian upper and upper-middle classes – complacent, snobby and full of surnames recognisable from the inter-war diaries of Harold Nicolson. This tribe’s representation is shrinking. The percentage of pupils at the school with an OE father went down from 60% in 1960 to 33% in 1994 to 20% now. Eton has gone from being an heirloom handed down through the generations to a revolving door.

 

No elite connives in its own dethroning, however, and Eton is a living illustration of the oft-forgotten truth that social mobility cuts both ways. Having striven to get their son into a school whose fabric reeks of continuity, it would not be a surprise if the new Eton families showed tenacity in trying to hang on to their new status by forming dynasties of their own. This new elite, floating on its liquid wealth, is probably better placed to preserve itself than the old, landed one. As often as not Mum is as high powered as Dad, and the progeny are primed not to rest on inherited laurels but to go out and achieve material success.

Here, in the emergence of a new upper class – more fluid, more international, and yet revelling in its association with the old, snobbish, British continuities – lies the tension at the heart of Eton’s ambition to become a meritocracy. To borrow from the Patek Philippe advert, “You never actually own a place at Eton. You merely look after it for the next generation”.

 

I performed badly in my entrance test to Eton and squeaked in only after my mother pleaded with the admissions tutor that her father had been at the school: in those days, Eton took care of its own. The establishment I entered in the spring of 1985 looked to me like the embodiment of continuity, but across the country, the mood was turning hostile. The immediate post-war period had witnessed three Etonian prime ministers in succession (one of whom, Harold Macmillan, named no fewer than 35 OES to serve in his government), but the squall of egalitarianism in the late 1960s, aggravated in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher’s ethos of self-help and aspiration, loosened the school’s grip on power. In 1990, when Thatcher lost the Tory-party leadership, Douglas Hurd, who stood to succeed her, found his Eton background being used against him. “I thought I was running for leadership of the Conservative Party,” he complained, “not some demented Marxist sect.” Hurd lost the election – and the keys to 10 Downing Street – to John Major, a state-educated former insurance clerk.

Tony Blair’s New Labour administration of the late 1990s and early 2000s married Thatcher’s brassy meritocracy with a social conscience. Oxford, Cambridge and the other major universities came under pressure to admit more state-educated pupils, and private schools were told to share their facilities with publicly funded neighbours or forfeit the tax breaks to which they, as charities, were entitled. In 1999, in a clear sign that the school could no longer count on its old links to parliament, almost 700 hereditary peers (many if not most of them OES) were expelled from the House of Lords.

In any case by now Eton had read the runes. There was a feeling among masters and governors that the school needed to raise standards in order to maintain market share in the new, more meritocratic Britain – to keep feeding boys to Oxford and Cambridge; to keep producing prime ministers – and a more competitive admissions system was the key. But the school had an image problem. It was widely considered a closed shop that would favour the dim and idle viscount over the up-and-coming City trader’s brilliant, motivated son, with the result that the City trader didn’t apply. The school’s policy of allowing parents to register their sons at birth for the so-called “Eton List” exemplified the school’s built-in prejudice in favour of its own. The Eton List effectively allowed an OE to sew up a place for his son while the boy was in nappies.

In 1990 the Eton List was abolished and a decade later a uniform entrance test and interview were introduced for all would-be entrants at the age of 11, under which the children of OESenjoyed no head start over the sons of people who had not been privately educated, or, for that matter, the offspring of successful Pakistani immigrants or Malaysian electronic-chip manufacturers. In time the tests got harder, the yearly intake cleverer, and the dim, idle viscounts were turned away. (Clever, industrious viscounts continued to get in.) Aided by its proximity to London, whose attractiveness as a safe deposit box for the super-wealthy was on the rise, the school became heavily oversubscribed. (In the 1950s the school had empty places.) Each year, around five and a half boys compete for each of the 260 places on offer.

Although Eton’s internal reforms were well under way by the time Tony Little, Henderson’s predecessor, took over in 2002, this former scholar (an Etonian in the 1960s, he was the first member of his family to be educated over the age of 14) introduced them to a sceptical world. He was “more foreign secretary than home secretary”, as one master recalls, giving interviews and making friends with educational reformers in the Blair government; his railing against the “deadly cloud of class awareness” rates as one of the more unexpected interventions from an Eton headmaster.

Under Little, Eton sponsored a state boarding school up the road in Ascot and a sixth-form college in the London borough of Newham. Bursary schemes were also set up by wealthy OES. At first, bringing in boys from some of the poorest parts of Britain and overseas turned out to be surprisingly difficult; heads weren’t keen on losing their brightest boys, and parents needed some convincing that Eton wasn’t another planet. A documentary about three Eton scholarship boys that was shown on the BBC’s children’s channel in 2014 led to a spike in applications, the school’s access officer told me, “not because parents saw it, but because their sons did, and thought, ‘I’d like to do that.’” Of two former bursary boys in their 20s I recently spoke to, one has gone on to become a speech-writer for a Conservative MP and aims to go into parliament; another is a rising actor.

Changes to the admissions policy have seen the school’s non-Anglo-Saxon intake rise considerably, though for all the foreign names one sees on pigeon holes in each house, Eton remains a “British” school, and its policy of diversifying its intake seems aimed at preventing it from being captured by any particular sub-group of the global elite. Traditionalists have chafed at the more international atmosphere, however, and Little described how one “finger-jabbing” OE accused him of being a “socialist who won’t rest until you have built a mosque on the school playing fields”.

Visiting Eton this spring, I spent an hour in College Library, watching the school’s Arabic master show three 16-year-old Palestinians some medieval manuscripts that the school had recently purchased, among them a page from a ninth-century Kufic Koran. Born in refugee camps in Lebanon, these boys had been flown to Britain for interview. Come September, two of them will be in tails.

Little’s memorial at Eton is a shiny research complex, the donor-funded Tony Little Centre for Innovation and Research in Learning, which joined forces with Harvard to advance research into the adolescent brain – all synaptic pruning and neural pathways. The centre’s mission statement is a slightly laboured attempt to establish Britain’s poshest school as a public good: “we want Eton and the wider UK to be at the forefront of new developments in teaching and learning, for the benefit of all.”

The new Eton – friendly to the international plutocracy while also containing strong elements of political correctness – naturally went down badly with the established Eton families whose names adorn the war-memorial plaques and the sporting cups, and whose sons have been rejected in big numbers. In 2009, at a reunion I attended, Waldegrave delivered a speech lauding diversity of intake and beating the drum for an appeal. “They want our money,” my neighbour growled, “but not our sons.” In the main, however, the old guard seems resigned to its demotion, in part because, however exercised they are by the newcomers, many OES would be unable to afford the school even if their sons were admitted.

My father paid around £6,000 per year (around £14,500 today) for me to go to Eton in the late 1980s. The annual fees are now £34,000 ($50,000, or about £7,000 more than the average annual wage in Britain). The merely well off – the country solicitors and provincial landowners who once formed the school’s backbone – have been priced out. In the words of one OE, “many people in my circle have decided that it’s not worth it, and that a good state school will do just as well.”

To say that there is a cultural divide between the old Eton and the new one would be an understatement. Traditional parents wince as they describe corporate-hospitality tents and sushi bars being erected by brash parvenus for the Fourth of June, the school’s annual shindig (which is not, of course, held on June 4th). Back in the 1980s it was hard-boiled eggs and wine out of a box, consumed while rocking on one’s haunches on a picnic blanket.

For all the talk of 270 bursary boys and rising, furthermore, the vaunted egalitarianism of the new Eton is not always obvious. “We tried to identify the bursary boys who are with my son,” remarked a pupil’s mother, “but his year group includes two oligarchs’ sons and a family with four children all at different English boarding schools. Our suspicions fell on the parents of an Indian boy but then we bumped into them while skiing in Val d’Isère.”

Some newcomers feel that change hasn’t gone far enough. As an American mother said, “you still get some students who would have been there 100 years ago, and they’re not always the cleverest. But”, she went on with evident relief, “they don’t dominate.” Her only regret is that Little didn’t bring in girls. Henderson is rumoured to want to abolish tails, though that would face opposition from the boys, who are attached, in quite a sweet way, to Etonian traditions.

Inevitably, the cultural divisions felt by parents are less important to the pupils, in part because the uniform has the advantage of flattening socio-economic disparities. One former bursary boy told me, “Only after I left the school, and visited my friends in the amazing flats they had been given by their parents, did I realise just how rich they were.”

With every place at Eton so keenly contested, enterprising parents sometimes try the back door. The recently retired head of admissions, Charles Milne, was visited by a famous Russian oligarch whose son had been placed on a waiting list after failing to win a place in the entrance test. “They crowded into my little office,” Milne explained, “the Russian and his two bodyguards – one of them eight foot tall. I began explaining how the system works, that other boys would have to give up their places for his son to get in.” Milne had not got far before the oligarch raised a hand to silence him. “Mr Milne,” he said, “I won’t waste your time. When you have decided what needs to be done for my son to get his place, you will tell me.” The boy ended up at another school. Another very rich foreigner, whose son had been rejected, phoned Milne to tell him he was a “fucking bastard”. It became an in-joke between Milne and Little. “When I went to see the headmaster, he would greet me, ‘hello, fucking bastard’.”

Given the intense competition to get a place, it’s no wonder that the waiting room before the test (much harder than the one I took) is like the Russian roulette scene in “The Deer Hunter”. Children sit ashen-faced while their parents confer in whispers. No one speaks to anyone else; the tension is palpable. Some boys burst into tears when they get into the interview room.

The contest isn’t simply between candidates. It’s a battle of wits between a school whose proclaimed intention is to identify deserving talent and ambition, and parents who will do everything to stack things in their child’s favour. Well-off, well-organised parents prepare their sons ruthlessly, hiring tutors, making the boys do ceaseless verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests and sending them to interview classes to learn how to be sparky and empathetic. The school is wise to these constantly evolving efforts to game the system, however, and a lot of boys who have done brilliantly in the computerised test are turned down because they aren’t “interesting” at inter­view. “If a boy makes me laugh,” says one of the school’s interviewers, “he stands a good chance of getting in.”

The battle to enter Eton is the first exchange in a relationship between parents, boys and school that is characterised by high expectations. The rich parents want their kids to flourish and go on to an excellent university, preferably Oxford or Cambridge. The school wants these parents to show their appreciation in five figures. The bursary boys need to validate the decision to give them bursaries. Meanwhile the OES bite their fingernails and hope that the 20% figure won’t go down or the fees rise even further.

 

The story of Eton’s reconquest of the commanding heights of Britain is one of gradual rehabilitation. With the weakening of the hard left, the prospect of private schools being abolished receded, while Eton’s efforts to present itself less as a throwback to an earlier age than a guarantor of achievement in the current one began to pay dividends. Though confessing to an Eton education remains a conversation-stopper in liberal-left north London, in general the school has become less of a lightning rod for class resentment. And over the past decade OES have become more pervasive than ever.

Back in the 1950s it was the fact of having been to Eton, more than the education you received there, which set you up for success. Now the inverse is true. The teaching is superb, the facilities unparalleled, the results impressive. This year 85 Etonians were offered places at Oxford or Cambridge. St Paul’s, Westminster and Winchester have higher Oxbridge admission rates, but then those schools always specialised in cultivating clever boys. What’s interesting about Eton is the way it changed its focus from class to brains. The school has seen off the threats to its continued relevance by taking in clever boys, and sending out cleverer young men into a world that no longer defers to inherited privilege, and prizes cleverness and ambition above all.

This shift in strategy has changed the culture of the school. The ordeal of the entrance test; the upwardly mobile parents; the fact that the boys know they got into the school on their own merits, not because their fathers are OES – all this militates against the studied unconcern, the famous “entitlement”, that was the default pose of Etonians in the 1980s. Just as it was intensely uncool to be industrious then, now the opposite is the case. “It’s the boy who doesn’t take advantage of all the opportunities at Eton who’s considered odd,” a current Etonian told me, “not those who do.”

A strong work ethic comes naturally in a school that opts in to the hardest public exams and fosters competitive relationships between pupils. One recent Etonian noticed this cultural peculiarity while observing a debate at St Paul’s, Concord, a posh American boarding school. (Eton’s debating teams often sweep the board at inter-school competitions.) “The Americans were elaborately polite to each other,” he recalled, “whereas at Eton we could be brutal, saying, ‘that’s an incredibly stupid thing to say’.”

More than schools with higher Oxbridge acceptance rates, Eton stresses activities outside the classroom. Drama, one of its particular strengths, is an opportunity for collective endeavour that also contributes to the legendary Etonian self-assurance. The production budget at the 400-seat Farrer Theatre is higher than that at one of Britain’s top drama schools. No wonder scouts and agents are often to be spotted there, looking for the next Eddie Redmayne – one of Eton’s many recent showbiz alumni.

The investment in a wide range of extra-curricular interests may help explain why, when it comes to success defined more broadly than through exam results, Eton comes top. According to the Sutton Trust, a charity which works to widen opportunity, the school educates just 0.04% of Britain’s secondary school population, but some 4% of nearly 8,000 “leading people” whose education the trust tracked were OES. Eton produces more than three times as many big cheeses as its nearest rival, Winchester (Henderson’s alma mater). Taking into account Eton’s larger student body, its high-achiever output rate is 50% higher.

And that figure underplays Eton’s success, for OES cluster at the very pinnacle of British life. The closer you get to power and achievement, in other words, the more likely you are to run into one. David Cameron and his rival for the soul of the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, both attended the school. So did Prince William and Prince Harry, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the actors Tom Hiddleston and Damian Lewis as well as Redmayne, the adventurers Bear Grylls and Ranulph Fiennes and the Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Gurdon. The law, business and banking fester with Old Etonians.

It’s very likely that Eton has a higher “strike rate” than it did in the 1980s, when for every top banker or ambassador there were one or two who conspicuously failed to enter well-paid careers (or indeed careers of any sort), and ended up cultivating marijuana or running a small country estate into the ground. No father of an Etonian in the 1980s would have admitted to thinking about anything so crass as a “return” on his investment, nor were we boys party to our parents’ financial affairs. This too has changed. A recent bursary boy who attended the school with a third of his fees remitted told me that his parents, both teachers at state schools, had sold the family home in order to afford the other two-thirds.

Britain no longer has a ruling class, and the boys who enter Eton are anyway too varied to constitute one. Yet by the time they leave they belong to something like an emerging global elite. They have in common brains, determination and, in many cases, an aspirational family that sets great store by worldly success. These qualities got them to Eton, and they are deployed again and again to ensure they get the most out of the experience. Whether it’s arranging holiday internships with City law firms, Skype tutorials in the run-up to a geography exam, or a reels refresher course before the Caledonian Ball, parents are constantly (and expensively) bolting on all kinds of optional, mini-advantages to the considerable advantage of an Eton education. The great project of modern elite parenting is all about leaving nothing to chance.

There is, of course, a natural tension between the school’s role in this enterprise and its ambition to be an engine of social mobility – just as there is at the American Ivy League universities that Eton’s admissions system seeks to emulate. A small number of Etonians are poor; some are only modestly well-off; but the majority of them are seriously wealthy by the standards of most of the world. One of the consequences of Eton’s transformation is thus to ensure that the children of the very rich stay that way.

 

For all its inbuilt advantages, the task facing Eton at the turn of the millennium was a tricky one. It needed to entrench its position at the top of British life while carrying out controversial and difficult reforms. Few would argue that the changes have been anything but necessary and skilfully accomplished, but they have come at an intangible price. A recently retired master complained that teaching has got more boring because boys constantly harp on the need to stick to the syllabus: “are we going to need this for the exam, sir?”

Eton used to have a strong sideline in rebels and oddballs. My time there was enriched by exposure to some truly unusual characters, both masters and boys, which engendered a tolerance of human foibles and acted as vital redress from a hierarchical, rules-based institution. Inevitably, as the school has grown more concerned with outcomes and assessments and ever keener to maximise the use to which its facilities are put, the eccentrics have been purged from the institution.

The value of such people is hard to quantify; their achievement doesn’t show through in the exam results, but in the diffusion of a spirit of irreverence and scepticism. One boy in my house, William Sinclair, was a brilliant subversive and satirist of the school; his lampooning of the authorities and disrespect for conventional hierarchies among the boys punctured the pretension and self-regard to which Eton is easily prone. William’s planting of a live chicken in our housemaster’s bathtub was the least of his misdemeanours.

My tutor over my final years was Michael Kidson, a lop-shouldered historian who terrorised us in thrilling, beautiful, confident English, threw blackboard rubbers at boys who offended against syntax and grammar – I got one in the head for pluralising “protagonist” – and defended his oversexed spaniel for trying to solace itself against our thighs. (“Nothing wrong with a young man wanting a wank!”) Above all, Kidson was loyal and would fight fiercely for you if you got into trouble; several boys escaped expulsion thanks to his efforts. On all sorts of levels it is hard to imagine either Sinclair or Kidson being welcomed to today’s Eton, but back then they were among the school’s best-loved figures and knowing them seems as useful to me now as any City internship would have been.

Eton isn’t alone among reformed institutions to have got duller as it has got better, and few of the current boys’ families will rue the absence of eccentrics if their son gets his Oxbridge place. The school has gone from being a rite of passage for a now-defunct upper class to a coalition of different sorts of people who have signed up to an ambitious agenda that may not, in fact, be their own. If Eton hasn’t quite become the liberal, socially transformative institution the reformists seek, it is undeniably more discerning in allocating one of the best starts in life that money (or brains, or ambition) can get you.

The mad shopping season of Christmas is upon us.  As we venture out of our homes, we brave crowded streets and shopping centers in search of those items that will tell our friends and family how much we love them.  London is a shopper’s paradise throughout the year, but things turn up a notch after Halloween ends.  The Christmas decorations go up on the high streets, the displays land in department store windows, and the holiday villages pop up overnight on the streets and squares.  To help you with your shopping this year, we’ve identified five of the best places for you to do your Christmas shopping in London.  Let us know your own favorite shopping locations in the comments.

HAMLEYS

If you need toys for the little ones or children of all ages, Hamleys of London should be your destination.  Hamleys is the city’s oldest toy store, having first opened in 1760, and today its location on Regent Street features seven floors full of over 50,000 toys.  Beyond the popular toys of the season, Hamleys also features a large collection of Paddington Bears of all sizes and styles.  Hamleys also regularly hosts in-store events, so be sure to check the store calendar for upcoming fun.

WESTFIELD

If you’re looking for a shopping experience that’s closer to what you’d find in America, Westfield Shopping Center is London’s take on the malls we’re used to visiting.  Westfield has two locations (Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City), so you have the choice of whichever is more convenient.  Both have dozens of stores, including International brands to luxury shops and everything in-between.  Both stay open until 11 pm in the days up until Christmas, so there will be plenty of time for you to explore the shopping centers to find just the right gift.

WINTER WONDERLAND ANGEL’S CHRISTMAS MARKET

Christmas markets set up all throughout London from Greenwich Market to Christmas by the River, but perhaps the best one to visit is the Angel’s Christmas Market that’s part of Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park.  2019 marks Winter Wonderland’s 13^th year, and it’s full of lights, rides, food, and plenty of shopping opportunities at the 100+ wooden chalets throughout the park.  Winter Wonderland stays open 10 am to 10 pm from November 22 through January 5 (except for the holidays themselves, of course), there are plenty of opportunities to experience this special place, though we recommend doing it at night for the full effect.

HARRODS

Arguably London’s most famous department store, Harrods has seven floors and over 300 departments that cater to practically every need.  In fact, the store’s motto, “Omnia Omnibus Ubique” translates to “All things for all people, everywhere”, so there’s a good chance that they’ll have the exact item you want or know how to get it.  Beyond what’s inside, the window displays are some of the finest Christmas decorations in London, and the 12,000 lightbulbs help it light up Knightsbridge for the holiday.  The store also has its own special Christmas merchandise that make for unique gifts, including the Christmas Bear.

OXFORD STREET AND REGENT STREET

While the high streets can get a little crazy during the holiday season, Oxford Street and Regent Street are not to be missed.  Beyond the shopping experience that these two adjoining streets offer, they also have some of the best and most colorful Christmas decorations of anywhere in London.  Oxford Street has brand new light curtains with over 220,000 bulbs, and Regent Street is graced by angels floating over the shoppers.  Both also host elaborate lighting ceremonies in the middle of November when the shopping season officially starts, so be sure to check local calendars to find out when to go.

It’s a design classic, but in these days of ubiquitous mobile phones, only 10,000 of the red kiosks remain on the streets. Can they survive the next decade?

John Farmer, who describes himself as an activist shareholder, is a man with a mission – to save Britain’s red phone boxes. These were once a feature of every high street in the country, but now number only 10,000 or so (and half of those are decorative rather than operational). At the recent annual general meeting of British Telecom, which even in the age of the mobile phone has a statutory obligation to maintain a payphone network, Farmer demanded that more be done to maintain the traditional red boxes. It was a point he has made at past AGMs – always, he says, to audience applause.

In 2015 the traditional red phone box was voted the greatest British design of all time, ahead of the Routemaster bus, the Spitfire, the union jack and Concorde. It was designed in 1924 by the architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, whose other creations include Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral and Battersea and Bankside power stations. Many believe Scott’s design echoes the tomb that the architect Sir John Soane built for his wife in 1815.

In his 1989 monograph on phone boxes, the architectural historian Gavin Stamp called Scott’s cast-iron box “a classical design of refined sophistication and timeless elegance”. Stamp was a great enthusiast for Scott’s boxes and led a campaign to preserve them after they ceased production in 1968.

In his book he lauds Scott’s original design, designated Kiosk No 2 (usually abbreviated to K2) by the General Post Office, which was then responsible for the phone network. “The Kiosk No 2 was a miniature building,” he writes. Scott’s K2 design, easily identified by its small, square windows, was superseded in 1936 by his K6, which was smaller and had larger, horizontal windows to let more light into the box. The K2 had never caught on outside London because it was expensive, but the cheaper K6 was adopted nationally and by the late 1960s, when the utilitarian K8 was introduced, designed by the architect Bruce Martin, there were more than 70,000 in use across the country.

There are still numerous Scott kiosks in central London, many of which have been listed as historically or architecturally significant – a response to the destruction of many boxes by the newly formed British Telecom in the 1980s. Remarkably Scott’s original wooden prototype still stands outside the Royal Academy in Piccadilly. Across the UK, more than 3,000 kiosks have been listed, including all the K2s, so there is no danger of them disappearing from Britain’s streets. Neil Scoresby, BT’s general manager for payphones, tells me a revolution in payphones is under way, reflecting the fact that only about 30,000 calls a day are now made from them. Over the next decade, most of the current 31,000 street kiosks (they are mostly ugly, post-Scott designs) will be swept away and replaced by three metre-tall InLink pillarsand other devices that combine free calls with wi-fi services and are funded by advertising, but about 2,500 red boxes will be retained and converted for digital use.

The fact there were once more than 70,000 red kiosks and now only 10,000 remain on the streets suggests that a lot of boxes have disappeared. In the 1970s and 80s, many were melted down, but gradually aficionados such as Stamp fought back and the boxes’ aesthetic (and indeed monetary) value started to be recognised. Since 2008, rather than remove decommissioned ones that have not been listed, BT has allowed local councils and charities to repurpose them under its adopt-a-kiosk scheme. More than 5,000 have been adopted.

Many now contain defibrillators, with the Community Heartbeat Trustleading the way in advising local authorities on conversion. The trust has adopted 1,300 boxes, more than half of which have been converted to house defibrillators.

Other uses for the boxes are rich and varied. Book-swap points that double as miniature libraries are popular. The village of Marton cum Grafton in North Yorkshire was one of the pioneers, opening a mini-library in 2010; another was opened in the London borough of Lewisham in 2013. I visited the latter and was impressed by the range of books. Not just airport fodder, but novels by Orhan Pamuk and Henning Mankell, an ancient book of English poetry and the catalogue of the Mezipatra Queer film festival, with text in Czech and English.

The box was adopted by the Brockley Society and is now looked after by Susan Bennett and Tom Simpson, although Bennett says it is largely self-managing. People bring books in, take the odd one away and take it upon themselves to tidy up the seven shelves. The Lewisham “microlibrary” was started by the artist Sebastian Handley. He has now left the area, but the idea has been carried on. One thing that worried me about BT’s adopt-a-kiosk scheme was whether some ideas might founder when the original volunteers moved on or lost their enthusiasm. By only allowing councils and charities, rather than individuals, to adopt, BT hopes to ensure continuity, but I still think there could be problems further down the line. Who will be looking after these boxes in 50 years’ time, and making sure they get a fresh coat of “currant-red” paint?

Art galleries in old phone boxes are also popular – an idea pioneered by the Gallery on the Green in Settle, north Yorkshire, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. “A group of residents thought it would be a shame for the box to go, and the idea of a gallery came up,” says Mike Smith, one of the half-dozen local people who keep it afloat. “The thought that it would probably be the smallest one in the world was kicked around and Guinness World Records was approached, but they said they weren’t interested in definitively ruling on it, so the Carlsberg advert was used instead … probably the smallest one. That generated a lot of publicity at the time of the launch in 2009.”

Attempts have been made to monetise some boxes, in partnership with the Red Kiosk Company, which has bought 124 boxes from BT under the adopt-a-box scheme (BT sells them for a nominal £1, although it retains a residual interest in their use in an effort to ensure its brand is protected). The company gets planning permission for traders to use the boxes, and charges about £300 a month to rent a box.

Mustafa Mehmet runs a coffee stall in a kiosk in Hampstead, north London. He originally did the same thing in west London, but says he was driven out by Hounslow council’s insistence that he have a street traders’ licence. The problem comes when kiosk traders spill over on to the pavement, which is almost inevitable – try selling coffee to a customer with both buyer and seller inside the box. Hounslow council, he says, insisted the transaction should take place inside the box; Camden council, under whose jurisdiction Mehmet is now trading, allows a bit of leeway.

Phone repair company Lovefone has a kiosk in Holborn, central London, in which it repairs cracked iPhone screens. The Lovefone technician who works there, Fouad Choaibi, loves it. “This is my office,” he says. He has been based in the box for two and a half years and has embedded himself in the community, making himself indispensable to locals with cracked iPhones. The kiosk is very profitable, proving it can be done if you get the concept right. But the high degree of churn in other kiosks suggests a lot of traders don’t and quickly lose interest.

Next to the pier in Brighton, Senegal-born Abo Fall is selling hats, sunglasses and beachwear out of two adjacent boxes. He has been there for two years and is keeping his head above the waves, but he says it can be a struggle if the weather’s bad. “People like the boxes and it’s different from an ordinary shop,” he says. Wherever you see a red box, you will see someone taking a picture of it, although, as the traders know all too well, that doesn’t automatically mean they will buy a coffee or a sunhat.

Plenty of other quirky ideas have been tried, with music a fertile source. A box in the village of Meols, on the Wirral peninsula, has been turned into a miniature museum dedicated to the band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, who used to make calls from the box and immortalised it in the 1980 song Red Frame/White Light. And last year, to mark the 5,000th kiosk adoption, a box in Kingsbridge, Devon, was turned into what was somewhat hyperbolically termed “the world’s smallest nightclub”. It is actually a way of raising money for a local charity. Visitors to the box can dial-a-disc for £1. Musical offerings include Blondie’s Hanging on the Telephone and ELO’s Telephone Line.

The boxes are also useful for stunts. In 2011, residents in the Cambridgeshire village of Shepreth opened a pub (called the Dog and Bone, of course) in the local phone box to protest about the closure of their real local. The campaign seems to have paid off because that pub, the Plough, reopened in 2014. Incredibly, I can find no evidence of any plays being performed in a phonebox at the Edinburgh festival. Next year I plan to give my Hamlet in a kiosk on the Royal Mile. Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.

Individuals can also buy boxes that aren’t listed and have no prospective adopter, so are being removed. A box in poor condition will set you back almost £2,000 on eBay, or you can buy a refurbished K6 for £2,750 (plus VAT and delivery) through BT’s approved reseller X2Connect. Unicorn Restorations also supplies beautifully restored boxes – at eye-watering prices if you want a rare K2 – drawing on stock it accumulated in the 1980s and 90s when unwanted and unloved red boxes were plentiful.

“We supply boxes to private buyers and commercial organisations,” says a director of X2Connect, Martin White. “They go all round the world. We’ve done shopping malls in Florida and Dubai. They’re very popular in Australia and America, but places in Europe take them as well. People put them in their gardens and companies have them in their offices. They buy them as birthday presents or just for themselves, telling us it’s something they’ve always wanted.” White says that eventually the supply will dry up, but his company has enough to keep it going for a good few years yet.

The cult of the boxes is a strange and powerful one. The sculptor David Mach, who 30 years ago laid 12 of them end to end in the centre of Kingston upon Thames in a celebrated piece of public art called Out of Order, describes them as a “universal Great British thing”. “The design is fantastic,” he says, “and then it seeps wholesale into the ground and comes back up through the soles of your feet.” They have featured on a million postcards and, having been a central feature of British life for much of the 20th century, in many films. Tourists still go to the fishing village of Pennan in Aberdeenshire in search of the phone box that features prominently in the 1983 film Local Hero, not realising that the box used in the film was a wooden prop. Pennan does have a real box, with a less perfect view of the sea than in the film, so visitors make do with that.

Scott’s kiosks are loved in part because they are redolent of a time when the British were willing to build a small house from which anyone could make a call. They represent civic pride and national confidence – both now in short supply. Farmer is horrified at my suggestion that we should just let them go. Objects have a use, so why keep them when they lose that use? He finds such iconoclasm detestable. “We don’t want to become like the Americans,” he says. By which I presume he means a throwaway society. But equally the veneration of the past can go too far. We surround Battersea power station with anodyne, absurdly pricey flats and tell ourselves we have rescued it, even though it has lost all its stark beauty.

I wonder how Scott’s K2s and K6s will look 50 years from now, when everyone has forgotten why they were ever there and thinks they were built as micro-libraries and art galleries, coffee kiosks and collection points. Or in 1,000 years when, as with Stonehenge, our descendants will ascribe some deep religious significance to them. Which, given the way they are now worshipped, might not be far from the truth.

More schools in England are setting up food banks to help feed their pupils’ families, according to the biggest school governors’ organisation.

The National Governance Association’s annual survey found 8% of governors were in schools which had food banks — up from 7% last year.

The highest proportion were in the North East — where 13% of governors were in schools with a food bank.

Heads’ leader Geoff Barton said schools faced «rising levels of poverty».

«It is a shameful situation in a country which is among the wealthiest in the world,» said Mr Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers’ union.

Washing uniforms

The National Governance Association (NGA) surveyed 6,000 governors about the challenges facing their schools.

School governors, who are often volunteers such as parents or representatives of the local community, warned that funding shortages and teacher recruitment were among the biggest problems.

But the survey also showed the rising challenge of having to offer welfare services to families — such as running food banks, offering meals outside of term time and washing pupils’ clothes and uniforms.

Food banks, which provide emergency supplies of food, were most common in schools in the north-east of England, the West Midlands and London — and were more likely in nursery and primary schools than in secondary.

Among nursery school governors, 2% reported their schools were providing emergency loans to parents.

Welfare services

«There is an increasing demand on schools to take responsibility for more areas of children’s lives than simply their education,» said NGA chief executive, Emma Knights.

«School staff have an increased burden of providing welfare services because of chronic underfunding in other areas and particularly cuts to local authority services,» she said.

But relying on schools for welfare services was «not a satisfactory solution».

Head teachers have been warning about the growing pressure on schools to provide much more than academic support.

In a survey of more than 400 schools earlier this year, the Association of School and College Leaders found 43% of schools were offering families help with food.

These were not necessarily running regular food banks, but included schools providing food parcels on a more occasional basis.

Head teachers’ leader Mr Barton said schools were becoming a «fourth emergency service providing clothing, food and pastoral support to many young people in extremely difficult circumstances».

«These pupils would not be ready to learn without this support,» he said.

After the exhausting amounts of deliberations and discussions, when you eventually make the decision on where to send your child, the impending start date can seem a lifetime away. But those final prep school years tend to fly by and before you know it, the last days of the summer holiday have gone and you’re packing giant suitcases and sewing on name tapes, with the knot in your stomach ever tightening. But starting a new boarding school really doesn’t need to be the daunting prospect it once was. Firstly, schools are incredibly experienced and focused on ensuring those first few months whizz by in a whirl of fun with some learning added in for good measure. Secondly, the old fashioned rule of no communication or seeing your child for the first half of term are long gone, and all too soon you’ll be bemoaning constantly driving up the motorway to watch another match. If you’re still worried, below are some suggestions for making the run up to the big day as smooth as possible.

1. Take up every opportunity to familiarise yourself with your future school. If they’re hosting a ‘get to know you’ BBQ, sleep over or familiarisation day make sure your child can attend. At these events gently suggest the children set up an Insta or WhatsApp group so that they can start chatting and share concerns or more hopefully their excitements. Sometimes in senior school there can be less communication amongst parents than in prep school, but it’s incredibly helpful to set up a WhatsApp group for parents so that you can discuss what time everyone is arriving on the first day, who’s packing what and further down the line teachers’ gifts and speech day picnics.

2. Try and arrange a few play dates during the summer before your child starts so they have a number of familiar faces to greet them. Connect with friends who have children in older years and ask if they’d kindly keep an eye out for your child as this can really help.

3. The first few weeks are essential for settling in and making new friends — this is definitely not the time to fly in late from holiday! Try and let your child settle without calling them every day. Make sure they know you’re always there for them but let them call you, not the other way round. In truth they will be incredibly busy as schools lay on an incredible amount of activities to help pupils settle in so they may not have time to call and chat. Don’t be offended, just be happy that they’re busy having a great time.

4. Be prepared to feel bereft when they leave. It’s often harder on those left behind than the children setting off. Plan spa days, meet ups with friends and other favourite activities to help you not to dwell on your empty home and aching heart.

5. It’s important to make your child’s area of their dorm as cosy and home-like as possible. Print lots of photos and take along lots of drawing pins and blu tack as every dorm has pin boards. Always buy a mattress topper — John Lewis and the White Company have a great selection. Also take a home duvet and pillow if you’re allowed as they’re so much softer and cosier. Make sure you buy a fab duvet cover to individualise their space — Urban Outfitters are popular, as are White Company. Children may be allowed to bring a bedside light too — Oliver Bonas has some fun ones.

6. The days of giant trunks are now discouraged (may your backs rejoice), but everyone still has a gorgeous mini trunk for tuck. Wolf and Badger have some fun ones or Tuck Online can personalise them for you.

7. Finally don’t let the prospect of imminent boarding dampen your last few weeks of the holidays — enjoy every second! The vast majority of pupils have a wonderful time at boarding school, settling in quickly, making friends for life and immersing themselves into the exciting activities on offer.