The Fourth of June

Yesterday was my fourth and penultimate Fourth of June event, and despite not anticipating it as eagerly as in previous years it also turned out to be my most memorable!

The Fourth of June is a bit like St Andrew’s Day in November – an opportunity for family and friends to visit the school and see what we get up to – albeit with more pomp and pleasanter weather. If your brow is furrowing over the name of the event you’ll be pleased to know that the ‘Fourth of June’ is a misnomer – although it was once held on the actual 4^th June today it takes place on the final Wednesday of May, yesterday being the 27^th.

The event takes its name from the birthday of King George III, who despite being a loony was clear-sighted enough to become a benefactor to Eton. Today many people don’t know the history of the day though, and see it more as an occasion to see parents and make merry in the midst of exams. As the only real gathering of parents and boys it is in some ways our equivalent of the end of year speech day.

In fact, speeches form one of the oldest Fourth of June traditions. Every year in Upper School people gather to hear Sixth Form Select,  the brightest boys in the school, declaim speeches of all sorts. Sometimes they even speak in Greek or Latin, which is an experience if nothing else.

However, the real action of the Fourth of June kicks off the night before. And when I say action, I mean action. For this is when the CCF (Combined Cadet Forces) hold their annual floodlit tattoo on College Field, a jamboree of blank bullets and shells, loud noises and bangs, boys running across the grass and doing commando rolls, shouting at each other as if in Saving Private Ryan and generally acting like they're in a real-life war zone. This year they performed a re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo, which I’m not sure was entirely how I imagined the famous battle, but was at least very entertaining.

The day of the Fourth of June itself is when the masses arrive. Many thousands of parents, siblings, friends and girlfriends attend, and with parking space at a premium they arrive early to grab the best spots. After the usual breakfast and College Chapel service all are free to begin the festivities. 

Knowing what to do and what to see is the hardest part of the day. As well as the speeches in Upper School, there are football, cricket and tennis fixtures, choral and band concerts, and several exhibitions. At some point in the day though every parent heads over to their son’s house to see the housemaster and drink with other parents. Then, later, everyone flocks to Agars sports fields where hundreds of parents erect tents and gazebos to conduct one of the world's largest outdoor picnics.

Indeed, Agars is where things get really interesting on the Fourth of June. This is because it is a scene of  alcohol, and plenty of it. But given that nearly every boy is underage, let alone forbidden to drink under normal school rules, how can this be monitored? The result is the greyest of grey areas, in which us boys are told several times before the day by our house master that we are allowed to have a drink, but not too many. That although we can walk around swigging Stella from a can if we are found excessively inebriated we will be punished severely. In a nutshell: don’t get (too) drunk!

But of course, people always do. Back in E block Runty decided it would be a good challenge to consume the best part of a bottle of champagne before midday, and ended up being sick into a nearby hedge. Very annoyingly he wasn’t found out. Then there is always a gaggle of girls each year who get invited down by a Don Juan in C block, and are then plied with such amounts of sugary booze that they end up rolling around in the grass with their shoes off. At least they can act with impunity.

The most iconic image of the Fourth of June however, beyond the CCF tattoo, the speeches, the house master’s drinks and the Agar’s picnics, is the Procession of Boats. Walk past College Field on the right hand side and you will find the River Thames quietly snake in towards Eton. It is here that on every Fourth of June the rowers from all the top crews in the school row past the throng gathered on the bank, and in a slightly bizarre yet impressive display of balance stand up in their boats with oars in hand and salute the crowd. They all wear effeminate nineteenth century boating outfits, which along with the flower-covered boaters on their heads makes them look like something out of an Oscar Wilde orgy. The idiosyncrasies of tradition.

One problem with viewing the Procession of Boats is finding a good vantage point. Room is not plentiful, and if you desire a decent place from which to see the action it means turning up early. For this reason I hadn’t bothered watching it for the previous two years, preferring to stay up at Agar’s with beer in hand. But this year, on something of a whim, I decided to go over with my parents. It was certainly a good decision.

Somehow, in spite of turning up late, we managed to bag ourselves a decent patch on the bank where we settled down to witness the action. The first boats went by and my parents were oohing and aahing like toddlers at a fireworks show. I had to remind them that this was a fairly serious spectacle and not to make a scene. But all that changed when the Junior Colts A boat made its way down the river.

As soon as I saw the boat coming round the bend I sensed something odd might happen. The way it was moving seemed somehow different to the other boats. When they reached the crowd the first boy stood up without fuss. As did the second and third boys. Indeed, everything was going well. But then out of nowhere one of the boys started to wobble. And then the boy behind him joined in. Soon everyone had jelly feet and before we knew it the boat was filling with water! Everyone was on their feet cheering and hollering, wishing it to go down – one father behind me was chanting ‘Sink! Sink! Sink’ and someone else shouted ‘TITANIC!’ As if in quicksand the boys knees and waists sunk ever so slowly underwater and the noise levels reached a crescendo as the tips of their boaters disappeared beneath the surface!

Truly, I cannot think of a time when I have laughed so hard. Everyone was in hysterics, and as the boys swam to shore they were given a standing ovation. It may have been a disaster for them, but even they seemed to find the funny side of it. The manoeuver of standing up in the boat is certainly awkward, but it is apparently the first time a crew has sunk for many decades. I feel blessed to have witnessed one.

The Fourth of June is a great day out, but more than ever this year I noticed one of its negative aspects. At times it feels like it can place too much emphasis on a boy’s background. When at school no-one really cares about where other people come from, whether you are the son of a multi-billionaire or if you grew up on a council estate and need a bursary to attend Eton. Everyone mucks in and gets along.

But on the Fourth of June there is no way of hiding your roots. The fact that so many parents, especially mothers, treat it as a purely social occasion, means that there is a lot of one-upmanship. The fancy Land Rovers and Mercedes are brought out, the designer dresses and handbags are on show and everyone vies to have the best picnic on Agars, with massive gazebos overflowing with fresh salmon and Moet. Invitations are sent to other well-connected parents weeks before the day and you make sure that everyone who’s anyone is going to come along to your gig.

Fine. I guess fundamentally there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you happen to come from a world not dominated by dinner parties and having lunch at the polo it can be overwhelming. Humiliating even. How to keep up with the Joneses if their way of life is so different to yours?

One experience yesterday illustrated this perfectly. I was wandering around on Agars when I went past one of the bigger tents and decided to take a peek inside. It resembled something of a Roman feast inside, with some of the finest food and wine you can imagine, all laid out liberally on tables. The guests tucking in were clearly a select crowd judging from their conversations about holidaying in Cannes and Barbados. I carried on walking and then two cars further down came across a very different picture. There, in his family's modest Volvo, was one of the F blockers in my house seated with his parents. They were drinking normal-looking sandwiches and drinking tea from a thermos. Clearly being it their first Fourth of June they had had no idea of what to expect, and despite there being enough food to feed the five thousand just feet away no-one at the other tent had considered inviting them in.   

I don't wish to sound moralistic. Some people will always have more money than others, and they are free to use it as they wish. It's just painful sometimes when it’s so overt.

At least everyone, regardless of their picnic, car or brand of champagne found the sinking of the Junior Colts boat side-splittingly funny. Humour is a great leveller.

Communal Living

The exam season is really in full swing now. Most people in D, C and B have sat at least one paper, and the sight of crowds gathering outside the examination halls each morning and afternoon is becoming more regular. It’s all getting a bit scary now we’re actually there, and some people have been feeling the heat. I’ve already seen a couple of boys in my block come out of exams looking, if not close to tears, then thoroughly despondent. These things matter ultimately.

One of the upsides to exam season is how it brings people closer together. I don’t mean that in a touchy-feely, let’s have tea and biscuits kind of way, but rather that if one of your mates is looking a bit down then you’re more likely to go over and comfort him. We all do badly in exams at times, and if you look out for others when they muck up you’re more likely to find sympathy when you’re the one suffering.

Indeed, I think it’s when you’re doing exams that it really helps to be at a boarding school. It’s true that state school pupils can go round each other’s places in the evening, but a lot of the time they will simply trudge home to an empty house, with nothing but a pile of books and revision notes to comfort them. At Eton at least you can go to a friend’s room and be told what an idiot you are, which in the upside-down world of boy-speak is good at cheering you up.

When I’m back at home I sometimes reflect on how significant it is that I spend most of the year living communally with forty-nine other boys. Forty-nine boys who I haven’t chosen to be with, and several of whom I would certainly prefer never to see again if I could. Yet somehow we all get along without too much trouble, save the odd drama here and there.

On arriving in F block you can tell immediately which of your peers didn’t board at prep school. For them, the prospect of waiting for someone to get out of the shower, of brushing your teeth next to other people, and of older boys invading your room at any given moment takes some getting used to. It’s probably only by the Lent half that they fully lose their inhibitions.

The fact that any individual in the house can enter your room at any time they desire is indeed a strange set up. It’s so because there are simply no locks on the doors, due I presume to health and safety. So every time you leave your room you are at the mercy of your peers. Which, of course, is not to say that someone is actually allowed to go into your room during your absence – indeed, it is against the rules and requires a very decent explanation if it happens. But it does mean, however, that there is a certain level of trust between everyone in the house, and that each person’s room must be respected as their sanctuary.

Spending so much time in the company of nine other boys is always going to intensify your relationships with them. With the ones you like, the result of you going to divs together, playing sport, helping each other with EWs and chilling out with movies and pizza is that it makes you very close friends. Indeed, it is rare for people to have their best friends in other houses. But if there’s someone in the house whom you don’t get on with (in my case, Runty and others), it will exacerbate the differences between you, leading to fights and arguments.

This is one of the downsides to communal living – the fact that someone whom I dislike like Runty can come into my room at any point he wishes and annoy me to death. To give him credit, he has stopped being so immature recently, but in F and E block there wasn’t a day that went by when wasn’t coming into my room to play fight, tell me false rumours, kick a football around the place or fart on my bed. Since he was much stronger than me I was completely helpless; all I could do was plead pathetically with him to leave.

Of course, I’ve got my own back on him many a time by messing up his room. This is a dangerous tactic, however – as I said a person’s room should be their sanctuary and if you are caught there is a big punishment waiting. Occasionally, though, a group of boys will all go and plaster someone’s room in loo roll, or move all their furniture into the corridor. Done like this though it’s more of a prank, and despite being extremely annoying rarely brings consequences.

Occasionally you hear stories of really disgusting things happening to boys’ rooms while they’re out. More often than not the culprit is unable to be identified too. I remember some years back a B blocker telling me how one boy in another house had come back to his room to find a massive poo on his desk. Another boy also apparently discovered a creepy letter underneath his sheets when he was going to bed, which mentioned all the names of his family. And somebody else said a boy who’s now left had his favourite jeans cut into shreds by an unknown assailant.

I’m not sure if these stories are true, but nevertheless they show that living with boys can sometimes be very weird. Everyone has a disturbing side to them, a skeleton or two in their cupboard, which when you’re living with the same persons 24/7 will almost always be found out. I just hope no-one ever discovers why I like apple flavoured shampoo so much!

The Aftermath

What a result! I don’t think anyone in their right mind predicted the Tory party winning as convincingly as they did, let alone securing a majority. Who will ever trust the pollsters again?!

Although with the benefit of hindsight it does make sense. For the past five years sections of the left-wing have aimed such contempt and vitriol towards anyone even considering the possibility of voting Tory that they have made the whole Conservative brand socially unacceptable. Advantage them, you would have thought. But no, rather than convert voters to their side they seem instead to have spawned a generation of ‘shy Tories’, individuals unwilling to admit their political inclinations to anyone at all, not even to the friendly man from YouGov assuring them their details will be kept secret. Best lie and tell him you’re voting Labour. At least that way then you won’t get the ‘anti-facists’ (the irony) daubing ‘Tory scum’ on your house. Safety first. But once in the polling booth…

Needless to say, most of us loved the result here at Eton. After the tedium of the campaign, the election night was a crackerjack of entertainment. An almost unbelievable exit poll at 10pm – surely the Conservatives wouldn’t grab that many seats, would they? If so, it meant Cameron would be certainly returning to Downing Street as Prime Minister. But the polls, the polls!

And then the individual results: top Labour target seats held by the Tories. Not only that, but held with a vote swing towards the incumbent MP. What the hell! This wasn’t in the script! Gobsmacked Labour figures appearing on TV, reading from scripts unprepared for this outcome. The first whispers of a Tory majority. ‘Not in their wildest dreams…’

Next, a glut of David and Goliath stories. Vince Cable, Douglas Alexander, Jim Murphy, Esther McVey are felled. And lest we forget, the charming Ed Balls. The Conservatives celebrate as they secure the majority. Then the midday resignations: Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband, Nigel Farage – au revoir. The cavalcade drawing up into Downing Street, the Prime Minister getting out to greet his staff. You never seriously thought I’d be gone, did you? Politics, bloody hell.

Of course, not everyone at Eton is thrilled. The Labour supporters are, frankly, devastated by an outcome they never saw coming. Not because it wasn’t mathematically possible – of course it was – but because the whole country couldn’t be so stupid, selfish and well, stupid again to vote in an actual Tory majority could they? But it turns out they were, the narrow-minded, ignorant cretins, gullible enough to believe Rupert Murdoch and his lies in The Sun and then rush out to the polling booths chanting racist songs and breathing and eating racism.

Oh yeah, and the system was rigged! First past the post delegitimises the result. Only a quarter of the country voted for the Conservatives. An illegal government, a coup, a coup!

It’s funny how after my observation of David Cameron’s low standing at Eton last week the general opinion of him has picked significantly following this results. I guess that’s the effect of being a winner. After 2010, when Cameron couldn’t kill off a sitting duck of a Labour party headed by the architect of the recession, people weren’t willing to cut him much slack. Wishy-washy talk of a ‘big society’ didn’t help either. But now that he’s won it for real, won without having to rely on the Lib Dems, well maybe it means he’s not so bad after all.

The only downside to election night was the feeling of being a zombie the next day. I told myself I wouldn’t stay up the whole night, but go to bed at a reasonable hour, somewhere between two and three. Somehow though the note-to-self got lost in the drama of the evening. Although I’m no passionate Tory, to have stopped watching would have been like leaving the stadium during a cup final I knew my team was going to win.

A group of five of us did the whole stint in our house’s TV room. Earlier in the evening there were many more in there, as everyone crowded in to watch the exit poll. It felt somewhat like a movie night, as people had drinks and snacks for refreshments. When the result of the poll came through there was a moment’s stunned silence, before half the room erupted in delight. Once back in their seats there followed some very ungracious taunting of the Labour supporters in the house, who responded with defiant predictions that the poll was faulty.

But of course it wasn’t. For a good few hours no-one knew either way, but when the results began coming in thick and fast (at which time most people were happily asleep) any hopes of a wonky sample were dashed as key marginals swung to the Conservatives. Their projected number of seats ticked upwards as constituencies they expected to lose were surprisingly won, and before long it was clear they would return with a majority government.

Such an unexpected result did not go unnoticed on social media. The old advice of thinking before you speak was evidently ignored by a lot of my conservative friends, who took to Facebook to post some of the most pompous, doltish and unnecessarily belligerent comments I have ever witnessed in my entire life. But hey, I think they can be forgiven - it’s not often a general election comes around, let alone goes in your favour. Besides, I can hardly talk myself, being a mouse click away from posting ‘suck on that you dirty commies!’ on my Facebook timeline.

What a difference a week makes. As I write this, I think back seven days ago to when everyone was expecting a left-of-centre rainbow coalition to form a government. Instead, we have David Cameron and his pals in full power for the next five years.

They say you never forget many of the first things you do, and I think the first general election you follow is definitely one of them. I just fear the excitement of future elections will never be matched by this one. If it isn’t though, at least I can tell my grandkids about how all the way back in 2015 absolutely no-one in the country predicted…etc etc.

I might also add that the Prime Minister we elected at the time was an Old Etonian. And if I’m in a good mood, I may mutter under my breath ‘Floreat Etona!’

Politics

As well as being the anniversary of my first ever half century in cricket, today also marks a significant occasion in the calendar: It’s the General Election!

To say I’m excited about this election is an understatement. No-one seems to have a clue what’s going to happen, and not only is the result too close to call, but there is genuinely a lot riding on it. Whereas previous elections have had manifestos from the main parties doing their best to imitate each other, this time round there seems to be a genuine choice. As I post this, voters up and down the nation are heading to the polls to make the choice for our country.

My only frustration is that I can’t join them. A year later and I would have been old enough, but being a mere seventeen year old I’ll have to wait till I’m twenty two now.

It doesn’t help that many of the B blockers, plenty of whom couldn’t care less about politics, are eligible when I’m not. They will be able to vote either in the Windsor constituency, the incumbent MP being Tory backbencher Adam Afriyie, or at home via postal vote.

Most outsiders probably imagine Eton to be a hotbed of conservatism, and they wouldn’t be far wrong. Although politics isn’t talked about as much as you might think, there is a clear right-wing leaning. Mostly because the Tories are the only party who wouldn’t raze Eton to the ground if they had the chance.

But that’s not to say everyone agrees.

In my block I can think of at least four boys who are strong Labour supporters. There’s a B blocker in my house who is as well, and he spent an hour yesterday explaining to me why he was voting for Ed Miliband. Although it could be argued that being a boy at Eton and voting for Labour is a bit like being invited to a party and taking a dump on the cake, I can kind of understand their views. Kind of. I just wish I could work out why I get visions of Moet and Bollinger whenever I think about them.

Alongside the cabal of Labour supporters, there are a few Lib Dems. I can only imagine these people have a history of amnesia, since anyone associated with school or university prepared to vote for Nick Clegg must have a very short memory. Either that or they’re suffering from a strain of political Stockholm syndrome.

Then there’s UKIP, who I don’t think anyone at Eton is going to vote for. Having said that, they are something of a taboo party, a guilty pleasure who you criticise in public to remain upstanding, but secretly vote for in the polling booth. They don’t have CCTV in there yet.

And to round it off, the Green party. Of which being a member is basically proof of your insanity. Enough said.

It’s been well documented how Eton has a rich political history. We can boast 19 prime ministers, hundreds of cabinet ministers and thousands of MPs. We are regularly told by the press how this emanates from our sense of entitlement, although personally I think it’s something they put in the water.

Given the sympathy towards the Conservative party, therefore, and the fact that David Cameron is an Old Etonian, you’d expect most boys to be fans of the Prime Minister. How could we not? He’s not only an OE, but also a nice guy, and has helped resurrect this country from the mess it was left in.

The truth, however, is rather different.

Back in 2010, when David Cameron was elected prime minister, I was proud that my future school was responsible for the education of the country’s leader. When I arrived a year later, I found that most of my peers shared my enthusiasm. Nineteen and counting we thought.

But things have changed. Where once there was affection for David Cameron, there is now a feeling of distrust. Of disappointment. Not because he has stopped being a nice guy, or has ruined the country, but because of the way he appears to have approached politics.

For David Cameron, politics is just a game. It has probably always been a game to him. To us boys at Eton, this is clear in the way he conducts himself, his fake sincerity in front of the camera, the throwaway comments which reveal his ambitions . He reminds us of the ambitious B blocker trying to curry favour with the house master, saying things he doesn't really believe in. Or at least things he only believes to be right because they will help him conserve power. Hypothetically, were he given the choice to change one thing and in the process sacrifice his career, he would rather stay in number 10. No question about it.

Of course, it’s unfair to level this charge at just David Cameron. Westminster does appear to be full of textbook-opinionated career politicians these days, who have little experience of the outside world. That’s not to say they can’t hold the right views or take the right decisions, but it does make the whole concept of politics very superficial.

What makes it particularly uncomfortable, embarrassing I might say even for us boys at Eton to have David Cameron in number 10, is that the school, believe it or not, doesn’t actually encourage us to be slimy, power-hungry spivs. Maybe that’s how we’ll all turn out, I don’t know, but at the moment most of us want to do something for the right reason. Make a difference and all that. 

This is not to say absolutely no-one at Eton likes David Cameron. Many people do, and not just out of tribal loyalty - however, they are not as numerous as you’d think. I would vote for him, I admit, but I’d just rather have someone else in charge.

Who that someone else might be could be one of the big questions after this election, depending on the result. Boris Johnson, another OE, is at the head of the Tory queue waiting to replace David Cameron. Were he to end up Prime Minister he’d be our twentieth PM in total.

But is he any different to David Cameron? He’s funnier, more engaging, more charismatic, and arguably more attractive to voters. But deep down, are his motives any different? One of the older beaks here, old enough to have taught him many years ago, perhaps summed it up best when he told us Boris was ‘conniving’. Conniving - a strong way to describe a teenager.

I’m probably being a hit harsh in all this. And hypocritical too – after all, I’ve been waging my own, hardly honest, campaign for the house captaincy next year. Which could be the start of my own journey that ends up in Downing Street. Why not? You heard it here first.