Dress Sense

It’s funny how much we judge people on their clothes. With the exception of looks, they’re the first thing we use to form an opinion of someone before meeting them. This is because experience tells us that a person's dress sense is a reflection of their personality. A smart suit and tie, for instance, is likely to be worn by a motivated, disciplined individual, whilst a baggy shirt and jeans are more suited to a free spirit. Clothes therefore are a means of self-expression and often a tool for cultivating a deliberate image.

There are exceptions of course. Uniforms, for example, are intended as identifiers for certain groups rather than reflections of the wearers' personality. It is doubtful, thus, that policemen or firemen would actually choose to wear their bulky outfits when off-duty.

Yet it would be wrong to presume that a uniform cannot reflect the values of a collective body. The exceptional standards of the Armed Forces, for example, and the pride with which they carry themselves are expressed in the immaculate service dress they put on for ceremonial occasions. Likewise, and at the other end of the spectrum, it is arguable that the cheap, garish boiler suits of prisoners reflect the wearers' status in society.

What therefore to make of Eton’s famous tailcoats and pinstriped trousers? They are an emblem of Britain's public school tradition, and embody on the one hand the school’s many centuries of tradition and on the other its unashamed ethos of elitism and aspiration.

It goes without saying though that none of us actually wear anything remotely like the uniform when we have the choice. Evenings and weekends are the time for something more casual, comfortable and frankly normal!

Given the demographic from which most of us are drawn, it is surprising that there is a real diversity in people's dress senses here. A stroll around the school on a weekend will reveal several distinct styles on show. These might include:

Sloaneys – who deck themselves out in brightly coloured trousers, and loafers whatever the weather. These lads fuel the toff stereotype and carry an irrational dislike of t-shirts. Membership of this group conditional on possession of a dinner jacket.

Country bumpkins – the Sloaneys of the outdoors, they own multiple items of tweed and love to accessorise with flat caps. Acclimatise to rain with a Barbour jacket (no imitations) and Hunter wellies. Can tell you where bacon comes from.

Rude bois – for those boys tortured by the guilt of their privilege and determined to be as normal as possible. Staple costume is best described as ‘chavvy’: hoody with the hood pulled up, tracksuit bottoms (ideally 3-stripe) and an aggressive swagger. Not for the uncool.

                                                                                                                

Hipsters – lovers of everything alternative, they sport skinny jeans and untucked shirts (with the top button done up of course). Best accompanied by an edgy haircut and working knowledge of indie music. Unsuitable for the fat or those who like smiling.

Gym bunnies – exercise freaks with a penchant for wife-beaters, lycra and anything vaguely revealing. Do not approach with question: ‘Do you lift mate?’ Likely to engage in random displays of strength.

Of course, a few of these looks are very context specific. For example, the gym bunny style is only really acceptable before or after a massive sesh, whilst a sloaney or hipster costume is best used on visiting girls.

If you’re wondering which category among these I fall into, I can say I’ve never attempted to imitate any of them. The reason for this can be traced back to my first half in F block. I was nearing the end of third or fourth week and realised, almost suddenly, that my worries about not fitting in or struggling with the work had disappeared. In reality, I had made friends very quickly, and with the odd exception found the work very manageable. Yet rather than settle into a happy routine at this point I must have thought it was all too good to be true. Consequently, I began to search for things that might ruin it all, and settled on my clothes.

Until this stage in my life my standard outfit had consisted of a pair of corduroy trousers, a collared shirt and a woolly jumper. These were recommended to me by my mum, who also purchased them, and since no-one at prep school had ever commented negatively on them I was oblivious to their relative coolness.

But now, with a discerning eye, I saw that they were completely unlike anything that anyone else at Eton wore. Cords and woolly jumpers were, quite frankly, the type of things an old man or boy from the 50s would pull on. I feared therefore that if I didn’t change my look soonish one of the older boys might pick up on it and start to tease me.

So it was that I trotted down to Windsor the next Sunday afternoon armed with all the money I possessed. It was just enough to buy a navy pair of jeans and two jumpers which more or less resembled the type my friends wore. I hoped my wardrobe change would go unnoticed, and fortunately it did, although I was forced to wear the jeans permanently until the next installment of money.

Looking back now it’s slightly sad to see how paranoid and insecure I was. Yet at the same time it is always hard to be a new fish in a big pond, where your main priority is to fit in. Although three years have since passed, but my outlook on fashion has regrettably not changed. It is guided more by a fear of being mocked than by what I might like to wear. As a result I shun any bold style, be it sloaney or rude boi, and play it safe with a t-shirt-jeans-jumper combination.

Perhaps my conservatism comes from the fact that I know that my friends know what I wear. If, for instance, I were to suddenly rock up one day with a completely different look I would doubtless be accused of being someone that I wasn't. I hope that at some point in the future I end up in an environment where my sartorial history is not common knowledge. This, then, will be the time for reinvention. But till that day I'll just be the normal me!

Runners

Walking to a div on Tuesday I ended up behind two younger boys, whose conversation I couldn’t help overhearing. Judging from their unbroken voices I guessed they were F blockers, an intuition reflected in their extremely low level of chat which at one point included the smaller of the two bragging about a ‘bird’ he had ‘snared’ over the Christmas holidays. 

On hearing this I felt tempted to karate chop him in the neck, since it was not only a very douchebag thing to say but also a reminder to me of my own incompetence with the ladies at that age.

I resisted though, and by the time our paths diverted had just about calmed down. It was here though that my anger was provoked once more by something Don Juan’s sidekick mentioned: namely, that last half, in a Divinity div, he had claimed a runner.

Now, I can take it when pre-pubescent boys boast about their sexual exploits. I can even take it these adventures involve things I still only dream of. Yet when it's a question of them revealing that in their very first half at Eton, their first twelve weeks of being at the school, they experienced something that I have been waiting nearly three and a half years to taste, then I am liable to flip my lid and do something crazy. 

This is because a runner is, without exaggeration, a gift from the gods. It is a manna wafted down from heaven, which takes the form of your beak unexpectedly and incredibly failing to turn up to your div. What was once time reserved for essay writing and studying can now be dedicated to more noble pursuits, like computer games and tacky dramas. 

Such is the universal joy at this absence that tradition obliges one to run away from the scene of the crime, hence the name ‘runner’, a colloquial version of the official name of ‘a run’.

Of course, a runner cannot simply be claimed at the whim of the div, which is why two rules determine its legitimacy: The first is that the beak must be at least 15 minutes late, and the second is that every boy must report to School Office before going on their ways.

You might think that illness, injury and amnesia would make runners rather common, but in fact they are rare beasts, demonstrated by the fact that I have never got one. 

Nevertheless, the possibility of one coming along is never far from people’s minds. Once a beak is more than two minutes late, it is the only subject on everyone's lips. Routine exclamations of ‘hey, we might get a runner here!’ soon give way to a scrutiny of the rules: 

‘Ten minutes isn’t it?’ someone will ask hopefully.

‘No, fifteen mate.’

‘I thought it was only fifteen after Chambers?’

‘No, it’s fifteen for every div.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah mate, it’s in Fixtures.’

‘I swear someone said they took a runner last year after eight minutes.’

‘I doubt it.’

Next is a speculation on the cause of the beak’s absence. A pessimist will claim to have seen the beak that morning and add, for one's information, that he hasn’t given a runner for over twenty years. Against this, wildly optimistic members of the div will raise hopes with suggestions he's been hit by a car or recently got a divorce.

Ultimately, this is all rather useless, yet it does help to kill time and distract everyone from the burning issue of the time, with the clock on the wall opposite tick, tick tocking away ever so slowly.

With five minutes left to not stare at it is all but impossible. Hallucinations of the hour hand spinning backwards whilst winking at you are not uncommon at this point. There may then be an angry debate on whose watch the group should go on, with some people claiming 11:54, others 11:52 and the rest somewhere in between. 

Just before the moment of departure the class maverick might offer some rousing advice: ‘Remember guys, as soon as it’s twelve we’re off; no hanging about!’ and, ‘If he’s coming down the street as we’re leaving just run past and pretend you haven’t seen him!’

This may or may not have your adrenaline pumping depending on your level of foolishness, but either way the dash across to School Hall is invariably an exhilarating one, fuelled by happy plans of what to do once back in the house. 

Yet of course, this is where my experience ends. 

I can at least claim to have compiled an impressive catalogue of near-misses. The nearest I have come was in an English div last year, when the beak was nowhere to be seen and rumoured to be ill. We waited dutifully for the fifteen minutes to pass before bounding down the stairs like a pack of hyenas, only to stopped in our tracks by the sight of the beak strolling in at the bottom. He smirked at us if to say, ‘Thought you had one there, didn’t you?’ and waved us back upstairs with a supercilious swish of his hand. 

A couple of other times I've been tasked with the job of lookout, which is to be avoided at all costs. This is because if you have to break the bad news, especially with minutes left, the subsequent anger from the others will be mainly directed at you; a classic case of shoot the messenger. 

When I think about it, I admit that I would probably be less peeved about having never had a runner if Runty hadn’t claimed several over his time here. He never fails to let everyone know each time he gets one, and one time even tried to coin for me the nickname of ‘the runner virgin’, which mercifully didn’t catch. 

In fact, there’s no good reason why a runner should be particularly special at all. From listening to Runty, you’d be forgiven for thinking that lying in wait for the lucky  few was an oily rub-down from a busty masseuse. Yet in reality, the general consensus is that they're very anti-climatic. After hanging around for a quarter of an hour and then going over to School Office, only about twenty minutes of the div are left; time for a quick game of Fifa or a bit of Made in Chelsea if you're lucky.

I guess the hype boils down to the unexpectedness of it all; the feeling that you've got away with something you shouldn’t have. For this reason I hope to get at least one before I leave here. If not, some gobby F blocker may have to pay for it!

The Dame

Everyone knows the saying, ‘Behind every great man there’s a great woman,' but in the case of Eton it might easily be changed to ‘Behind every great house master there’s a great Dame.’

The role of the Dame, my own who I have mentioned previously, lies somewhere between a housekeeper and a matron; she provides basic medical care for injured boys whilst organising the rest of the house staff.

Where the name 'Dame' comes from I do not know, but I admit it sounds slightly odd at first, rather like the title you might give to an experienced hand in a brothel. For us though it becomes second nature very quickly.   

Although the house master may be the ultimate figure of authority in the house, the influence of the Dame cannot be underestimated. Since department meetings, tours for prospective parents and a handful of divs each week occupy a lot of the house master's time, it is impossible for him not to delegate a significant amount of power to the Dame,

Being be a skilled administrator is therefore a prerequisite for the job, but what I believe is most appreciated about the Dame, be it consciously or sub-consciously, is her femininity. Being at an all-boys school with a mostly male staff is not a normal existence, and it can be easy to forget that women do actually exist outside of the school, and are not just strange creatures in movies. 

The Dame therefore is a much needed female presence. It may be a stereotype, but women are clearly best at dealing with emotional and personal needs. If a boy is missing his parents for example, or has an awkward rash, the last person he will want go to with this information is his taciturn house master, who will likely order him to ‘man up’. Unlike the Dame, who will offer a shoulder to cry on.

I confess to suffering from homesickness myself during my early inF block. I boarded at prep school, but arriving at Eton was like moving to a big, bad city where life moved at a hundred miles an hour. Feeling pretty down, I therefore crept up to the Dame's flat a couple of times, where I probably put in a good audition for the world’s biggest wimp award, but at least came away slightly happier than when I entered.

Of course, Dames are not perfect. My own one can be a bit annoying at times, and has a habit of summoning you to her flat for the most trivial of reasons.

Overall though, she strikes a good balance between being meddlesome on the one hand and invisible on the other. In some houses, the Dame is said to be so distant that some boys buy their own paracetamol rather than take the 50/50 chance of finding her. In others, the Dame is so interfering that it's like being treated like a toddler.

One drawback to the presence of a female in the house is naturally the risk of being caught naked. Unlike at prep school where matrons supervise shower times without batting an eyelid, nudity in front of the Dame here is definitely not legit. Inevitably though, it happens to everyone a couple of times by accident during their time here. On the one occasion it happened to me I was changing for games when the Dame walked in. My natural reaction was to cup myself, whilst she backed out of the room covering here eyes. ‘You’re not the first and won’t be the last,’ she told me later.

As far as these situations go mine was quite dignified. An older boy, now left, told me about the time he returned to his room after a shower and heard a catchy song come on the radio. Caught up in the excitement of it he began to dance, and the Dame walked in moments later to find him ‘doing the windmill.’ 

My Dame is without a doubt unfailingly professional, but it would be naïve that every Dame ever has been. I say this because after a Field Game last Saturday I was chatting to one of the old boys who told me that when he was at Eton one of his mates had an affair with his Dame.

At first I didn't believe him, so outrageous was the thought that I myself might do something with my Dame. But the more I thought about it, the more plausible it appeared. After all, every year B blockers are turning eighteen and we all know of couples where the age difference is big.

Obviously, it would be breaking about a billion school rules, not to mention laws, but who doesn't like a walk on the wild side now and again?

Which makes me wonder: maybe I'm too mature and sophisticated for all the girls my age? Maybe I need a real woman?