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!