A Very Private School: A Memoir

"Charles Spencer – younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales – turns his considerable talents as a writer and historian on his own childhood. A Very Private School details what, he says, happened to him and his classmates – physical, sexual, emotional abuse – at one of Britain’s most elite boarding schools. Undergirding all is a culture of privilege, yes, but also silence and tradition rooted in the British Empire, sending 8-year-olds away from home as “the done thing.” Spencer’s quote from author Hilary Mantel in the book’s epigraph is telling, “I am writing in order to take charge of my childhood.”"