Visit to Dorset House Preparatory School

A couple of weeks ago I went back to my old prep school, Dorset House, which is in a Norman manor house nestled in the Arun valley. My childhood was spent roaming the beautiful river banks, running through the woods, with Amberley and Arundel castles not far away: a timeless landscape, pretty much as it must have been when the Normans settled there. It was naturally a powerful influence on my imagination, and my first novel, The Other Book, was certainly inspired by the location. The West Sussex County Times have written up the visit here - though the current piece erroneously states I was there in the 1980s; I was in attendance in the mid-90s. We had about two CDs - Queen's Greatest Hits and Nirvana's Nevermind.

Readings at Ludgrove

Ludgrovian Books

Appropriately enough, for the week after the Royal Wedding, I headed to Ludgrove this morning, where Princes William and Harry were both pupils, to give a couple of readings and talks to the older boys, of both The Liberators and The Other Book. Ludgrove's half-timbered cosiness contains a room in which the name of every boy who ever attended is recorded, which adds a fine sense of continuity and heritage. (At my prep they only wrote up the Head Boy's name, which I always thought rather unfair).  Stuck up against Prince William's was a picture of the Prince and Kate Middleton before their wedding - the school had been celebrating over the weekend.




The readings took place in the lecture hall. I read a scene from The Other Book in which our young hero Edward Pollock is chased by a spirit made out of the stones and mud of the Manor itself; and the first chapter of The Liberators. The questions were acute and perceptive and I very much enjoyed answering them and signing the books.

On a tour of the school I was struck down almost immediately by memories of my own prep, Dorset House: the particular, shall we say, odour of the boot room; the dormitories with their low beds and single teddy bears; the cricket and the art and the general atmosphere of kindness and industry. So a huge thank you to the librarian, staff and boys of Ludgrove, and I wish them all the best for the end of this academic year.

You can see pictures of the talk on the Ludgrove website HERE.