Too Marvellous For Words

'Engagingly vintage' Daily Mail `A tragicomic account with comic gems on every page... bliss' - The Spectator The real MALORY TOWERS story: Midnight feasts in dorms, jolly japes with chums, pranks on mad teachers and no boys whatsoever. Award-winning writer Julie Welch tells of her time spent at an all-girls boarding school in Suffolk in the early 1960s. This wonderfully evocative memoir portrays a place of arcane rules and happenings, when the headmistress and the Head of Science raced each other on public roads in their sports cars; when fire practice involved abseiling down the school walls, and when having meringues for tea instead of plain cake was branded 'disgraceful'. There are vivid memories of midnight feasts in the dorm, bizarre rituals, frumpy uniform, mad teachers, pranks, 'pashes' on older girls and NO BOYS WHATSOEVER. As the social morals of post-war Britain collide with those of the decadent 1960s, Julie and her fellow pupils discover Radio Caroline, fashion and the facts of life at the same time as playing lacrosse derbies, attending classical music concerts and sea-bathing. The years spent at Felixstowe College made a lasting impression on the girls who boarded there. Amidst all the fun, deeply emotional attachments were made, with some girls - whose parents were remote or absent - finding support from their classmates that they didn't get at home. Julie's story is full of character and charm and serves as both a memoir and a fascinating social history of a way of English life as lived by 'young ladies' some 50 years ago.