ABSTRACT

Finding Our Way Home: Women’s Accounts of Being Sent to Boarding School shares the personal stories of sixteen women, all of whom were sent away to board at an early age. Their accounts delve into the depths of long suppressed emotions and feelings, and the lifelong impact that the early separation from their families has had.

Much has been written about the impact of ‘boarding school syndrome’ on male boarders, but less about their female counterparts. This book is the first to explore the experience from a purely female perspective, and offers an intriguing insight into the world of boarding schools and the upbringing of girls born in the mid-to-late 20th century.

Finding Our Way Home is a book for everyone who ever attended boarding school, as well as psychotherapists and counsellors working with boarding school survivors.

chapter |8 pages

On becoming a boarder

chapter |6 pages

My story

chapter |6 pages

Being sent, then and now

chapter |8 pages

Finding my way home

The daughter’s story

chapter |8 pages

Memories from my formative years

The mother’s story

chapter |7 pages

Give and take

chapter |11 pages

Paradise lost

chapter |6 pages

Sometimes

chapter |9 pages

Boarding school musings

chapter |7 pages

Privileged deprivation

chapter |8 pages

Coming in from the cold

chapter |10 pages

The severe housemistress

chapter |6 pages

The trunk

chapter |2 pages

Afterword

chapter |7 pages

Afterword

A psychotherapist’s reflections

chapter |3 pages

Where to go for support/more information

Edited ByNikki Simpson