‘Dear Mummy and Daddy,’ reads the looping blue handwriting on Snoopy writing paper. ‘I am getting along very well. But I am still crying slightly because I am missing you very much.’ That letter was written 35 years ago by my husband, Guy, then aged eight. It was two weeks into his first term at boarding school and he was desperately homesick, but obviously trying to be brave. His mother showed us the letter a couple of weeks ago, as we were discussing where to send our own children, Will, 11, and Alice, nine, when they move to senior school.
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Annabel says her education was first class but she finds herself wincing at the thought of her children boarding
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The letter that Guy, aged eight, had sent to his parents about being upset at boarding school nearly broke Annabel's heart
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Some attribute relationship problems or mental breakdowns to being deprived of parental support during the crucial teenage years
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Guy found it hard to settle in and they are debating whether or not to send their children Alice, nine, and Will, 11 to boarding school
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Expensive boarding schools are now more luxurious, less eccentric places
Even so, when we had our children, @placeholder and I assumed that they would follow in our footsteps to boarding school.