Thomas Osborne died in 1941, leaving the young boy an insurance settlement which he used to finance a private education at Belmont College, a minor public school in Barnstaple that closed in the 1960s. He entered the school in 1943, but was expelled in the summer term of 1945. Osborne claimed this was for hitting the headmaster, who had struck him for listening to a broadcast by Frank Sinatra, but another former pupil asserted that Osborne was caught fighting other pupils and did not assault the headmaster. A School Certificate was the only formal qualification he acquired.