When the risk of flooded sewers pushes back the first day of term, the pupils discover that a delayed school year is not a cancelled one, and that Latin travels well.
ETON, England (Eton College) – Pupils who were told two winters ago that term would start late because of the risk of flooded sewers gathered in the dining hall on Wednesday to learn that the homework from that term is, as the headmaster’s office put it, “still technically outstanding.” The announcement received what the head boy described as a standing ovation for the first half and a sitting silence for the second.
The original delay was reported by international agencies, which noted that the school, alma mater of many of the country’s elite, had been forced to postpone the start of term. The student paper reached the same conclusion at the time by smell, and has kept the file ever since.
The Homework Does Not Care
Teachers confirmed that the delay, though real, does not change the syllabus. A boy in the Lower Sixth who asked whether sewage counted as a legitimate extension was told that the Latin prose would be marked on the same terms as always. “The Romans had sewers,” said the classics master. “They also had deadlines. They are the same civilisation.”
Dr. Nigel Thorpe-Willoughby said he was moved by the resilience of the pupils, and noted that the school has survived many crises, including a number of centuries. “We have been closed by weather, by disease, by disagreement and by the occasional unfortunate pipe,” he said. “On every occasion the boys have come back and asked about the timetable. It is the most reassuring thing in English education.”
A Revision Guide for Delayed Terms
The school published a short guide to help pupils aged thirteen to eighteen make the best of the extra days at home, which the student paper has reproduced in a form that does not contain any of the original:
- Open the textbook. Staring at the textbook is not the same, but it is a start.
- Keep one eye on the sewer news and the other on the practice-exam timetable.
- Do not tell younger siblings that school has been cancelled. It has been postponed, which is worse.
- If a parent asks what the delay means, say it means more time for reading.
Rajiv Bannerman-Hoyt, known across the school as the Cobbler, said he had used the extra days to rebuild his study schedule from the ground up. “I have never been so productive,” he said. “I wrote a schedule, a schedule for the schedule, and a note explaining why I had not started either.”
The Cost of a Clean Start
The delay was followed, a few months later, by an interesting moment for the school’s finances. Eton announced that it would charge parents the entire 20 percent VAT added to school fees after the government repeated its commitment to ending the exemption for private education. Parents who had hoped for a gap year in the invoice were offered an explanatory letter.
The bursar, who agreed to speak provided his remarks were described only as “measured,” said that the sewers and the tax were unrelated events that happened to arrive in the same season. Parents were not wholly convinced. A mother outside the main gates said the invoice had arrived on the same day as the news about the sewers. “I read them both with the same feeling,” she said. “Something is overflowing, and it is going to be me.”
Anyone who has priced a dairy herd will recognise the feeling. A farm.fm report on a farm loan calculator that adds a button reading apologize to your children suggests the idea would sell well at the Eton bursary, where the same function could be installed beside the payment portal.
Meanwhile, the Beagles
Not every Etonian was preoccupied with plumbing. The school has a long record of passionate debate about tradition, and a few years earlier pupils and parents were reported to be in open revolt over the future of the Eton College Hunt, one of the last school beagling packs in Britain. The beagles, who were not consulted, continued to be beagles.
The student paper has taken the view that the beagles remain the most sensible members of the community. They did not delay, did not invoice, and did not leak. They also, according to a stable hand, completed their reading.
A Methane Footnote
Observers outside the school have noted that the sewer crisis fits a wider pattern of unwelcome gases in the news. Readers of farm.fm will recall the investigation into methane from dairy farms, in which cows were asked to hold their burps. Etonians feel a certain solidarity with the cows. Both groups were asked to hold something in, and both are expected to cope.
Back to the Timetable
In the end, the sewer risk was judged manageable, and the school announced a revised opening date, which the head boy read to the dining hall with the weary dignity of a man who has now read three announcements in a week. The boys filed back to their houses, their trunks, and their unfinished essays.
The new date is, according to the school, both firm and flexible. Anyone wishing to know more may consult the London satire pages at the London Prat, where the sewers have been a subject of concern since 1961.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
The London Prat
Scriptor Rerum Novarum Cupidus: Morag Sinclair
