Naughty Boarding School Days and Nights
An Excerpt From My Memoirs
We were now to go to our first boarding school. Our mother’s initial and obvious choice had been Le Rosey, barely two miles away from Fleur d'Eau, but Mr. Johannot, the director, refused to allow us to be day students, nor would he allow us to return home at weekends if we were full boarders.
Mother consequently declined his terms, and instead we were sent to La Chataigneraie, near Coppet. La Chataigneraie was with Le Rosey, one of a handful of “exclusive” (read expensive) Swiss schools where one’s parents hoped one would get a decent education.
On the whole, with the possible exception of Le Rosey, which offered the most luxurious facilities and moved its entire operations every winter to Gstaad, most of those schools were interchangeable and in fierce competition with one another. The motley international student body contained many boys who had run the gamut of the other schools and were expelled from each in turn.