Iron Love by Marguerite  Poland

Iron Love

Marguerite Poland

If you didn't attend public school, you might have difficulty relating to the level of hero-worship present and the effect it has on the impressionable young boys who carry it with them for the rest of their lives.

Extract
In the end, they all had their lonelinesses and their losses. Some very great. Some small but no less important at the time. And some carried from so long ago that the little storms had long subsided into calm and only sediment remained, dormant underfoot. Sometimes someone might be found in the chapel, tucked in a corner of a pew alone, observed only by a cleaner unobtrusively polishing the candlesticks, or in one of the bogs that still had a door, exposed by feet sticking down, inviting someone to peer over the top.
Parallels
  • Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
  • Goodbye Mr Chips by James Hilton