DRUGS AT ETON

I DISCOVERED the Eton drug scene one cold winter evening, when my best
friend and I crept out of our house for a cigarette.

Inside an old air-raid shelter sat four or five older boys. "Welcome to the
Nozza," said one, leading us down a tunnel, before adding over his
shoulder: "Tell anybody about this place, and you're dead."

The Nostril, as they called it, was a welcome refuge from school, an escape
from the masters. Lit by candles, it was furnished with comfortable
armchairs, ethnic drapes and a stereo. But its main attraction was as a
place where we could smoke - and, more often than not, that "smoke" meant
grass.

Smoking cannabis was not a particularly big deal. The biggest excitement
came when somebody managed to roll a spliff a foot long. I can honestly say
that, during my schooldays, I did not know of any Etonians who consumed
anything "harder" than cannabis. Maybe they did, but the Nostril was a
smoking room only.

In the year or two that I was "a bogey", as we rather unpleasantly called
ourselves, at least 20 or 30 different faces made an appearance in the
Nostril. But plenty of other boys smoked: indeed, I would estimate that at
least half the pupils at Eton had smoked a joint during term time by the
time they left. Other Old Etonians I have spoken to agree that this is a
fair estimate.

Drug-taking at Eton, however, seems rather tame, compared with the stories
I have heard from friends at other public schools.

In 1991, I was expelled - not for drugs, I hasten to add, but for having
girls in my room (there were two of them and we were all fully clothed). I
then enrolled at my local state school: Oxted County, in Surrey.

The percentage of people using drugs there was far, far lower than at Eton,
although a few students were boastfully forthcoming about the number of
"Es" they took at the weekend. The fact that the students did not have
large allowances must have played a part.

Meanwhile, the Nostril was finally rumbled, and a senior master rounded up
a gang of bogies who had missed chapel and made them clear the place out.

"When he found out what was going on, I think he was glad we were doing it
in there rather than wandering round the streets of Windsor," an old
schoolfriend told me.

I think one of the main reasons why cannabis-smoking was widespread was the
boarding system itself. We were under the authority of teachers, 24 hours a
day, seven days a week. Peer pressure flourished.

Drugs are commonly used by sections of the population seeking to escape,
however temporarily, the pressures or deprivations of their lives. We were
no different.