With a roll-call of alumni which includes Boris Johnson, the Earl of Snowdon and Damian Lewis, Ashdown House is one of the best known prep schools in the country.
But, a few weeks from now, no one else will be forking out its eye-watering fees of £28,680 a year.
For when this term ends, Ashdown’s doors will close for ever — making it the first educational establishment to fall victim to coronavirus.
For when this term ends, Ashdown’s doors will close for ever — making it the first educational establishment to fall victim to coronavirus
It is an astonishing reversal of fortune. With a history stretching back 180 years, the school, in East Sussex, has had an outstanding academic record, with pupils regularly winning scholarships to Eton and other eminent public schools. However, well-heeled parents have felt less inclined to entrust their young children to Ashdown in recent years.
‘There should be 150 pupils,’ one devotee of the school tells me, ‘but there are fewer than 100 this academic year.’ A spokesman for the school, which is now co-educational, says that numbers, though precarious, had stabilised.
‘It had been a struggle, but progress was being made,’ he tells me, before adding that Covid-19 changed everything. ‘A number of the international boarders have made the decision that they’ll not be returning,’ he explains, ‘and there are [British] parents who may not be in a position to keep paying the fees.’
In total, a mere 50 pupils were due back for the new school year in September. Nevertheless, Ashdown, whose headmistress, Hilary Phillips, took up her post only last September, is not closing immediately.
With a roll-call of alumni which includes Boris Johnson (pictured), the Earl of Snowdon and Damian Lewis, Ashdown House is one of the best known prep schools in the country
‘We should be accepting some pupils back to the school tomorrow,’ the spokesman adds. ‘We are welcoming back any of Year 6 who want to come.’
Estate agents are now being called in to value the school premises and put it on the open market.
Some of Ashdown’s alumni will struggle to mourn its closure — particularly those who experienced the headmastership of the late Billy Williamson, who charmed parents and flogged pupils with equal gusto.
‘On one occasion our entire class was caned because a boy did something fairly petty and didn’t own up,’ recalled Lord Snowdon, who bore the courtesy title Viscount Linley while at the school.
His parents, Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, removed him after he’d endured two years in Williamson’s care.
David Bowie’s filmmaker son, Duncan Jones, is perturbed that race riot protesters in Santa Monica targeted Ye Olde King’s Head Gift Shoppe, which keeps homesick British ex-pats in PG Tips, McVitie’s biscuits and Emma Bridgewater china. ‘To the nuts smashing up & looting the King’s Head grocery store… there isn’t one thing in there you are even going to know what to do with,’ he complains.
Becker puts her back into it with yoga chum
Boris Becker’s estranged wife Lilly has been complaining about having to look after their eight-year-old son, Amadeus, while schools remain closed.
Now the 43-year-old Dutch model has found a way to restore her inner peace.
She posted a picture of herself in her South-West London garden being expertly propped up in the air by her model friend, Bianca Bowie-Phillips
She posted a picture of herself in her South-West London garden being expertly propped up in the air by her model friend, Bianca Bowie-Phillips. ‘Balance my mind, soul, and life. 2020 you are a challenge,’ she wrote.
Lilly, who separated from the Wimbledon star two years ago after nine years of marriage, recently admitted: ‘I need peace from my child. I am not a teacher. I want to spend a day with my friends, I want to see adults, and not just children.’
Fry reveals a rather unlikely Bond ambition
The name’s Fry — Stephen Fry. The TV polymath has admitted that his unlikely youthful ambition was to play ladies’ man James Bond.
‘Brutal, snobbish, sexist and cruel as he could be, I was a great lover of all things James Bond when I was a youth.
‘I don’t mind admitting, shallow and silly as it sounds, that I wanted to BE Bond,’ he says.
However, his ambition to succeed the likes of Sean Connery and Roger Moore was not to be. ‘As for my coming close to Bond, well, it didn’t take me long to realise with a sigh of acceptance that I was suited by nature to be a Blofeld or perhaps a Goldfinger or a Drax — even a Miss Moneypenny or a Q — but never a Bond. Heigh-ho . . .’
Joanna Lumley has found an absolutely fabulous — and somewhat surprising — thing to do during lockdown: writing a will. ‘[It] is not a gloomy thing to do; it’s a thrilling thing to do,’ insists the actress, 74.
‘It’s thinking about how whatever assets you have to leave can benefit and delight somebody in the future.’ Lumley has a son, Jamie, with former boyfriend Michael Claydon, as well as two granddaughters. She lives in London with her husband, conductor Stephen Barlow.
Charlie Watts and his wife of 55 years, Shirley, adopted a five-year-old greyhound called Suzie
Gimme shelter! Rolling Stone Watts rescues a greyhound
Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who turns 79 today, has marked the occasion by welcoming a new member into the family.
He and his wife of 55 years, Shirley, adopted a five-year-old greyhound called Suzie.
The dog was rescued from the racing industry by Forever Hounds Trust, of which Charlie’s wife is a long-time supporter. ‘Shirley and Charlie are well-known to the charity and we were able to find the right dog for their family,’ says chair of trustees Jan Lake.
Nice to see the unassuming Charlie take a lead role . . .
Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis was absent from her role as presenter last Wednesday after the BBC said she broke impartiality rules over Dominic Cummings. Now she is to miss another important engagement. Maitlis has pulled out of today’s online York Festival Of Ideas in which she was to talk about ‘the imperfect art of making the news’ and ‘the fine art — and often chaotic result — of the interview’. She has withdrawn due to ‘pressure of work’.
Queen of the Jungle Toff turns to flower power…
Queen of the Jungle Georgia Toffolo has become a trendsetter since winning I’m A Celeb in 2017.
Now, with the arrival of summer, she is hoping to inspire a bold new look: floral sequin eyewear.
The 25-year-old showed off her colourful eyelid decoration while posing in a black bikini top adorned with daisies. ‘Goes to the garden centre once,’ she joked in the caption about her unusual purchase.
The 25-year-old showed off her colourful eyelid decoration while posing in a black bikini top adorned with daisies
Toff is hoping to be taken more seriously soon as her new book — which she describes as her ‘first fiction novel’ — comes out this autumn.
Actor Matthew Macfadyen, who stars in U.S. series Succession, says Americans are much more bullish than Brits.
Macfadyen says: ‘Americans talk as if they’re not ever going to be interrupted. Brits always speak as if they anticipate someone butting in. Americans are much more confident.’
No Tinder moments for Jurassic star Sam
Hollywood star Sam Neill admits he is glad that he’s no longer on the singles market.
The Omagh-born actor, who’s best known for roles in Jurassic Park and The Piano, says: ‘If you’re lucky, sex is one strand of a beautifully textured and coloured fabric.
‘A very important part of the fabric, but only part of it.’ Neil, 72, who’s courting 59-year-old Australian political journalist Laura Tingle: adds: ‘Sex divorced from everything else seems kind of desolate.
‘I know people obviously a lot younger than me are on Tinder and Grindr and things. But it just sounds kind of . . . arid.’