When I asked a group of girls who had been at Hatherop Castle in the 196os whether the school had a lab in those days they gave me a blank look. "A laboratory?" I expanded ... "Oh that kind of lab!" one of them said. "I thought you meant a Labrador."
As we discover from this quietly hilarious history of life in British girls' boarding-schools, this was a not untypical reaction.
Harsh matrons, freezing dormitories and appalling food predominated, but at some schools you could take your pony with you and occasionally these eccentric establishments imbued in their pupils a lifetime love of the arts and a thirst for self-education. In Terms & Conditions Ysenda speaks to members of a lost tribe - the Boarding-school Women, who look back on their experiences with a mixture of horror and humour.