Every Sunday at my Dublin prep school (Castle Park) we had to write a letter to our parents. These were strictly censored to eliminate any off-message remarks about the CP regime. My sister’s first school did not have such a restriction.
Angela was sent to Stradbally, an eccentric establishment in Co Laois. It was given to the Cosby family by Elizabeth I as a reward for bringing the Irish to heel (not wholly successfully) and remains in their hands today. Mrs Cosby in the 1950s, finding herself short of funds, set up a girls’ school assisted by three governesses. Its USP (Unique Selling Point) was that pupils could bring their ponies.
I never saw Angela’s first letter home but it is a family legend that she complained bitterly and asked to be taken home immediately; “PS send hot water bottle”. The Queen Mother’s exiguous telegram asking her father for money when she was a child takes some beating: “SOS, LSD, RSVP”.
Angela did leave Stradbally. She came home for the holidays with her pony and nits. Mrs Cosby’s robust response to my mother’s complaint was that Angela had introduced the nits to her school. Poor Angela then went to Hillcourt – no ponies allowed, although more usefully she had riding lessons at Dudgeon’s. Colonel Dudgeon was a distinguished horseman representing Ireland often at the Olympics and had set up a riding school conveniently close to Hillcourt and Castle Park. I, too, received instruction there, although I was never at ease in the saddle. The propinquity of the schools made for a deeply unpleasant sporting fixture: CP v Hillcourt at hockey. To mix metaphors, those girls were beef to the heels like Mullingar heifers and hacked at our shins as if they were chopping firewood. After this torture our captain presented their’s with a box of chocolates.
Meanwhile the Cosbys still live at Stradbally but have devised a better way of making money. They have an annual arts and music festival, Electric Picnic, and a National Steam Rally.
