Sad Little Men cover art

Sad Little Men

Private Schools and the Ruin of England

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Sad Little Men

By: Richard Beard
Narrated by: John Sackville
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

The number one best seller about the world that shaped Boris Johnson.

In 1975, as a child, Richard Beard was sent away from his home to sleep in a dormitory. So were David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

In those days a private boys' boarding school education was largely the same experience as it had been for generations: a training for the challenges of Empire. He didn't enjoy it. But the first and most important lesson was to not let that show.

Being separated from the people who love you is traumatic. How did that feel at the time, and what sort of adult does it mould?

This is a story about England, and a portrait of a type of boy, trained to lead, who becomes a certain type of man. As clearly as an X-ray, it reveals the make-up of those who seek power - what makes them tick, and why.

Sad Little Men addresses debates about privilege head-on; clearly and unforgettably, it shows the problem with putting a succession of men from boarding schools into positions of influence, including 10 Downing Street. Is this who we want in charge, especially at a time of crisis?

It is a passionate, tender reckoning - with one individual's past, but also with a national bad habit.

©2021 Richard Beard (P)2021 Penguin Audio Cultural & Regional Inspiring Thought-Provoking England

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All stars
Most relevant  
I really enjoyed this book. I found it very therapeutic in helping me to understand my father better, who boarded from the age of 9. It was written and narrated beautifully. I strongly recommend reading this book even if you or anyone you know hasn’t experienced boarding school because it will help you to understand our country’s leaders and why they make the decisions they do.

Excellent and therapeutic

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Insightful, important and urgent. A personal account which explores the educational origins of British inequality.

A very important book about the British Class System.

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Quite a revelation… and kinda terrifying! I had no idea just what a tight club this was and it’s impact on all of us.

Required listening

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A much better way of learning about public schools than attending one.

I was lucky that my parents sent me to the local state schools for all my education. As I progressed my career to lead a large department at Oxford University I have found myself by an ever increasing proportion of the privately educated. Many are emotionally repressed and lack empathy. I now understand why. Perhaps they were “budgeted senseless” but it didn’t teach them much “about life” to bastardise a line from George the boor from Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Explains a lot

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A great book that pinpoints precisely the cancer that makes this country the malignant presence that it is and always has been to the global community at large.

Until these Sad Little Men realise they are the problem not the solution they will keep killing themselves and dragging the rest of us down with them.

Great Diagnosis of the UKs Terminal Illness

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a well told and surprisingly shocking account of a system for training an entitled and unconsciously elite.

a good look at the public school system

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This book helps us to understand the suffering inflicted on boarding school children who in their turn inflict further suffering upon the population of this country. Torn away from their parents in childhood and given, instead of parental warmth and affection, a vicious initiation into closing all doors into the self in order to survive, they barely recognise any other than their school peers as deserving of attention. Not ‘in the club’? You don’t really exist then except as a source of potential income in a generalised sense.

A tragedy for all sides

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Explains so much about the disturbing behaviour of many of the leading figures in English public life. So much damage inflicted by ignorant and well intentioned parents. Well worth listening.

Astonishingly honest and revealing

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Didn't like the readers voice much, the authors would have been better. I heard him being interviewed and he has a good voice. A great book that I have recommended to others.

Great book!

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Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Harrowing at times (pun intended - I think), but balanced with a gentle sense of absurdity and humour. Overall, a forensically detailed (and rather damning) appraisal of it's subject that goes a long way to explain the ways in which people were institutionalised by this system...

Enlightening

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