Life after being expelled

[East Gun Copse]

I have often wondered what happened to people expelled from the school. Way back in the 1940/50s Someone being expelled was a very secretive affair. The person concerned was rushed off to the 'sicker' until presumably arrangements were made for their departure and no opportunity of contact with anyone else. Received wisdom was that it was a great disgrace and they had ruined the rest of their lives.

I like to think that it was just a blip in their lives and they went on to live a successful and fulfilled life. One occasionally reads a biography where the writer expelled from other schools goes on to forge a noteworthy career. I was once told that Old Blues would organise support for such people to help them on in their lives which is a nice thought.

Does anyone know of the end story for any person in that situation. I'm not looking for the name or reason for being expelled but to see if there are stories of recovery from such a setback.

[Foureyes]

An interesting question to which I do not know the answer.
Ian M. was a friend in my House, just a few places junior. He came from somewhere in North Kent and was a direct entry; i.e. did not come through the Prep. He was a known rebel, breaking rules regularly and deliberately, and often involving others in his activities (once including me which earned me my one and only beating in the Upper School). One day in his second or third year (I forget which) he quite simply disappeared and the word that he had been expelled was quietly passed around, but without the slightest hint as to why. Indeed, to this day I have no idea what offence he had committed that finally earned his expulsion nor what happened to him afterwards, but I hope that life was not too tough on him.
David

[time please]

While I was expelled I was asked/it was suggested that I should leave at the end of the summer term 74. This was agreed during the spring holidays. For me it meant that the whole of the summer term was brilliant. Did I go on a wrecking spree no not at all. If anything I became a model pupil. Basically during the whole of that term I enjoyed every day knowing that something I thought of as a sentence was coming to an end. The joy I felt when the train started moving from the station, my life was starting anew. Did I feel any disgrace? Why should I? Okay the autumn of that year was a bit dull as work was hard to find, or rather work was there but people were a little bit worried about taking on an ex public school boy. When I changed my approach things got better. On the day after my 18th nursing a gigantic hangover I was in Dover and mostly for fun got on a ferry, and have lived in the EU ever since.
I have no hard feelings towards the school. I was not suited to it and it was not suited to me.

[rockfreak]

In his book Gilded Youth James Brooke-Smith also voices similar sentiments about finding the period after he got kicked out of Shrewsbury school a bit of an anti-climax. There he was mooching about a small town on the Welsh Borders with nothing much to do. He took his final exams at a local school where, he said, the teachers couldn't have given a hoot whether he played his guitar or stuck safety pins through his nose. He deduced that what he lacked was a project. At least at Shrewsbury he and his mates had a stimulating objective - that of subverting the authorities and putting two fingers up. He concludes that he now rather missed it.
For some time afterwards he found a fatal attraction drew him down to the school borders where town finished and privileged sylvan playing fields began. He concludes at the end of his book: "In spite of the efforts of marketers and modernizers, the public school remains a place apart from the mainstream of British society, a rarefied world open only to a select group of young people the likes of which most of the population can only dream about. As long as it does, this iconic British institution will continue to be a powerful source of myth and fantasy, controversy and resentment."