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Stiff Upper Lip

Secrets, Crimes and the Schooling of a Ruling Class

By: Alex Renton

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Paperback | 28 January 2026

At a Glance

Paperback
416 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.8 x 13.2 x 2.6

Paperback

$34.75

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'A brave and necessary book' GUARDIAN

'Shocking, gripping and sobering' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

No other society sends its young boys and girls away to school to prepare them for a role in the ruling class.

Beating, bullying, fagging, cold baths, vile food and paedophile teachers are just some of the features of this elite education, and, while some children loved boarding school, others now admit to suffering life-altering psychological damage. Stiff Upper Lip exposes the hypocrisy, cronyism and conspiracy that are key to understanding the scandals over abuse and neglect in institutions all over the world.

Award-winning investigative journalist Alex Renton went to three traditional boarding schools. Drawing on those experiences, and the vivid testimony of hundreds of former pupils, he has put together a compelling history, important to anyone wondering what shaped the people who run Britain in the twenty-first century.

Industry Reviews

At last, a scrupulously honest insight into private boarding education in Britain - ranging from the abuse to which it subjects the child, and the family, to the abuse of Britain's social order in laying the foundation to buying your child's way to the top

Renton mixes memoir and anecdote with deeply researched history ... this is a brave and necessary book - GUARDIAN

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