Reminiscing With Genesis

Yeah, you've heard of that band, haven't you? Must have.

I have a book written by them called Chapter and Verse. In fact the one I have was one of the first and was signed (very sloppily) by the guitarist, Steve Hackett.

But one thing truly interesting about it (at least to me) is that all the founding members went to a place called Charterhouse.

And I followed them, only four years later. Would you like to hear what each one of them said about the same school that I attended only four years after them? Would you like to know how little it had changed in my time? I KNEW YOU WOULD.

TONY BANKS (Keyboards):

"From prep school I went to Charterhouse. My brother had gone there; I don't know why. He didn't like the place and although he was a bright guy, I remember seeing old school lists where it looked like he was at the bottom of the bottom class.

"When you attended prep school and you turned thirteen you were going to public (private) school; that was what happened. Again, Charterhouse was a boarding school, so I didn't like that aspect of it."

MIKE RUTHERFORD (Bass, guitars, of Mike and the Mechanics):

"And then it was Charterhouse. Big school was a bit scary at first: 800 boys. It was a shock, and I didn't really enjoy the first year at all (tell me about it, Mikey).

I was always in trouble at Charterhouse, whereas I never had been at prep school. My housemaster was a massive downer on me (me too, Mikey)."

ANTHONY PHILLIPS (founding guitarist -- I was best friends with his brother):

"Going to public school is pretty terrifying. At prep school (which I also attended) the masters had been frightening but at Charterhouse it was less the masters who worried me than the boys." (No shit, Ant).

PETER GABRIEL (Lead singer, flute):

"Going to Charterhouse was a family tradition. But I hated it. I had started boarding school to get a year's preparation for the big board exam and i actually enjoyed that quite a lot because I could cycle home at weekends. And then at Charterhouse, suddenly I was stuck there, trapped in this dormitory." (Me too, Pete, me too).

I remember my first night at the school very well. There were no curtains and it was near a road, whereas I'd grown up on a farm. So I could hear the noise of cars going past and see their headlights moving across the ceiling like anti-aircraft lights, and the air was full of the sounds of boys either crying or masturbating, or both. It was 'Welcome to grown-up school.'"

THREE FUCKING YEARS OF CHARTERHOUSE.

NOW YOU KNOW WHY I'M A FUCKING DRUNK.