Cyril Connolly - Eton

Eton

At Eton, after a traumatic first few terms, he settled into a comfortable routine. He won over his early tormentor Godfrey Meynell and became a popular wit. In 1919 his parents moved to The Lock House on the Basingstoke Canal at Frimley. At Eton Connolly was involved in romantic intrigues and school politics which he described in Enemies of Promise. He established a reputation as an intellectual and earned the respect of Dadie Rylands and Denis King-Farlow. Connolly's particular circle included Denis Dannreuther, Bobbie Longden and Roger Mynors. In summer 1921 his father took him on a holiday to France, initiating Connolly's love of travel. The following winter he went with his mother to Mürren, where he became friends with Anthony Knebworth. By this time his parents were living separate lives, his mother having established a relationship with another army officer, and his father becoming an increasingly heavy drinker and absorbed in his study of slugs and snails. In 1922 Connolly achieved academic success winning the Rosebery History Prize, and followed this up with the Brackenbury History scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. In the spring he visited St Cyprian's to report his achievement to his old headmaster, before setting off on a trip to Spain with a school friend. Returning moneyless, he spent the night in a kip at St Martins, London. In his last term at Eton he was elected to Pop, which brought him into contact with others he respected, including Nico Davies, Teddy Jessel and Lord Dunglass. He established rapport with Brian Howard, but, he concluded, "moral cowardice and academic outlook debarred him from making friends with Harold Acton, Oliver Messel, Robert Byron, Henry Green and Anthony Powell". Connolly was for years afterwards nostalgic about his time at Eton.