Cricket is also ideally suited to boarding-school life because it goes on for hours and soaks up whole afternoons

St Leonads, Wycombe Abbey, Rodean, Cheltenham, Sherborne School for Girls and Malvern Girls' College modelled themselves on boys' public schools: hence the cricket. Cricket is also ideally suited to boarding-school life because it goes on for hours and soaks up whole afternoons.

Y. Maxtone Graham, Terms and conditions: life in girls' boarding schools 1939 - 1979 (2016), 188

The acceptable home address was: name of large house; village it was quite near; county.

The acceptable home address was: name of large house; village it was quite near; county. It was not done to live at any kind of obscure urban address, such as 24 Whitfield road, Haslemere. Only one girl on the whole list did live at that kind of address and I pity her, because its stands out. If you did have an urban address it had to be a London one, and ideally Cadogan, Belgrave or Eaton something

Y. Maxtone Graham, Terms and conditions: life in girls' boarding schools 1939 - 1979 (2016), 125

No fewer than fifteen had lost one or both parents when they were children

All told, of the twenty-four individuals who became Prime Minister between 1809 and 1937, no fewer than fifteen had lost one or both parents when they were children. ... [the 1921 census] suggested that about 1 per cent of children under the age of fifteen had suffered the death of one or both parents. Yet the figure among Prime Ministers was 62 per cent. 

J. Paxman, The political animal (2002), 34-35

You are expecting the nectar of the gods, and what you get is cough mixture

I have tried meads that taste of urine, and meads that taste of petroleum waste . What I have not tasted are any that are particularly nice. Bad mead is worse than the most mediocre wine, because of the expectations it raises. You are expecting the nectar of the gods, and what you get is cough mixture, if you are lucky.

B. Wilson, The Hive (2004), 159

This has really put me off mead, which instinctively, I feel I would like very much.

Fleming threatened to rename the character 'Goldprick', and the case never came to court.

[Brutalism's] most notorious exponent was the patrician Hungarian-born architect Erno Goldfinger, who lived in an uncompromising concrete framed cottage in Hampstead that he had designed himself, infuriating his wealthy neighbours. The novelist Ian Fleming took such exception to Goldfinger's home that he used his surname for one of James Bond's most evil adversaries. When Goldfinger consulted his lawyers, Fleming threatened to rename the character 'Goldprick', and the case never came to court.

D. Sandbrook, White Heat (2006), 622-3

The soundtrack of the American musical South Pacific spent forty-six weeks at number one

The most popular Beatles' album, Please Please Me, spent forty-three weeks in the Top Ten. By comparison, the soundtrack of the American musical South Pacific spent forty-six weeks at number one, and more than three years in the Top Ten. Yet even this was dwarfed by the outstanding musical product of the sixties, Rogers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music. The two versions of this phenomenally successful musical - a Broadway recording from 1960 and the film soundtrack of 1965 - remained in the Top Ten of the album chart for more than five years, and the film soundtrack held the number one spot for a staggering 69 weeks.

D. Sandbrook, White Heat (2006), 412-3

There was nothing quite like the condescension of the public schoolboy for his grammar school equivalent.

Wilson himself had sent his children to private schools, as did most of his ministers. C.P. Snow explained that 'if you are living in a prosperous home it is a mistake to educate your child differently from most of the people he knows socially'.

...

The destruction of the grammar schools was a project close to Crosland's heart. He had been educated at Highgate, a minor public school. If he had attended a grammar school, like Wilson or Heath, or his friends and rivals Jenkins or Healey, then he might have been less keen to abolish an institution that had manifestly succeeded in propelling bright pupils from modest backgrounds to the highest places in the land. Unfortunately, as Wilson and Health were well aware, there was nothing quite like the condescension of the public schoolboy for his grammar school equivalent.

D. Sandbrook, White Heat (2006), 334

The generation gap, meanwhile, appeared to be a myth

[In 1969] All social groups, rich and poor, young and old, agreed that there was 'too much publicity given to sex', that 'murderers ought to be hanged' and, by an enormous margin, there were 'too many coloured immigrants in the country now'. The generation gap, meanwhile, appeared to be a myth. In a stunning refutation of the simplistic identification of young people with political progressivism, two-thirds of young people between sixteen and twenty-four agreed that hanging should be brought back, while hostility to coloured immigrants was even stronger among the young than among pensioners.

D. Sandbrook, White Heat (2006), 199

Later (p. 681), Sandbrook observes 74% of the country later agreed with Powell's Rivers of blood speech.

Does not everybody have a head like a skull?

Home was notoriously ill suited for television, and when he arrived in the studio for one early appearance as Prime Minister he had a depressing exchange with the make-up assistant.

HOME: Can you not make me look better than I do on television? I look rather scraggy like a ghost.
MAKE-UP LADY: No.
HOME: Why not?
MAKE-UP LADY: Because you have a head like a skull.
HOME: Does not everybody have a head like a skull?
MAKE-UP LADY: No.

D. Sandbrook, White Heat (2006), 9

Few flashes of lust at parties; perhaps we could not afford to drink enough

There was no infidelity in The Huts, or none that I knew of. We lived so close together, we were poor and too busy. Few flashes of lust at parties; perhaps we could not afford to drink enough.

A. Munro, 'Tell me yes or no', Something I've been meaning to tell you (1974), 108

There were only forty of us, and you could take your own pony

If you look at old photographs of such schools, the girls are smiling genuine giggly smiles of joy. Alexandra Etherington showed me photographs of her and her friends in kilts and blouses at Butterstone, near Dunkeld, in 1969, and I don't think I've ever seen such happy children.  'I can still name every girl in those photos,' said Alexandra, 'there were only forty of us, and you could take your own pony.'

Y. Maxtone Graham, Terms and conditions: like in girls' boarding schools 1939-1979 (2016), 93