William Boyd looks back on his boarding school years, which provided inspiration for his novels, School Ties (1983), and Dutch Girls (1985).
William attended Gordonstoun boarding school in Moray, Scotland for nine and a half years. Upon finishing, he felt as though he knew nothing about life outside of school walls. He asked his father for a year off before starting University at Oxford, and was granted permission on the premise that he do something productive in that time.
It was then that William moved to Nice in the south of France to pursue a diploma in French Studies. He tells t5m of his time there, living as a poor student and writer through the postal strike, and using this time to reinvent himself.
