What missing link connects these adolescent Austrolapithici with modern man? What cataclysmic evolutionary event could conceivably transform these noxious Neanderthals into the civilised humans who leave the School?
Some learned authorities point to the seasonal arrival of a small number of females in the autumn. Whether or not it can be linked to tiny groups of timid girls, the transformation is as sudden as it is remarkable: hair is washed (even brushed), razors employed (with varying efficacy), ties tied, and even foreheads appear to flatten and chins to recede.
The alleged aetiological agents have themselves undergone transformation. Not six months previously they had doubtless visited the School on that embarrassed day when, each year, two single sex gaggles meet. They stare at each other, as if shocked by the unequivocal empirical evidence of such bizarre sub-species.
Over the course of the next six months these very girls (for we are told that they are the same individuals) will evolve spectacularly from embarrassed, misshapen, big-haired lumps into the confident, bright young girls of the Westminster Sixth Form.
It is largely as a result of this meeting of two groups that the rigid tribal networks break down. Old chiefs whose power lay in their perceived strength or hairiness are now deposed by previously unconsidered pupils whose social skill is greater. The old spectrum of rebellion is irreversibly fractured, from those who expressed their angst-ridden adolescent non-conformity through studied stupidity or direct disobedience of rules - and who are now paradigms of exemplary behaviour - to those whose extreme non-conformity drove them to rebel against their rebel peers and maintain an intellectual aloofness - and who now will break any rule to assert their new-found conventionality.
Now the Neanderthals can quote Nietzche and, as if by accident, the people whom the School is ready to throw out are now - despite being such unpromising starting material - almost recognisable as advanced human beings.
Alasdair Donaldson (Milne's)
When I was offered my place here, it was met with considerable surprise from many of my friends. How was it that I would be going to such a renowned establishment? After all I was not tall, blonde or beautiful, although of course I am now. At first I was a little sceptical about this theory, but on arrival and discovery that all new girls were to have their photograph taken, it was confirmed. These photographs are kept for a long time after we leave, somewhat suspiciously, in a locked filing cabinet.
Westminster's very own Spice Girls are prominent in the Common Room. Frances Ramsey is now Director of Studies, which is possibly the highest position attained by a woman at the School; Gilly French is in charge of LSAs (Baby Spice); two Heads of Department are female (Biology and History of Art); and then there is the celebrated position of Sporty Spice. This title is hotly contested between Fiona Freckleton - the School's first female Housemaster, who chose to retain the title of Master in place of the more politically correct 'Mistress' ('Good for her,' we all cry) - and Claudia Harrison, who is not only on the Common Room's football and hockey teams, but is also on the Exams team, in a prominent midfield position.
One thing all girls at the School would be fascinated to know is the average Westminster boy's idea of Girl Power. One indication of their attitude to girls in the light of Girl Power is reflected in the 'Spice Lists' that appeared on the boys' toilets' walls in the Lent Term 1997. Were the boys expressing their admiration of their pop heroines and their female peers? Or were the lists just a way of venting pre-adolescent spite?
I will leave you to judge for yourselves by presenting a somewhat abridged list:
name deleted: Curry and Rice Spice
name deleted: Think Twice Spice
name deleted: Think Thrice Spice
I myself have been called Psycho Spice on many occasions.
What is it that the boys have against the girls? Is it that, as statistics suggest, the girls are intellectually superior (even if there are exceptions) or is it simply that they are much more attractive than the boys? Or are there elements of the girls' life at Westminster that make them unwitting targets, set up by a sense of injustice? There are certainly advantages to being a Westminster girlie: not having to wear uniform for example, although even this can be a problem - after all one cannot wear the same clothes more than once in a term. Then of course there is the risk of disagreement with Mr Smith and other Common Room on what actually constitutes regulation clothing. Girls are often blissfully unaware that they are wearing illegal clothing until they are told to take it off by a member of staff - not necessarily then and there. As a sideline to the clothing issue, and a matter of minor interest, I have seen girls 'busted' for wearing a skirt that is too long, but never for wearing a skirt that is too short. Perhaps I have just been leading a sheltered existence.
Maybe the boys are jealous of girls getting away with blue murder by resorting to a woman's most powerful weapon.... I mean of course, turning on the waterworks at the first sign of a teacher's wrath. Girl Power often means pretending to be subject to girl weakness whereas the macho Westminster male, foolhardy if he uses aggression in the face of authority, merely has to take his medicine like the man he pretends to be.
The girls do not have it all their own way. The range of sports available is fairly pathetic - no football, no rugby, both considered far too dangerous for young ladies (has anyone actually experienced a game of Lacrosse?) - and those which are offered are woefully under-exposed. Girls' rowing will barely credit a mention, yet any boys' crew which even starts a race will have its virtues extolled until Judgement Day. However there was a ray of light this term as girls were offered the option of playing cricket on Station days. Cricket, so favoured by John Major and other such role-models, the last bastion of English manhood - not to be confused with Australian manhood (nor for that matter with Indian, West Indian etc) - and the reason why, ever so often, eleven seemingly normal boys adorn themselves with ridiculous blazers, complete with big gold buttons. Proof, if ever there was need of any, that boys like jewellery even more than girls.
All this is in stark contrast with my previous school, a South-West London Comprehensive, where the general ideal of Girl Power involved sitting around at Hammersmith tube station pulling faces at the girls from Godolphin and Latymer. Hardly surprising when all one had to rebel against was a forward-thinking Spice Girl of a headmistress (not really so much a Spice Girl as a Herb Girl as she enjoyed nothing more than communing with the fresh basil and thyme at her local Sainsbury's).
During my period at the School, my role-models have changed somewhat. I now aspire to be like one of the wonderful cleaning ladies. From the terrifying Ivy to the eccentric Celia they hold the affection of their charges. I cannot imagine a day without the latter informing me of my resemblance to her son's girlfriend Ellie (who happens to love her pork pies). Girl Power: make what you will of it, some of us do not need an excuse to assert ourselves over our male peers. It just happens.
By the way I have a new album coming out in August....
Katya Aplin (Liddell's)