As always Boots, spot on. I was expelled too btw, not from a public school though, motorcycle related!
Good point. At Oxford I met people from a wide variety of backgrounds: comprehensive schools, grammars (like me), private schools, public schools and Eton. Also ranging from poor/orphaned/on benefits all the way to peers and billionaires. It was always possible to tell an Etonian from anybody else - Etonians have a special air of aplomb, being confident, comfortable, and in command of themselves under all circumstances, which few others can match. No matter who or what you are, you all have to study, do the work, write the essays, and take the exams just the same. I have to say I never felt inferior to people who were richer, titled, or better educated than me. I did feel markedly inferior to people who were cleverer - which was most of them.
There are three large detached houses in the area where I live; through a lifetime of hard work, one of them is mine. It's mainly bedsit land or aspiring working class families in semi's. Well it is end of the runway and I needed to be near an airport for my old job. An author and owner of one of the other "detached" houses frequently had is mail incorrectly delivered to me. I used to collect it up and take it to him on a regular basis, always thanking me and treated me as an equal. On only one occasion the reverse happen. It was a cold and blowy Autumn day, but I was outdoors on my drive sweeping leaves. Weather being what it was I had on a large coat n woolly hat. I didn't see him walk up, so he tapped me on the shoulder and looked me in the eye and said "do me a favour old chap, give these letters to the master of the house" and just walked off. For some people talking to the staff just isn't the done thing. For the record I left home at 16 (not my choice, but my fathers) with nought.
