Seventeen-year-old CHRISTOPHER LILLYCROP reflects on seven years as a boarder at Abingdon School

I have often wondered what an outsider would think if they wandered around one of our boarding houses at eight o'clock in the morning. Dayboys are often mystified by the fact that we boarders can sleep in longer than anyone else, and yet are late for the start of school with impressive consistency.

It is true that the morning can paint an unfavourable picture of our habits, but after seven years of boarding at Abingdon School I have learnt that the boarding houses are not merely good homes, but also the beating hearts of the entire school.

Perhaps because we conserve our energies through our late rising, boarders have a prodigious record of contributing to the academic and recreational activities here at Abingdon. There is scarcely a club or sports team which does not have the school's permanent residents at its core.

Some would say that it is Abingdon's wide range of pursuits outside the classroom what we dub the Other Half that makes boarding here such a success.

When lessons finish each day, almost every boy in the school plunges into its preferred activity for an hour, but for boarders this process lasts all evening. A typical week for me might involve a concert on Monday, a lecture on Tuesday, cricket on a Wednesday, followed by chapel the next day, and football to conclude the week.

Of course, some might fear that this leaves little time for work, and that is a claim often hurled by those jealous of the fact that we are still playing sport while they are sitting on buses, queuing along the A34.

But when darkness descends, prep begins. Some boys boast of their talent for avoiding work, but despite their efforts, the boarding houses are excellent environments for working. When exam leave comes around, I always choose to stay in school because I work so much better here than at home.

Everyone has characters from their schooldays whom they despised, but if you are living with this individual 24-7 it is a different matter.

There is such a variety of people boarding at Abingdon that if I really tire of the South African who shares my room, as well as the German, Russian and Maldivian across the corridor, I am forced down a flight of stairs to seek the company of an American, a Cossack and a native of Hong Kong.

d=3,2,1This variety does not only make for a wide range of international liquors and exciting holiday invitations, it also offers varied conversation and a plethora of insights. You can be revising for an exam on the Napoleonic Wars, when a proud Muscovite enters and declares that your entire education on the subject is false.

As difficult as it is to counter this claim, you are rather glad of his company when trying to perfect your pronunciation ahead of a Russian oral.

The staff, too, play an important role in the boarding environment. As I approach the end of my seven years, I look back with some nostalgia on staff who have shaped my life. The same people who once seemed to be pressing my nose to the grindstone are now offering me a glass of port in their flat to congratulate me on the success that their earlier efforts have yielded. The staff are in many ways what glue the variety of characters in a boarding house together.

At a recent school debate, a motion to eliminate boarders from the school was resoundingly defeated. For me, the greatest joy was how boarders came in droves to declare what Abingdon meant to them. A school is an important formative influence on anyone's life, but for me it has an even more important role it is my home.