Marlborough school’s obsession with success fed my depression, James Middleton says

The Princess of Wales’s younger brother says he felt a failure at school as he publishes his autobiography

James Middleton has suggested an obsession with success at Marlborough, the boarding school he attended, may have contributed to his depression.
The younger brother of the Princess of Wales said that the well-known independent school was so focused on making students the best at everything – an attitude he acknowledged served his sisters, the Princess, 42, and Pippa Matthews, 41, very well – that he felt a failure.
He suggested that if his personal struggles had been identified by teachers during his teenage years, that might have allowed him to manage his expectations about who he was.
Publicising his new autobiography at Waterstones in central London, the 37-year-old acknowledged that his alma mater was a “fantastic” school and he was fortunate to have gone there.
He added: “Perhaps my criticism was that it was too focused on what one would call success, or being the best, or the top. So it’s all about the best grades, the top of the class, the top teams.”
He said there were eight different teams in all of the sports played at Marlborough but that it was “only really the first teams that ever got spoken about”.
“I was never in the first teams,” he added. “My sisters were, and they did very well and it worked fantastically for them in how they operated. But for me, it wasn’t like that. I was dragging at the bottom.
“It was a shame, in a way, that some of the things that I found challenging in my life were not picked up then.
“Because I think that could have gone on to help me manage myself, my own expectations, a bit further down the line, so perhaps not allow me to go where I went to because I would have felt more accepted, not felt like perhaps a failure.”
He said that at school, he was a square peg in a round hole, more interested in “the things that were going on outside the window”, such as the birds roosting in the gutters and climbing trees, than his lessons.
In his book, Meet Ella, The Dog Who Saved My Life, Mr Middleon reveals he had to take a gap year to retake his chemistry A-level four times, which he describes as a “humiliating record” for Marlborough.
His mother Carole was reduced to tears by his exam results, and his father Michael told him his private education had been a “waste of money”, he writes.
After contemplating suicide, Mr Middleton received a diagnosis of depression and attention deficit disorder (ADHD). He credits his beloved dog Ella with turning his life around.
He brought two of his dogs, Zulu and Nala, to the book signing and, in somewhat chaotic scenes, attempted to pose with the many other dogs taken to the event by members of the audience.
Mr Middleton acknowledged that when his sister Catherine was engaged to Prince William, the media interest was a challenge to navigate.
“I made mistakes. I didn’t get it right all the time,” he said. “I learned quite quickly where the private button was on Facebook, to not share photos, as photos of me in drag at Halloween were suddenly in various newspapers… I think I learnt the hard way, but also I learned quickly.”
He added: “I recognised [that] I was always going to be known not as James Middleton, but as Catherine’s brother. That’s not a negative thing at all. It was an understanding that that was my position, and I never wanted to do anything to try and challenge [it].
“It was a weird time. A lot of it happened so quickly, but equally, we were given fantastic support by my brother-in-law.”
Marlborough College has been contacted for comment.