Michael Turner and Anthony Fuller were at Eton, Mark Woodhouse at Marlborough, and Jonathan Neame at Harrow. But a book just out shows many public schoolboys have taken to running pubs rather than companies, as Mark Taylor reports
Now, you're not going to lambaste me in print, are you, jokes Freddie Longe before I've even had time to fire my first question of the interview.
As the author of a new guidebook of pubs run by ex-public schoolboys, Longe seems curiously nervous about how he will be represented in newsprint.
"It's just that a few people in the book were actually very reluctant to be labelled with the public school tag," he confides. "They run very serious businesses and I don't think they wanted to be bracketed as wine-swilling, fag-smoking landlords."
Fruity And The Ferret: The Publican Schoolboy Guide is Longe's print debut and, since its release in November, it has created much interest in the rarefied circles of Old Boys Societies and Britain's public schools.
The book lists 40 pubs, inns and hotels run by former public schoolboys, with each entry containing a quirky description of the place, a photograph and a small graphic denoting that all-important nugget of information the school colours and rugby shirt of the landlord.
An Old Wellingtonian himself ("absolutely loved it best five years of my life without a shadow of a doubt"), 23-year-old Longe hadn't thought about writing a pub guide until chance meetings with Fruity and The Ferret the two ex-public schoolboys who gave the book its title.
The project started when Longe and his father spent an evening at the Tunnel House in Cirencester, which is run by old family friend (and Old Amplefordian), Andrew "Fruity" Freeland.
"Andrew had just taken over the pub so we went there and had a few beers," recalls Longe. "In the morning, we were feeling pretty hungover and on the way back, my father said he knew of another chap we could visit and that turned out to be Johnny The Ferret' Ferrand, an Old Harrovian, who runs the Pheasant Inn near Hungerford. Johnny said he knew of some other public school landlords I could talk to and it all started from that."
With the idea of the book formulated, an advertisement was placed in The Spectator, requesting former public schoolboys running pubs to get in touch.
"I got a dozen responses, most of them from eccentric old farts who were simply intrigued about the advert. Unfortunately, most of them just frequented pubs, rather than actually running them."
But word soon got around about the project, and Longe received some help from the various school societies. He then travelled the country, visiting the pubs and interviewing the landlords involved.
"It was extremely exhaustive and embarrassing," says Longe. "There aren't many ruder questions than asking people which public school they went to. It's very competitive between schools and there's lots of rivalry between home counties schools like Eton and Harrow.
"There were three or four extremely helpful old school societies which gave me lists of landlords and small hotel owners.
"Some of the pub owners were very responsive, but it's quite an elitist idea and while some of the landlords felt that they didn't mind being included, they weren't going to openly market it.
"Some of them didn't want to alienate people, but others have been absolutely delighted with it and are now selling copies behind the bar.
"I think it was Repton which refused on puritanical grounds, saying that: we don't keep records of the sort of establishment to which you refer and this is not the sort of project with which we wish to be associated', which was extraordinary."
The book, which has been described as "Friends Reunited meets Camra (the Campaign for Real Ale)", does not pretend to be a comprehensive pub guide and Longe thinks there must be many more former public school publicans out there maybe enough for a second volume. Sales of Fruity and The Ferret are already looking healthy and Longe is looking to his next project possibly a guide to pubs run by ex-sportsmen.
"All the people I met were quite charismatic, some were quite reserved and a couple were pretty offish, but I've made some extraordinary friends through the process.
"One of the maddest' of the lot was Gerry Stonhill at the Mason Arms near Witney in Oxfordshire. He's a cracking character he encourages people in the main bar to smoke a pipe, cigar or cigarette... and he doesn't even put prices on the menu."
And then there's Guy Ross-Lowe, who runs the Cholmondeley Arms in Cheshire, a publican who takes a strong anti-cliché line in his pub, where phrases such as "at the end of the day..." and "the bottom line is..." are strongly frowned upon.
If there is a common link between the licensees featured in the book, it's that many of them uphold certain pub traditions that are gradually being eroded by the "nanny state". They tend to be places for good conversation, conviviality and not places for the politically correct, teetotallers or vegans.
As former captain of the Coldstream Guards, Andrew "Fruity" Freeland, puts it: "Pubs are for smoking fags and drinking beer, not nibbling salad and sipping water".
Longe says: "The running themes are that they're not big on vegetarians, they are liberally-minded in the sense that they don't like to restrict smoking. Generally speaking, dogs are very welcome, the pubs don't have fruit machines, they're not gastro pubs, but they take food, real ale and wine seriously.
"The pubs may be styled in a certain way with hunting or shooting prints on the walls or cricket photographs, but I think you just know you're in good company when you can have a couple of drinks and have a chat about something you have in common. All these places have a certain friendliness and character."
l Fruity and The Ferret is published by Riverside Book Services, priced at £9.99. To order a copy, call 01502 470080.