I was appointed home tutor to the 14-year-old son of a rich Indian businessman in Bombay during their summer holidays. His son had finished his first year at Eton where he had been teased about being Indian; he had lost his self-confidence and was hating Eton and dreaded going back.

At first Farouk was hostile towards me, but over the two months that I spent with him we grew very close and he came to trust me. I became his mentor. 

I started by teaching him all the academic things that he had failed to learn in his first year because of his great unhappiness, but in fact he was a quick learner and a bright boy and this turned out to be the easy part of the assignment. 

What happened afterwards was much more important for him; I helped him regain the self-confidence that he had had while he was at prep school in England, which had had a much friendlier environment than the cut and thrust of Eton. I did this by playing squash with him; he had played quite a lot, but was not very good; I considerably improved his game and this gave him back his confidence that he had lost at Eton.

I spent two very happy months with Farouk and his family and he wrote to me after his first week back at Eton, saying that he felt completely different at school; he seemed to have the respect of his fellow pupils and felt happy with them. And his work was no problem. I understand from his father that his housemaster’s report at the end of the term said that he was a ‘changed boy’. 

Tutors from England can supply a similar home tutor for your son. LW