The boys at Durnford School bathed naked in a cold natural pool every morning, ate large quantities of unpalatable food, bullied one another, played rough games, and roamed freely around the countryside. Academic work was not stressed, and Fleming was, in any case, uninterested in it.
After five years at Durnford, Fleming was sent to Eton, where he continued to do mediocre academic work. His performance at team sports, which were an important part of life at Eton, was uneven because of his erratic and unsocial behavior and because his desire to display ruggedness and courage gave his play a kamikaze quality which was sometimes breathtaking but often ineffective. However, he consistently excelled in field sports such as racing and hurdling, and in 1925, at the age of sixteen, he won almost every event in the school competition: the 220-yard, quartermile, half-mile, and mile races; the hurdles; the long jump; throwing the cricket ball; and the steeplechase. In 1925 and again in 1926 he was Victor Ludorum (Champion of the Games).
Despite his athletic accomplishments Fleming's personal eccentricities brought him into conflict with his housemaster, E. V. Slater, who was old-fashioned in his ideas and abrupt in his manner.
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