In ‘Never Let Me Go’, the boarding school for the clones is Hailsham.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel presents Hailsham as an elite boarding school in an alternative 1990s England. Kathy H., Ruth, and Tommy grow up there under the supervision of guardians, with little contact with the outside world. The students are encouraged to produce artwork, avoid illness, and accept the school’s unusual routines without fully understanding their purpose.
Hailsham’s students eventually learn that they are clones created to become organ donors. Their artwork is collected by Madame for a gallery intended to demonstrate that the clones possess inner lives and souls. The school therefore serves both as their childhood home and as a failed humanitarian experiment.
A common mix-up is confusing Hailsham with the Cottages, where the characters live after leaving school. The Cottages are a later halfway house, not the boarding school itself.