Comments on: Denied The Chance To Love: Examples Of Abuse In British Boarding Schools

By: Christian crusader John Smyth in teen abuse scandal/ Son PJ Smyth heads US ‘megachurch’ embroiled in sex scandal/Archbishop Welby/Cover-Up | goodnessandharmony

Fri, 14 Apr 2017 11:42:12 +0000

[…] http://khironhouse.dev.fl9.uk/blog/denied-the-chance-to-love-abuse-in-a-british-prep-school/ Horris Hill maintains links with Pembroke School in Gilgil. Teaching staff occasionally leave HH to teach in Kenya and a group of current boys travelled to Kenya last Easter. Based at Pembroke School they visited wild life refuges, took part in adventurous training and spent time and played football with local, disadvantaged Kenyan boys at the Restart Centre http://fluencycontent-schoolwebsite.netdna-ssl.com/FileCluster/HorrisHill/MainFolder/Old-Boys/2-OB-Newsletter-2013.pdf […]

By: Denied the chance to love: Abuse in a British Prep School | Boarding Concern

Wed, 05 Nov 2014 16:47:12 +0000

[…] Fry, the founder of Khiron House trauma treatment clinics has blogged about prep school sexual […]

By: Christopher Frey

Christopher Frey — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 14:59:14 +0000

I had much the same experience but in my case I must have been the school problem pupil.I was beaten every day by a very Christian headmaster who told me he would continue to do so until I changed my ways.
I was isolated from the other pupils,in my own room, because the matron was afraid that my behavior would spread.
My problem was two fold.I was getting it at home as well.My father had been killed in the war and so a friend of his offered to take care of my mother and me out of friendship.It later transpired that my stepfather was an aggressive drunkard who needed to be rescued by my father from more than one drunken brawl.The beatings and punches from him were all about the fact that I wasn’t at all like my father and why was I not?
So,I took every bit of money I had in my savings book.Sold anything else I could.Took my passport and instead of going back to school,changed into civvies and caught the boat to Sweden where my mother had relatives.
My relatives were surprised but when I told them my reasons for running away got the local doctor to check me over.He took pictures and X Rays and told my relatives that I should become a Ward of the local Swedish court.
To cut a long story short.I went to school in Sweden and to University in England and Sweden.
It was just the fantastic luxury of being able to talk to an adult without fear and that of being believed.
I am now a retired teacher and happily married to a teacher with children that I really love and who love me.
I have always looked for signs on children who didn’t trust adults and I have tried to help them

By: fi

fi — Thu, 22 May 2014 17:03:48 +0000

Another brave disclosure to help all those people who have gone through similar tough and very unnerving experiences! I am sure a lot of good will come out of this courageous public unmasking,long overdue!
Thank you

By: Courtenay Young

Courtenay Young — Thu, 15 May 2014 19:21:35 +0000

As Ros said: “Creepy, scary, alarming” – but – for all that, only too horribly familiar. I went through a similar “system” but with a very different set of abusive experiences. The whole atmospheric environment of boy’s prep schools and public schools in the 50s and early 60s (I cannot speak for other times) was homosexual, homophobic, sexualised, suppressed erotic, fascist, sexist, abusive, punitive, etc. A veritable den of iniquity!
No wonder so many “respectable” MPs, judges, lawyers, actors, journalists, “personalities”, etc. – products of such a system – end up eventually in court. And they are many, many more who should end up in court.
The real pity is that they – and those who perpetuated the “system” – didn’t get exposed earlier and thus that fewer people became their “victims”. The horrors of the English boys’ private (pprep and public) school system is on a parallel with the abuse in Irish orphanages – the “Sisters of Mercy” – and the “Catholic Brothers” – perhaps not physically to the same extent, but possibly just as emotionally damaging.
I was at public school with (for example) Jonathan King: he was a creep then, and then became much more so. It did not surprise me one iota when (a part of) the truth came out.
When I watched Lindsey Anderson’s film “If” for the first time, I felt “Ah-ha” – someone else experienced (and felt) what I did. It was such a revelation. I thought I was (the only one who was) “wrong”. Instead, it was the “system that was “wrong”.
The truth is that these estimated and revered “prep schools” and “public schools” are potentially both training grounds for perverts and also (sometimes / often) “manned” by perverts: indeed, sometimes the orphanages and similar were used as “resources” for perverts: a la Cyril Smith.
Of course, there are also very dedicated and honourable teachers, housemasters, scout leaders, choir masters, etc. who would be shocked and horrified by such tales and revelations: but … shame on them! Shame on them, I say.
They should be much more – much more – aware of the potential abusiveness of such home-erotic, homo-phobic environments that they support, endorse and perpetuate. They should be much more aware of their colleagues’ potentialities and failings, and not get coerced or “seduced” by a “drop of Scotch” – a “quiet word” – “don’t rock the boat, old man” – and other such collegial crap.
They are also the ones at fault.
I was recently informed that the headmaster of my “public school” – a distant relation – had said (50 or 55 years too late) that: (a) I should never have been put in to that particular house, with that particular housemaster; and (b) that – probably – that particular housemaster should not have even been appointed as a housemaster. Shame on him!
He was the only person who could have done anything – and what did he do? he actually beat me, on my housemaster’s recommendation.
In the 50s and early 60s, beatings (sometimes bare-bottomed ones) were endemic. Even senior boys were allowed to beat other boys: forget the hairbrush or butter pat, or what-sit, I am talking about canes, cricket bats and hockey sticks. I am also talking about the occasional anal rape, using a cricket bat handle. Serious abuse! And – as always – the “victim” is made to feel “guilty” -You should do better” – “You shouldn’t be such a ‘naughty’ boy” etc.
Like Benjamin experienced – and put so eloquently (Thank you, by the way) – the system “supported” the teachers, not the boys. At least he got some “black bullets” – I feel somewhat envious: we were given the option of a beating (usually 3, 4 or 6 strokes) or a punishment run: having to do about a mile and a half (or so) within about 20 minutes: failure to complete it within the set time meant it didn’t count and had to be repeated. There were times when – as a 13 or 14 yea old – I had a backlog of about 6 or 7 such runs. Anything was better than being beaten: ritual humiliation! For what?
What was this supposed to teach us?
Sorry – the system totally sucks! And was incredibly damaging.
Thankfully, exposing it, understanding the effects, telling others of our experiences, allowing ourselves to heal – actually works!
By the way, Ros – I am really glad that you intimated that the “system” – similar or otherwise – of oppression and abuse, of denigration and shaming, etc. – also operated (to a certain extent) in girl’s boarding schools. How not!

By: Ros

Ros — Thu, 15 May 2014 17:50:31 +0000

Creepy, scary, alarming. When you read this you can feel the horror and pain of this experience and what you still feel about this. Thank you so much for sharing this. Those of us who went to Boarding School – even a girls’ one – will find all this unnervingly familiar. I appreciate your courage and generosity in making public your experiences – thank you