Memories can have an awful effect on the mind. I'm now 46, married with two (virtually) grown up children. I moved away from Bolton in 1987, only eight years after leaving Clevelands, but something crops up, like the interview on 5Live and I am transported back there. I can smell the building and I can feel the fear. I guess that after 35 years, the fear is probably turning to anger.
Traffic on the M6 was bad - it took over 10 hours for us to get home. That's 10 hours of stewing on memories. Clevelands Day Preparatory School, in the 1970's was run by fear. The headmaster, Jack Lightbown and his deputy, Gerald Hart, were viscous bullies. The beat their pupils regularly. The humiliation that was meted out knew no bounds. The ultimate sanction was the slipper, basically an old Dunlop tennis shoe, white canvas with a green rubber sole. Often hidden in one of the classrooms, if this was your punishment, you were sent into every classroom to ask the teacher if she had the slipper, so that all staff and and all students knew who the latest victim was.
Yes, the main perpetrators were Messrs Hart and Lightbown, but I am pretty sure that all staff were using the slipper. Not sure about K1 (the equivalent of today's Reception class). We were that from teacher's first class at the school. Mrs Maureen Davies was her name and I have fond recollections of her class. With hours of endless chanting of our times tables sitting cross legged on huge floor, she ensured that by the time we left her class, we could all read and write and, by God, we know those tables. It would be a rare accomplishment for a current day state school to achieve that result!
When i was 10, i acknowledge I was hardy the model pupil. I lied to teachers for which I was beaten. I failed exams and test, for which I was beaten. Curiously, I asked to be let out of school early to catch an earlier bus for weeks on end - this was without my parents' knowledge but the school consented - and I was not beaten.
My worst memory was in Mr Hart's class. I don't know if it was science or natural history, but we were asked to bring in some earthworms in a glass jar one day. I didn't, pr at least, I forgot. When quizzed about this I tried to get away with it by saying that I couldn't find any. Clearly this was not true, but Mr Hart saw red. He exploded at me. I stood up in front of the class to face the onslaught. His masterpiece of violence was to stand next to his victim, put his arm round the neck and shoulder, grab and shake. he did this twice and told me to sit down. He came back to me and clearly had not got it out of his system. He told me to "find the slipper." This involved going around each of the six other classrooms to find out which teacher had the slipper. It was in Mrs Warburton's cupboard (she was another user of the slipper, but being a slight woman, I can't imagine that she did the damage that Hart and Lightbown did) I returned to class with the slipper. I was told to bend over Mr Hart's table, a small coffee table next to his desk. "Six of the Best" was the order of the day.
Now, I'd seen this treatment before. It isn't just a slap. It's arm pulled right back, hand behind the shoulder and BANG. A grown man at full strength on a 10 year old boy. Oh, I forgot to mention, Mr Hart's youngest daughter was in our class - so these punishments were carried out in front of his daughter. She was the only one in the class that I recall who was not called by her surname!
After the six of the best, I stood up. He turned to the class, "does he want more - he deserves more."I don't recall if the class responded, but I was pushed back onto the table for two or three more. I DO remember screaming.
Did I tell my parents? No, I thought they'd endorse the treatment. My mother was a pretty violent sort at times, so I kept it inside. Clearly, my friends were aware. I showed them my backside the following day. It was black from my lower back to the back of my knees, and remained so for 2 weeks. one kid in the class told his mother, who carried out voluntary work with the NSPCC. He asked me round to show his Mum, but I declined. I didn't go around to a mate's house to show off my bum!!!
So, he got away with it, as indeed he did when he did the same to others in the class (IM, GB, CL, ET are the initials of the others who received the treatment.
Oh yes, the chalk face he drew on the slipper - he drew Donald Duck onto the slipper so the victim was "branded" on the outside for all to see!
SO, back to the M6 journey. My wife took over driving, and I looked at Friends Reunited (remember that?) I was surprised that I remembered my log in code in the first instance, but when I looked at Clevelands, I was horrified at the comments. I have no recollection of any sexual abuse at the school, but these recollections chilled me. Some of the comments on Friends Reunited, although anonymised:
"well my memories of that horrible nasty place that has ruined my life and chances are alot worse than some, but are still remembered by a few as well. My family and I had our lives made absolute HELL by Jack Lightbown and especially Jerry Hart. I was the one who was dragged to Jerry Harts desk every day and sometimes twice, and he would put me over his knee and say to the class, "Well what should I hit her with today?" and he would spank me with the slipper or a ruler, or his hand but it was the pulling down of my pants and the stroking of my little bottom before being put over his knee that makes my stomach turn even now. When I was in K1 with Miss Taylor at the age of 4 he came up and put a sign on my back and told everyone that if they didn't hit me (like the sign said) then he would hit them!!! I had to wear that sign for most of the day. There was a time I went in to give him a message from Jack Lightbown and there he was infront of his big fireplace holding my sister OFF THE GROUND by her HAIR and shaking her like a rag doll!!! He said that this was going to happen to me when I got in his class. Imagine how you would feel if you saw someone doing that to your sister and you couldn't do a thing about it. I was made to stripnaked infront of the whole class and then get weighed! And so it goes on. My whole family were targeted by those nasty cruel people. There are still some people out there who remember all this happening and still it gets talked about. As for school dinners there are still things I can't and won't eat and I am SO concious about myself and have NEVER been able to do exams as I just have some sort of panic attack stemming from the fear from my childhood and as soon as I open an exam paper I just lose everything...for ever and so I haven't a clue what O levels I did or anything later in life. The damage that place did will never be forgiven. When my parents went in to try and stop it they would be very nice ..till the door was closed then we got it even worse for telling them. Terrible. Awful place."
"Yes it was absolutely dreadful...awful times.In my case,it had more to do with Jack Lightbown with the hand running up and down my legs and up to and over my bum..under knickers.I remember coming in he changing rooms after or before PE to have a good old look.Jerry Hart was also an absolute Monster and was always being nasty to me and belittling me...and a lot more pupils.He used to call me Hedge..never Joanne and used to spit the word at me.
Did you ever have the gauntlet as it was called in Lightbown's class? He used to make some of us crawl through the other members of he class's legs and made them slap our bottoms on the way through.The slipper was always been used also for any slight demeaner.
Sports Day was also a massive fear for me with the terror of not being good at PE and the dread of the torment after.
I think Jack was eventually charged with abuse but I don't know what happened although he died eventually as did Hart.
I can understand these people coming out of the woodwork re: Saville,Hall,XXXXXXX and others."
"The abuse at Cleveland's was a disgrace - Gerald Hart deserved to go to prison - he would take the autistic child in our class and make him read his stories out to the lower classes so they could laugh at him. I remember the gauntlet. One kid was hit with the slipper so hard he begged the teacher oy stop. Don't get me started!"
Apparently Jack Lightbown died in 2006 ( see http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/956935.Clevelands_founder_dies_at_the_age_of_84 ) and it sounds as though Gerald Hart has also met his maker. So they can't be prosecuted. But Saville died and was declared guilty after hi death.
There are countless victims of these fiends who ran this school. I know - I saw them over the years. I can name 22 of the 26 0r so in my class who witnessed the barbarism. There were eight teachers in the school who either participated in or turned a blind eye to the violence, Maureen Davies, Joan Boorman, Pauline Cannell, Maureen Warburton (yes, as in the bread, she was married to MR WARBURTON, the bread man), Connie Bullough, Gerald Hart, Jack Lightbown,Adrienne Pooler. Lightbown retired the year I left and Hart took over as head. A new deputy head was appointed but I don't recall his name. He left very soon after. Why?
I have written a bit of the story - someone else might pick this up.................
I should point out that Clevelands is probably a very different place today. It is under different ownership and has moved premises and clearly, none of the staff from my day will still be associated... At the very least, I sincerely hope that it is different!
I am really surprised at how many people have read this blog - thanks. I hear that one of the Clevelands teachers, Mrs Warburton died recently.
ReplyDeleteIf you have similar memories of this school, let me know. Ric
Hi Ric I have commented below. I think we may been in the same class ..
DeleteI had the pleasure of going to Mrs Warburton's class K4 to fetch the slipper so Mr Lightbown could dish out his punishment. I was 9 at the time. I remember a girl in my class (KB) wetting herself at the thought of a beating from Mr Hart and we can't not mention the head pounding dished out by Mr Hart to each syllable of the particularly nice phrase "you Nupid twat". I can still see my best mate IB being knocked backwards across a desk as he hit him. A horrible time of my life and one which I will sadly never forget. It's the reason my kids didn't go to private school. I left in the summer of 1982. Andy S
ReplyDeleteI left in 1974. You describe it so well. It was truly horrendous. Sometimes when I get the sort of flashback you' ve described I wonder if I'm imagining how bad it was -- your blog post is a welcome reminder that my memory is (sadly) not playing tricks on me. DM
ReplyDeleteI think the point you make about keeping things inside for fear of parents endorsing the teachers is spot on; my mother was also quite violent at times. If only someone had been able to blow the whistle on these beasts sooner!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOver the past couple of years I've repeatedly come back to this. It reminds me that I wasn't imagining it, it wasn't my fault and I'm entitled to be hurt and angry about the abuse I and others suffered at Clevelands. It is the only place that I've ever seen it referenced. Has anyone met up to discuss this? I would appreciate the chance to exchange experiences. Would this be helpful for others too? It would be challenging, but cathartic, I think.
ReplyDeleteHi, I was in Andy S's class, and I was so frightened all the time, it was paralysing. I didn't get the slipper, but my brother did. It was a scary time, but parents were told to remove their child if they complained, and all they wanted was to get us into Bolton School/ manchester Grammar etc. it was Dave Bushall who left under a cloud. I did hear the reason, it was published in an article in the Bolton Evening News. Maureen and Jack were always OK with me, it was Gerald I feared.
ReplyDeleteI was at Clevelands from 1984-1987 and I remember many people getting 'the slipper' from Mr hart who was headmaster. I also remember many kids getting their trousers pulled down. And smacked.. especially in Mrs Davies class and also Mrs Williams who had K2 at the time. When I wa in K3 I lost my 'outdoor' shoe on the big fields collecting conkers and rather than let me come home in my 'indoor' shoes or pumps I went barefooted.. I remember it clear as day. Awful school, I'm so glad this doesn't go on anymore
ReplyDeleteBlimey this stuff was still going on in the 80’s
DeleteI remember it well with a very bad taste. I remember faking being ill, so I could stay home, and avoid being hit. More than three answers of Maths homework wrong, and everyone was lined up to be hit. I didn't have a set of Encyclopaedia Brittanica, and not living near a library, my parents couldn't take me to one each week, so my topic essay questions homework were either guesswork or answers from family members. Obviously, I often scored poorly in this, and was hit. I remember being pushed around the classroom by GH, subsequently slapped, because I didn't answer a fractions question at the click of fingers. I remember being put over GH & JL knee with my tunic lifted up to be hit. I would be very happy to discuss this further with anyone. I remember 'gym' in the freezing cold cellar, where GH kicked a football at all the children lined up against the wall. When it hit you, my God it hurt. I have kept diaries from some of my time there, and they make upsetting reading what I wrote as a young child, thinking I deserved to be hit, and my focus being on the percentage I'd scored for tests, and how I should do better. Like another commenter, I didn't tell my parents, as I viewed that if a teacher had the perspective that I needed to be hit, then my parents would surely agree, and I'd face another reprimand at home. I left in 1981.
ReplyDeleteWe went to a Bolton School reunion yesterday and among a few of us from your class talking about Cleveland’s, your blog was mentioned. I ended up in therapy a few years since and everything came back to Gerald Hart, memories suppressed and never discussed had to start being faced. I once sneezed in his class. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. If I say excuse me, punishment for talking, if I didn’t punished for not being polite. A 9 yer old girl I had to walk from back to the front of the class for yet another humiliating smacking with my knickers pulled down in front of the whole class , I had bruises from his hand for over a week, sitting on them on the hard wood chairs. I still react to situations in the same manner, I rarely cry, it’s been very hard for my family to understand, if i’m upset or i’m hurt I react with anger, never at anyone else but myself, I will hit something like a wall until the pain overwhelm the feelings. Why because if we showed any emotion, cried at Harts punishment we got smacked until we stopped crying and my only way to stop myself crying was to turn to anger and the adrenalin to stop me, 40 years on this has never changed. I never discussed it until I went into therapy and ironically in the 12 of us in the session was another lady whose son had suffered the same abuse at his hands years later. I was taunted by him about my surname, and I was overweight and hopeless at PE, I have a morbid fear of the dark and gyms having been locked in the pitch black cellar room of a gym because I couldn’t climb a rope, left on my own for a whole afternoon, only let out when my mother came to collect me. I am still overweight and won’t venture into a gym, I shake if
ReplyDeleteI go near one. There were some good points, I met my still best friend in Mrs Davies’s class and I still strive for perfection n everything I do. There is also 1 incident I vividly remember which involved you. You being slippered for not having a black felt tip to outline a map, and me going hone begging my mum to buy you one so you didn’t have to go through that again. We had it ingrained into us that if we told our parents we had been punished, we would get more at home for being in trouble at school. I do now wonder if that stems from teacher threats or from telling my mother and it happening. I have started at times to look into could I bring a case but it needed far more of us to come forward. Hart headlined in the Bolton Eveining news years since about being an exceptionally respected headmaster, I did go as far as writing in saying it was misleading, he was a sadist who abused us and it was insulting to all of us who suffered at his hands, my letter was never published. It was lovely to meet up with others yesterday, one thing did come out of it, we weren’t alone, others suffered the same and others remember the same things, since there are times you wonder if you are remembering incorrectly or you were singled out by him. You weren’t alone Rich!
I was there with RB in the same class - so many terrible memories - the feeling of doom as I walked (never, ever ran as that was strictly forbidden) down the drive between the rhododendrons and in the front door to put my outdoor shoes in the shoe pigeon holes and change into my playdeck sandals. Panic if i was a few moments late and didn't have time to rule the lines in my book or copy down the handwriting test before the start of the day. The sheer terror if it was PE day - lining up on the stairs t the cellar, the dreaded ropes and wall bars, the humiliation of being pointed out as fat, ugly, red faced, pathetic, loser who couldn't walk down the wall backwards into a crab. Being told before the Friday test how many I had to get right out of 40 to avoid being smacked, knowing I was struggling and wouldn't make it this week - again the humiliation of lining up waiting for the punishment. Watching my class mates waiting for the slipper, hearing the sound as they were hit. Being shaken til I bit my tongue as my head rattled on my neck. Yeah it was bad.
ReplyDeleteI was there from 1962 till 1965 and never saw anything untoward .JL was a bit touchy feely and I think they did like to humiliate children in front of their classmates.But nothing like what has been mentioned here.Maybe I was trying to survive through my own troubles and not notice what went on.
ReplyDeleteMy god l thought it was just me who went through hell . I could have written theses accounts myself . I got punished many times . Made my life hell and still think of my time there to this day and I’m 60 now 😞
ReplyDeleteWow on all. I am 49 now and have been on antidepressants since I was 25yrs, never really known why I was depressed when I have so much in life. Had therapy and I have touched on Cleveland’s but I only that it was very strict and we were wowsted?! A verb meaning smacked on the front of your head for not getting a calculation right instantly. I remember the fire in that office where occasionally You Could get a warm cup of water as a treat and I remember the tiny bottles of milk and high stank in your hands whilst you were in waiting for lunch. It’s weird how vivid certain memories are yet I do think I have blocked a lot out. Jerry hart was the worst by far in my history there with hitting and bullying. Lightbown thought he was a celebrity and was treated like one with his shock of white hair. Does anyone remember being allowed to queue up to give mrs Warburton massages when you had done your work? Or Mrs Bulloigh turning her ring round when she slapped you?I was made to stand on a piano in Mrs Boorman’s class for a whole lesson because i had the wrong white socks on. I have never ever read anything about Cleveland’s before. I will never tell my parents what I read tonight. It would devastate them. SJC
ReplyDeleteSeeing this blog brought back some incredibly upsetting times. I was at Clevelands from 1963 to 1967. It was the most terrifying time of my life. I was regularly sick with fear before being taken to school to be beaten frequently by Hart. Being dragged over his knee several times a day for the most pathetic reason. Being smacked by Lightbown 'the arrogant' - was a hugely humiliating and painful experience.
ReplyDeleteWhen I got to Bolton School afterwards I couldn't believe the lovely relaxed and polite regime. Respect was everywhere between staff and students and the difference was amazing.
Some of the boys amongst you may well remeber having to strip for the communnal showers - not really a big deal, but when GH wandered in similarly attired even then it struck me as being very curious.
Sad and horrible times - especially for those who didn't achieve so well in the tests etc. My sister who is seriously clever never had any of these experiences but some close friends with whom I'm still in regualr contact have many similar recollections.
What amazes me is how many of the girls were so dreadfully treated too.
It would be interesting to know if the current regime are aware of any of these posts as there must also be a lot more out there.
Most of my memories from childhood relate to my preparatory school. It seems that the 60s for most people were supposed to be a fun time where people let their hair down, tried new experiences and generally had a laugh. Apart it seems from in Bolton…
ReplyDeleteThe regime at Clevelands Day Preparatory School was abusive. The main type of punishment was a smack. For more serious offences for the boys the school would administer the slipper. This was a large gym pump which was whacked onto the buttocks just about as hard as possible. It reduced young children to gibbering wrecks.
MS was slippered for writing in his text book. He was informed the night before. When Gerald Hart hit him you could hear the scream throughout the school. Three or four whacks - he was supposed to get 6 -
“Please don’t hit me any more”.
The Class sat and watched in horror. No-one uttered a word. Mr. Hart relented and ten year old MS limped back to his seat.
I think it was M who was also smacked on the football pitch for doing 2 fowl throws one day. Football was supposed to be fun.
When MB stole a roll of unused bus tickets from the busman it was resolved that he would be slippered in front of the whole school. The school was buzzing with it. We all knew that something was afoot, that a terrible crime had been committed involving a heinous theft and the full force of the Cleveland’s judiciary was about to descend on someone. The school was due to be assembled after lunch to witness this gross humiliating ritual. Surely ritual beating went out with the Victorians …… not at Clevelands.
MB apparently broke down -that was the story in circulation and begged the teachers not to use the slipper - an incredible response it seemed to us - that you could avoid the slipper.
When my brother misbehaved at a children’s party outside of the school, Mr Warburton, the famous baker happened to mention it to the head teacher who took it upon himself to slipper him in school for it.
Mother later informed me that she telephoned Mr Lightbown and gave him a piece of her mind. I would not have wished that on anyone.
“Let them run the gauntlet”
said Gerald Hart. That was a bit of fun. A child who he had deemed to have misbehaved would have to run between the legs of the other children who would attempt to hit him. Nothing like persuading the child’s peers to administer punishment of course - making them party to this humiliating ritual. I thought this just occurred at Cleveland’s until I was 45 when someone informed me it also happened where I live now . So ritual humiliation was a far reaching part of the UK Educational system it seems but especially at Clevelands.
On one occasion when I must have been about seven or eight years old I spent all lunchtime playing with a child who was about two years younger than me. We ran about, played with a soft toy and generally had fun.
I went back to the classroom and later received a summons to go out of it. An older child from the top class asked me if a certain toy was mine.
“Yes”
I found myself in the youngest boy’s class. Jack Lightbown was there. He took me in front of the whole class and slapped my legs.
“Now say you are sorry”….
This episode was always a bit of a mystery to me. It followed me for a year or so. I was later told that I had reformed and become a better sort of child.
Gerald Hart's class (P3 – the penultimate in the school) was the one that was most feared by the children. He more than anyone was responsible for much of the physical punishment in the school. You would have to stand next to him whilst he read your work. If there was an error then he would poke you or push you over onto the floor. He had a large desk and would push 10 year old boys under it as he sat there so you would have to crawl out the other side.
ReplyDelete“What does this mean” - poke in the ribs
“Get under the desk” - push down to the floor and under.
When we were 10 years old we did an examination. The competition in the school was fierce. If you came top you were praised. Everyone in the class was told where they came. MJ came bottom…..
Gerald Hart picked her up by her legs.
“MJ - the class dummy” - chortle.
Her head was slowly lowered into a waste bin and her skirt fell down showing her nickers to everyone.
Gerald Hart thrived on cruel humiliation like this. In his warped mind he was doing us all a favour. He was the chap who had fought in the war after all …… no hang on …. he hadn’t fought in the war thinking about it as he would have been too young so.. he just wanted us to think had no doubt and would have done a jolly good job for his country if he had done so.
And he was the one who apparently lost his gloves one day whilst he was doing his national service. Someone had stolen them and he could have nicked someone else’s to compensate, but didn’t because he was a high standing upright chap and … that was just not right.
Of course trivial theft, dishonesty, not nicking stuff, not respecting your elders are all proper things not to believe in. It was just the sort of lack of mutuality in the respect which was somewhat lacking.
JW suffered from autism or was as we would say these days “on the spectrum”. He could divide long complicated numbers in his head. When he went to Bolton School he took it upon himself to try to memorize all of the telephone numbers of all of the children in the school.
ReplyDeleteThe boys from Cleveland’s who went to Bolton School I am told tried to protect him from bullying. His essays consisted of long trains of unconnected thought. Once a week or so he would produce one of these documents and be subjected to Mr. Hart marching him around the classroom poking him in the chest and repeating his nonsensical writings to him.
“Nonsense” - - repeat of strings of autistic thought. - Poke - into the next class room. “Come on J - repeat your story” – J , the 10 year old autistic child read it out to the younger children who laughed out loud..
Laughter - public humiliation – self- deprecation… good for the spirit no doubt –the Chinese were good at that during the Cultural Revolution..
“I went to the Doctor” J told me once. “He asked me what the bruising was on my legs” - “It was the slipper, of course”.
They apparently did not fully understand autism in those days but considered that it was caused by bad parenting. Bad teaching did not come into it. His parents were nice enough people – trying to do the best for him …. Sending him to a private prep school.
I read a story when I was about 7 years old about a prince who had to climb through a series of thorns and cut himself all over his body. I had a story book which showed the cuts on his body and decided that I wanted to try that in class so took a red pen and drew red lines all over me. The teacher saw this and asked what on earth I was doing - I was sent to clean it off.
My memory says that as I finished (although maybe this was another day) and sat back down in class Jack Lightbown entered the room
“hold your hands up” he ordered the whole class. It was as if he was brandishing a sawn off shot gun about to conduct a robbery. 24 terrified 7 year olds placed their hands in the air.
Right - and he searched every desk as we sat there - “empty out your pockets”. We did so obligingly and were hustled in line down to the main hall where we found the whole of the school assembled. Someone in the school had removed the fire whistle and Jack Lightbown was going to find out who and no doubt slipper the offender in a massive display of judicial authority before the assembled masses of kindergarten kids.
We stood there whilst the whole school was searched for the fire whistle.
The culpable person never did turn up - no doubt Jack had to spend a shilling or two on another whistle - but yes we got the tedious message - stealing is wrong and an excuse to get out the slipper.
“Don’t forget how important your country is. If you go to the pictures you should always wait until the end and stand up when they play the national anthem (they did that in those days). It does not matter if you miss your last bus
Another one of Jack Lightbown’s little tips on life (Jack always had a car to go to the pictures with by the way .. one of those classic Jaguars with the silver animal on the front of the bonnet ready to pounce).”
On another occasion he informed us that he had been stopped for speeding. “I looked at the officer and thought – ah a young one. I told him I was just driving along and this beautiful music filled my car so much that I lost all track of my speed”. Strange for the man who would slipper a 10 year old for writing in a text book. Speeding seemed not quite so bad.
The puzzle about the chess board
ReplyDeleteOnce I remember doing a puzzle which went like this. If you start with one on a chess board and then double it and keep doubling it what number will you arrive at at the end of the chess board.
Or that was what I thought the puzzle said as it was part of a multiple choice questions sheet I had to fill in when I was at school.
I though this is easy, because it starts out so easy like this:
1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128
256 512 1024 2048 4096 8192 16398 32796
That gets you to the end of the first row, but you then have 6 more ones to get – so did the question say where would you be at the end of the second row or not? Certainly, I became more and more frustrated at this impossible task, at the idea that I was supposed to get all the way to the end of the chess board on what I thought was a dead easy question. Eventually someone came and told me that I did not need to do it and that was that.
Anyway, just so you are aware if you are unable to get to sleep one night because try working out doubled up numbers in your head for a while. That’s what I have been doing ever since.. and as for Clevelands - someone one somewhere owes us all an apology..
I got the slipper too from Hart , he relished it .I was there from 1966 and by the sounds of it the punishment got worse through time. I remember the bus ticket incident with MB , he was older than me but it was done in front of the whole school. Not long after they brought boxing gloves into the school so that on Fridays the boys who fancied it could beat the shit out of each other in Lightbowns classroom at lunchtime. For a laugh eh !!!!
ReplyDeleteThere are allegations of a BBC presenter sharing indecent images with a child in exchange for cash on the news. As part of the reporting they showed pictures of Saville, Rolf Harris and Stuart Hall. Which made me suddenly remember that when I was at primary school, Fred Talbot the weatherman came to visit the school. And then, I remembered he visited us in our gym which was in what I described as a cellar to my husband. And then, as a former primary school teacher, a penny finally dropped - why was he in the gym with us? I started crying as I realised the implications of someone being allowed into a room with lots of small boys and girls with very few clothes on. It was billed to us as something exciting having a visitor from the telly. We all just accepted it. I googled Fred Talbot and found he's since been jailed for abusing boys at another school. Then I finally, finally, finally googled Clevelands and Gerald Hart and abuse and found this. I'm female. I was there from K2 to P4 leaving to go to Bolton School in 1987. Hart was my teacher in P4, Mr Swift was P3 teacher, Mrs Hart P2, can't remember P1 teacher, Mrs Cannell K3, Mrs Boardman K2 and Mrs Warburton in K1 but I joined in K2. Mr Swift's daughter was in my class. It took me a while into adulthood to realise that my experience at Clevelands was not what everyone experienced in their primary years. I then downplayed it somewhat thinking I'd somehow exaggerated it because surely if my memories were correct it wouldn't have been allowed. I've just read the posts on here and they are what I remember and I realise just how appalling it was. The people involved will clearly never be punished but I feel it's important to contribute my memories here to represent their legacy accurately. I'm appalled to read that someone tried to set the record straight with the newspaper but was ignored. If we have to publicise it ourselves, so be it. I remember the slipper. I never received it, I saw it lots. No-one knew what I was talking about when I mentioned it in later life - I assumed all schools had them until I saw the looks on people's faces trying to explain it. I remember most things from my last 3 years. In P2, RN punched Hart in his stomach when he was being clouted about. We never saw him again, he was expelled. He was billed as a naughty child to all of us and used as an example to deter any of us from fighting back. Well done him - the only kid I ever remember fighting back and he escaped it. I hope he has had a good life. In P3, I got 48% in a maths test. I normally did really well at maths (thankfully I did ok in school so wasn't generally targeted - those who struggled were bigger targets) and thought I'd done well again. To this day, I'm convinced they got the mark wrong as I'd had time to check my work. I don't remember whether it was for that or for writing my name on the desk (unfortunately I had an unusual name) but I do remember being hit and literally being bounced from one desk to another for what seemed like a very, very long time. Now I think about it, I think I got battered for both things. My mother bless her sent me in with Ajax the next day to make amends for the latter misdemeanour as I'd told her I got smacked. Smacked?! The word didn't really cover what had really happened but it was the only vocab I had for it. CS never got told off because she was Mr Swift's daughter. I don't know how he stayed working there seeing kids his daughter's age having that done to them. I've taught kids when they were the same age as my son - I saw them as my own that year. I'm proud of the fact I was never, ever the sort of primary teacher that I had.
ReplyDeleteP4 was horrendous. In hindsight, I can see the boys were targeted a lot more. I remember poor little WB being dangled upside down by 1 foot by Hart. I remember JH constantly being ridiculed even though (or maybe because?) he was a kind, gentle lad (his mum was a lovely teacher at Bolton School) again by Hart. I remember SB talking to me in a test when Hart left the room and both of us being punished afterwards - SB came off worst. I remember GD talking back and I think he was also expelled. I remember being sent to Lightburn and I know something was odd about it but I can't remember what which worries me hugely. I remember boys were taken out of the class to see him. I have a feeling I was asked to read something aloud in with Lightburn- I feel like it was billed as checking my reading. As I type this I'm wondering what I was reading aloud or was it a cover to justify why he kept asking the boys in? I remember doing cross country in snow when we were in either P3 or P4 in pants and vests. I remember there were favourites - again, I shudder to recall it with adult eyes but VP and JN were pretty little girls and were never, ever, ever walloped or ridiculed. Anyone overweight was openly made fun of by Hart.
ReplyDeleteMy husband was confused when I mentioned the gym this evening after I started crying - a gym in a cellar? Yes, with ropes attached to the ceiling that you had to climb up. You all know what I'm talking about. And now I know that what I remember of that school was every bit as dreadful as I've gradually realised it was. Now I'm 47 and have worked in education and brought up a child I see how horrendous it was. My husband hadn't realised how bad it was until I showed hime this. So here are my memories so someone else can stumble over it and know that their memories were accurate too and that we all thought it was normality even though we were totally terrified and it's affected us in all sorts of ways. I saw Hart at a concert in my 20s. I almost went up to him and said something but part of me thought maybe I'd misremembered. I mean, he gave us sweets from that jar when we did well, didn't he? And those pretty pencils. And I've done well academically. I thought I must be wrong. If only the internet had been around then, maybe we could have had some justice. Horrible. I wish all of you happier times than those.
Apologies, Mrs Davies in K1 I think not Mrs Warburton - she had interesting hair. No more now, back to the present.
ReplyDelete