EXPERIENCES AT ST. VEDAST (now St. James) AND THE S.E.S

[kissmyface]

i was a pupil at st james for 10 years until leaving in 1986 so was subequently a witness to and victim of the abuse carried out by the unqualified psychopaths masquarading as teachers. i remember mr lacy as being particularly evil and unhinged (he once made 2 boys drag my across a rugby pitch by my ankles as he thought i wasn't muddy enough) then, of course, there was mr debenham, who seemed to take a perverse pleasure in beating small boys on the arse! (a psychiatrist would have a filed day trying to understand his warped mind). im sure if i saw him again i would take perverse pleasure in head-butting him. with hindsight, what strikes me most is how crap st james was as a school. can anyone tell me the point in teaching philosophy to 10 year olds?. i've yet to see a job advertised looking for a fluent sanskrit, ancient greek and latin speaker who meditates daily and refuses to accept authority from any woman unless her ankles are fully covered. it angers me to think of the ammount of money my family spent on sending me and my brother and sister to the school. hoe did the ses justify such exorbitant fees? surely stale bread and tap water cant have cost that much.
needless to say, im chuffed to find this forum and i will watch develpoements with interest.

[Goblinboy]

"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way it treats its children."
Nelson Mandela 1997

Mrs Debenham was a particularly cruel figure ... I remember on one occaision she made a classmate do press-ups all through an hour long lesson until she lay on the floor crying and shaking. This was one act in a campaign of bullying against this particular girl. The fact that this girl's mother had recently died, and what she needed was extra care and support from her teachers, makes this story all the more chilling.
Sarah

I had a sister whom I loved with all my heart that died aged 4. I was 6 at the time. Shortly afterwards, the SES in their infinite wisdom sent someone round to our house. He went into her bedroom and took away all of her clothes, all of her toys, all of our photographs of her, indeed every last vestige we could remember her by. About 6 months later, when seeing our SES dentist at his house in Watford (yes, even our dentists had to be SES!), my mother discovered many of her toys and clothes in one of the children's bedrooms. This was the SES's way of dealing with a bereaving family.

[Tom Grubb]

Message for Daffy:

Please can you email me? I have something private to ask you about one of the former teachers you've mentioned on this forum.

Many thanks,

Tom

[Guest]

i was a pupil at st james for 10 years until leaving in 1986 so was subequently a witness to and victim of the abuse carried out by the unqualified psychopaths masquarading as teachers. i remember mr lacy as being particularly evil and unhinged (he once made 2 boys drag my across a rugby pitch by my ankles as he thought i wasn't muddy enough) then, of course, there was mr debenham, who seemed to take a perverse pleasure in beating small boys on the arse! (a psychiatrist would have a filed day trying to understand his warped mind).

Andrew McGuinness

That's the same Mr Lacey that David Boddy, current head of St James, continues to entrust with the care of children. The same Mr Lacey who endless, hideous allegations have been made about on this forum.

WHY DO YOU STILL EMPLOY HIM, MR BODDY?

[TB]

Sarah McGuinness wrote:
Firstly, I would like to say that although I understand and respect the decision by many contributers to remain anonymous I would urge you to think about using your own names. We have nothing to hide, we did nothing wrong, we were children.
Absolutely right!

We seem to harbour an almost pathological sense that moral right implies protection from outside forces. If we are innocent and right we will be protected and compensated. Some offer the theory that the concepts of religious afterlives and reincarnation were constructed in order to offer this universal justice, as a way to ensure that moral right will prevail even if it does take death or a few rebirths to get there. There are millions of innocent victims of war, famine, natural disasters who could argue their moral right and therefore they are protected if they expose the evil doers and bring forth the truth. The evidence shows otherwise.
I applaud your call for fair play, sadly human affairs encourage us to keep our head in the foxholes when enemy bullets start flying.

Perhaps we shall see the day when the media is a mouthpiece for truth, but today this is only posssible for those who use hallucinogenic substances.

[Daffy]

I have been contacted by Tom Grubb, who has in turn been in touch with Will Rasmussen, regarding allegations I made in an earlier page of this discussion. There is a certain irony in repeating something I am about to partially retract and replace, but here is what I said on 27 September:

Will Rasmussen frequently resorted to corporal punishment, either with his hands or with a plimsole. He did not show the slightest reluctance to using these for trivial misbehaviour. When he used the plimsole he would put red chalk on it so that everyone else could see you had been punished.

Nor did he indicate he had any problem with Debenham's use of the cane. In fact he would tell stories about how, back in the States, if he misbehaved his father would tell him to 'fetch a switch from the yard'.

I have no knowledge of 'Razz' for the last two decades, and while I suppose it's possible he repented and recanted, let's not kid ourselves: he was as fully implicated in the violence of the 70s and 80s as any other teacher there.

I never thought he was as psychopathic as Lacey, or as quick to anger as Russell, but he deserves just as much condemnation.

I will leave it to Tom to report on Will Rasmussen's current thinking on the issues raised on this forum. However, he has stated that the description I gave of hitting boys with a shoe for trivial things and using chalk as a marker must apply to someone else, not him. Given this denial, I have tried to cast my mind back to those times. They were a quarter of a century ago, and I can't now recall him carrying out this particular form of punishment, though I can say with 100% certainty that this form of punishment did occur many times to boys including myself. So please consider that part of my allegation retracted in so far as it is directed against Will Rasmussen.

However, I don't feel too apologetic for getting this detail incorrect, because I can say with 99% certainty that Rasmussen often called misbehaving boys to the front of the class and hit them repeatedly on their bare upper legs with his hands. This happened to me on an almost daily basis for some time, for trivial misdemeanours. I am sure I wasn't the best behaved child, but that isn't the point.

The remaining 1% is simply because I am the first to admit that after such a long time trying to suppress my memories of those miserable days, I can't be absolutely sure of every detail. The rest of what I previously said about Will Rasmussen is also true.

Let's put the above detail in context. I remember Will Rasmussen as a generally intelligent, thoughtful teacher. He was obviously well educated, with an intellect and a sense of calm not matched by most of the other teachers. I thought he would one day become headmaster of St James. He is certainly well down the list of teachers who are responsible for the excesses of the 70s and 80s reported on this forum. However, his devotion to the SES and its leadership was unwavering and unquestioning. So, apparently, was his acceptance of Debenham's disciplinary methods.

I realise it must be frustrating to some of the former teachers to face accusers who remain anonymous. I do not feel ready to disclose my identity, but I hope that my posts on the forum show I am genuine. I just want those who made my childhood a decade-long living hell to apologise or to be called to account.

One of those who contributed to that hell is Will Rasmussen. This is not so much because of his physical abuses, which were probably confined to a fairly limited period, before Debenham apparently assumed exclusive right to inflict formal corporal punishment. They didn't really make a lasting impression on me anyway - there were so many worse physical abuses and abusers. It is more because he was an unquestioning and enthusiastic enforcer of a system of beliefs that I utterly repudiated.

If he has left the SES then I hope that he can look back on some of those beliefs with a critical eye, and perhaps reflect on the wisdom of force-feeding them to young children. I would be interested to see him participate on this forum.

[Guest]

I guess it's time I posted something, although getting to this point has been a painful process!
I spent nearly two years at St Vedast, having gone in at the start. After all the years that have passed, I have a few good memories of that time, and they revolve around the friends I had, Matthew Woolf, Peter Graves, Chris Pierce and others. The bad memories form the massive bulk of my memory though. I expected to be disciplined, but I didn't expect to bleed, and be concussed for my offences! Neither did I expect to be disciplined for other pupil's offences. I knew at the time that I attended an abnormal school, but didn't realise just how far off the mark we really were, until I left and went to another school. There were three teachers for whom I seemed to be "high on the Radar", Nicholas Debenham, Mr Farndell and Mr Howell. Their beatings and "discipline" quickly lost their meaning to me as they were applied for almost random reasons! They became merely pain and suffering, and all the more humiliating when we were told at one point to thank our teachers for our punishment!
One day it all came to a head. Mr Howell made a mistake and confused me with another group of boys who he had told to do something else, rather than the task in hand of clearing chairs, and struck me on the side of the head, propelling me into the edge of the open door of the room. I staggered off and sat with the other boys, and nursing a slightly bleeding head resolved that I wouldn't take it anymore. That night I collected some things together and ran away from home, and spent three nights sleeping rough on Wimbledon common before being "captured". The effect on my parents was terrible, but somehow I was persuaded to return to the school, the only change being a slight softening of attitude to me by Mr Howell.
Later in the year, standing in Nicholas debenham's office waiting for yet another caning, I again decided I'd had enough and left the building and came home. I made it clear to my parents that I would never return to St Vedast again, whatever the consequences. I was placed in another school where I thrived, and began to undo some of the damage done both to my education, and my state of mind.
I never looked forward to going to school at St Vedast, my feelings each morning would swap between dread and loathing. The only time I felt alive was when there was distance between me and the school! One teacher however stood out from the others as a human being, Ms Diana Picton, who taught Science. Her's were the only lessons I ever wanted to be in, through choice.
Mr Hipshon, I didn't know you but am encouraged by your response.
Mr Barber, you took me for physical education, and I feel you were pretty good as a PE teacher, but you brutalised me. Your suffering as a child never gave you the right to inflict it upon us! However, I feel your apology is sincere, and take heart from the reports of your decent tutoring from more recent times.

Alex McMeekin

[David Hipshon]

Thanks Dan (Salaman) for your post. I've just got back from a week away but I'll reply as soon as I can, probably by e-mail,
Best wishes,
David Hipshon.

[Alban]

Hi Alex, I remember you well, you were in my class and I do remember that you were one of the ones that were picked on more than most. There were several boys that fell into that caegory and I just cannot see the logic for continuing to beat someone when it has been shown not to work. Were they trying to set some sort of example or something!

I ran away too (4 days sleeping rough) when I was 13 and remember it like it was yesterday. The main reason is that the memories are so vivid is because of the feeling of freedom, and of being in control of my life. When I got back (again "captured"...as in 'to bring back into captivity against their will') there was a pathetic letter waiting for me from J Capper (the then HM of St V) asking me to talk to him about any "problems". Funily enough, when I returned to school, he made no attempt to contact me, and the whole incident seemed to be hushed over.

Anyway, I'm glad you survived. Maybe some of these demons can soon be laid to rest.

[Matthew]

PF and I had a very positive and useful face to face meeting with Barrington Barber last Friday night. PF may also like to share with everyone his account of the meeting. I looked Mr Barber straight in the eye as he apologised unreservedly to me and asked me to please forgive him. This profound demonstration of contrition convinced me of his true sincerity. We could actually see him welling up. It was apparent that it was equally important to him for us to forgive him, as it was for us to hear him say it. We all agreed that it was a very moving, healing, and necessary meeting for the three of us. He was genuinely very very sorry and regretful.

I asked him if he could recall any specific instances where he'd abused myself and others. He found that difficult so I reminded him of a few examples: The time he caused several in my class to get chilblains and frost-nip by forcing us to run to and from Hyde Park in freezing cold conditions, wearing only thin t-shirts and shorts, whilst he and Mr Southwell were snug in their warm track-suits. And the time when he forced me to run (again in mid-winter) at 5 am at Waterperry. I told him I suffered with night-blindness and couldn't see a thing. He said "Shut up and get on with it you weakling". I then described the terror of being forced to run not being able to see literally an inch in front of me, and therefore inevitably running full tilt into trees, goal-posts, falling into puddles etc. utterly powerless to do anything about it. I described the time he beat my brother with a climbing rope for not sweating after 3 minutes of circuit-training. The thick purple weals on his backside were there for over a week. He repeated how deeply sorry and regretful he was for all of these things.

I asked him about the violent and intimidating culture that existed at the schools, and to what degree he was encouraged or instructed by Debenham/MacLaren. He said he was given no special instructions by either. He was given free license to discipline us however he saw fit. It was not until the early 1980's that he gradually realised that his previous extremely harsh discipline was proving ineffective. He said he then revaluated his approach and used less physical chastisement. Unlike Dr Hipshon, he made no attempt to defend Mr Debenham. He wanted to take full and personal responsibility for all his actions. He said he only heard about this website a few weeks ago, someone had told him that his name had come up on it. He insisted that on reading all the testimonies it was literally the first time in 25 years or so that he'd had any knowledge that so many of us had ever felt and still feel the way we do as a result of his and the other teachers' actions. On looking at the site his instant reaction was to write his post, apologise, and plead to be forgiven.

He was adamant that he was never a sadist and insisted that he genuinely believed this was the correct approach to disciplining us. Without attempting to justify his behaviour in any way, he explained this by describing his upbringing. His father and grandfather were strict disciplinarians. His grandfather was a boxer and taught him also to box. He confirmed that, apart from this, he has never had any formal qualifications in teaching children Physical Education. As a child he was quite puny and was brought up to always stand up to bullies and fight back, and if anyone hurt his younger sister to go and hit them too. He was taught to defend himself not with words, but with his fists. His upbringing and schooling were harsh, but he admitted that with the benefit of hindsight, by the time he came to teach at St Vedast some twenty years later, the methods he adopted were inappropriate even for the mid to late 1970's and early 1980's. Perhaps his saving grace - his talent for art and his passion for philosophy, as well as raising a family, gave him the compassion and humanity that Mr Debenham has never possessed. After meeting Mr Debenham last July and having a very long conversation with him about his past, I can say with absolute certainty that this is still the case. ND simply refused to acknowledge or accept the abuse that he and those under him were responsible for. He has never had children of his own - this fact is perhaps quite telling. Mr Barber had a gift for art and drawing, and a deep fascination and interest in philosophy - he had read Plato's complete works as a young man before he joined the SES, and it was through friends with the same interests that he first discovered the SES. My theory is that, because he has been blessed with and is more in touch with these more sensitive and creative sides of his character, this perhaps goes some way to explain why he has been one of the first of the former abusers to step forward and offer us this apology.

At the end of the meeting, we all got up, shook hands, and PF and I both fully accepted and thanked him for his apology. We gladly and willingly offered him the forgiveness that he needed to hear from us, and found that we were even able to give each other a warm and spontaneous hug of affection. PF and I stayed behind to chat for a while, and Mr Barber had to leave to go and meet his son Daniel. We said our goodbyes, he wished us well, and we wished him well in his retirement. The experience provided healing and catharsis for me, I suspect it gave the same for PF and Barrington. Mr Barber was one of my childhood demons that as a grown man I have now managed to literally and directly face up to. This is a good start. One down, about a nine or ten more to go....

It is my sincere hope that Barrington Barber's lead will set the example that Messrs Debenham, Russell, Southwell, Howell, Farndell, Capper, Matthews, Lacey, and Skinner will all follow - especially Mr Debenham for obvious reasons.

Matthew Woolf

[adrasteia]

I hope this isn't wandering off topic too much, but I've been wanting to try and get my thoughts on 'paper' for a while.
I've tried to make it factual rather than emotional.

The means may have been different but the aim of all four schools was the same - to break the spirit of the child in order to indoctrinate him or her into the SES way of thinking.

I think that the St. James Schools are still used to recruit new members into the Ses way of thinking, this is the spiritual education which they are proud to offer.

The spiritual ethos of the school pervades and informs every aspect of life here.

The spiritual Ethos of the school is not directly stated on any of the pages I searched, but it is clear both through reading the website and having experienced what it is in practice, that the spiritual ethos of the school is the same as the beliefs of Ses.

This connection with Ses is further confirmed by Mr. Donald Lambi?s constant presence at the School.
He has a yearly meeting with the lower sixth form, in which he offers them the chance to join the foundation group: This is a ?special? version of the youth groups -for pupils of St. James school only- which are the Ses groups for young people.

There are however groups for younger children than the 6th form, whether this is the case outside St. James I do not know, but some children will have been to ?group? for many years before this meeting. The girls are targeted earliest- Ses parents are encouraged to put their girls into ?group? from the age of 10, although at this age the invitation is not general.
The younger children do not have to do duties, this begins at ?foundation? level, they do however have residential weekends and weeks, although the social aspect of these may be what is most enjoyed at this stage! Some of these become ?trial? weekends for those who may be interested in joining- a letter is sent out to all pupils in the year.

In the meeting for the foundation group, which all the sixth form are asked to attend, (although often some pupils are mysteriously absent!) Mr. Lambi does not offer a ?trial? weekend, as he feels the pupils education at St. James has shown them sufficiently what it would be like to be a member of the foundation group.

Meetings with Mr. Lambi are often arranged for or offered to pupils, although he has no official teacher status or position in the school as spiritual guide or such-like, and I do not believe he is mentioned in the prospectus as having any kind of influence on the school. These meetings can be for any number of reasons- if the pupil concerned seems to have ?spiritual ambiguity? or is still undecided about joining the foundation group for example.

Mr. Lambi also visits on Founders Day. Why? He took over from Mr. Mac Laren as founder of the Ses, not as the founder of the day schools. The school web site implies that the founding of Ses and St. James were two different events:

St James schools were founded in 1975. The founder, Leon MacLaren, is better known as the inspiration behind the School of Economic Science, a charitable trust teaching philosophy and economics and various related subjects.
In addition to a number of remarkable initiatives in the fields of art, music, law and science, Leon MacLaren founded a school for children. It was to provide a complete education for boys and girls from four and a half to eighteen, which would look after their spiritual, mental and physical development.

To join the foundation group, girls have to complete an initiation ceremony in which they must wear white and bring flowers and fruit. They make promises to commit to the search for truth and a return to the Atman, (the Ses way is of course the right way!) They make these promises to Mr. Lambi, bowing to him as the man closest to God and therefore representing him in this case. They are watched by other Ses ladies.
This is as faithfully retold from reports as possible- I never participated in it, although it was described and offered to me, but have talked about it with friends who were going to/had taken the step. I still cannot understand how they could treat it as so normal, especially those who had not been in group in the years before.

The boys have similar ceremony, although they are not dressed in white. But their group seems more relaxed than the girls, there is a greater social aspect- none of this ironing senior member?s pants on group weekends!
For foundation members groups becomes more and more important and missing sessions becomes less excusable. Group weekends take priority over extra curricular school activities such as sport or music.
What is the effect of all the above on the children?


This was on another part of the St. James Web site, and only really attracted my attention because of what has been said on this website:

The founder took the greatest care in formulating the educational principles for the schools and maintained a close interest in the early years of their development.

'By their works shall ye know them'

[a different guest]

The spiritual Ethos of the school is not directly stated on any of the pages I searched, but it is clear both through reading the website and having experienced what it is in practice, that the spiritual ethos of the school is the same as the beliefs of Ses.

Only clear if you know a fair bit about the SES/SOP. I've revewied the site and note that under the spiritual curriculum it always makes mention of the local Anglican Church. It also mentions "other" sources for spiritual/philosphical stuff but nowhere does it spell out all the SES/SOP beleif structure that underpins the whole thing.

It's just like the ads for their philosophy courses - although they have been reworded ONLY someone steeped in SES/SOP gobblygook speak would at ALL understand that it is basically about a single eastern flavoured philosopy. It still reads like thye are offering general philosphy to me!

[Daffy]

We all agreed that it was a very moving, healing, and necessary meeting for the three of us. He was genuinely very very sorry and regretful.

It is my sincere hope that Barrington Barber's lead will set the example that Messrs Debenham, Russell, Southwell, Howell, Farndell, Capper, Matthews, Lacey, and Skinner will all follow - especially Mr Debenham for obvious reasons.

Thanks Matthew for your moving account of this meeting. I think I must have read it more than a dozen times. Each time I do so, it allows me to share in your catharsis, your sense of release from childhood demons.

There is a long way to go, of course. I hope that other teachers, including some you haven't mentioned, can take heart from this encounter and follow BB's courageous lead.

[adrasteia]

Only clear if you know a fair bit about the SES/SOP...
It's just like the ads for their philosophy courses - although they have been reworded ONLY someone steeped in SES/SOP gobblygook speak would at ALL understand that it is basically about a single eastern flavoured philosopy. It still reads like thye are offering general philosphy to me!

True. I obviously speak from my own experience of being 'steeped'!
Although there does seem to be something...unique about the way St. James represents itself, but again that maybe just from my point of veiw.

If the Ses seems to be misrepresenting what is being offered in their philosophy classes, then could St. James be misrepresenting what they offer their students?

[Matthew]

Thanks Matthew for your moving account of this meeting. I think I must have read it more than a dozen times. Each time I do so, it allows me to share in your catharsis, your sense of release from childhood demons. There is a long way to go, of course. I hope that other teachers, including some you haven't mentioned, can take heart from this encounter and follow BB's courageous lead.

Daffy, thank you. It was a moving meeting, so I'm pleased I managed to convey this in my account.