Hehe now we get SPAM on this list tooBugi wrote:Thanks! The mails were from people on my xxxxxxxx allow list...
[i've removed the site address of the spammer because that is what they want, free PR -- mike]
Hehe now we get SPAM on this list tooBugi wrote:Thanks! The mails were from people on my xxxxxxxx allow list...
sparkss wrote:Debenham, Boddy, RUSSELL and the others.....the doors of the battery farm are open and your chickens are coming home to roost.
I am an ex St James pupil from the good old days.
I will not be posting my experinces on the site - they are being saved for the enquiry (or the court room if the enquiry proves to be a whitewash).
PS What about the female half of the Debenham double act?
Apologies for interupting the analysis of Katherine's position.....
sparkss wrote:I will not be posting my experinces on the site - they are being saved for the enquiry (or the court room if the enquiry proves to be a whitewash).
Sarah wrote:Thanks anon, it's good to know I'm not alone, and it's fine if you don't want to post your experiences here, at this stage it may be better to save them for the inquiry anyway.
malin wrote:I served a full sentence at St James, and fortunately managed to survive with non-fatal damage. I will not be making detailed allegations on this site now as I am saving them for the correct time.
Airing our grievances here has also elicited apologies from some former teachers. I think that they are genuinely shocked at the effect their actions had.
Janine wrote:Hi, I recently found this site and find it very distressing to hear many of the stories, they do not surprise me as I remember and witnessed the brutality. I joined St James Girls School in 1976 aged 8. My overwhelming memories are ones of fear and a cold, dark, intimidating environment. There were 5 new girls and for some reason it seemed like a good idea to put us under the ?care? of Miss Hare later to become Mrs Debenham. Off to great start ? these were in fact the worst days of St. James ? 5 new little girls left to her mercy. Although I remember being reduced to tears within days (something to do with ink reservoirs and calligraphy boards) she seemed to take an instant dislike to 2 of the new intake, one was ritually humiliated and the other I remember being reduced to wetting herself in front of the class before being made to eat soap to ?clean out her mouth, and to stop lying?. There was a reshuffle of classes and staff not long after and thankfully I was moved on into another class but these 2 poor victims stayed in her newly formed class until they left the school. As well as being their class teacher she continued to teach me English and I will never forget the fear of her lessons; the way she entered the room, sat down and handed homework back slowly, deliberately and menacingly. You hardly breathed until your book was back in front of you and hopefully with at least a B grade in it, otherwise God forbid. I am surprised no one from her class has contributed yet as I am sure they suffered the most.
I still do not understand why I did not find myself in more trouble as I was often seen as not fitting in ? I only had 1 parent in SES and therefore my home life was obviously one of perversity! , I was allowed to listen to pop music and wear jeans ?. Strangely I suffered more from the attitude and comments from other parents. They seemed to think nothing of saying ?sorry she can?t come to your house as you are not brought up the same way.? Or ?I never want you to walk up the stairs the way Janine does?! What a strange comment to make about an 8/9 year old. (Apparently it was too sexual I discovered later!) A classmate actually said ?it is a shame you came to this school as you are common? ? surely a comment like this can only have come from a parent when the girl in question was only 9 years old. As I became a teenager there were meetings were I was personally named as a bad influence, there seemed to some sort of prevailing thought that I was promiscuous because I had kissed a boy by the time I was 15 and my parents allowed me to cohort with the opposite sex. I don?t remember my parents being invited to these impromptu meeting I only knew about them later because Mrs Mcguiness told me and had always defended me. I think all I had ever done was initiate an outing to the cinema and Richmond Ice Rink with some boys from the equivalent class. The most confusing thing is that what I was allowed to do at home was not considered appropriate within St. James, though when I tried to explain this to my parents they did not seem to take me seriously and just brushed it off. And when I explained it at school they were always somewhat at a loss for words or insinuated my parents were lacking in some ?moral? direction. I think I was a bit of an unknown quantity and although it offered me some protection it left me in very a confused position, though I never believed that ?school? was right it was just something I had to get on with until I was 16.
I do remember being regularly involved in incidents that would lead to vitriolic outbursts, long lectures and pointless punishments that would generally be over minor incidents. Although I suffered the usual round of punishments, hours drawing straight lines (the straightness of the lines demonstrating whether you were telling the truth), standing on chairs, scrubbing calligraphy boards and so on it was along with the rest of the class, I was not picked out specifically to be regularly humiliated. There was a definite group of 3 or 4 people in my class who were singled out for being subordinate, lazy and having a bad attitude. There was never any consideration given to why they may be underachieving or unhappy. They were labelled as lazy and stupid for the rest of their days at school. There was no nurturing, understanding or encouragement.
I believe I survived relatively unscathed because I was strong willed, did ok academically and my home life was reasonably ?normal?. When I did stay at other people?s houses I often witnessed them endure more hardship and emotional pain and I knew boys who would have to beaten again to reinforce punishments given out at school. I say I was relatively unscathed but what I have come to realise in my 30?s is that the experience of St James left me with a lingering feeling of not fitting in and not being good enough for a long time along with a vague idea that I was promiscuous. As well as this I had (and still do to an extent) problems with the word respect, - it leaves me blank, I was never shown any respect at any time during my school life and it was a word jammed down my throat with no example of what it meant. For a long time I had a twisted idea that respect was to do with curtseying and kowtowing to teachers when they came into the room and never answering back.
I have a memory that my family donated money to St James ? perhaps this is why I was not singled out regularly. Maybe I just can?t remember. I represented and circulated the things they abhorred, pop music, magazines, fashion, trashy books, makeup, contact with the opposite sex. Have I just blanked things out or did I somehow get away with it? Was I lucky? Did they feel sorry for me and my lack of moral guidance at home? or was it my dad?s money? Easy to jump on the latter as the reason but I think he only donated money once in 8 years!
All the above aside I do think my education was sadly lacking considering the amount of time and money spent on it. I can?t believe modern languages were not on the curriculum, they were considered unnecessary ? did they think the days of the Empire were to be revisited? We spent more time at School than any one else I knew all being forced to do the same subjects with no subject options and spending an inordinate amount of time doing philosophy lessons and reading the Gait and the Upanishads. It?s a shame because in my adult life I may have even come to find these texts of interest but even the mention of these books makes me feel strange. Again meditation may be a great tool but I find it is something I cannot yet embrace. I can just about manage ?ohm? at the end of a yoga session down at the gym.
So what did I learn at school:
Pop Music/modern culture was satanic
Jeans would turn me into a man
A woman could never be seen in public without a man
A woman should always cover her legs. Did you know in the senior school our uniform had 2 box pleats on the tunic, 1 stood for innocence and the other for honesty!
We were all meant to be leaders of the future
It was ok for a teacher to smoke in the classroom
I learnt the lyrics to the worst school hymn ever written
I could go on for ages but I think that?s enough for now ? I have found this a very cathartic exercise and I urge those of you out there to come forward and contribute.
Best wishes to you all.
Janine
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