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

Discussion of the children's schools in the UK.
Guest

Re: Richest Franchise in Sport

Postby Guest » Sun Nov 14, 2004 8:02 pm

Bugi wrote:Thanks! The mails were from people on my xxxxxxxx allow list...
Hehe now we get SPAM on this list too :crazyeyes:


[i've removed the site address of the spammer because that is what they want, free PR -- mike]

noanon

Re: Interupting your thread

Postby noanon » Sun Nov 14, 2004 11:08 pm

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.....


Agree 100 per cent on the chickens coming home to roost. Debenham, Lacey and the others should be terrified. Whether through the enquiry or through more direct means, we will make them pay.

And until Boddy removes Lacey from the school now, he is also the enemy and will be embarrassed at every opportunity. There are already some stunts set up.

malin
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2004 12:47 am

Postby malin » Mon Nov 15, 2004 1:36 am

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.

Boddy, you have chosen yourself as a representative of the school. I urge you to set in place a process that leads to full disclosure of the truth.

It?s quite simple. I would like a public acknowledgement of what went on in SES day schools. And I would like an apology from all those named for what they have done. Then you can get on with your business of running the current schools.

The opening paragraph of st james schools website:

?It helps to know, when you look at a school, what is the central idea behind it. The idea behind this education is the love of truth.?

Hipshon and Barber are the only two people so far who have come forward and acted according to this principle that you state is fundamental.

Are the rest of you hypocrites as well as child abusers?

I urge all named individuals, particularly Nicholas Debenham, to come forward voluntarily now, admit the truth, and apologise for their actions.

The longer you leave it, the deeper the shit you are in.

Daffy
Moderator
Posts: 333
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 3:32 am

Postby Daffy » Mon Nov 15, 2004 10:17 am

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.


You have all said that you are going to save your experiences and allegations for the inquiry or some later time. I am curious why.

You are each suggesting that there is a need to 'keep your powder dry'. However, it is only because of the negative publicity here that the current regime at St James has started taking notice. I can't see any other reason why they would have offered to set up the inquiry - it is certainly not because of some deep-seated belief in the truth.

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. They would quite probably never have reflected on this unless they had read our accounts here. The inquiry can hardly come out with a blanket denial when ex-teachers are now coming clean.

This forum is having a snowball effect - the more stories we contribute, the more other people get involved and the more seriously St James has to take us. So let's keep up the pressure and the momentum!

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a different guest
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Location: Australia

Postby a different guest » Mon Nov 15, 2004 11:03 am

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.


Are those guys slow learners or what? Jeesh, they physically and emotionally abuse kids as young as 4 and only NOW, after this website, do they realise their actions caused harm! That is BLOODY pathetic!

Yes many here WANT some sort of reconciliation, and are eager to grasp any olive branch. But from my removed perspective I am with those who are not so sanguine. The powers that be have known about the abuse for years, yet it is only with postings on this increasingly popular board that they NOW announce an inquiry. Will it be a whitewash? And look to the attitude of current pupils - it is in the past they say. It is History. It is gossip! Yet teachers who perpetrated abuse are STILL teachers at the school. Oh, that's right, they don't do it anymore. So do we let off a murderer whose crime is discovered 30 years on just because they haven't murdered someone since?

And it has been argued that it was the 'mores" of the time. Bullcrap!

I think, like the ex-GG here Hollingowrth, the perps have no REAL understaning of what they have done.

Janine

Experiences 76-84

Postby Janine » Mon Nov 15, 2004 2:25 pm

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

leon M

Postby leon M » Mon Nov 15, 2004 3:17 pm

Thanks Janine for your post, I to 'studied' at St James in the 70's and 80's.As someone who was singled out at St James I found your observations regarding the victimisation of particular children paralleled my own. I noticed that the pupils of very wealthy parents (infering perhaps they donated) often escaped corporal punishment for the same incidents where other less fortunates were caned. The adademically gifted were also spared. The few exceptions I remember well. Once W Russell had us all standing on chairs and went into one of his fits. Rounding on the child at the top of the class he reduced him to tears screaming "you mummys boy mummys boy" at the top of his voice two inches from his face. Needless to say he had not misbehaved in any way. This amazed me, this child I had labeled as an untouchable, ie treated favourably and never punished as he was very gifted and enjoyed schoolwork and generally excelled. He left St James left that term, and the whole school was made to turn out and give him a send off. My own leaving went unannounced and ignored!

(there was a class seating system, the more marks you got the closer to the front you got to sit. It was a horrible psycological damaging system for the poor kids permanently seated at the back.)

I also believe SES philospohy wrote off some students, perhaps in SES eyes so called 'lazy' children were just not spiritually evolved enough to waste time on or just the wrong class. I was ridiculed publicly for not having 'round enough vowel sounds', the teacher in question using such words as common, coarse vulgar etc to describe my character. I was then reprimanded for having non St James friends, and labeled a bad influence.
My short sightedness was due to sins in a previous life. Anyone with a disability was thus dismissed, it was their own fault. This philosophy ran through everything, If you were of slight build you were a weed, puny etc. Perhaps one would epect this treatment from other children, but not adult teachers!

leon M

Postby leon M » Mon Nov 15, 2004 3:22 pm

Thanks Janine for your post, I to 'studied' at St James in the 70's and 80's.As someone who was singled out at St James I found your observations regarding the victimisation of particular children paralleled my own. I noticed that the pupils of very wealthy parents (infering perhaps they donated) often escaped corporal punishment for the same incidents where other less fortunates were caned. The adademically gifted were also spared. The few exceptions I remember well. Once W Russell had us all standing on chairs and went into one of his fits. Rounding on the child at the top of the class he reduced him to tears screaming "you mummys boy mummys boy" at the top of his voice two inches from his face. Needless to say he had not misbehaved in any way. This amazed me, this child I had labeled as an untouchable, ie treated favourably and never punished as he was very gifted and enjoyed schoolwork and generally excelled. He left St James left that term, and the whole school was made to turn out and give him a send off. My own eventual leaving went unannounced and ignored! Wealth and gifted children were good for funding and league tables.

(there was a class seating system, the more marks you got the closer to the front you got to sit. It was a horrible psycological damaging system for the poor kids permanently seated at the back.)

I also believe SES philospohy wrote off some students, perhaps in SES eyes so called 'lazy' children were just not spiritually evolved enough to waste time on or just the wrong class. I was ridiculed publicly for not having 'round enough vowel sounds', the teacher in question using such words as common, coarse vulgar etc to describe my character. I was then reprimanded for having non St James friends, and labeled a bad influence.
My short sightedness was due to sins in a previous life. Anyone with a disability was thus dismissed, it was their own fault. This philosophy ran through everything, If you were of slight build you were a weed, puny etc. Perhaps one would epect this treatment from other children, but not adult teachers!

leonm

Postby leonm » Mon Nov 15, 2004 3:30 pm

...does anyone rember Lacey smashing a blackboard into pieces during one of his rages? I did not witness this, but a close friend told me it happened in his class. I do remember Russell throwing someones briefcase out of the window into the street....

Bruce Jacobs

Postby Bruce Jacobs » Mon Nov 15, 2004 5:30 pm

First, there is a very interesting connection to all this, involving many of the names on this site.

Around 20 years ago, PF used to try and date my sister. (He once gave her Snowdrops perfume ? a now, sadly, defunct brand). Anyway, I used to mock him about his attempts to get my sister to go out with him. As a result, on the weekly run round Battersea Park, he would chase me, to try and give me a kicking. The result was that DAVID HIPSHON came up to me one afternoon, said he was delighted by my rapidly improving times, and he was putting me in the school cross country team. I tried to explain that my times were based on fear and self-survival, but to no avail. At the various inter-school meetings, I was unsurprisingly always near the back of the pack as I jogged along in an orgy of safety and complacency, young PF not being there to chase me. Luckily, I soon turned 13, at which age one could swap x-country running for art club. I asked BARRINGTON BARBER if I could join as a matter of urgency, and upon submitting a perfectly round free-hand circle as my audition, was allowed in.

Next, in my experience / time, Barrington Barber was almost everyone?s favourite teacher. Often it was he alone who seemed to have some humanity and intelligence when every other teacher was lost in a fog of tangled spirituality and righteousness. I loved boxing, I loved the art classes and most of all I loved 239 coy cadets. The standards and self-discipline he instilled in us there are still key to me now. It is no surprise to me at all that of any teacher, it is he who has had the character to speak publicly about events at the school.

Third, Nicholas Debenham certainly loved his cane, but it wasn?t a secret policy. We, and our parents, knew full well that it was liberally used at the school. Its use was always considered, if often painfully (excuse the pun) excessive and ill-judged. And yes, my legs experienced the welts and bleeding & bruising that it led to. Far more worrying were the completely uncontrolled physical attacks on pupils by other teachers. There were far too many incidents to remember many of them at all ? they were a part of the fabric of the school at that time. It is not the place here to list specific incidents, but th3e likes of Lacey, Mottram, and Russell would unquestionably be locked up by today?s standards for their frequent and uncontrolled physical attacks on boys. And of course Nicholas Debenham knew what was going on. He had to warn Colin Russell that he was close to being suspended after one particularly aggressive attack on a boy.

I find this ?enquiry? interesting, therefore, and am puzzled by why the school is doing it. EVERYONE but everyone knows what went on in the 70s and 80s. It was a bizarre place, often very lovely and often so stupid it was very very funny, but also with moments of real violence and other completely unacceptable incidents, especially involving girls. St James great mistake for all these years has been to just not admit it, apologise and show old pupils how the school has changed. So why an enquiry? The school already knows full well what went on. If they were serious about this enquiry, then the nature and frequency of the allegations against staff such as David Lacey would surely merit his suspension pending the findings by the QC?

If I?m honest, I also find quite a few of the less central complaints about the school on this site a bit trivial and over-emotional, though I don?t wish to disparage anyone?s experiences. There was a big fat teacher, whose name I forget, (called Barnard maybe?) who in the middle of a game of rugby in the winter would send anyone who needed to be punished to go and stand by the river to get cold. Not best sporting practice, but we survived. All I would say, is if this is going to happen, let?s keep it objective and in perspective.

Last point ? site owner ? could you sort the posts by staff / school vs. pupils? As a newcomer to the site, it?s very hard to find particular posts from staff / the school, as there are so many other posts from pupils?.(or at least have a search function, by name etc)

Hello to everyone who knew me!

Bruce (?79-?88)

Tom Grubb
Posts: 380
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 10:23 pm
Location: London

Re: Experiences 76-84

Postby Tom Grubb » Mon Nov 15, 2004 9:00 pm

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

Thanks, Janine, for telling the truth about what went on at your school. I was moved almost to tears reading your testimony. How much longer will the SES cover up the truth?

janine

Postby janine » Mon Nov 15, 2004 9:13 pm

Thanks Tom - i just hope other girls (women) come forward with their memories.

Will be staying in touch.

nonaon

Postby nonaon » Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:31 am

Bruce, thanks for your post.

You are correct. If Boddy was taking this enquiry at all seriously, he would suspend Lacey pending the outcome. To all parents of current pupils looking at this site, you may care to ask Boddy why he continues to entrust Lacey with the care of innocent children.

Boddy hopes that in return for promising a so-called enquiry, we will all go away and stop revealing the truth on this website.

Nice try, Boddy. But a major increase in publicity is about to come your way. Some of us want a REAL result not a whitewash.

Matthew
Posts: 212
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2004 6:57 pm
Location: London

Let's not forget Christopher Southwell

Postby Matthew » Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:52 am

Don't forget, its not just Mr Lacey that is still working there, but Mr Southwell as well. He too is a former child-abuser, as many of the testimonies bear out. If Lacey is to be suspended, then so too must Southwell.

nonanon

Postby nonanon » Tue Nov 16, 2004 3:10 pm

Agree on Southwell. Boddy must act or face the consequences. He is either with the abusers or with the victims. If he doesn't act soon, the PRESENT DAY St James will suffer with lots of media and publicity and humiliation stunts we have planned. Boddy, do you want to be remembered as the man who brought St James down?


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