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

[chrisdevere]

xxxxxxxxxxx

[Matthew]

xxxxxxxxxxx

[dan]

Apologies to Chris De Vere

Chris I assure you I was an ex St Vedast pupil and I am not such " a very sad twisted sod" that I would send anyone a virus intentionally (even an abusive ex St Vedast teacher!).

My virus checker (up to date Nortons) did not flag anything up and the only thing I forwarded you was was Matt's email. However if there was something else in there virus-like then it was definitely unintentional, and I am very sorry.

I am asking anyone 'out there' who has good/bad memories of St Vedast/St James to write a short statement outlining any abusive or memorable experiences. If you are willing for this statement to be presented to ex St Vedast/St james teachers as a testament to their past actions, and kept as an anti-cult record then please email it to me, Matt or Tom.

St Vedast is a part of many of our pasts that I think needs to be analysed, remembered and recorded as an example of what happens when members of a personality cult (SES) are given charge of inncocent children. Cults will definitely arise again in the future and will exploit the vulnerable. The more testimonies there are about the actions of the SES, the more careful, I hope, parents will be in the future.

Thank you for reading this

Dan Salaman
dan_salaman@hotmail.com

[Guest]

Dan Salaman, that name rings bells. Perhaps you have nothing to do with the Salaman I'm talking about...

I love Mr. Salaman's assemblies. He comes to visit the school and with him, brings inspiring stories which bring a smile to the faces of those who are even half-awake, just the right thing to start the day off with.

Just another minor experiance in the present day St James.

[Tom Grubb]

I'd just like to point out that Daniel Salaman was a pupil at St Vedast and that, in my experience, virus detecting software can sometimes be a little oversensitive.

[adrasteia (can't sign in)]

I think it is a great think that you are in talks with St. James, this is perhaps what Katherin Watson was refering to on the 'Anti_ses' forum, (Which seems to be a bit quiet now!)
I assume your main emphasis will be physical abuse, but where will you stop?
Tom mentioned mental abuse, some being that of encouraging pupils to follow the Ses beliefs.
I think this is still a factor today:
The sixth form are required to attend a meeting offering them the chance to ask questions to Mr. Lambie, the head of SES, and are given the chance to join the foundation. There are also 'trial' week-ends for the younger 'group'.
Philosphy lessons for the class are obviously Ses based, the things that present pupils are saying on the message boards I sometimes find disturbing: a lot of the time they have accepted what has been said but don't seem to undrestand it.
I guess the underlying problem is the connection with the Ses, which the school does Not make clear to those who are joining, it's hard to find on the website too, although it is there.
I would argue that the boy's school is still a violent place, although this time is the sixthformers and prefects that weild the power. If they can get away with bullying at the school, then they are not learning a good lesson for life either.
So basically I'm just wondering how far you are forcing them to look at what is hidden about the school.
I know that you all represent the 'old' school, but I feel there are still things wrong in the 'new' school.

[Tom Grubb]

Whatever's happened to Katherine Watson?

[Katharine Watson]

Whatever's happened to Katherine Watson?

She's very busy marking books and exam papers, getting through the mountain of paper work dished out by the exam boards, cajoling students to get their coursework completed, teaching people how to analyse a Shakespeare speech/TS Eliot poem/post-colonial novel/newspaper article, trying to persuade sixth formers to arrive at school on time, sorting out personality clashes, taking registers, listening to people's problems, photocopying, arranging for people who need it to get extra time in exams, confiscating cricket balls when people throw them around indoors, worrying about how adequately her A2 Philosophy students have covered the syllabus (it's a new exam), pleading with sixth formers not to break the furniture, getting said furniture mended, having indepth discussions with GCSE and A Level classes on various matters of earth-shattering importance... oh, and fighting a losing battle against snails in her garden.

Thank you for asking, Tom.

[Tom Grubb]

Good to hear from you, Katherine - and bang goes my conspiracy theory that the SES gods had silenced you!

Good luck with the exams!

Tom

[Alexander Woolf]

St Vedast (now St James):- Alex Woolf's Testimony

I do not write the following testimony for myself. i.e. I get no
pleasure from it, nor any sense of catharsis. These are some of the
incidents that I've retained in my head. But it's really the tip of
the iceberg. There was more, and worse, but I think I've forgotten
most of it, or only remember it vaguely. Stories like these and the
ones that Matthew, Dan, Tom, and others have told give some of the
picture, but only those who were there can know what it was really
like.

I attended St Vedast School for four years, from the ages of 11 to
15 (1975-1979). I was in the most senior class, and among the first
intake of pupils at that school. My form master was Colin Russell.
He was a short, stocky man, with intense blue-grey eyes, and he
radiated power. As a class we feared him. He could be jovial and
amusing one minute, and very cold and brutal the next.

He liked to be impulsive, unpredictable and surprising. I remember
once looking over my shoulder at another boy's work (something
admittedly I shouldn't have been doing), and getting whacked
incredibly hard across the face by Mr Russell's open hand. I recall
the dreadful shock of this as much as the pain, and the prolonged
ringing sound in my ear. One morning, Mr Russell came into the room
and told us that we all stank, and ordered us down to the shower
room for ice-cold showers. That was the sort of man he was.

Mr Russell's speciality was picking on one person and humiliating
him in front of the class. His most frequent victim was a boy called
Paul Hithersay, who had problems with maths. Mr Russell would make
him stand at the blackboard and order him in the most menacing tones
to do a particular calculation. I don't know if Paul would have been
capable of doing the calculation in any circumstances, but of
course, under so much pressure, the boy's mind simply froze. The
minutes would tick by in excruciating silence. Paul might giggle in
embarrassment. He would sometimes try to write something, anything,
on the board; inevitably it would be completely wrong. It was
torture to sit through those sessions, and it must have been ten
times worse for Paul.

I developed a bad stammer when I was at St Vedast, which I attribute
directly to the fear I experienced day after day in Mr Russell's
classroom. The stammer made reading aloud in class a humiliating
experience, and I became the object of one particular boy's mockery.

From my own point of view, Mr Russell was the worst, because he was
the cleverest. He got inside our heads, and preyed on our fears.
Perhaps under hypnosis I would remember more, but I really don't
want to go there.

Another teacher I had frequent dealings with was Barrington Barber,
who took us for circuit training and boxing. Mr Barber worked us
extremely hard, and consequently we were fairly fit. I remember that
some boys suspected that Mr Barber deliberately chose mismatched
opponents for boxing bouts, because he enjoyed seeing a good
beating. However, I don't actually remember much evidence of that.
There was one occasion, however, when a small boy, I forget who, was
paired with Dominic Best, the strongest boy in the school. Mr Barber
put a skipping rope around Dominic's waist and would pull him back
if he thought Best was becoming too violent. I remember all of us
laughing, including Mr Barber. I don't remember the smaller boy
getting badly hurt in the process. It must have been an unnerving
experience, though.

Several ropes dangled from the ceiling in the gym where these
lessons took place. One day, during a circuit training session, Mr
Barber picked up the end of one of these ropes and said to us (or
words to this effect): 'You are not working hard enough. I'm going
to time you, and if any of you isn't sweating after sixty seconds of
exercise, I will beat you with this rope.' We all redoubled our
efforts at running on the spot, burpees, star jumps, etc, to try to
ensure a flow of perspiration. I saw some boys licking their palms
and smearing their brows with saliva. I didn't do this, however,
being fairly confident I could work up an honest sweat. However,
when sixty seconds was up, my skin must have still been dry, because
Mr Barber took one look at me, then told me to bend over. The rope
ends were sealed with leather, and the pain was intense.

I was better than most at avoiding beatings, essentially because I
knew when to keep my head down and lie low. One particular teacher,
Diana Picton, had problems controlling the class, and she was
instructed to send anyone who misbehaved even slightly, to the
headmaster for a beating. We were often told by Mr Russell that our
aim in life was to be 'a white dot on a white piece of paper', and
that was exactly what I became during her classes. Others were less
able to adapt, and in one lesson, no less than three boys were sent
off for a caning. One of them, Matthew Knight, momentarily forgot -
or did not hear - that Miss Picton had called for silence. He asked
his neighbour if he could borrow a rubber, and was sent straight to
the headmaster. He came back fifteen minutes later, limping slightly
and moaning with pain.

It was not only in Miss Picton's classes that boys found themselves
being caned for minor offences. Some fell foul of the 'black mark'
system. There was a chart in our classroom with each of our names in
alphabetical order. Every time a boy committed an offence in the
eyes of the teacher, a black mark was placed next to their name on
the chart. When a boy had amassed twenty black marks, he was caned,
no matter how insignificant the final misdemeanour. At the end of
each term, the chart was wiped clean, but I remember that several
boys - on eighteen or nineteen black marks - were forced to live for
weeks at a time in perilous proximity to a caning.

My only experience of the headmaster's cane occurred one Monday
morning. The previous Saturday, I had been on detention - I don't
remember why. Mr Russell was supervising us, but was called away on
some business. He told us to complete the work we had been set, and
he would be back in a little while to collect it. Time went by, and
there was no sign of him. I had completed the work, and was getting
anxious because I knew my father had bought football tickets for an
FA Cup tie at Loftus Road that afternoon: QPR versus Manchester
City. Eventually I gave my work to a fellow detainee, and asked him
to hand it to Mr Russell and explain why I hadn't been able to wait.

The following Monday, Mr Russell called me to the front of the class
and asked me to explain why I hadn't been there when he returned. I
started to explain about the football match. He said he knew all
about the football match, but that was no excuse for disobedience.
He told me to go to the headmaster. My heart sank. I couldn't
actually believe I was going to be caned for this. Surely I had
acted reasonably in the circumstances. The headmaster, Nicholas
Debenham, was not in his study when I arrived there. He was taking
assembly for St James. I had to wait for half an hour outside his
study - perhaps the longest thirty minutes of my life. When he
finally arrived, he asked me to step inside. I stood in the middle
of his study while he paced around, and blew on his clenched right
fist. I suppose he must have been talking as well, lecturing me
about the importance of obedience, but I really don't remember a
word he said, just the way he blew on his fist. Then he went over to
a cabinet, opened a drawer and extracted a thin, bendy cane, which
he swished a bit, testing its flexibility. He told me to bend over.
I did so. Then he asked me to move because he didn't have sufficient
room for a good swing. I moved, then shut my eyes and waited for the
stinging blow. I received six strokes, each one like white fire,
ripping through me. One or two landed on the same place, doubling
the agony. When it was over, I straightened, and, without looking at
him or acknowledging him, simply left his study. Maybe this was rude
of me, but I thought if I looked at him I might cry, and I didn't
want him to see that. The heat those blows generated was intense,
and the pain stayed with me all day. Later, in the shower, I showed
off the bruises to fellow pupils. I may have tried to act brave and
uncaring, but inside I felt angry, humiliated, and wronged.

We were told time and again about how lucky we were to attend this
school, St Vedast. 'We are offering you the key to heaven on a
golden plate', they told us. And yet I remember on more than one
occasion sitting there in those cold, brutal rooms in 92 Queensgate,
and thinking that I had never in my whole life felt further from
heaven than I did right then.

[Matthew]

Thank you Alex for yet another excellent account of what life was really like at St Vedast. What impresses me most about it is the complete lack of any kind of exaggeration. You describe it frankly, exactly like it happened and you're completely honest when you didn't witness something first hand, but just heard about it, which makes it all the more personal and poignant. What particularly moves me is how you describe it in a way that enables me to imagine exactly what it was like for you as a child. In other words I got completely into your body as you must have experienced these events as an 11 year old.

I remember Matthew Knight very well, and seeing him in tears on several occasions, at least twice, outside Debenham's study either about to receive the cane, or having just had it. I remember feeling so sorry for him but at the same time knowing that I was powerless to help him. I also vividly remember the strange way Debenham would blow into his fist, and always took out his handkerchief to blow his nose. That man had, and I'm sure still has, serious issues, the barbaric Barrington Barber was a vicious sadist, and this confirms in my mind that Russell was just downright evil. Then of course there was Chris Southwell, Mr Howell, and Mr Farndell who were alljust as vicious and nasty in their own way, especially Southwell and Howell. Even after I'd managed to escape that evil, insidious and miserable hell-hole of a place (both the SES and St Vedast), my peers tell me that the likes of Mr Capper, Mr Hipshon, Mr Matthews, Mr Lacey and Mr Skinner continued with the abuse.

[Matthew]

We are now grown men in our thirties, some of us even married and with children. But we are still very, very ANGRY about this. We shall continue to be angry about this and speak out publicly against St James, St Vedast, the SES, and all of it's affiliated organisations (including those that continue to support, sponsor and fund it), until some kind of justice is done. A justice that all the ex-pupils will be satisfied with. What went on at that cult was wholly wrong and utterly indefensible. It would be completely unthinkable for such things to take place in todays schools, yet only 25 years ago this was exactly the reality that we, as children, were forced to be put through. And to think that in all this time that has since elapsed, these men have been allowed to completely get away with it - some of them still even being employed by this elitist, antiquated and nontransparent organisation. THIS is what makes us so angry. These men have to be made to realise what the consequences of their actions were, and then see if they can still live with their consciences, and sleep peacefully at night. A gross injustice has taken place here, but rest assured, true justice is not too far away now.

[Guest]

Even after I'd managed to escape that evil, insidious and miserable hell-hole of a place (both the SES and St Vedast), my peers tell me that the likes of Mr Capper, Mr Hipshon, Mr Matthews, Mr Lacey and Mr Skinner continued with the abuse.

Not any longer. NO more ABUSE. In this present time, abuse is no more in the schools. The teachers u named above do not abuse in the schools now. No more abuse, mathew. No more.

[Matthew]

Dear anonymous guest (I wonder why you choose to conceal your identity),
If you read carefully what I wrote you'll see I said "continued with the abuse". I never said the abuse is still taking place today.

[a different guest]

Not any longer. NO more ABUSE. In this present time, abuse is no more in the schools. The teachers u named above do not abuse in the schools now. No more abuse, mathew. No more.

Really? what made them stop?