Crest of the Congregation of Christian Brothers

Crest of the Congregation of Christian Brothers
Neither Christian nor brotherly is how their victims see them

Millstones

This site focuses on allegations of abuse, physical and sexual, by the Irish Christian Brothers at schools in the UK. The majority of the Brothers were no doubt good teachers and kindly men, but a number of them should not have been allowed to be near children. Generally it appears that there was a culture of violence ingrained in the Congregation of Christian Brothers; it is unfortunate that so many teachers stood by and did nothing. As an ex-pupil has commented: " They could hardly claim to not know what went on; the sound of whole classrooms of kids being strapped could be heard very clearly in corridors and adjacent classrooms." If you would like to contribute and/or join the Millstones Facebook group email me mr.downes@gmail.com



Saturday 18 November 2017

Predators at large?

I rarely post on this blog nowadays, feeling that I've done all I can. In any case there are more enjoyable things to blog about. But I'm generally happy to help. I received the following messages from a TV producer recently. If anyone would like to provide information or be interviewed, let me know.  

I work as a producer for ITV News and I am looking to find locations of other priest/teachers who abused children who have not been convicted.

I was wondering if you could help me as I am finding it difficult to locate them as they have either moved on or very little about them

The names I am interested in:

Brother Manley
William Don
Timothy Foxall
Michael Murphy
Brother Ryan
Brother Eagen

A later message: 

I was wondering if you knew anyone who I can speak to in England who suffered abuse at any of the schools.

Monday 19 May 2014

Boys are like hedgehogs. Really?



I have had a recent correspondence with Fr Tim Dean of the Diocese of Westminster. He told me that his comment on my blog had not been posted, which was bizarre because I've just found one from him dated 5 May 2014. Anyway, we exchanged emails which I reproduce below without further comment. 



On 11 May 2014 16:08, Tim Dean wrote:
I wrote a comment on the Millstones website, but as you know, I thought I had posted it but it's disappeared. So I'll send this as an e-mail, because I'm certainly not going to write it three times! In fact this will be briefer than my original musings.

I went to Cricklade in the fifties but I can't quite work out the exact years. I am older than you, (72 last month) so maybe that's an indication. I was there in the year of the Queen's Coronation (!) I remember that very well. We put on a special concert in the Village Hall and a few days later we invited Cricklade's OAPs in for tea. They seemed a bit bewildered, sitting at our little tin tables. But the boys enjoyed serving them tea and cake.

Brother A was the Head. He was basically kindly and not, I thought, over-familiar with the boys. At least, no boy of my aquaintance ever said anything to that effect. It was well-known that the Brothers each had a leather strap but it was rarely used. In fact, I don't remember the strap being used at Cricklade EVER. It was used at Prior Park which I later went to and where I spent all my senior school years. But it was largely kept as a deterrent. Again, the 1950s were another age - corporal punishment had not yet been outlawed by our society and was not seen as brutalist in that post-war era. Boys are very hardy and if you were foolish enough to get the strap you quickly "moved on" as the saying goes nowadays and "got over it".

I and my year were happy at Cricklade. We neither liked nor disliked the Brothers. Boys tend to accept the status quo in most situations. We kept small pets like hamsters - mine were always dying of pneumonia - I learned a bit of pottery in the village, in the summer we walked through the meadows to swim off the riverbank. Athough an insignificant stream I believe it was actually the Thames.

Brother Hayes introduced riding. I was the first boy to fall off a horse and break my arm. As you say he would sometimes play us 78 rpm bakelite records on a preposterous gramophone with a giant horn on the landing. There wasn't much of a selection. I remember some mawkish songs like "In a Monastery Garden". 

We were each allowed to keep a tin of Golden Syrup in the Refectory to make the breakfast porridge more palatable. There was a Matron who was quite motherly, as I recall.

For me, the great thing about moving up to Prior Park College, Bath was the beauty of the location. A palladian mansion with its own 18th Century landscaped gardens and man-made lakes overlooking the city of Bath. We had the CCF, good drama taught by a BBC actor, Hedley Goodall, An excellent art teacher - Ronnie Palmer from whom I learned a great deal about the Arts. It was Palmer who pushed through the idea of the Choir and Orchestra performing Faure's Requiem in the College Chapel - quite ambitious for those days. I didn't get great exam results - just average - but that was entirely my fault and it shames me still. The Brothers were mad-keen on rugby which had no appeal for me - but our teams did well in competition with other schools.

Entering the world of work I spent many years in London and later worked overseas. In 1984 after returning to England I started training for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained by the late Cardinal Basil Hume at the age of 50 in 1992. I recently retired, although there is much to keep me busy.

I don't recognise the Cricklade you have described in Millstones. I am not saying bad things didn't happen in your time. I wasn't there. The particular Brother you describe must have been in residence at some stage and been a total disaster. (From time to time, all boarding schools are vulnerable to appalling 'teachers' who get into the system when they should have been excluded.) And I am glad I must have moved on before his time. But because I was happy at Cricklade I must reject as unreasonable the following photo caption from Millstones:

Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade, scene of miseries suffered by generations of Catholic children at the hands of the Christian Brothers

That reads as absurdly melodramatic and doesn't make any sense to me. In addition - NOWADAYS - both the Prep School and the Secondary School are doing very well under lay supervision. They deserve our support and affirmation. I went back to Prior Park last year for a lunch and was very impressed by what I saw. But I can't say Millstones serves any worthwhile role in support of today's schools.

Have you watched "Philomena"? Wonderful film, based on the same sad realities of a former age.

Regards,

Tim Dean

Diocese of Westminster



I replied as follows on 11 May 2014: 


Many thanks for your contribution, Tim. All I can say is that I am really pleased that you enjoyed your time at Cricklade. I would hate to think that all its ex-pupils had as bad a time as we did.

In view of that, I will change  the caption you mention to 'scene of miseries suffered by many Catholic children...'  I do mention the pleasant aspects of Cricklade; I enjoyed the countryside, and Br A struck me as a kindly man compared with Br B. But he did have those wandering hands, I'm afraid, and two of my contemporaries had to endure them. I don't know what his problem was, but the current spotlight on child abuse proves that it was shared by many. And no doubt always has been.
I agree about the spectacular scenery at Prior Park being an uplifting aspect; 'Toffee' Palmer was my favourite teacher and I still remember singing in the Faure Requiem and feeling that it was one of the best things I'd ever done.

You may like to know that a group of Prior Park College ex-pupils, some three or four years younger than me, had vile experiences there but that was apparently because of bullying by other pupils. It took them some years to recover from these experiences. Today, of course, one would say that the College Brothers at the time did not perform their pastoral duties as they should have done. But bullying in those days was endemic.

I do also mention on Millstones at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/so-i-didnt-imagine-horrors-of-cricklade.html the fact that Cricklade is now "a happy and fulfilling institution" and my introduction to the site does warn that it focuses on allegations of abuse by the Christian Brothers.  That is because the abuse that my brothers, some of our contemporaries and I myself suffered made a deep impression on us.
You say that you hardly knew the strap at Cricklade. I think you were just lucky that Daly was not the headmaster. His habit of strapping boys was imitated by other Brothers, though I cannot remember any of them actually beating a boy repeatedly around the head as Daly did on one occasion.
I am afraid that as I progressed in my education and discovered the damage that religion has done to milllions with its violent abuse of human rights - I did specialise in 16th century history of course - I abandoned any idea of continuing to practise Catholicism. I am still greatly moved by the religious music of J.S. Bach, the idea of Christ's sacrifice and so on.

You say that "boys are very hardy" and can "move on."  I do not think that this view is held by many people nowadays. It would imply that boys are tougher mentally than girls. Anyone with experience of co-education would question this. All young people are sensitive to a greater or a lesser extent.
Millstones is intended as a warning about the past rather than as a support for today's schools. Dwelling on the evils of the past, such as writing about world wars, can of course be seen as a constructive way of educating future generations. So in that sense it can be seen as a support.
I haven't seen Philomena but will look out for it.

It's possible that your comment was too long to be accepted by the blog. I will add it as a separate post. Could you please confirm that you are happy to be named.
Best wishes
Michael


Fr Tim wrote to me the following day:

Hmmm.... as a late vocation Catholic priest I am disappointed that you have walked away from the Catholic Church on the basis of human failure and wickedness - evil though it is. So that cancels out all the good the Church has done, is doing and will do? I don't get that. I would always need to know where faith in the revelation of Jesus Christ was leading me - towards the Church or away from it? Why would anyone reject the concept of the Redemption of the world by the Son of God on the basis of failures on the part of a certain percentage of the human membership of the Church? Makes no sense to me. Particularly at a time when Western atheism is increasingly belligerent and arrogantly convinced that it has reason on its side. Our Holy Redeemer needs all the friends he can get at a time like this.

I am not politically correct so I don't accept modern British mores without question. I am pretty sensitive myself - I used to 'weep myself to sleep' for several nights at the start of each term at Prior Park - but can honestly say that I did "get over" negative stuff at school, usually by the following morning. I am not condoning anything that falls short of pastoral care at school but I do believe that boys are hard-wired to bring down the shutters instinctively when things are going against them. Although they are children, nature does not leave them defenseless. Like hedgehogs that know when to roll themselves into a ball. I have no idea if girls are different, although I suspect they may be in important respects.... but I am no educationist. I spent my working life in a business environment.

Incidentally, there was NO bullying at Prior Park in my many years there. I would have hated that and would certainly have remembered it with a sense of smouldering resentment. I have no such recollections.

Once again - I seem to have been at these schools at a charmed period in their existence compared to you and your companions. 

"Millstones is intended as a warning about the past". Er, what does that mean? You can't warn somebody about a train wreck that happened yesterday - calamitous though it was. The past is the past. There needs to be a cut-off point, when the dead are entrusted to the mercy of God. 
The religious orders - the teaching orders - have been in retreat for a generation. Their day is gone. It seems to be the will of God that this should be so. As to how the Catholic Faith is to be made available to new generations of youngsters - that's a major challenge for the Church of today. And if you happen to be someone like me, who believes that Catholic kids have a right to receive knowledge of the Faith from their elders, it is is a burning issue.

Yes, you can quote anything I've written as long as you don't just fillet it or cut and paste. I am unlikely to want to contribute further on the Web.

 I should be signed off as Fr Tim Dean.

With the best will in the world, I think you were very unlucky to be at these schools at a given time. And I was very lucky to be at the same schools when they were pretty much OK.

What else can I say?

Regards,

Tim




Fr Tim wrote again on 19 May to reiterate his belief that boys are like hedgehogs  and can use defence mechanisms to protect themselves in cases when "things are going against them."  

He also believes that had he been in an abusive situation similar to the one I described he would have asked his parents to remove him from the school.  

I'm sure that if young victims of sexual abuse had been as confident and articulate  as Fr Tim evidently is people like Jimmy Savile would have been unmasked and jailed many many years ago

But sadly, life is not like that.  

Fr Tim may be happy with what the Catholic Church represents. Looking back on it as an extraordinary pantomime with its bizarre beliefs and nonsensical rituals I am quite happy to have rejected the Church and most organised religions. And that's without taking into account the violence and sexual abuse carried out by Christian Brothers that I've described on this site. 

 


19 May


Many thanks, Michael,

The two links you have sent show that there is no 'black hole' into which messages disappear as I had suggested. But I do find that just to go to the site and see what people may have posted is far from easy. Without those links you posted I would never have found anything.

My image of the hedghog was intended to sum up something I believe quite strongly - that children are endowed by nature with defence mechanisms which they employ almost unconsciously. There's also the support of other kids - and some kindly adults - which should not be underestimated. Children are a great help to one another in difficult circumstances. I am interested in getting at the truth of these matters while suspecting that this is going to be very difficult. Exaggeration makes for a better tale. I am certain that bad things happened but not as a constant pattern as the blogsite suggests. If I had been under the kind of pressure described I would have asked my parents to remove me from Cricklade - or indeed Prior - and send me somewhere else. So would the others in my year.

In those days, use of the strap was grotesque and outdated - a hangover from a very different age of disciplining children.The brothers clearly did not realise that times had changed and that they were not in Ireland. But every schoolmaster in my day (1950s) was free to use the cane. I often heard it discussed when I was a child. And since I had never seen a cane, I remember being a bit shocked to hear people at other schools talking about it from experience.

Don't you feel like rejoicing that the days of corporal punishment, once considered normal by most people are now gone forever?

As for the brutal headmaster you refer to - yes, I can believe he may have been mentally ill. But you may have noticed we share this planet with a number of people whose presence in our lives we could well do without. All we can do is pray for them. As Christ did when hanging on the cross. 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

What are you saying - that God can forgive if he wants to, but he can't expect human beings to do the same?
 







Monday 29 July 2013

Monkey business in the Highlands



Above: Fort Augustus Abbey in the Highlands of Scotland, scene of physical and sexual abuses allegedly committed at this former Catholic boarding school run by Benedictine monks
Image credit: Colin Wilson

I haven't posted anything about the Christian Brothers for a long time. Maybe revelations like this about other dark corners of the Catholic Church will revive the grim memories for me. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/25/fort-augustus-abbey-school-abuse-allegations

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Crystal-clear memories of the Brothers' cruelty



Not such happy times for pupils at the Cricklade prep school in the 1950s


Further witnesses have come forward to support allegations made by Gerard Lidgey about the brutal abuse of children by the Irish Christian Brothers at their school in Cricklade during the 1950s. 

Reading the memories evoked by Gerard at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/bother-those-brothers.html  prompted a fellow former Prior Park Prep School pupil to dwell on his own recollections.

James - not his real name - is keen for others to contact Gerard and support his case against the Brothers.
  
"I think that others need to come out and describe just what went on," he writes. "The physical and mental cruelty inflicted upon pupils at Cricklade has been well documented. The more I think of the terror regime they ran, the more angry I am."

Memories of his nightmare education at the hands of the Brothers continue to haunt James.

"They are as crystal clear now - 50 years later. It is as if it were yesterday. I cannot think of a moment at that school which was not fear-filled. I think the only time one felt safe was during the cinema showing. At least then one felt that no black-robed Irish thug would lay into you with his whale-bone reinforced strap. Was there not some company in Dublin who made these instruments of torture?"

"I escaped the sexual abuse but I knew it went on. Besides the brutal Br B  I remember two other brothers who brutalised me. They were Brothers Carmody and Madigan. Beatings and savage slaps across the head were commonplace. Sometimes you hardly knew the reason for these assaults."

Like other former pupils James is sickened by his memories of punishments administered in front of the whole school like a grotesque ritual. One in particular stands out.

"What really sticks in the mind is a public beating.  For a 7- or 8-year-old it was like watching a public execution. We all filed into the Assembly Hall. On the stage was a piano stool. Soon a 10-year-old boy was led on to the stage, terrified and in floods of tears."

A monstrance used to display the consecrated wafer purporting to be the Body of Christ. The vessel used by the Brothers would have been an effective way of terrorising a devoutly Catholic small child into confessing his guilt



"What terrible crime had this little boy committed? He had purportedly thrown another boy's slipper down a lavatory bowl. He admitted his offence only after a monstrance was held up and he was told to swear on the Blessed Sacrament that he had not committed this 'crime'".

Having been found guilty he was forced over the stool and beaten with great savagery - from memory something like 30 times. He was then taken off the stage by various Brothers. I will never forget the stunned silence as the small boys took in what had happened."

James blames Cricklade headmaster Brother B - "the Head Warder" as he calls him - as the inspiration behind the generalised brutality in the school.  

But he has harsh words for the Christian Brothers-educated Head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales who has been featured earlier in these pages at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/we-have-to-move-on-in-life-really.html



Pictured above is Bishop John Sherrington, Auxiliary Bishop for the Diocese of Westminster, to whom James wrote recently about his nightmare experiences at Cricklade. He responded with  much sympathy.

However, the same cannot be said of Archbishop Vincent Nichols, James feels.

James alleges that because the Archbishop was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers he would have known of the reputation of Christian Brothers like Br B and his subordinates.

"It is shocking that he has made no public condemnation. Worse still, he actually praises them."

James believes that Archbishop Nichols has given up replying to those who remind him of the wickedness of the Brothers.

"Clearly, he thinks their behaviour character-building," he concludes.

For cradle-Catholics like James his experiences at the hands of the Irish Christian Brothers have played a major part in driving him away from the Catholic Church.

"Jesus said that those who sin against children, or turn them towards sin, may as well put a millstone around their neck. That is just what the Brothers at Cricklade did. I left the Church years ago, as did so many of my peers."





More tales of strapping boys





The gardening season is upon us with spring flowers gaily adorning the borders and even the cheerful sound of mowers at work on the grass in this unexpectedly mild spell of late February. But what else would we expect on the South Devon coast at Budleigh Salterton?

My gardening pleasures and the return of Spring's fresh innocence ought to combine, or so you'd think, to blow away the bad memories of nearly 60 years ago.

Maybe it's my recent correspondence with ex-Cricklade victim Gerard Lidgey, mentioned at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/bother-those-brothers.html  that's preventing me from putting them all behind me. Or perhaps it's seeing the growing folder of 'Assignments waiting' on my computer which convinces me that the job of recording the unsavoury history of the Irish Christian Brothers is not yet over.

Whatever...

Here's a paragraph from a recent email sent by one of our contemporaries at Prior Park Prep School who's happy for me to post his account on Millstones. I'll call him George because he'd rather not be identified. 

"I do recall receiving 26 of the strap in one term from a Brother Hegarty for not knowing my homework, that in later years seemed excessive," he writes.

And here's his account of another of those occasions akin to public executions favoured by the Islamic Republic of Iran and other dark places on this planet.

"I also recall the whole school being called to witness the giving of six of the best of the strap on bare buttocks of some poor soul in the basement, that shocked me."

And then we have George's memory of the gastronomic peculiarities introduced by the Prep School's sadistic headmaster Br B.  

"I was also one of those on the table by the servery in the dining hall made to eat one spoon of porridge each day, and being on that table made to feel inferior to the rest of the school."

Not particularly unpleasant, I thought, as a daily porridge-eater. But George's point is the psychological damage inflicted on small children by some of those Christian Brothers, more long-lasting in its way than the weals left on hands and occasionally buttocks by physical punishments.

Fear, a crippling sense of inferiority, a lifelong mistrust of one's parents, a permanent dislike of religion... these are some of the less obvious aspects of the legacy left by the teaching orders of the Catholic Church, still not fully recognised by the ecclesiastical authorities and, above all, the Vatican. 


Pictured above is the Irish Christian Brothers' best friend, a strap made up of several thicknesses of leather. These implements were supposedly weighted with pieces of metal. There seems to be plenty of other evidence in support of this view. See for example  http://ezinearticles.com/?Christian-Brothers,-My-Story.&id=2450603

Monday 13 February 2012

Bother those Brothers!

Br A: known as 'The Saint'




Last November I posted at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/seeing-brothers-in-court.html the account of a former classmate at Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade, who was contemplating legal proceedings as a result of his experiences at the hands of the Irish Christian Brothers in the 1950s.

'Harry', as I referred to him, has now decided to let me publish his real name, which is Gerard Lidgey.  This, he feels, is in the interests of transparency. 

Rather than taking legal proceedings however he says that his objective is "to secure an apology and an acknowledgment, together with a modest amount of compensation." 

He is not seeking an inordinate amount, but sufficient to cover in particular the cost of counselling, although he is not confining himself to this.

He is keen to stress that he is not seeking compensation from the present school in Cricklade which as he understands it, is under a different regime, or from Prior Park College, Bath.

Gerard, as a retired solicitor, is confident that with the help of contemporaries who are prepared to make statements he can secure legal representation.

I was more than happy to provide a statement which I have posted on this blog at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/michael-downes-aged-about-7-photo-taken.html
Gerard would be grateful for similar help from Cricklade contemporaries who feel that he deserves support. "I would like to stress that witness evidence will not involve others in financial risk," he writes.  "I am not seeking that they bring proceedings."


He can be contacted as follows:

Gerard Lidgey
4 Nesbitt Close
Bridgemary
Gosport
Hants PO13 0SX

Tel: 01329 284465
Email: glidgey1@gmail.com

A helpful statement



Michael Downes, aged about 7: a photo taken at his village school in Falfield, Gloucestershire.  The move to Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade, came as a brutal surprise in the following year






STATEMENT BY MICHAEL NICHOLAS DOWNES


Cricklade and the Irish Christian Brothers
By Michael Downes 
Date of birth: 16 December 1946
Prior Park Preparatory School in September 1954 aged 8
Left the school in July 1958 aged 11

My earliest memory of being punished at Cricklade was when I was beaten with a strap on the hand by Br B for not bringing a pencil to the dining room where we were about to take an exam. I was eight years old and did not know what the word exam meant. I've always remembered this episode.

Apart from the various later strappings that I endured for trivial offences, mainly by Br B, I remember being forced to eat up every scrap of food on the plate at meal times. On one occasion I had to eat a mixture of porridge and fried bread and tomatoes.

Another personal experience I remember is of the aged Br A - later apparently revered at the school as 'The Saint' - feeling my private parts as he sat with his hand up my shorts. This was done with other boys standing around. I cannot recall the names of any witnesses. However I have been in contact with another former pupil at Cricklade who experienced similar treatment while in bed.

More traumatic as a personal experience was to see other pupils being savagely punished. This created a brutalising atmosphere.

I recall particularly a boy who used to wet the bed being dressed up in a sailor's outfit and taken from classroom to classroom where he was beaten with a strap on the hand by Br B at least four times. I know the boy's name but feel that he should be asked if he is prepared to be publicly identified.

Worse was the time when a boy was beaten in public for soiling his underpants. We were told that the garment had been sent back by the laundry which had refused to wash it. The boy was made to lie over a vaulting horse in front of the whole school, as I recall, and then beaten on the buttocks by Br B, probably with a strap. I can't remember whether he was naked or how many times he was beaten. Again, I know the boy's name but have reservations about identifying him. In this and the above case the pupil was withdrawn from the school after the episodes.

I do remember Br B kicking a naked boy in the shower room for some reason or other.

And I have a vivid memory of Br B's violent behaviour towards pupils when he came across two boys who had been fighting. He insisted that they stop and shake hands. When one of them refused, Br B slapped him hard in the face, and continued to slap him for what seemed like over a minute while the boy refused to obey. I can't remember how the matter ended. I think I remember the name of the boy who refused; it would seem wrong to forget such a hero!

I have to say that I cannot remember whether Gerard Lidgey suffered in such ways. I seem to remember that he got into trouble for making what was thought to be a bomb, perhaps because mercury was involved.

There is clearly a problem with these reminiscences because of lack of corroborative evidence. The boy who was groped in bed by Br A lives abroad and has told me that he does not want the police to be informed.

I felt that in spite of the fact that those these events took place many years ago, and even though Br B and Br A are dead, the police should have a record in case my evidence ever became useful in helping another victim of the Christian Brothers who had suffered more severely than I had.

As I have recorded on my Millstones blog at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/criminal-investigation.html I was interviewed at my local police station in Exmouth on 13 October 2010 by DC Mike Laybourne. To my surprise, I found it quite an upsetting experience. Mike was extremely sympathetic. He tells me that he has liaised with Detective Sergeant David Martin, of Wiltshire Police at Hampton Park West, Melksham, Wilts. Tel: 0845 408 7000. I was told that my case number is Case number 247 of 5-10-10.
 
I am not interested in obtaining compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, especially if it's a case of the UK taxpayer having to foot the bill. However I was keen to 'bother the Brothers' and the Catholic Church for the shameful way in which past sins have not been swiftly and openly acknowledged. The Catholic hierarchy and perhaps particularly the Pope have increasingly come to be seen as lacking the moral fibre to deal with the problem of clerical abuse within the Catholic Church.

I wholly believe the contents of the above statement to be true.



Signed:

Michael Downes

10 February 2012