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

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

In pursuit of the Pope

Pope Benedict XVI, head of a Church accused of crimes against humanity

Among the many items of news about the Catholic Church which would have been unthinkable in the distant past was the report a year ago that the Pope himself might be charged with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Surely a fond fantasy on the part of fervent atheists like the UK's Professor Richard Dawkins, I thought. But no, there it is in black and white if you click on http://www.kanzlei-sailer.de/pope-lawsuit-2011.pdf  - a 48-page indictment of Dr Joseph Ratzinger, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, based on alleged crimes listed by two serious-sounding German lawyers and dated 14 February 2011.

My only quibble with the document is the omission of one country where crimes committed by Catholic clergy have most certainly taken place. In a section of the document entitled 'The worldwide sexual crimes of Catholic priests' there is a depressing list of abuses against children carried out in the USA, Ireland, Germany, Canada, Australia and Africa.  There are further mentions of cases in Belgium, Norway, Austria, France and Latin America.

So the use of the word 'worldwide' is certainly justified. But why is there no mention of the UK?  The abuse of children throughout Britain by members of various church organisations since at least 1970 has been well documented in the media. In a range of locations, from children's homes to our most prestigious Catholic independent schools, Catholic priests and monks have been convicted of the most shocking crimes. 

That omission may be about to be corrected, as British lawyers decide to join their European counterparts in demanding justice for victims of clerical child abuse.

David Greenwood, a partner in the Yorkshire-based firm of Jordans Solicitors, recently secured a landmark case in the House of Lords for an abuse victim which means that time limits relating to child abuse cases will be lifted.  As Head of the Child Abuse Compensation Department at Jordans, he has co-ordinated large group actions on behalf of victims of child abuse. He continues to pursue claims on behalf of over 200 claimants against Catholic organisations, the Home Office and local authorities. He contributes regularly to the firm's dedicated website at http://www.childabusesolicitor.com/

In November 2011 he drew attention to a case in which the court decided that bishops are directly responsible for abuse committed by priests. It is, as he commented, "a groundbreaking decision and destroys the myth which the Catholic Church has tried to peddle that priests are in some way above the law and their Bishops are not responsible for them" although the decision is likely to be appealed by the Church.

Mr Greenwood has now launched a campaign to ask the Government to appoint a public enquiry to look into child abuse in church organisations in England and Wales. For more detail click on http://www.childabusesolicitor.com/2012/02/david-greenwood-sets-out-the-argument-in-favour-of-a-public-inquiry-into-abuse-within-church-organisations-in-england-and-wales/