St james 1973-1980. 7 years of Sadism survived, almost.

Discussion of the children's schools in the UK.
lowpass
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Joined: Sun Aug 01, 2004 12:58 pm

St james 1973-1980. 7 years of Sadism survived, almost.

Postby lowpass » Mon Aug 02, 2004 12:37 am

Just stumbled across this forum, a friend of mine grabbed the paperback expose of SES and memories came back and out of curiosity I googled SES. Well actually feelings and memories never really go away, they are a woven into a constant backdrop of anger and frustration, takes very little to get my heart rate up a notch. I cannot think how Debenham and co can live with themselves. I was completely involved in all aspects of SES from age 2 to age 11. I attended St James, went to all the meditation groups, Sarum Chase, Art In Action, Stanhill Court, Waterperry you name it. I never saw my parents, when i did my mother looked to be on the point of collapse and my father had a messianic glaze in his eyes.
This is a hasty post, i will write a better post at some point, this will be the first time I feel i can offload, maybe it will help, perhaps it may not.

My first caning was given to me age four, given for tying a fellow pupils shoelaces together in morning assembly. This was within my first week of school. It didn't hurt, ND was testing me out, seeing how far he could go with what i now realise was a neurotic sadistic compulsion. Gradually the canning became heavier and frequent. (at least twice a month.)They were administered for trivial things like talking, walking out of line, being late for school. By the age of 6 blood was drawn and bruises lasted about 1/2 weeks. I cannot tell you what it feels like to be canned twice within one week, i.e. have bruises reopened. it is indescribable. This carried on until i left the school in 1980. (My parents had a nervous breakdown and left ses.)
I once threw up waiting for a such a second punishment given within a few days of each other. Crime? Picking walnuts off the tree at Chepstow Villas.
I believe ND picked on a few children he felt he could abuse with a high level of impunity. When caning he used to tease it out, relishing the moment. He used to put his whole body into it, i believe he was actually hitting as hard as he physically could.
Children of important cult members such as lawyers bankers financiers were never punished by cane, neither were children who collapsed in hysterics or told their parents. He knew who to choose. I had no one to help me as my parents were involved with SES totally. I never saw them, when i did they were usually screaming at each other in a state of complete nervous and physical exhaustion.

My mistake was not talking to anyone about this abuse, but to a young four year old who had been bought up in SES I had no frame of reference or idea of normality. I felt at that time i was completely alone, and i knew ND was evil, although i could not articulate this to myself until many years later. I felt i had to stand up to him, he was my enemy and I hated him and I felt i could only win if i stood him down. He began to see this, once commenting that he would "win" in the end. I think i lost something in myself at this time, to survive i became very hard inside. It may have earned me some weird skewed respect from the other arch sadist in the camp, Mr Russell. He was a total psychotic, although I was more scared of ND. Mr Southell once picked me up by my hair in front of the class and through me across the room, Age 6. He was doing some impromptu astronomy lesson. This is weird , I still think of them as Mr.

Someone wrote about class beatings. They were not that common in my class, when it did once happen it was so mild as to be almost a tap.I believe ND knew he would get into trouble if he caned 20 6 year olds, and giving a very mild cane was clever as it gave the impression that the punishment was actually very mild when the children reported it to their parents.

I was short sighted, but refused to admit this as SES taught it would prove /i had sinned in a previous life. Russel used to stand me up in front of the maths class and humiliate me by asking me the answers to simple sums that i could not read. He loved humiliating people. I put my numerical dyslexia down to Rusell, up to that point i was top of class at maths, after him i cant hold numbers in my head or even think about mathematics. I received so may cannings due to Russels class, at one point I resigned myself and remember kind of floating through them his insane screaming in my ear, the blurred blackboard and the inevitable trip to ND. The wait to punishment was the worst, the cane was given for having to many black marks, and if at the end of the week i did not get them within a certain limit I would be caned. Most of mine were for lateness not doing homework talking etc (hard to do homework when you have to sit in a three hour group meeting in the evening and it took 1.5 hours to get to school for 7.45 in the morning). So you can imagine starting the week waiting for the terrible excruciating pain, and not being able to do anything about it. It is also a crippling thing to live for years in constant terror of an individual who at any moment when the whim took him would suddenly inflict terrible pain, and who appeared totally invincible. I have a very hard time with authority even now and find it very hard to fit in to social situations.


Not only were myself and others subjected to physical and mental abuse, we also had the effect of undiluted eastern mysticism thrown into the mix. I was a fairly bright child, and took a lot of this stuff in and it really confused me.(I also had to sit almost every night through 3 hour "group" meetings getting home past midnight so absorbed a lot of their claptrap there). I was only 6,I realise now how insane it was. I wonder if anyone has any thought os the effect of opening young childrens minds to (misinterpreted and malformed) heady strange quasi-eastern philosophical ideas and concepts? Being screamed at by Russell for not being a "vibrating point" or being caned for lying, the lie being that despite my protestations to the contrary I -did- know an obtuse euclidian geometry axiom, as Russell that day in his geometry class had gone on some rambling prologue about how he believed everyone actually knew everything, we just all forgot, and needed to merely awaken memory.
This mix of religion/ mysticism and torture was very strange and had a devastating effect on my psyche. Corporal punishment at St James was administered with a high level of personal mental sadism, perhaps the key to this fact is hidden in the religious doctrine somewhere. Being told that everything I saw physically was unreal, that i was not the body,being told to become "one with the absolute" and then being subjected to intense physical pain coupled with mental and social isolation adds up to a heady combination. I used to detach, seeing the event happen from an almost out of body perspective or third person, wether it was some public humiliation punishment or an episode with ND. This ability of going into a corner of my mind to escape helped, but years of doing this resulted in an eventual constant feeling of detaching from my body, and is now one of the hardest things now to deal with


When i left age 11 i went to a local comprehensive. The change was so immense i cant describe it, it was although i had landed on mars, and i could not remember my past. it dawned on me then that it was out of the ordinary. My mental problems came about seven years later, out of the blue everything came back. Previously I must have completely blanked things out, even now when i try to think back certain times, it is as if a door is still shut. This is odd as i have an almost photographic memory (I am a concert pianist), I can remember everything leading up to a horrible event, walking along the stairs, waiting outside a room, then just blank.

There was a definite level of abuse for different students at St James, some came through without ever having the cane, possibly even most did not actually receive corporal punishment.I am talking about a lower school st James not st Vedast, I do not think ND could get away with beating as many young children as he would have liked. One of my friends got a mild caning and all hell broke out, his mother came to school, the child was in tears for weeks, and it never happened again to him. It takes a very sick man to enjoy repeatedly inflicting extreme pain and distress to children age 4-5. And he did enjoy it, I have no doubt of that.
Clement Salaman. He never hit me, or was spiteful. I bear him no grudge, other than the charge of turning his eyes away when he knew abuse was happening. He was the only one who could teach, and as a person exuded warmth. However he was so wrapped up in the cult, his Latin and the idea of the school producing "leaders" I never trusted him.I do remember him losing it with a withdrawn troubled child, swiping his legs repeatedly and in fury with a ruler till his legs were covered in blue stripes.The pupil left the school soon after.I remember at the time being more distressed at what CS was saying rather than the physical punishment. It really scared me. Unfortunately i cannot remember it, i just see the scene without any sound, but i remember my fear of his words, i must have blanked it out The child must have been 5/6. I will not disclose his name.

I have endless anecdotes about torturous cruelty, both at St James, SES and at the ghastly spinoffs events held at Sarum Chase, and the events at Stanhill. Are they necessary? Not to my personal healing. These people inflicted hell for 10 years to young children, and they got away with it scott free. I wonder if their conscience are ever troubled.

DanS

response to lowpass

Postby DanS » Mon Aug 02, 2004 2:37 pm

Hello Lowpass, I have just read your fascinating account of St James. It is really well written and shows how disturbing the activities of the SES childrens' schools were. I am glad to read it because I think all the terrible events of St James & St Vedast's past should be out in the open.

I spent 5 years at St Vedast (1975-1980) and I was very negatively affected by the 'madness' of the place. The beatings that were dished out to children were completely beyond the boundaries of 'regular' corporal punishment. The teachers were largely out of control and used violence casually and regularly with serious consequences for the children they disliked (of which I was one).

Clement Salaman is my father and so I find what you say about him personally interesting, recognisable and quite sad. SES members were certainly not encouraged to think as individuals and I think many of their actions were intended to seek approval from tutors and others in the hierarchy. I still think the SES is a secretive and sinister hierarchical organisation although I admit I have never been a member - St Vedast was enough!

There may be an opportunity for ex St James and St Vedast pupils from this period to meet up with their former teachers to discuss the past, would you be interested?

Dan

Tom Grubb
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Postby Tom Grubb » Mon Aug 02, 2004 3:54 pm

Hi lowpass,

Your testimony is one of the most powerful I have yet read. I was especially interested, and appalled, to have it confirmed that the same teachers who abused my colleagues and me at St Vedast also abused younger children at St James in the same vicious ways. The singling-out of certain children for particularly nasty abuse also corresponds with my experience at St Vedast (luckily for me, I was not one of these children) and is an issue that needs to be explored further.

I have some very important information about St James and St Vedast which I am sure will be of interest to you. Please email me!

Tom

Alban
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Postby Alban » Mon Aug 02, 2004 7:22 pm

Sad, but so true.

Lowpass, I hope that 'talking' about these experiences has helped you like it helped me and a number of others. I recognise a strength in your account that seems to have survived - good on ya!

Matthew, Tom and Dan have done some outstanding work attempting to get closure on this particular episode of our lives. I would seriously recommend getting in touch with Tom so that he can give you more details.

I think their time has come.

lowpass
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Postby lowpass » Tue Aug 03, 2004 7:34 am

Thank you all for your support and comments, its uplifting to know people came through and got on with their lives. Thanks Dan and Tom for offers or contact and information but I do not think I really wish to see ex teachers at the moment.

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a different guest
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Postby a different guest » Tue Aug 03, 2004 11:28 pm

lowpass - I've read with horror the many appalling stories on these boards - but I always assumed that the abuse was confined to the senior school. To read how you were treated at such a young age makes me want to cry.

I hope finding these boards is a cathartic experience for you.

Tom Grubb
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Postby Tom Grubb » Wed Aug 04, 2004 6:26 am

lowpass wrote:Thank you all for your support and comments, its uplifting to know people came through and got on with their lives. Thanks Dan and Tom for offers or contact and information but I do not think I really wish to see ex teachers at the moment.


Understood. I'm sure you've already helped a great many people with your testimony. I hope your brave example will encourage others also to tell the truth about St James and St Vedast.

Many thanks.

Alban
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Postby Alban » Thu Aug 05, 2004 8:07 pm

lowpass wrote:...but I do not think I really wish to see ex teachers at the moment.


Hi Lowpass. I know how you feel about seeing them, and I have avoided contact with any one of them and will chose to do so on the grounds that my rational may temporarily desert me.

Please be assured that if you do contact Tom privately, then your contribution would greatly appreciated and you will never be asked to do anything you don't want to.

Alban

Matthew
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Postby Matthew » Fri Aug 06, 2004 10:23 pm

a different guest wrote:lowpass - I've read with horror the many appalling stories on these boards - but I always assumed that the abuse was confined to the senior school.

Testimonies on this forum by 'Lowpass', 'Bluelight' and 'Ex-Pupil' give evidence that the abuse was rife throughout both schools, and possibly even the girls' schools too. The fact that this was happening to children as young as 4 is particularly disturbing.

tamsinr

Girls school also held its secrets

Postby tamsinr » Sat Nov 20, 2004 12:40 am

Well, well. It has been a long time since I thought about St James Independent School for girls. The forum has dragged me back to an era that I thought was long gone and forgotten.

I was there from 1975-1986. and left without a backward glance and glad to have nothing more to do with the system. I recognise much of the key allegations made about the boys school and St Vedast.

Bizarre, ritual humiliation such as being made to wash your mouth out with soap, scrubbing stone floors, doing push-ups in front of the class.

Physical punishment such as smacking for minor offences - I was punished because a teacher saw me put bubble gum in my mouth as I left the school premises to go home one evening. Bubble gum being one of the proscribed aspects of the 21 century along with pop music, jeans, modern literature etc.

Victimisation and harrassment of individual children for a range of reasons like physical difference, intellectual ability or just ease of intimidation. These girls would be singled out time and again by particular teachers. They developed the hidden signs of victims and gradually were withdrawn from school. I feel a sense of guilt now, as an adult, at the memory of those that disappeared. They receivded no support, solidarity from the rest if us, who were trying to stay off the radar screen. Contact was rarely maintained after they left. Perhaps these are the kids that were failed the most by the school.

An endemic and systematic climate of control with an insistence on 'the truth' which of course meant the world view of SES and the teachers. No right to question, analyse or debate. This search for the truth was obsessive and what it meant is that they would continue until you delivered the ' truth' that they wanted to hear. I remember long ' owning up' sessions where we would sit in silence for hours until an individual took responsibility for whatever sin the teacher decided had taken place. On one particularly memorable occasion, during a lesson which had involved drawing lines on paper with caligraphy pens (some obscure life lesson was being imparted which escapes me for the moment) the teacher decided that someone had created a 'demonic sound' and demanded to know who was responsible. Not quite sure what this terrible sound was, we sat and waited. The tension mounted to the point that two girls actually vomited. No conclusion was reached but by a process of elimination the teacher decided that I was responsible. I was sent away to another room with the instruction to write out the bible starting from the beginning. After a while I was bored and started playing with the old fashioned stone radiator that tipped over and fell on my finger. This was bleeding very badly, the school nurse dealt with it inadequately and I ended up having to go to hospital where they debated
giving me a skin graft. My index finger still bears the indellible mark of St James.

A deliberate attempt at social engineering by literally creating new generations designed to be adepts for the system and live their lives according the social mores of SES. Ironically this included girls being groomed for arranged marriages to men, selected from within the ranks of SES. The ideal age gap was 12 + years. As we were told, the role od women was to serve men, and we would leave our fathers roof to go to our husband. The only point of going to university (only rebrick of course and preferably to study the classics) was so that we could make intelligent conversations with our husband' s business partners.

The school rules were never written down so that they could conveniently be re-written, changed or new ones made up on the spot. The teachers tried hard to maintain control by limiting conversation - no talking on the stairs, no speaking between lessons etc.

We didnt have the caning that was so rife in the boys school, but we knew about it and the casual approach to violence did appear in the girls school. My greek teacher threw a book at my head when I was too bolshy. Rulers were smacked on palms and legs, sometimes shoes were used to hit the girls.

The real question is why didnt we tell our parents? how could they have let this go on? I have discussed this with my mother on several occasions. Basically most of the parents were in SES so we assumed that they knew and condoned the regime. The normalisation of what is actually quite abberant behaviour meant that few people complained to their parents. After all, we were kept as segregated as possible from the rest of the world. TV was a modern evil to be avoided. What did we have to compare our educational environment with? The teachers were fully integrated into the same system as most of the parents. Nobody seemed shocked by the petty cruelties or by the repressive approach to intellectual development. It was all a seamless reality whose obvious flaws were revealed with time and distance.

Did everyone have the same experience? No. There may be some who have fond memories of the school, who felt that it provided them with the ideal start in life. Sadly that is not the case for all of us, particularly for those with an independent and stubborn streak. In those early years, few if any of the teachers held qualifications other than being members of SES. Their talents did not lie in fostering childhood development nor in understanding the full impact of their actions. These individuals were not given appropriate guidance by the two headteachers, who were adequately qualified and their excesses were not restrained by any framework of normal teacher-pupil relations.

At 16, the headmistress decided that I was evil and called my mother in to see her and say that I was like a black spider in the centre of a web that intimidated other girls and undermined the school. She asked if I consorted with communists outside school. To this day I dont really know what my crime was other than ask difficult questions about the school script on the role/function of women, the arrnageed marriages etc. No single example of evil actions could be presented and my mother challenged the threatened expulsion. The following term, the same headmistress appointed me as deputy head girl, which was rather strange because I had not undergone any transformation.

Lessons I have learned from St James:

Absolute power can lead to corruption
Independent thought threatens the status quo
Women' s legs - particularly the ankles - need to be covered to maintain the morality of society
A woman' s inner light goes out at the age of 16 which is why they need to put under the guiding hand of a husband
Pantheistic religions (hinduism) and monotheism (christianity) can be put together into a pick'n'mix of mystical belief !
Karma is another excuse for not fighting inequity

Nowadays, I am paid to be opinionated, challenging and look beyond rhetoric to reveal the motivations of speakers. I have power but am very careful about how it is used. I support and mentor my staff members because I know how dangerous if can be to stiffle dissent. And I fight bullying or abuse of influence and power wherever I find it. Perhaps a positive legacy of tilting at windmills in St James?

Tom Grubb
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Postby Tom Grubb » Sun Nov 21, 2004 8:14 pm

Many thanks, tamsinr, for your powerful testimony! We've heard little so far about life at the SES-run girls' schools but, predicatably and disturbingly, what we are now hearing is a tale of abuse similar to that at the boys' schools.

In July this year Nicholas Debenham told me and two other former pupils that everybody at St James was happy! He was referring to the boys' school when he said it and I've since found out, as expected, that this is a massive lie/fantasy. I expect he would like to make similar claims for the girls' schools. If he ever dares to do so, your testimony proves him wrong.

TB

Postby TB » Sun Nov 21, 2004 11:21 pm

Hi Tom Grubb (or anyone else)

Has anyone systematically documented the abuse at St James to the degree of knowing how many students passed through, and defined within what period the abuse took place? Defined a cutoff point when it appears to have ceased? Defined how many were abused, categorised what the abuses were, from canings to physically punching, kicking the students etc?
I would imagine that an inquiry will be trying to get a handle on these details to get a proper context? Has anyone done this work, or have a sense of it, that can be shared with the forum?

Tom Grubb
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Postby Tom Grubb » Mon Nov 22, 2004 8:09 pm

TB wrote:Hi Tom Grubb (or anyone else)

Has anyone systematically documented the abuse at St James to the degree of knowing how many students passed through, and defined within what period the abuse took place? Defined a cutoff point when it appears to have ceased? Defined how many were abused, categorised what the abuses were, from canings to physically punching, kicking the students etc?
I would imagine that an inquiry will be trying to get a handle on these details to get a proper context? Has anyone done this work, or have a sense of it, that can be shared with the forum?

Hi TB,

In a word, no! It's very, very difficult to get statistics on these things. When (if?) all abuse stopped would seem impossible to verify. The SES hierarchy would like us to believe that everything at St James is rosy but then the SES hierarchy would like us to believe that everything at the schools has always been rosy. They still won't comment on our allegations and we have been given no assistance so far in contacting former pupils. Nicholas Debenham appears to believe that everybody at St James was "happy" and that all pupils at St James and St Vedast "accepted" the discipline there.

If anyone has any suggestions on how these statistics could be gathered, a lot of people would be very grateful.

Tom

TB

Postby TB » Tue Nov 23, 2004 12:03 am

Hi Tom Grubb,

I have not seen any mention of a reunion system or old boys (girls) for St James/Vedast. I assume these do not exist. My experience is that these are organised by past students.
Are there not school photos, class lists or even compilations from student memories to identify students in each class? Then checking in phone directories or internet surfing to track people down. It is not a trivial exercise but it would seem that a comprehensive view from students from all years would help define things for the inquiry. Just as has been done to name the various teachers and their level of culpability. Some of the later students should also be able to identify when the school changed.

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adrasteia
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Postby adrasteia » Wed Nov 24, 2004 5:49 pm

You are all members of the 7th Form!
http://www.7thform.org.uk/
There are reunions organisedhere, though this probably isn't quite what you had in mind, and I doubt they'd hand out addresses of former pupils...!


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