I went to 2 boarding schools from the age of 7 until 16 back in the 70s and 80s. I never really fully recovered from the full trauma of them. The first one was kind of ok but the second one was a grammar boarding school which was more like a gulag than a school. The bullying there was horrendous and that was the teachers and housemasters, a lot of the kids were just as bad. I ran away several times and made it home only to be taken back the very same day. A few years afer i left i got a job and one of the managers tried to bully and belittle me, the red mist descended and i beat him up so badly that he spent a few weeks in hospital. The only thing that saved me from serving time was my genuine remorse for half killing him, i was put on probation with a suspended sentence hanging over me. Ive since had therapy and only in my late 40s was able to come to terms with the whole experience and start to heal.
I think you are very courageous to talk about this and I admire you so much for having therapy and keeping going and starting to heal. In getting therapy and no longer taking the violent route you have broken a terrible cycle which has probably been going on for centuries. For that reason (let alone everything else) I think you should feel very proud of yourself.
Good afternoon @wanderingsoul7935, thank you so much for your comment and your honesty. I am so sorry to hear of your experiences of boarding school and how it impacted you later in life. In Bessel Van Der Kolk's book The Body Keeps The Score he recounts a similar story of someone who was in Vietnam who did a similar thing back in the US. I too had a violent episode just after boarding school. A cousin was bullying me and I became so enraged that I hit him a few times - he never did it again! It's great to hear that you are starting to heal. Take care, Piers
Fascinating. I've always drawn a similarity between the two. In fact, I remain in contact with a good friend who was at the same school (almost 40 years ago now), and we somehow recently brought up the subject of prison documentaries, having both realised our shared enjoyment of watching such shows. We quickly deduced that it's highly likely due to our schooling because we did indeed feel as though we'd already been to prison. Was it a way of observing it all over again, just from an outsiders perspective this time? I've actually always said that, if I were to ever be sent to prison (let's hope not), I'd find it a breeze because I've already served time as such.
Lots of people have said about ex boarders who went to prison as adults and said it was almost the same. Wealthy parents spend a lot of money deliberately to have their children live in spartan conditions so they can enter the professions at a high level and can identify with their underlings. More like forcing that life onto many of us. Why don't they send them camping instead?
Thank you @AgricUltra for your fascinating comment. How interesting that you both made that connection to prison. As I have read different biographies it seems that the word prison, inmate or not being able to escape comes up in nearly everyone's biography or memoir. Take care, Piers
I read that too in "Moab Is My Washpot" Book by Stephen Fry explains when he went to prison, he felt no punishment at all, as boarding school was identical to prison.
I always say the parallels between boarding school and prison are many - to the point where ex boarders who ended up at his/her majesty's pleasure have said they could easily handle the environment because of their boarding school experience. the truth of the matter is that ALL schools have many parallels with prison whether public/private or comprehensive - a reason why the WHOLE education system needs to be changed!
Hi @marktcards, thank you for your comment. Yes, so true I feel that the whole education system needs changing both comprehensive and private. Take care, Piers
Excellent and very important topic Piers. As a research assistant to the charity Missing People I am well aware that for young people (or indeed all sorts of people) running away is very often a "out of the frying pan in the fire" type of scenario. I do not see why this should be any different for people running away from boarding school. The boarding as a frying pan can be a very dark and abusive place with bullying potentially both from teachers and pupils and an absence of love that the young person really needs. But life on the streets or roughing it in the countryside can very much be a fire. People may choose to try and live this way because they know their parents will just send them back to boarding school again so they don't go back there. Homelessness on the streets or in the countryside is chronically unsafe and there could be very unsafe and sick adults out there who will offer, with utterly bogus affection, somewhere safe to stay. The "catch" here could be having pressure put on them to take part in sex or in taking part in criminality like county lines. The other point is I would like to underline the point that you make Piers about suicide being a possible escape route. In December 1984 at my boarding school my character - my essence - really was so badly and ruthlessly assassinated that I thought the only way out was death and I tried to throttle myself with a dressing gown chord. The bullies found out and laughed, and said that some people would think I was going to hell, and that one of their relatives committed suicide and no-one talked about them any more. One of them said we will put your dressing gown chord at the end of your bed to remind you. People going to boarding school who are not given enough support immediately for the abuse they suffer can store up chronic mental health problems. I had a breakdown in 1992 after I had finished my finals at University. I was put in psychiatric hospital - another total institution and had my clothes taken away from me so that I did not escape. Necessary at the time as I was deeply suicidal but it felt very prison like. Prison like too was the mental health hostel I went to afterwards with staff who were often poorly trained and clueless and other residents who could be mentally cruel and were also sexual prediters. The leader of the house was angry and upset with me because I would not see it as a "community" . So this shows how one prison or prison like environment (boarding school) can lead to large chunks of ones life being spent in other prison like places. Then there is the prison of deep deep mental illness. If you get out it you have to be lucky enough to get the right doctor or therapist and conscientious enough to do the huge amount of work on yourself that is required
That seems horrific, and you don't often get over it once you leave school, as if nothing happened. You are in a survival mood in school and then no longer in it after leaving school. That's when you start to process it.That mental health hostel sounds claustrophobic. Didn't they like you having friends or activities outside of it? There are a lot of people on council housing estates who want to force 'community' onto their neighbours who often have a life and friends outside of it. My estate is only one street of blocks of flats, and I can't be expected to stay in it all the time. I had one neighbour who put pressure on me to visit him, and once I did, he put pressure on me to ditch a friend who lived a few miles away, lose my job, and stop going out. I had to sneak in and out of the building so he didn't see me, so I avoided coming and going between 10 am and 4 pm each day. Soaps such as EastEnders and Coronation Street portray the characters spending 95% of their lives in that one square or street except very occasionally when they go on holiday. They don't even see their grown-up children except when they move back into the square or street. They even take jobs in that square or street. In Brookside, most of the street worked in or owned businesses in a nearby parade where there was a restaurant, general store, solicitor's office, and hairdressing salon. If they lose their job they are only employed again when a neighbour takes them on. Apart from Dirty Den in EastEnders, who had a friend in Ilford that he visited regularly. This neighbour of mine expected the street I live in to be like one in a soap. So it makes me wonder if the producers and script writers are boarding school educated.
Then there was Doc Martin set in a Cornish village that has a police station with only one person working in it and a GP's surgery with two people working in it. In real life, they would be closed.
Thanks for sharing your heart-felt story Richard. Wow, your story is so powerful. And what a courageous man you are to have not only moved through it but to be helping others in the powerful way that you are. Bless you, Piers
Piers in terms of my continuing recovery from boarding school nothing has helped me as much as your speeches on U tube and your interviews with people, the groups you have led with other boarding school survivors and the disciplines and practices you have encouraged me and others to take up. Though the wounds you have suffered you have helped so many get better and to recognise the gold within them. There is still a lot to do with the boarding school situation but you have been one of the main brilliant forces in getting things moving in the right direction.
You hit the nail on head with the lockdowns. There was no need for the first lockdown to go on as long as it did, and children should have only been kept off school for two or three weeks while restrictions were put in place. With separate desks in the classroom, abolishing assemblies, and staggered breaks, it was possible to stop classes from mingling. The school day is normally designed to maximise exposure to the entire school, so no wonder children come home with several colds a year, which they pass onto their parents. With morning assemblies in all schools and moving students from class to class every hour in secondary schools. In colleges and universities students tend to have their lectures in the same lecture theatre or practical room. There are also off site places they have lessons in as the college numbers grew faster than the building such as nearby scout huts and annexes where the original college was so it was nice to get off site. In Japan, they eat lunch in the classrooms with only a few students from each class collecting the food on trolleys from the kitchen. The second lockdown was completely unnecessary. For months after each lockdown, you had to book an appointment to go to the library or museum. Things weren't completely back to normally until May 2022. There were no lockdowns with the swine flu epidemic in 2009. Only people with symptoms were isolated at home. In other countries, it was even stricter as people had to book an appointment just to visit the supermarket. Children weren't allowed out at all, not even for a short walk with their parents. In China, some people were sealed into their homes, not even allowed to buy food or take delivery of food. At Manchester University, a hall of residence was sealed off with barricades with no notice given, so many students didn't have much food. I just don't get why there are government policies to maximise exposure to many people and then suddenly restrict it to anyone in the same household. They encouraged people to travel by air to far-off destinations, and now they want us in 15-minute neighbourhoods not even being allowed to visit a friend or relative a few miles away. Even in the 1960s, people went to town or the city centre for work, school, shopping, and leisure. There was no public library, swimming pool and cinema near me where I grew up. I would have had to travel to the town centre for all of these as it was rapidly growing with houses but not facilities other than schools, parks and shops.
Yes the suburban sprawl was bad they didn't think people would want shops and libraries ...my town 12 years ago I moved here they were going to be building a play ground and they haven't yet. There was one bus a week. Now there are 3 a day but they are totally useless because the bus comes back 15 minutes after getting to town or you have to wait 4 or 5 hours for the train!!! 😂 so a waste of money. You cant get to a city for 9 am in the morning any which way. You cant get to a college town for 9 am classes. The whole place feels like a prison. Lock down was great for me because everyone was in my boat for a change. All freaking out as I had at first felt. And there were lot sof people out on walks and more chats and socialising than ever before or since now that the people are back at work I hardly see a soul. So I enjoyed lockdown. It wouldn't have been possible to stop children mingling. But they could have just ventilated the place well which helps and anyone who was sick stay home. The issue is that parents have nowhere to put a sick child and if they miss school they're in trouble unless they've a doctors note and getting a doctor to see you is at least a 2 weeks wait now. So people just send their sick kid to school. One kid was coughing from 2014 to 2017 the entire time every two minutes you could hear him every day when you passed the schoolroom. Just hacking and hacking always... poor kid. I had started homeschooling by then anyway. And travelling long distances by trains with no windows we would also always get sick ..I started using a scarf over our face and using sanitizer to wash the surface of the train seat and table and that was long before covid but it stopped us getting colds every time we went on the train. A window would have helped a lot. There's literally no air in a trian a hus or a school. And now covid is over the windows have been closed again. And we also know flu kills elderly people but we haven't kept the nice time for elderly to come into the supermarket which I thoight was a great idea. Why not do this every winter. That was one of the only good things. Making everyone wear knickers on their face was ridiculous. People literally had the same mask filthy on their faces touching it constantly. That was so silly. Pepple themslves organised themslves very well to protect each other. People formed pods before the government even thought of it. People gave lifts and went shopping for the elderly and told each other who was sick or vulnerable ...people are a lot smarter. And anyway the people who didn't give a damn about it didn't follow the rules anyway. Recommendations are fine but dictating is not. And now we need something done...for example a child goes missing and we would find them if we locked down an area immediately and searched. But no. They can't do that? They can't change anything but they could change everything for covid? It makes no sense.
@serendipidus8482 I grew up in two suburbs. The first on the edge of a town. It was originally a village. The second on the edge of a city was originally a village and then a small town, so it had a small swimming pool, small library, and small cinema. I remember people in the next street sitting on hard chairs on the pavement to chat to their neighbours every Saturday evening. They would have to shout to be heard even by next-door neighbours. How would they be heard from a few houses away?
Thanks for sharing @lemsip207. Really interesting points. I worked as a Scout leader during lockdown and for most of the lockdowns (while school was still meeting) we met in the woods and had a fire which they found so beneficial. Take care, Piers
I went to 2 boarding schools from the age of 7 until 16 back in the 70s and 80s.
I never really fully recovered from the full trauma of them.
The first one was kind of ok but the second one was a grammar boarding school which was more like a gulag than a school.
The bullying there was horrendous and that was the teachers and housemasters, a lot of the kids were just as bad.
I ran away several times and made it home only to be taken back the very same day.
A few years afer i left i got a job and one of the managers tried to bully and belittle me, the red mist descended and i beat him up so badly that he spent a few weeks in hospital.
The only thing that saved me from serving time was my genuine remorse for half killing him, i was put on probation with a suspended sentence hanging over me.
Ive since had therapy and only in my late 40s was able to come to terms with the whole experience and start to heal.
I think you are very courageous to talk about this and I admire you so much for having therapy and keeping going and starting to heal. In getting therapy and no longer taking the violent route you have broken a terrible cycle which has probably been going on for centuries. For that reason (let alone everything else) I think you should feel very proud of yourself.
@@richardrickford3028Thanks, I appreciate your kind and encouraging words.
Good afternoon @wanderingsoul7935, thank you so much for your comment and your honesty. I am so sorry to hear of your experiences of boarding school and how it impacted you later in life.
In Bessel Van Der Kolk's book The Body Keeps The Score he recounts a similar story of someone who was in Vietnam who did a similar thing back in the US. I too had a violent episode just after boarding school. A cousin was bullying me and I became so enraged that I hit him a few times - he never did it again!
It's great to hear that you are starting to heal. Take care, Piers
Fascinating. I've always drawn a similarity between the two. In fact, I remain in contact with a good friend who was at the same school (almost 40 years ago now), and we somehow recently brought up the subject of prison documentaries, having both realised our shared enjoyment of watching such shows. We quickly deduced that it's highly likely due to our schooling because we did indeed feel as though we'd already been to prison. Was it a way of observing it all over again, just from an outsiders perspective this time? I've actually always said that, if I were to ever be sent to prison (let's hope not), I'd find it a breeze because I've already served time as such.
Lots of people have said about ex boarders who went to prison as adults and said it was almost the same. Wealthy parents spend a lot of money deliberately to have their children live in spartan conditions so they can enter the professions at a high level and can identify with their underlings. More like forcing that life onto many of us. Why don't they send them camping instead?
Thank you @AgricUltra for your fascinating comment. How interesting that you both made that connection to prison. As I have read different biographies it seems that the word prison, inmate or not being able to escape comes up in nearly everyone's biography or memoir. Take care, Piers
I read that too in "Moab Is My Washpot" Book by Stephen Fry explains when he went to prison, he felt no punishment at all, as boarding school was identical to prison.
Thanks @garvintimmann, Stephen Fry stories of boarding school and prison are very powerful, take care, Piers
I always say the parallels between boarding school and prison are many - to the point where ex boarders who ended up at his/her majesty's pleasure have said they could easily handle the environment because of their boarding school experience.
the truth of the matter is that ALL schools have many parallels with prison whether public/private or comprehensive - a reason why the WHOLE education system needs to be changed!
Hi @marktcards, thank you for your comment. Yes, so true I feel that the whole education system needs changing both comprehensive and private. Take care, Piers
Excellent and very important topic Piers. As a research assistant to the charity Missing People I am well aware that for young people (or indeed all sorts of people) running away is very often a "out of the frying pan in the fire" type of scenario. I do not see why this should be any different for people running away from boarding school. The boarding as a frying pan can be a very dark and abusive place with bullying potentially both from teachers and pupils and an absence of love that the young person really needs. But life on the streets or roughing it in the countryside can very much be a fire. People may choose to try and live this way because they know their parents will just send them back to boarding school again so they don't go back there. Homelessness on the streets or in the countryside is chronically unsafe and there could be very unsafe and sick adults out there who will offer, with utterly bogus affection, somewhere safe to stay. The "catch" here could be having pressure put on them to take part in sex or in taking part in criminality like county lines. The other point is I would like to underline the point that you make Piers about suicide being a possible escape route. In December 1984 at my boarding school my character - my essence - really was so badly and ruthlessly assassinated that I thought the only way out was death and I tried to throttle myself with a dressing gown chord. The bullies found out and laughed, and said that some people would think I was going to hell, and that one of their relatives committed suicide and no-one talked about them any more. One of them said we will put your dressing gown chord at the end of your bed to remind you. People going to boarding school who are not given enough support immediately for the abuse they suffer can store up chronic mental health problems. I had a breakdown in 1992 after I had finished my finals at University. I was put in psychiatric hospital - another total institution and had my clothes taken away from me so that I did not escape. Necessary at the time as I was deeply suicidal but it felt very prison like. Prison like too was the mental health hostel I went to afterwards with staff who were often poorly trained and clueless and other residents who could be mentally cruel and were also sexual prediters. The leader of the house was angry and upset with me because I would not see it as a "community" . So this shows how one prison or prison like environment (boarding school) can lead to large chunks of ones life being spent in other prison like places. Then there is the prison of deep deep mental illness. If you get out it you have to be lucky enough to get the right doctor or therapist and conscientious enough to do the huge amount of work on yourself that is required
That seems horrific, and you don't often get over it once you leave school, as if nothing happened. You are in a survival mood in school and then no longer in it after leaving school. That's when you start to process it.That mental health hostel sounds claustrophobic. Didn't they like you having friends or activities outside of it?
There are a lot of people on council housing estates who want to force 'community' onto their neighbours who often have a life and friends outside of it. My estate is only one street of blocks of flats, and I can't be expected to stay in it all the time. I had one neighbour who put pressure on me to visit him, and once I did, he put pressure on me to ditch a friend who lived a few miles away, lose my job, and stop going out. I had to sneak in and out of the building so he didn't see me, so I avoided coming and going between 10 am and 4 pm each day. Soaps such as EastEnders and Coronation Street portray the characters spending 95% of their lives in that one square or street except very occasionally when they go on holiday. They don't even see their grown-up children except when they move back into the square or street. They even take jobs in that square or street. In Brookside, most of the street worked in or owned businesses in a nearby parade where there was a restaurant, general store, solicitor's office, and hairdressing salon. If they lose their job they are only employed again when a neighbour takes them on. Apart from Dirty Den in EastEnders, who had a friend in Ilford that he visited regularly. This neighbour of mine expected the street I live in to be like one in a soap. So it makes me wonder if the producers and script writers are boarding school educated.
Then there was Doc Martin set in a Cornish village that has a police station with only one person working in it and a GP's surgery with two people working in it. In real life, they would be closed.
Thanks for sharing your heart-felt story Richard. Wow, your story is so powerful. And what a courageous man you are to have not only moved through it but to be helping others in the powerful way that you are. Bless you, Piers
Piers in terms of my continuing recovery from boarding school nothing has helped me as much as your speeches on U tube and your interviews with people, the groups you have led with other boarding school survivors and the disciplines and practices you have encouraged me and others to take up. Though the wounds you have suffered you have helped so many get better and to recognise the gold within them. There is still a lot to do with the boarding school situation but you have been one of the main brilliant forces in getting things moving in the right direction.
You hit the nail on head with the lockdowns. There was no need for the first lockdown to go on as long as it did, and children should have only been kept off school for two or three weeks while restrictions were put in place.
With separate desks in the classroom, abolishing assemblies, and staggered breaks, it was possible to stop classes from mingling. The school day is normally designed to maximise exposure to the entire school, so no wonder children come home with several colds a year, which they pass onto their parents. With morning assemblies in all schools and moving students from class to class every hour in secondary schools. In colleges and universities students tend to have their lectures in the same lecture theatre or practical room. There are also off site places they have lessons in as the college numbers grew faster than the building such as nearby scout huts and annexes where the original college was so it was nice to get off site. In Japan, they eat lunch in the classrooms with only a few students from each class collecting the food on trolleys from the kitchen.
The second lockdown was completely unnecessary. For months after each lockdown, you had to book an appointment to go to the library or museum. Things weren't completely back to normally until May 2022. There were no lockdowns with the swine flu epidemic in 2009. Only people with symptoms were isolated at home.
In other countries, it was even stricter as people had to book an appointment just to visit the supermarket. Children weren't allowed out at all, not even for a short walk with their parents. In China, some people were sealed into their homes, not even allowed to buy food or take delivery of food. At Manchester University, a hall of residence was sealed off with barricades with no notice given, so many students didn't have much food.
I just don't get why there are government policies to maximise exposure to many people and then suddenly restrict it to anyone in the same household. They encouraged people to travel by air to far-off destinations, and now they want us in 15-minute neighbourhoods not even being allowed to visit a friend or relative a few miles away. Even in the 1960s, people went to town or the city centre for work, school, shopping, and leisure. There was no public library, swimming pool and cinema near me where I grew up. I would have had to travel to the town centre for all of these as it was rapidly growing with houses but not facilities other than schools, parks and shops.
Yes the suburban sprawl was bad they didn't think people would want shops and libraries ...my town 12 years ago I moved here they were going to be building a play ground and they haven't yet. There was one bus a week. Now there are 3 a day but they are totally useless because the bus comes back 15 minutes after getting to town or you have to wait 4 or 5 hours for the train!!! 😂 so a waste of money. You cant get to a city for 9 am in the morning any which way. You cant get to a college town for 9 am classes.
The whole place feels like a prison. Lock down was great for me because everyone was in my boat for a change. All freaking out as I had at first felt. And there were lot sof people out on walks and more chats and socialising than ever before or since now that the people are back at work I hardly see a soul. So I enjoyed lockdown. It wouldn't have been possible to stop children mingling. But they could have just ventilated the place well which helps and anyone who was sick stay home. The issue is that parents have nowhere to put a sick child and if they miss school they're in trouble unless they've a doctors note and getting a doctor to see you is at least a 2 weeks wait now. So people just send their sick kid to school. One kid was coughing from 2014 to 2017 the entire time every two minutes you could hear him every day when you passed the schoolroom. Just hacking and hacking always... poor kid. I had started homeschooling by then anyway. And travelling long distances by trains with no windows we would also always get sick ..I started using a scarf over our face and using sanitizer to wash the surface of the train seat and table and that was long before covid but it stopped us getting colds every time we went on the train. A window would have helped a lot. There's literally no air in a trian a hus or a school. And now covid is over the windows have been closed again. And we also know flu kills elderly people but we haven't kept the nice time for elderly to come into the supermarket which I thoight was a great idea. Why not do this every winter. That was one of the only good things. Making everyone wear knickers on their face was ridiculous. People literally had the same mask filthy on their faces touching it constantly. That was so silly. Pepple themslves organised themslves very well to protect each other. People formed pods before the government even thought of it. People gave lifts and went shopping for the elderly and told each other who was sick or vulnerable ...people are a lot smarter. And anyway the people who didn't give a damn about it didn't follow the rules anyway. Recommendations are fine but dictating is not.
And now we need something done...for example a child goes missing and we would find them if we locked down an area immediately and searched. But no. They can't do that? They can't change anything but they could change everything for covid? It makes no sense.
@serendipidus8482 I grew up in two suburbs. The first on the edge of a town. It was originally a village. The second on the edge of a city was originally a village and then a small town, so it had a small swimming pool, small library, and small cinema.
I remember people in the next street sitting on hard chairs on the pavement to chat to their neighbours every Saturday evening. They would have to shout to be heard even by next-door neighbours. How would they be heard from a few houses away?
Thanks for sharing @lemsip207. Really interesting points. I worked as a Scout leader during lockdown and for most of the lockdowns (while school was still meeting) we met in the woods and had a fire which they found so beneficial. Take care, Piers
I thought that prison was the prison you can''t escape (or at least that's the idea)?
Thank you @benjaminwhittle, you are right! I could have worded this episode better. Take care, Piers
@@pierscross Thank you for your good natured response, Piers. I just realised in retrospect that I came across as a bit of an obtuse walloper at best!
Hi@@benjaminwhittle, thanks for your honesty. Take care, Piers