Curtis remembers how he felt when he was eight: ‘no one spoke a single kind word to me, ever’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Curtis spent almost his entire childhood in care, during the 1950s and 60s. As a young child he was moved from a residential nursery to a care home which he describes as ‘the most miserable place on the planet’.
Isolated from his family and not knowing what had happened to his mother, he faced years of physical and sexual abuse with no one to turn to.
While he was living at the care home Curtis was sent to a Catholic primary school. The school handed out harsh and abusive punishments to the young pupils. He recalls being regularly caned by the head teacher, for misdemeanours such as not lifting his cap to her. He questions how the head teacher ‘could be doing all this religious stuff and then caning six year old little boys?’
He remembers that his mother visited him in the care home about five times with her boyfriend, until one week the boyfriend came alone. He describes feeling sure that his mother was dead but he has never been able to find out what happened to her.
He was eight years old at the time and vividly remembers how upset he was ‘but I couldn’t talk about it … I was at war with everything going on … no one was kind to me.’ He describes the way the children were treated as like ‘the culture of a rule book with all the emotion taken out of it’.
Curtis was moved to another children’s home. He says he didn’t like the couple who ran it, but he was transferred to a Protestant school, which he much preferred. He was still caned on a daily basis but says he felt this was ‘fair’, as he had done things wrong, compared to the ‘maliciousness of the other head teacher’ at his previous school.
When he was 11 years old, Curtis was told he had made ‘the top 40 troublemakers’ and was being sent to boarding school. He recalls ‘I was proud and excited to be going … I thought it would be exciting and all the boys would be playing tricks’.
As an adult he has learned that this ‘boarding school’ was in fact an approved school. When he arrived the first thing he saw was the head teacher kicking a pupil down the corridor. He was shocked, as he had been told there was no corporal punishment at this school but he soon learned that what he had seen was ‘normal, everyday behaviour there’.
Curtis still finds it hard to talk about what happened to him at the approved school. He says ‘I’ve tried not to think of this for years’.
He describes how a housemaster regularly sexually assaulted him, telling him it was ‘normal’ and that he did it to all the boys. Curtis says ‘I think he chose me as I didn’t have anyone else – no parents – I was a safe victim. He did it to me all the time.’
He believes the abusive behaviour of the housemaster was no secret and that everyone at the school knew. He says he tried to avoid him whenever possible but remembers one night when he awoke in fear from a nightmare and ran for help, and the housemaster was the nearest member of staff.
Curtis recalls: ‘He tried to push me into bed, I was so ashamed everyone heard it. I fought him off pulling down my pyjamas. I have this horrible feeling about it, unlike anything else, a nasty, horrible feeling. I feel ashamed and that I have to cover it up’.
He also recalls being ‘dragged’ into a bathroom and beaten by another housemaster.
Curtis was seen by a psychiatrist while he was at this school, but did not feel he could say anything about what was happening to him. He says the children were constantly told ‘children don’t have any rights’, adding ‘you were frightened about what would happen to you if you said anything’.
When he reached school leaving age, Curtis was discharged from care and says this was ‘the happiest day of my life’. But he was ill-prepared for adult life. He says he looked young for his age and survived by getting girls to look after him. He remarks that although he had been sent to school regularly, his education had been virtually non-existent and that at the age of 11 years he could barely write his name.
Just before Curtis left care, he was told he had a brother. Throughout his childhood he had believed he had a sister, as he had a memory of being taken to see her by his mother and being expected to look after her. But her existence was denied by those responsible for his care.
Curtis reflects that children step out into a different world when they leave care and thinks that greater support should be provided to prepare them for independence.
He believes that people who care for children should engage emotionally with them because children need to be able to form attachments. He would like to see ‘proper independent inspection of children’s homes’ that involve more than checking if the children are fed and go to school. Inspectors should get the views of children and feed back to them.
Curtis says that all his adult life he has tried to hide the fact he was in care and describes being ‘ashamed’ about the abuse he suffered. He says the Truth Project is his opportunity to speak out, to stop being ashamed of what had happened and to ‘begin to build walls to stop this crap’.