Tad says he would never send his children to boarding school
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Tad was brought up in a ‘middle-class culture of secrecy and repression’.
He believes this made it easier for adults to abuse children at school, and more difficult for children to talk about what was happening.
Tad’s father was in the armed forces and the family had to move frequently. Because this meant he often had to change schools, when he was 10 years old, his parents decided to send him to boarding school.
He describes ‘a weird atmosphere’ at the school, which with hindsight he can see was ‘toxic and over-sexualised’. He says there were some excellent teachers, but others who were obviously sexually interested in the boys.
Tad remembers one male teacher who would often turn up in the changing rooms after games to watch boys showering, and another who would beat them for any trivial reason. He says the boys used to talk about how this man seemed to get sexual pleasure out of doing this.
The headteacher, Mr Jones, sexually abused Tad. The abuse began when Tad was about 11. Mr Jones suddenly walked in on Tad when he was having a bath, and started touching him, then masturbated him.
He remembers how confused and strange this made him feel. ‘I was a little boy’ he says. He adds that Mr Jones told him not to tell his parents and that if he did, they would not believe him.
Tad relates that Mr Jones would also come into the boys’ dormitory at night, and go round touching and tickling some of them.
Tad’s father was not keen on his son boarding at the school, and he changed his job so that Tad could switch to attending the school as a day pupil. When this was about to happen, Mr Jones offered Tad a position of responsibility in the school, but on condition that he continued boarding.
Tad says he knew this would mean that Mr Jones would carry on sexually abusing him, but he agreed at first, because his parents were so pleased about him being selected. However, he managed to tell them he had changed his mind.
He relates ‘My parents were puzzled but I couldn’t tell them why’. After that, Mr Jones left him alone.
Tad went to university, then married and had children in his early 20s, but the relationship was unhappy and he got divorced. This was a huge crisis for him. He had not told his wife that he had been abused and, realising that he was repressing a lot of his feelings, Tad says he began to work on being more open.
When he was in his 30s, he talked to his parents about the abuse, but his mother was completely dismissive of it. For years after, she repeatedly tried to make him agree that he was happy at school.
Over the last decade, having read more about child sexual abuse, Tad says he has realised the impact his experiences have had on him.
He describes how ashamed he felt during the time that he was being sexually abused, and that stopped him speaking about it. ‘It meant as a child I had a huge secret and a lot of fear that it was my fault … that I was a pervert. I felt sex was dirty and inappropriate.’
Feeling that the abuse he experienced was ‘pretty trivial compared to what others suffered’ was another reason Tad found it difficult to talk about.
He says ‘For a long time I thought I didn't have a right to talk about what might be one isolated incident … it could have been so much worse, but it affected the rest of my life’.
Tad says he doesn’t blame his parents for sending him to boarding school but he does blame his mother for refusing to acknowledge what he went through.
He believes that the culture at boarding schools has improved since the 1970s, but he is still adamant that he would not send his children away to school. He would like all schools to provide a counsellor for children to talk to, and clear information about how to approach this service.
Tad says he has spent a lot of his life trying to overcome ‘the middle-class repression’ he grew up with. He makes a great effort to be open with his children and encourages them to talk to him.
He says he can now speak quite freely about his experience of abuse but he feels that it is ‘occupying more of my headspace than it ought to be’, and he is considering having counselling.