Transcripts

This section was setup in August 2018 in order to move the existing related discussions from other sections into this new section to group them together, and separate from the other CH-related topics.

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jtaylor
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Re: Transcripts

Post by jtaylor »

RichardB - your thoughts?

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marty
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Re: Transcripts

Post by marty »

Spoonbill wrote: Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:35 pm I must say I think it's just not on that the transcript of Burr's appeal identifies the victims by both their firstname and surname initials. What kind of anonymity is that, when anyone with an old Blue Book or anyone who was in Maine A at the time could identify them with relative ease?

Surely better to have referred to them as Pupils A, B, C, D and so forth.

Not impressed. In fact I'd say that there's a strong case for removing the link to the Burr transcript altogether. Just put yourself in the victims' position. Or maybe the victims don't give a stuff who knows?

Sermon over.
I had assumed the initials were randomly chosen and not representative of their actual names.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by richardb »

I have emailed a revised transcript to Julian which further anonymises things.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by AndrewH »

marty wrote: Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:53 pm
Spoonbill wrote: Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:35 pm I must say I think it's just not on that the transcript of Burr's appeal identifies the victims by both their firstname and surname initials. What kind of anonymity is that, when anyone with an old Blue Book or anyone who was in Maine A at the time could identify them with relative ease?

Surely better to have referred to them as Pupils A, B, C, D and so forth.

Not impressed. In fact I'd say that there's a strong case for removing the link to the Burr transcript altogether. Just put yourself in the victims' position. Or maybe the victims don't give a stuff who knows?

Sermon over.
I had assumed the initials were randomly chosen and not representative of their actual names.
I suspect not random, and coupled with other information in the transcript...
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Re: Transcripts

Post by yamaha »

It would be surprising (possibly illegal?) if the letters are not anonyms since these documents are in the public record.
Last edited by yamaha on Mon Jul 16, 2018 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by richardb »

Now remedied.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by J.R. »

In hindsight, maybe Witness 1,2.3 etc might have been better.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by DeletedAccount »

Thank you for the transcripts.

I read them with horror. Horror at the details revealed. Horror at how someone in such a position of authority could actually do such things. Horror at what the innocent victims experienced, both at the time and afterwards.

The Webb transcript was particularly shocking for me, realising that the ages and dates meant that some of the victims were contempoaries, perhaps sitting in the same classes as me, playing the same sports, sharing tobacco from the same pouch and laughing at the same jokes, distinguished only by the silent, horrendous abuse they were experiencing and others were not. This realisation hit me really hard and my sadness about these horrible events plunged even a little deeper.

Several people have mentioned Webb's "paedo" nickname. Every master had a nickname, some were obvious in terms of where they came from, others more obtuse. They were all known and just accepted as semi-housey slang. I remember at the time the shock we all seemed to feel discovering that "paedo Webb" actually was a paedophile. I certainly had not made the connection and nor had most others, bizarre as it must seem now.

I remember too that when he left, there was a general shroud of mystery and silence. No-one/very few knew the details of what had happened and most knew virtually nothing (house newspapers were mysteriously not delivered on the day the news broke). And there were certainly no messages from school management/leaders about understanding and reporting abuse or even that abuse was wrong. I guess that is how things were back then, but it does seem terribly wrong.

Perhaps others remember differently.
Last edited by DeletedAccount on Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by richardb »

I agree with every word you say.

It really could have been me.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by Spoonbill »

This probably goes without saying, but in a way it also comes as a shock to think that Burr was only in his twenties when all of this was going on. One wonders whether he interfered with his fellow pupils when he himself was at school just a few years earlier, then carried the habit over to CH as his own personal version of normality. After all, if he'd been a victim at boarding school, he'd probably have used that as part of his defence. I find it hard to imagine Burr suddenly discovering himself to be a paedophile in his twenties, completely out of the blue, rather than the orientation having evolved gradually from his teens onwards, so I'd assume that his head was already firmly in that place when he arrived at CH.

Another shocking aspect is just how downright bold he was; it makes for jaw-dropping reading. One reads it and thinks "How on Earth could he possibly have got away with it, not just at the time but for decades thereafter? And how could Basil Gregory not have known what was going on under his nose?" It's almost beyond belief, especially when all the boys in Maine A supposedly knew that Burr and his study were to be avoided at all costs. I remember being told by Maine A lads that the boys who allowed Burr to befriend them and to lure them into his study for tea and cake were known as Burrs and were thought ill of by the other Maine A kids for sucking up to Burr, though I wouldn't mind betting it increased their chances of becoming house monitors etc.

More ex-pupils may well step forward with their own tales to tell, but I suspect it's just as likely that they won't. After all, the man has now been exposed, publicly vilified and sent to gaol, so it might be argued that no further evidence is required, unless of course what we've seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of just how far his misbehaviour extended and how grossly he behaved.

De Wharton, eh? Well, at least we now know what the 'de W' stood for. And the rumour that 'PP' stood for 'Peter Peter' has now been quoshed once and for all.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by Mid A 15 »

Spoonbill wrote: Mon Jul 16, 2018 4:00 pm This probably goes without saying, but in a way it also comes as a shock to think that Burr was only in his twenties when all of this was going on. One wonders whether he interfered with his fellow pupils when he himself was at school just a few years earlier, then carried the habit over to CH as his own personal version of normality. After all, if he'd been a victim at boarding school, he'd probably have used that as part of his defence. I find it hard to imagine Burr suddenly discovering himself to be a paedophile in his twenties, completely out of the blue, rather than the orientation having evolved gradually from his teens onwards, so I'd assume that his head was already firmly in that place when he arrived at CH.

Another shocking aspect is just how downright bold he was; it makes for jaw-dropping reading. One reads it and thinks "How on Earth could he possibly have got away with it, not just at the time but for decades thereafter? And how could Basil Gregory not have known what was going on under his nose?" It's almost beyond belief, especially when all the boys in Maine A supposedly knew that Burr and his study were to be avoided at all costs. I remember being told by Maine A lads that the boys who allowed Burr to befriend them and to lure them into his study for tea and cake were known as Burrs and were thought ill of by the other Maine A kids for sucking up to Burr, though I wouldn't mind betting it increased their chances of becoming house monitors etc.

More ex-pupils may well step forward with their own tales to tell, but I suspect it's just as likely that they won't. After all, the man has now been exposed, publicly vilified and sent to gaol, so it might be argued that no further evidence is required, unless of course what we've seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of just how far his misbehaviour extended and how grossly he behaved.

De Wharton, eh? Well, at least we now know what the 'de W' stood for. And the rumour that 'PP' stood for 'Peter Peter' has now been quoshed once and for all.
I was in Maine A although I believe I had moved onto Middleton A before any of the 'known' convicted offences had occurred.

However I knew Burr as a junior housemaster but, more relevantly to your post above, the late Basil Gregory was my housemaster for two years.

I was naive and unworldly for many years at CH but from my knowledge and dealings with him, which often included being on the arse end of a gym shoe, BSG would have emphatically intervened I am certain had he had the slightest sniff of anything sinister or untoward.

BSG, unlike other Masters I could but won't name, never ignored bullying and I speak as one who was bullied a lot of my time as a junior. He therefore was not afraid to put his head above the parapet and I am confident he would have shopped Burr if he had any knowledge of his shenanigans.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by Chrissie Boy »

P P de W Burr without his spectacles, 1969

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Re: Transcripts

Post by Katharine »

I've said before that my husband worked with Burr for several summers on the Ffestiniog Railway, he's confirmed from the photo that it is the same person. PPdeWB was dismissed as a guard for committing offences that would nowadays have to be reported to the Rail Accident Investigation Board, such as uncoupling a train. As far as my husband knows there was never any suggestion of anything of a sexual nature, just high jinks that went too far.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by richardb »

High jinks that go too far are often the pre cursor to something more sinister.
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Re: Transcripts

Post by marty »

Chrissie Boy wrote: Mon Jul 16, 2018 4:40 pm P P de W Burr without his spectacles, 1969

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The blonde boy to his right / our left looks incredibly uncomfortable.
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