Transcripts
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- jtaylor
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Re: Transcripts
RichardB - your thoughts?
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Julian Taylor-Gadd
Leigh Hunt 1985-1992
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Leigh Hunt 1985-1992
Founder of The Unofficial CH Forum
https://www.grovegeeks.co.uk - IT Support and website design for home, small businesses and charities.
- marty
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Re: Transcripts
I had assumed the initials were randomly chosen and not representative of their actual names.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.
My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. We’ll see about that.
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Re: Transcripts
I have emailed a revised transcript to Julian which further anonymises things.
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- GE (Great Erasmus)
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Re: Transcripts
I suspect not random, and coupled with other information in the transcript...marty wrote: ↑Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:53 pmI had assumed the initials were randomly chosen and not representative of their actual names.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.
Andrew Harrison
Maine A 1970-73
Lamb A 1973-77
Maine A 1970-73
Lamb A 1973-77
Re: Transcripts
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
Now remedied.
- J.R.
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Re: Transcripts
In hindsight, maybe Witness 1,2.3 etc might have been better.
John Rutley. Prep B & Coleridge B. 1958-1963.
Re: Transcripts
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.
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
I agree with every word you say.
It really could have been me.
It really could have been me.
- Spoonbill
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Re: Transcripts
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.
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.
- Mid A 15
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Re: Transcripts
I was in Maine A although I believe I had moved onto Middleton A before any of the 'known' convicted offences had occurred.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.
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.
Ma A, Mid A 65 -72
- Chrissie Boy
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Re: Transcripts
P P de W Burr without his spectacles, 1969
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- Button Grecian
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Re: Transcripts
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.
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
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Re: Transcripts
High jinks that go too far are often the pre cursor to something more sinister.
- marty
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Re: Transcripts
The blonde boy to his right / our left looks incredibly uncomfortable.
My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. We’ll see about that.