Elizabeth Cairncross

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scrub
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

Post by scrub »

Otter wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:17 amI am also confused and angry why there is seemingly no action being taken against P-S-C after their admissions in court.
Assuming they even had a legal case to answer for, given the combined and sustained efforts that were needed to get Dobbie, Karim, Husband, Burr, and Webb (I'm sure there were one or two others, but can't remember their names) on trial, I don't imagine the CPS feels it could successfully bring anything to court.
Sillett is the one they could have had a decent crack at, given his actions at the time, but there doesn't appear to be the appetite for it.
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

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Just read this and can add some detail to peoples memories - i was there during the 80's, merger was my UF, I was in LHB then LHA.

The kid who was the clepto in LHB was Penman and his dad was landlord of the Boars Head bottom of Tower Hill. He was not starved, he was always a thin scrawny guy with bulging eyes, he was also on his UF as a jnr house monitor when he went silly with stealing so would have been one of those dealing out the food not "bottom of the food chain". When people found out what he was doing (he stole a logging axe under his coat form Robert Dyas) they actually got spoke to Julian Atkinson over what to do before going to Bob and when he was confronted he actually leapt from the quiet room window of LHB into the big holly bush and sprinted off. His clepto habits gave rise to a lot of the drink being consumed by the LHJB UF, either in panda pops bottles of mixed top row for £1 or shoplifted booze

The shortage of food and monitors taking the most definitely happened, on everything from house biscuits to table Monitors taking 2 bits of fish when there were only 14 for a table of 14 etc etc.

The food was uniformly poor until about my deps when it was outsources to a company who wore Purple pinnies (cant remember name) they basically tried to feed the school from Brake Bros (or 80's equiv) unfortunately the trays were "serves 10", so initially there were massive complaints about portion size, after about half a term they doubled the portions so tables got 2 trays (of lasagne or the like) which meant for a term or so we all ate well (everyone knows 10 really means about 8 so 20 was 16 or so), then they ran out of money and we all went on short rations for the summer term. I know this as at the time my mate Veggie was one of several trying to negotiate a vegetarian table and we spent lots of time talking to the catering staff (mainly the Bread room lady who took over from Miss Webb)

I also thought jnr house monitors were far more brutal than snr house, they were megalomaniac 14 year olds getting a year of power in before restarting at the bottom of the heap in snr house, I dont know what happened when it all went cafeteria (the Sep after i left) but a lot of what is written in this thread is not strictly correct - I still ate better than I did in holidays (rice with peas, sweetcorn and chopped up ye olde oak hotdogs was a standard holiday meal for me)
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

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wurzel wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:22 am Just read this and can add some detail to peoples memories - i was there during the 80's, merger was my UF, I was in LHB then LHA.

I still ate better than I did in holidays (rice with peas, sweetcorn and chopped up ye olde oak hotdogs was a standard holiday meal for me)
Remember that CH was for children from very poor or violent families and I suspect that their mothers did not know too much about diet. thus I suspect that what you write was not unusual. I was lucky because of my mother's job but my aunt's house was as you describe.
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

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My mum knew how to cook just had no money, we also had home made pizzas but in the summer holidays being a very small farm we would get up have cereal (maybe depending on timings) get out onto the farm and start greasing machinery etc, then as soon as dew off the crops combining would start and continue until the dew rose again, during that day we would have 2 cheese rolls, when we came in we would shower, eat rice meal and go to straight to bed. That was 6 days a week. Sunday we would stop for a roast chicken meal mid afternoon unless the weather forecast meant farming took priority. School life was easy compared to a summer holiday working flat out for a nominal £20 thank you in September
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

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wurzel wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:34 am My mum knew how to cook just had no money, we also had home made pizzas but in the summer holidays being a very small farm we would get up have cereal (maybe depending on timings) get out onto the farm and start greasing machinery etc, then as soon as dew off the crops combining would start and continue until the dew rose again, during that day we would have 2 cheese rolls, when we came in we would shower, eat rice meal and go to straight to bed. That was 6 days a week. Sunday we would stop for a roast chicken meal mid afternoon unless the weather forecast meant farming took priority. School life was easy compared to a summer holiday working flat out for a nominal £20 thank you in September
I was lucky - my mother was the housekeeper and a chef in a big house so we ate well.
Summer holidays were often on a flax farm. You can't use machinery with flax - cut it with a scythe, gather it into stooks by hand then into the water and tread it down with bare feet to rot the outer sheath of each stem. All hand labour, dirty and smelly. Our pay was the food we ate (which I can't remember - I do remember Montezuma's Revenge too often.)
What happens if a politician drowns in a river? That is pollution.
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

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wurzel wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:22 am The food was uniformly poor until about my deps when it was outsources to a company who wore Purple pinnies (cant remember name)
It wasn't Fairfield, was it? But maybe I remember wrong, not the most important thing to recall from one's school days.

I remember striking up a bit of a conversational bond with one of the "bockers"; we would sometimes chat at the table as it emptied out around 6.30 after tea. He was South African, an accountant with a PhD, and he earned more serving food at CH than as an accountant in South Africa.
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

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sejintenej wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:57 am
wurzel wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:34 am My mum knew how to cook just had no money, we also had home made pizzas but in the summer holidays being a very small farm we would get up have cereal (maybe depending on timings) get out onto the farm and start greasing machinery etc, then as soon as dew off the crops combining would start and continue until the dew rose again, during that day we would have 2 cheese rolls, when we came in we would shower, eat rice meal and go to straight to bed. That was 6 days a week. Sunday we would stop for a roast chicken meal mid afternoon unless the weather forecast meant farming took priority. School life was easy compared to a summer holiday working flat out for a nominal £20 thank you in September
I was lucky - my mother was the housekeeper and a chef in a big house so we ate well.
Summer holidays were often on a flax farm. You can't use machinery with flax - cut it with a scythe, gather it into stooks by hand then into the water and tread it down with bare feet to rot the outer sheath of each stem. All hand labour, dirty and smelly. Our pay was the food we ate (which I can't remember - I do remember Montezuma's Revenge too often.)
Combines and tractors with no guards or roll bars etc (was once knocked from the top of a combine by a snapping main drive belt which hit me across face breaking nose) being sent into silos to rake Barley that wasn't flowing as it was starting to rot so sticking together (hot enough to melt tread on wellies) etc etc - was def safer at school
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

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Otter wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:24 am
wurzel wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:22 am The food was uniformly poor until about my deps when it was outsources to a company who wore Purple pinnies (cant remember name)
It wasn't Fairfield, was it? But maybe I remember wrong, not the most important thing to recall from one's school days.

I remember striking up a bit of a conversational bond with one of the "bockers"; we would sometimes chat at the table as it emptied out around 6.30 after tea. He was South African, an accountant with a PhD, and he earned more serving food at CH than as an accountant in South Africa.
That rings a bell
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

Post by richardb »

Sadly there is still no criminal offence which enables a teacher turning a blind eye to sexual abuse or covering up for it to be prosecuted.

There is no appetite in government to introduce such an offence given what are seen as other priorities.
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

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Otter wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:24 am . He was South African, an accountant with a PhD, and he earned more serving food at CH than as an accountant in South Africa.
My guess is that he was white in a country which has become anti-white. He would have been lucky to even have a job.
Also cost of living in South Africa is a fraction of the cost of living here.

This area in England is inundated by qualified white South Africans
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

Post by Ajarn Philip »

sejintenej wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:32 pm
Otter wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:24 am . He was South African, an accountant with a PhD, and he earned more serving food at CH than as an accountant in South Africa.
My guess is that he was white in a country which has become anti-white.
Not in the mid-80s when Otter was at CH.
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

Post by wurzel »

sejintenej wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:32 pm
Otter wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:24 am . He was South African, an accountant with a PhD, and he earned more serving food at CH than as an accountant in South Africa.
My guess is that he was white in a country which has become anti-white. He would have been lucky to even have a job.
Also cost of living in South Africa is a fraction of the cost of living here.

This area in England is inundated by qualified white South Africans
Timings wrong for that - the positive discrimination laws didnt come in until post Mandela/ANC takeover and we are talking late 80's whilst he was still incarcerated and the ANC was an illegal organisation.
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

Post by Otter »

richardb wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:09 pm Sadly there is still no criminal offence which enables a teacher turning a blind eye to sexual abuse or covering up for it to be prosecuted.

There is no appetite in government to introduce such an offence given what are seen as other priorities.
If one parent abuses their child and the other parent, in the same household, knows about it but does nothing, can the latter be prosecuted for anything?

If so, then it's sad that this wouldn't apply to a teacher in loco parentis at a boarding school.

Surprising that it still isn't a criminal offence, as anything in the vein of "going after paedos and their enablers" is always a vote-winner.
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

Post by sejintenej »

wurzel wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:13 pm
sejintenej wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:32 pm
Otter wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:24 am . He was South African, an accountant with a PhD, and he earned more serving food at CH than as an accountant in South Africa.
My guess is that he was white in a country which has become anti-white. He would have been lucky to even have a job.
Also cost of living in South Africa is a fraction of the cost of living here.

This area in England is inundated by qualified white South Africans
Timings wrong for that - the positive discrimination laws didnt come in until post Mandela/ANC takeover and we are talking late 80's whilst he was still incarcerated and the ANC was an illegal organisation.
However there was a surge out of South Africa by English speakers, white and coloured (as defined by SA law) that I know started in about 1960 (I would have to check the date) when the country was approaching becoming a republic. The fear was that after a period of grace they would not be allowed into Britain but at the same time they would suffer under the Afrikaaners. in the event Natal (English speaking) did not have too many problems then but those I know in Joburg found life difficult.
After that surge a lot went to Australia and some I know then moved from Australia to Britain (and it also happened the other way around). Equally some went to the USA - I have previously mentioned Chinese friends who did that long after the republic. Interestingly Chinese were coloured, Japanese white!!!!

I have been involved with South African emigrees to the UK, Ausralia and the US since 1966
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Re: Elizabeth Cairncross

Post by wurzel »

Yes and we were taught maths at CH by a refugee from the closure of the SA Nuclear Program - Georg Stindt

But the real big rush was in the late 90's and early 2000's when the rules came in in RSA demanding that whites not be promoted at all until certain %'s had been met in management and that to bid for govt work companies had to be majority black owned

My parents looked at migrating to SA about 1970 due to the mad house price inflation at the time, instead they had me (then split up 5 years later)
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