Who Knew What?

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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richardb
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by richardb »

farmloop wrote: Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:35 pm I doubt whether the victims want financial compensation, I think their reward, albeit belatedly, will be to see some element of justice.
Spot on.
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by richardb »

cstegerlewis wrote: Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:32 pm That's a bit of a test, but I would say most years it was JDS, Torkington, Goodall (at least for a couple of years), 3 or 4 Old Blues who had been in Scouts and would have been Undergraduate Age, and I think Dobbie went on at least one (he also went on the Lake District Trip with the Scouts in December 85, my UF, as I remember he had to break the news to us that Bill Mitchell, then a Dep (?) had died of Cystic Fibrosis - I had spent some time with Bill when we were both in the sicker, but he was an acquaintance rather than a friend).

There were probably other masters involved (for no other reason that there must have been more minibus drivers) but I can't recall who.
I think TMF was referring to trips when Burr and Webb were there.
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by Great Plum »

cstegerlewis wrote: Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:14 pm
TMF wrote: Tue Jul 31, 2018 4:10 pm Everyone heard the rumours about the Norfolk Broads trips,
Soirry TMF, I am not sure why I am asking this, because perhaps I don't wnat to kno wthe answers, but as someone who went on these trips 3 times in the 80's is there any more on this? I don't recall anything untoward, but perhaps like others (and also back at school) I was too naive to notice, or not of any interest
Indeed... I went on a number of Broads trips, including one with a boat run by Dobbie - nothing ever happened.
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by sejintenej »

farmloop wrote: Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:35 pm
In reference to TMF's post:
I went on a Broads trip with Ian Torkington and Dr Maddren and still see it as an opportunity for some boys, perhaps whose home circumstances were difficult, to have some respite. I'm unaware that anything untoward happened. I know I'll always be grateful to them for that holiday.
I also went on one (a pub crawl) arranged by Kit and really enjoyed it even if, IN MY SLEEP, I did releive someone of his bunk, letting him sleep on the deck! Anyone else on that cruise will remember the main haliard breaking!
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by cstegerlewis »

richardb wrote: Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:43 pm I think TMF was referring to trips when Burr and Webb were there.
Thanks for the clarification richardb. As I posted elsewhere Webb and Burr did turn up on summer camp staying on Burr’s boat next to the campsite, but I was never on the Broads with them.
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by richardb »

Perhaps the "Empress of Blandings" will be over painted with "Paedos on Tour".
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by blueeyedboy »

Think I posted this before, but Burr called the woodburning stove on The Empress of Blandings 'The Very Sod' (as in, 'Heat was in the very sod' from Good King Wenceslas).

Looks grimly ironic now
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by richardb »

Are you sure thats what he meant!?
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by michael scuffil »

Having read through most of the above (all of which relates to after my time) I come to appreciate the merits of CME Seaman all the more. I cannot think of a single incident of this nature during his time on which he did not act, and he was also highly pro-active (introducing proper sex-ed for the first time). As an OB himself, he would of course have had some inside knowledge. He was also responsible for pushing through the introduction of senior and junior houses. I think the situation of 18 and 11-year-olds sharing the same changing-room (with all that that implied) certainly played a role here.

Let me say a word about Kirby in this context. Kirby never abused anyone. But he did get boys to strip for the purpose of anatomical exposition. I do not believe he derived any sexual pleasure from this whatever, but rather that he had a barrack-room view of privacy which regarded embarrassment as 'wet'. He changed this practice soon after Seaman's arrival, and I do not doubt that it was Seaman who told him to stop. In those days, 'privacy' was hardly a concept, but 'modesty' was, and Seaman set great store by it. I might add that I was taught by Kirby soon after he changed: he would still get boys to strip from the waist up, but would get the chosen subject (the criterion was skinniness) to wear swimming trunks for the 'lower limb girdle'. And during the exposition, he then became extremely sensitive to the subject's feelings. I think he just didn't realize the effect of his earlier practice.
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by J.R. »

michael scuffil wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:14 am Having read through most of the above (all of which relates to after my time) I come to appreciate the merits of CME Seaman all the more. I cannot think of a single incident of this nature during his time on which he did not act, and he was also highly pro-active (introducing proper sex-ed for the first time). As an OB himself, he would of course have had some inside knowledge. He was also responsible for pushing through the introduction of senior and junior houses. I think the situation of 18 and 11-year-olds sharing the same changing-room (with all that that implied) certainly played a role here.

Let me say a word about Kirby in this context. Kirby never abused anyone. But he did get boys to strip for the purpose of anatomical exposition. I do not believe he derived any sexual pleasure from this whatever, but rather that he had a barrack-room view of privacy which regarded embarrassment as 'wet'. He changed this practice soon after Seaman's arrival, and I do not doubt that it was Seaman who told him to stop. In those days, 'privacy' was hardly a concept, but 'modesty' was, and Seaman set great store by it. I might add that I was taught by Kirby soon after he changed: he would still get boys to strip from the waist up, but would get the chosen subject (the criterion was skinniness) to wear swimming trunks for the 'lower limb girdle'. And during the exposition, he then became extremely sensitive to the subject's feelings. I think he just didn't realize the effect of his earlier practice.
Spot on Michael.

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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by ZeroDeConduite »

michael scuffil wrote: Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:14 am I come to appreciate the merits of CME Seaman all the more.
My time at CH came to an untimely/premature end, with Seaman reading the leaving charge to me on my own in the chapel midway through my last summer term. Though CMES didn't do much to alleviate my mini mental-breakdown he certainly didn't exacerbate it - for which I was very thankful. He talked to me about my problems, and although I only gave him the expurgated version I'm sure that my experiences led in a small way to the way he planned his reforms of the mid-sixties and beyond. (I'll write more in another post).

On topic: coming from the ultima thule of Peele A, we had a detached view of much of the goings on in the rest of the school. I remember that the senior boys in both PeA and PeB formed an ad hoc vigilante committee when a certain (bachelor) junior housemaster was reportedly found in some way in flagrante with someone, and he was summoned to a face to face meeting by the senior boys where he was told to a) cease and desist, and b) never repeat the offence again. The aforesaid junior housemaster thereupon very rapidly announced his engagement and subsequent marriage. Whether this ever escalated to the level of the house or school staff I don't know - I think possibly not.
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by yamaha »

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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by yamaha »

While some of the older OBs are working on Seaman's beatification it might be worth remembering that there were quite a few masters in his time who were more than a little light in the loafers. Two of his appointees are currently in prison and the police say they are investigating CH back to the 1940s.
Having been there under Seaman but not yet having reached the rose-tinted nostalgia stage of life, I don't share the view that all was well then and I suspect the reason for the lack of prosecutions from that era is that most of the 50s/60s perpetrators will by now be dead.
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by Janey Jam-Jar »

:offtopic: Alius ultima Thule:

https://youtu.be/cO9FTvQex1g
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Re: Who Knew What?

Post by TMF »

The 1970s school doctor published a paper in 1979 in the 'Practitioner' titled 'Collaboration between psychiatrist and doctor in a boys' boarding school' (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/482232)

Hoskins was an Old Blue, of course, and familiar with boys boarding school matters and masters. It would be interesting to know more about this collaboration - anyone have access to a university library?
Last edited by TMF on Fri Aug 03, 2018 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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