1970 - 77
gay and able to use contacts within Freemasonry to secure the employment he wanted. With a former pupil at Duncan Hall, David Rawnsley, they formed V H Searles Limited, with ownership transfering to their company in 1961. Verdun Searles appointed himself Principal.
Within a year, all the teachers had left, with the exception of the Headmaster, Francis J O'Brien. V H Searles appears to have engaged in Salami Slicing exercises. For example, 1970 was the last year the school engraved the winner's names on its sports trophies and started taking boys sponsored by local education authorities. Cooking margarine replaced butter. Eggs were never cooked properly (the white part was liquid and transluscent). Text books never updated.
Dorothy and I were attending St. Pius X, a Roman Catholic primary school, adjacent to Blessed (now Saint) John Payne Catholic School. This was ideally situate at the other end of the 44A and 44B bus routes, which ran every fifteen minutes during the day. Ideal almost because on our first day we heard the headmistress complain about the irreverence of her pupils taking communion, and we lived at the other side of town.
After school at St. Pius X, Dorothy was keen that I run, along Tennyson Road, with her hanging onto my raincoat. I do not understand how bad this is. Ultimately, despite my objections, I agreed to it. I needed help saying no.
So I had to attend Child Guidance Clinic, which was half way between the school and the town centre. I remember being asked if I was left or right handed but I did not know and was required to perform an IQ test, which I found distressing when unable to answer questions immediately.
I had to attend for half days once then twice per week. I was in the care of a woman with whom I used to play battleships. This was pleasant, but not to last, as one day she told me they had found a school for me, showing me an atlas from which we were to find Great Yarmouth. Verdun Searles was from Chelmsford.
In those days, 1970s, finding an establishment that was ideal was exactly the same as finding a place that would accept one. Essex County Council are free to sue.
That sort of thing is the most damaging. I did not know how to fight and I did not want to fight. No longer could I afford to be passive, but had to fight, to survive. Duncan Hall was supposed to be a "special school" to help me, but it was nothing of the kind. Those unaccustomed to violence had to use it or suffer ever more. Food was barely adequate, supplemented for the Juniors only, with the occasional birthday cake.
I got to dislike the Matron, Mrs Trinder. She confiscated a large syringe my mother gave me, promising its return at end of term, but when end of term came, she said she had thrown it away. During the 1971 Easter break, British Road Services did not deliver my trunk, until eventually my mother discovered she had addressed it to "Tommy Moore, Chelmsford." One learns to put up with that sort of thing. In the private sector, a conscientious employee is far too expensive. No one gives a 5h1t in the public sector.
On occasion I enjoyed an unexpected weekend away, at least once at home in Chelmsford. I remember looking at a small notice on the carriage wall naming the type of wood out of which the wall was made, on my way south. At other times, or at least once, I stayed with Mrs Essex, in Ormesby, one of the secretaries, and unbeknown to me at the time, girlfriend of joint owner of V H Searles Limited, David Rawnsley.
| This was posted on our Duncan Hall School Facebook page on Wednesday, 13 September 2023. | |
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While controlling the behaviour of children is difficult, it was disgusting of Essex County Council to assume that because my older (08.01.1960) sister, Dorothy, bullied me, therefore a school that claimed to be appropriate was in fact appropriate, while it was of course placing me the mercy of other bullies.
My mother had sent me weekly tuck parcels, but these stopped when she died on 4 November 1971. My father's main interest seems to have still been demanding sympathy, apparently a symptom of narcissim. |
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