1969, Alex Renton, at just eight years old, is dispatched to board at
Ashdown House School, a school that would help them get into Eton.
Despite the facade by the architect who designed the White House and its
sumptuous setting, Alex was to suffer years of physical, mental and
sexual abuse here.
These days, Ashdown House School is a thriving
school run by a completely new trust who say the welfare of their pupils
is at the heart of everything they do.
The school gave us permission to bring Alex back to discuss what he
enjoyed here 40 years ago.
The two Windows up there they were
dormitories and that was the Headmasters room.
There was a lot of golf players, he was keen on golf.
What does it feel like being here?
Bloody horrible.
It's horrible!
It's a sunny day in a beautiful place and
I...
I was very unhappy here for too long for a small child and it took
me too long to get over it when it came to coming to terms with what
happened to you, it took you an extraordinarily long time.
And I carried some guilt about that.
It took me 40 years to acknowledge the
fact that I had been sexually abused.
And then to find out...
Because my mother had made a complaint but been bullied into
keeping quiet, no one went to the police say Mr keen was assumed
sacked by the school but the bulletin in 1972 says he went on to
teach in another school.
We could have prevented 40 years in which I
have to suspect he might have abused other children.
That, for me, is guilt.
It is also a great anger because the school should have done
it.
Do you think in fact the education process in these
institutions perhaps put the lid on it, insured you didn't talk about
it?
We were trained from day one to keep our mouth shut.
Talking to your parents were speaking according to
the old headmaster and at the end of my first half term, one of the boys
are my dormitory called his parents we were being beaten at night if we
cried because there was a school rule about Moyes after lights out.
We were summoned into the headmaster 's office the morning after the
half-time and he said a boy has been talking to his parents.
If this happens again, I shall beat everyone
of you.
That was all that was done.
So we end the society that went through this we were trained that
you keep secrets within the team.
And you have to ask whether the cover-ups we were trained to see as
normal than affected the way the graduates of this system run
society.
When you were here, did you recognise you were in the elite?
I don't think you think like that at
eight years old.
I knew chiefly I wasn't with people who loved me.
And some who actively didn't love me,
rather the opposite.
You were a frightened child here, like everyone
else.
Frightened of what?
At the very first moment, your name was
taken away, I was called Renton, and that people didn't want anything
good to me.
They wanted me to stop crying, which they did, with a
stick, and they wanted to mould me on to someone who would be an
uncomplaining member of the team, not the individual I had been up to
eight years old.
An anthropologist would think it strange that a whole
segment of British society, but at the top, regarded removing a child
from the home as a vital ingredient in making them great.
By the time I got here, it had been proven to
work.
Wellington had said 150 years earlier supposedly the Battle of
Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.
And when I arrived here, we were still one of the top
countries and we had a great empire.
And the magic provided by schools like this, including that separation
of children at eight years old, clearly produced leaders who could
run an empire.
Your argument is detaching from the family at eight
years old cannot be good.
It can be good.
It's very good at making people reattach because children
need somewhere to place their affections.
To a team, club, network, empire, if you like.
Long before child psychology, the
Victorians developed a very brilliant system for building a core
of officers and leaders.
So it's bad psychologically for the child, it's
good for the team.
I put it to you most of the parents of children who
have been through schools like this recommend doing the very best for
their children.
They are using their money to ensure their children end
up with what they see as a good education and have the best possible
prospect of making it in life.
Absolutely.
I know these parents, they are my relatives and my class
and they are still doing it, often scrimping and saving and not taking
foreign holidays because the bills are enormous so it is a sacrifice
done with love.
One of the awful things about it is if you tell a
child you've scrimped and saved for it, the child isn't going to tell
you it's bad, they want to protect their parents.
So you're already making a society that wants a stiff
upper lip, and try to get through bullying to keep their parents
happy.
What I can see, because these people write to me, is that they've
lived lifetimes of great success but greatly unhappy deep inside.
And you're a happy person because you've
now finally come to terms with what you endured.
Speaking up about it was the best their appeal.
I'd encourage everyone else to do so.
I've arrived at a place where, with the support of my family, which is
pretty crucial, I'm a happy person and I'm glad to be sitting here,
able to say that 43 years later.
Ashdown House School has said in a statement...
"These historic incidents, which occurred 25 years before
"the Trust took over the school, are deeply shocking, and are against
"everything we stand for.
"We extend our heartfelt sympathy to anyone involved."
Joining me to discuss some of the issues raised in that
interview is Julie Robinson, General Secretary of
the Independent Schools Council, and in a moment I'll be talking
to psychotherapist Professor Joy Schaverien,
author of Boarding School Syndrome.
What effect does taking a child away from the family at eight years old,
as Alex was, can you generalise or is it specific to the individual?
It is specific to the individual but we
can generalise about it because children grow up in a situation
where they are attached to people, they are loved, they are familiar
with their environment, their family, their siblings, their pet
is, their toys and, suddenly, they are put into an environment with
complete strangers.
That is a terrible breaking of attachment and
with children as young as eight years old, it is such a shock
because the children just lose everything.
Children like that are exiled.
I say they are exiled from their family and their also bereaved
because...
But they also have a new attachment which is training,
perhaps, for empire, for attachment to the big business, to parliament
or whatever else it is.
Surely, having lost the family and then
attaching themselves to institutions, therefore they are
attached to other institutions very well.
They run the country but they are a group of bereaved people.
Our country is run by aggrieved people?
Traumatised children a lot of the time because they lost everything at
such an early age which means intimate relationships become
difficult, empathy becomes difficult.
Children in those boarding schools are taught not to
feel those emotions.
They are not expected to empathise with
themselves and nobody empathises.
Come on, get on with it, you'll be OK as what they are taught.
Do you treat people with this syndrome?
I do.
Alex says in that interview the best thing is to talk about it.
Does it work?
Can you bring people back?
You can and that is the optimistic thing but it is connecting people
back with that bereaved child.
Somebody who is very successful as an adult may also be carrying a
bereaved child within them and when they come to therapy, they often
come because they are depressed, their relationships are not working
out and often intimate relationships...
Sometimes the parent is briefed, too.
My mother was bereaved because she cried every
time I left the station.
If mothers paid attention to how they feel,
they will understand how their children.
Julie, I'm just wondering, there are weekend breaks, all sorts
of ways you keep the family involved.
This portrayal of these schools, there is no resemblance to
the modern day school.
These are very happy places where children are
listened to and an awful lot has happened over the last 40 years to
ensure children have a voice, to ensure staff are properly checked
before they arrive, we've been working with agencies such as
Childline and child protection agencies, with local Children's
Services and schools do all they can to put the well-being and welfare of
children at the very top.
If we listen to Professor Joy Schaverien,
or what she is saying is the problem is they've lost their families.
Yes, she's describing children being
disconnected with their families.
In the boarding school I ran and where
I was working, the parents were very involved because times have changed
now, there's a culture of listening to children and putting
children first.