Maidwell Hall school, Northamptonshire, 1972. The chief abuser is the headmaster, Jack Porch, who keeps two canes in his study, the Flick and the Switch, and patrols the school dorms at night in hope of catching pupils talking – in which case, he’ll pull any culprits over his knee and whack them with a slipper. Next comes Mr Maude, who forces boys to swim even if they can’t, with one victim – hauled from the bottom of the pool - needing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and who beats Charles Spencer with a cricket boot, its metal spikes puncturing his skin. And then there’s the hulking teacher whose signet ring draws blood when he thumps Spencer round the head, the trickles drying invisibly in the boy’s thick red hair.
Such was life in the private boarding school to which Spencer was admitted at the age of eight and which was so traumatising that it has taken him till now, after years of therapy, to record the damage. The tone is fervid. Pertinent quotes on childhood from Hilary Mantel, George Orwell, Graham Greene and others abet his case. More important, he has talked to many other Maidwell ex-pupils who still bear the scars of their years in an upper-class prison camp staffed by bullying paedophiles.
