Our Schooldays

 

St Boniface’s College and more. 

The conflict between Aunty Mina and myself had grown to such proportions that the situation could no longer be tolerated.  Something had to be done.

Thus the decision was made to remove me from the scene of conflict and give me into the tender care of the Brothers.  I cannot fathom whose idea it was that influenced my Father, but he must have been under considerable pressure to make such a radical decision. 

St Boniface’s College was run by a teaching Order of Brothers, who while they were very good teachers and Brothers were hopeless at being a Father to me.  My Father decided that I should be a boarder at St Boniface’s, this meant giving up any right to a home life, the company of my sister Teresa, and the love of my Mother, which I craved for more than anything else.

For reasons unknown the Brothers had chosen a life of celibacy and Teaching and devotion to God.  Perhaps they were Old Testament in their beliefs, and interpreted the Word of God as living some dark foreboding way of life.  Instead of, “In the Imitation of Christ”. I think they saw their God as being that of some dark avenging God. Obviously their God wreaked horror and pain upon those who did not comply with their mysterious religious criteria.  Or maybe there was a more sinister reason for their brutality?

The Strap was their preferred form of torture; this allied to an unforgiving attitude of mind was generously administered at appropriate times, and especially on me because I was seen as a problem.  Up until then I had been a poor student, something which on reflection I must attribute to a disturbed childhood.  Although at times I merited punishment, I was not a bad boy.  But I had brought with me insecurities, congenital incontinence and other physical aberrations and habits, which I should have grown out of by then.  I was out of my depth there at St Boniface’s and far from my Mother and my home.

Ross Pontin had once again followed me as I changed schools.
I spent much time with Ross Pontin playing in the sand pit, which we found in the garden.  I do not remember doing any kind of schoolwork at all, although I suppose I must have.

The School was run on a house basis and I was placed in ”Peverell House”.
On one occasion during the school annual sports day, I was selected to run in the long distance race representing my “House”. (At this time I was not much good physically, being rather thin and emaciated with poor muscle structure.)

The race started at the school and circumnavigated a large portion of North Plymouth, areas with which I was totally unfamiliar. Halfway through this interminable race as I staggered on I felt an urgent need to go to the toilet, but where? Where was I to go?  Eventually I found half a hedge to crouch behind, but by then it was too late, much too late, I had a bout of violent diarrhoea.  I shitted in my gym shorts. It was everywhere and I had to use grass to try and clean myself up.  I was in despair, there was no one I could trust to help me.
I staggered back to the college, and fortunately no one saw me, and I crept upstairs to the dormitory toilet and cleaned myself up. Except that is, for my gym shorts for they were caked in the most awful stuff ever to have come out of me. So in a blind panic I just hid them away under some pipes in an adjoining box room.  This was a big mistake and one that haunts me to this day.

There they remained hidden for some time, and I had almost forgotten about them until the Brothers were forced to investigate reports of a dreadful smell coming from somewhere upstairs. Anyway they found my pants with my name beautifully sewn onto the hem by my loving Mother. You could say `Then the shit hit the fan’. 
That was the end of St Boniface’s College for me.  Although I tried to excuse myself to the Brothers and explain what had happened, they did not really care to listen, and so there I was, unable to concentrate, and dreadfully unhappy.  I was homesick and totally unable to communicate my needs.  Not that there was anybody willing to listen to me anyway.  So I copped it good and proper.  I was given the strap for hiding the mucky shorts and because I had wet the bed, and crapped my pants, and after just one term they asked my father to take me back. 

I thought:    “He shouldn't have given me away in the first place”!

Luckily for me at this point fortune intervened.