Earl Spencer revelations

[LadyMuckonpancakes]

Just caught something about this online. It sounds horrific.

I wouldn't have sent mine, either, overnight. I've had two boyfriends in the past who told me of incidents, one involving them directly. I think it was quite common and it's not a healthy atmosphere.

Just shows you can be very wealthy and appear privileged but have your own personal troubles. Child abuse including child sexual abuse can occur anywhere there is children. Boarding schools or children's homes.
Children in these establishments can be lonely, vulnerable and isolated and easy prey to paedophiles.I hope Earl Spencer has the support he needs and good people around him. It was courageous of him speaking out about it.

'He said that he would not send his own children to boarding school until they were teens (?) and even then only if they asked to go.'

Yes but kids ask all kinds of things that we as parents decide if it is in their best interests or not. To have had such a terrible experience yet to let his own kids, even if they wanted to go, seems crazy. Teachers should teach our kids 9 til 3pm not provide 24/7 care even if on a weekly board.

Maybe it is a warning about the possibility of Prince George going to boarding school, against Princess Catherine’s wishes.

I've read some articles summarising his interview.

His boarding school experiences were clearly horrendous and I am glad he has spoken out.

I hope his main abuser can be brought to justice, whatever her age. Having been in her early twenties when Spencer was at Maidwell, doesn't that mean she would be somewhere in her seventies now? So a reasonable possibility that she is still alive. If she's in reasonable health then it would be possible.

Maidwell School should have outright condemned what was happening there back in the sixties and seventies. It sounds like they were almost defensive of it.

@OssieShowman I wonder if there is something here. Boarding is often no friend to the sensitive, neurodiverse or less gifted sportsperson.

If Kate I’d hope all 3 could be at school together. Were the York girls day pupils in Windsor?

As parents.ofa DS who boarded.unitil recently this was very difficult to watch. This weird world is still full of nasty ,cruel people, many with no where else to go. Add to this some boys who are literally untouchable, it's a very disturbing world. Our DS only told us the full truth after he left.

We have to live with the consequence of sending our DS to one of these institutions, it's very difficult. I am literally dizzy with grief for his lost childhood. His senior boys school is often mentioned on MN for it's poor pastoral care.
That's a very gentle way of putting it....

It is all consuming for myself and my husband.
The shame we feel is indescribable.

@Betternowthough you are not alone & were doing what you thought was right at the time. Also if you have a stoic child who ‘doesn’t want to let you down’ & bottles things up….

Even those schools with the best pastoral care it only takes a rogue houseparent playing favourites or going under the radar for some children to suffer. The loyalty is often encouraged to be towards the house & not the families. If you have a child who doesn’t open up it can end tragically.

I am a contemporary of Spencer and my db went to another prep fairly near Maidwell. To be fair it was always known as a very odd place , very posh but also wild . It stood out even then as being unusually brutal , the uniform included all the boys carrying a knife FGS . And I remember my brothers saying matches there were brutal. The awful head left in 1977 but it was still pretty odd for quite a few years .

i feel very sad for Spencer , he had a dreadful home life , dreadful school life and then just as he hits 16 his sister marries into the most famous family in the world and there was some pretty awful coverage in the press of him. He had some pretty dubious friends , Darius Guppy was best man at his first wedding. And then that eulogy , it can’t have been easy.

Is it a revelation? Obviously a very horrible thing but I don't see why it's more of a revelation than someone having been sexually abused at scouts or church or whatever in that era.

Poor guy. Boarding schools at at time seemed to be rife with sexual abusers. A lot of famous people seem to have similar stories Justin Webb, Ade Edmondson, Nicky Campbell what the hell was going on in these places.

Articles in the Guardian go into why. He’s had lots of therapy and felt it was time, and wants to get it out there and not keep their awful secrets. He sent a copy of the book to one of the abuser teachers. He felt publishing it was partly cathartic, partly for other kids who were abused, and partly to address the nonsense from others who attended the school (and other boarding schools like it) who deny it was a problem.

He said a part of himself died when he was sent there and that it messed up his adult relationships. He’s on his third wife. He’s the first in many generations of his family not to send his children to boarding school. It beggars belief that so many others continue to send their own kids to boarding after experiencing abuse at such places. Sickening and unforgivable.

How can anyone be surprised? Spencer is brave. Most children who are abused never say anything as children. They are disbelieved and manipulated by paedophiles who very charming with the parents who tell them they are doing the right thing. Really it's about money and convenience.

Two of his teens asked to go board so they go. His younger kids come home. Going as a teen out of choice and going as a 7/8 year old kid with no choice is wholly different.

I agree he is brave.
And as usual there are people who want to minimise the abuse with whataboutery.
Children in boarding schools are very vulnerable. Some may have a brilliant time, but they are still vulnerable. From teachers, others staff, and older pupils. And most children do not tell their parents the truth, they are manipulated by abusers or threatened not to be say what is happening.

It is 'different' yes but still , allowing your kids to literally live elsewhere with other adults providing their out of school hours care seems crazy after what he endured. We are allowed our own opinions on here

Yeah I’m not convinced that 13 year olds should be given the choice tbh. Sixth form, probably ok.

I’m not in favour of the infantilisation of young teens, but some decisions belong to the adults.

8 year olds should not be farmed out, full stop. That’s lazy parenting.

Yes. These children cannot resist. These are adults who have total control over your life, every scrap of it. To imagine some training about safe hands is going to stop people is to dream on. These children are terrified. They rarely tell their parents because they are manipulated and messed up. They will feel guilt and be confused as to why they have been sent there.

I also think it’s brave, men of his class and generation often don’t. And given his status his words will get more publicity.

I remember a friend telling me his friend acknowledged that his female contemporaries had an awful time at their boarding school, so my friend was perplexed that he went on to send his own daughters to boarding school given he knew what went on.

Unbelievable that people paid (and no doubt still are paying) hundreds of pounds a week to expose their children to rapists. I've never understood the concept of boarding schools though, don't see the point of having kids and sending them away.
Fair play to Spencer for trying to get this out. He has no financial motive to do so and abise in private schools needs to be recognised.
Nicky Capmbell (r5 live) has done a lot of brave work on this (serial abuser at his old school in Edinburgh).

DH went to boarding school and it was absolutely horrific. The cruelty and sadism of some of the teachers, not to mention the other boys defies belief. One of the boys threw himself out of a window he was so unhappy.

To clarify - no child of mine would be going to one of those institutions, even for day schooling only!

He also said in the article I read that in the company his parents kept, sending children to boarding schools was about keeping up with the Joneses, looking good in being able to say one's children were attending such-and-such school. (To hell with ther safety and happiness - AWFUL).

It is 'different' yes but still , allowing your kids to literally live elsewhere with other adults providing their out of school hours care seems crazy after what he endured. We are allowed our own opinions on here

He doesn't get the only way, though. We don't know what the mothers thought.

He would have been - jointly - making educational choices for most of his children long before he ever disclosed the abuse to anybody. So maybe the best he could do was to insist on a "not before 13" stipulation. Perhaps he hadn't fully processed his experience anyway.

We just don't know.

Speaking as an ex-boarder, I am very glad that he has spoken out about his sad experiences and I know he has found it very difficult. His BBC interview on Sunday morning was an emotional watch.

Boarders are often silent around abuse: whether sexual, child-on-child, or mental abuse, as boarders are encouraged to "fit in or fuck off", once we leave the institution we often pack all our troubled experiences away and try and fit back in to "normal" life. I personally did not experience sexual abuse from adults at boarding school but the abandonment wounds and feeling of rejection will not leave me. Being away from my family, pets, friends, my own bed, my toys, and seeing my family less than 3 months a year. Being woken up by bells, never having a moment's privacy or escape. Think how hard lockdown was for many people, not being able to see their family or go anywhere.

Ex-boarders are often thought of as privileged poshos, and speaking out against the institution is very difficult because we are a very niche group, with less than 1% of UK people having boarded. It isn't a very relatable experience but it categorically leaves its scars, as I can attest to personally but also knowing a lot about other ex-boarders too. Great work being done by Joy Schavarian, Nick Duffell, Alex Renton, and many others, trying to get across how damaging it can be.

Many ex-boarders have spoken out about their negative experiences including Nicky Campbell, Richard Branson, Elon Musk, David Cameron, Bear Grylls, James Blunt, Jack Whitehall, Ade Edmondson, Stephen Fry, even the royal family. But we need someone to carry on banging the drum and as I believe Charles Spencer himself said, if reading about this makes just one set of parents stop and think again about boarding school, then that is gratifying. I, and other boarders, are very grateful for what he has done and hope it has helped in his journey to heal.