Earl's grim revelations about the paedophilic sadism and abuse he suffered at boarding school is impossible to read without feeling fury and disgust
Earl's grim revelations about the paedophilic sadism and abuse he suffered at boarding school is impossible to read without feeling fury and disgust
It is brave for such a high-profile aristocrat to come forward with pull-no-punches candour: Spencer can draw attention to shameful practices that have long been covered up or diminished. Yet there have been harrumphing articles implying that such tough schooling was merely character-forming. This book is surely a resounding rebuttal of that view: it would be hard to actually read it cover to cover and not feel disgust, and fury, on behalf of the children put through such a system.
This is not a one-man crusade: alongside his own calm but vivid first-person account, the earl presents testimony from many fellow pupils. The Maidwell scars are long lasting – several former pupils speak of how their time there decimated their confidence or sense of joy, or prevented them from being able to love as adults. Several also report that their buttocks still show signs of caning, four or five decades on.
Earl Spencer partly coped by turning on himself: he would make himself sick, considered shooting himself in the foot. When the abusive matron told him she was leaving Maidwell, he cut himself with a penknife. While that may sound surprising, the earl is admirably honest about the complexities of his feelings for this 20-year-old woman who kissed and molested her pre-teen charges: Spencer believed himself in love, and only later realised he was the victim of “a voracious paedophile”.