In these ‘enlightened’ times, more and more people are as the saying goes ‘Coming Out’. No! not about that, but about abuse suffered as a child. Why the complainants are asked, if such things happened did one not mention it at the time?

Way back then one but grinned and bared it, if you’ll excuse the pun. A child was a child, who then knew not names for ‘The thousand Natural shocks that flesh is heir to’. What gets me, is the hypocrisy of those who persistently profess ignorance or incredulity concerning such alleged happenings, whether in the past or the ‘here and now.’ Of course when one writes ‘here’ one means not precisely here, but elsewhere outside ones immediate community, more likely than not ‘up North’ somewhere, even so ‘grooming’ of the young is still ubiquitous. Though it used to happen with but single intent, it may now equally refer to other things, such as the search for naïve recruits to some cause in foreign lands. Lands which probably Great Britain once effectively governed, but which since we were booted out of them, have resumed the status quo ante, leaving us with but our ‘English’ dead to show for our trouble.

One wonders whether things now, are any better than they were at the time Charles Dickens wrote of England’s Woes, for do not his fictional characters now live and thrive in our midst. Maybe all our intermediate politically correct social engineering hasn’t been as beneficial as the powers that be, pretentiously proclaim, for has not the cream of yester year homogenised into mediocrity?

Christianity was a main stay of our country, however one branch of it has been felled after another, and some of its clergy found wanton. It wasn’t only The Catholic Church that offended, but too The Church of England, and now one hears tell that the Methodist Church has also had its problems. Things were similarly amiss in many boarding establishments be they Public, State, or Preparatory Schools, Children’s Homes etc.. The United Kingdom has an appalling record over its abuse of children, and surely those in Authority who turned a blind eye to such matters are as culpable as those who perpetrated the offences. Possibly they should be prosecuted too, rather than have them of a sudden , make examples of high profile targets, thereby diverting criticism from the authority itself.

Writing of a blind eye, puts me in mind of the fictional ‘Wackford Squeers’, a man so afflicted. He was given to the excessive caning of his pupils. As the Classicist he alleged himself to be, maybe he imagined ‘Six of the best’ was spelt with three eees., and that the canings he’d himself received in his youth had ‘ made him the man that he then was’ Undoubtedly he would have been right on that point.

All too many Senior Clergymen became Headmasters of some of our very best schools, and behaved little better than the afore mentioned Whackford Squeers. Possibly excusing their perversion on the basis of Proverbs 13:24: (“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”). Anyone who now believes that to have been their motivation, must be a trifle naïve. Although Corporal punishment has been abolished in our schools, there remains it’s vestigial legacy, which ‘The French’ refer to as the English Perversion. There is no telling what may or may not have happened at Dolphin Square, or elsewhere, but all unsubstantiated speculative innuendo is inexcusable. 31.may 2015