Please Don’t Make Me Go: How One Boy’s Courage Overcame A Brutal Childhood
The harrowing true story of one boy’s experiences in a brutal ‘approved’ school for young offenders in ‘50s London, run by Catholic monks where violence and abuse were rife.Beaten from an early age by his abusive, father, John struggled to fit in at school where his poverty marked him out. When, aged 13, his father brought a charge against him in order to remove him from the family home, John found himself in Juvenile Court – from here he was sent to the notorious St. Vincent’s school, run by a group of Catholic Irish Brothers.Beatings and abuse were a part of daily life – both from John’s fellow pupils, but also from the brothers, all of which was overseen by the sadistic headmaster, Brother De Montfort. Tormented physically and sexually by one boy in particular, and by the Brothers in general, John quickly learnt to survive but at the cost of the loss of his childhood.Please Don’t Make Me Go, tells in heart-rending detail the day-to-day lives of John and the other boys – the beatings, the weapons fashioned from toilet chains and stones, the loneliness – but we also see the development of John’s love of reading, his growing friendship with Father Delaney and his best friend, Bernard, and his unstinting love for his mother whom he feared was suffering at the hands of his violent father.A painfully honest account, Please Don’t Make Me Go is testament to the resilience of the human spirit as it documents how John learnt to survive and come through his ordeal.
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Please don't make me go
How one boy’s courage
overcame a brutal childhood
JOHN FENTON
This book is based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, some names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.
Harper NonFiction
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperElement 2008
© John Fenton 2008
John Fenton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007263769
Ebook Edition SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007283835
Version: 2017-04-28
Contents
Mum and I were sitting at the kitchen table, eating bread and jam and talking about what we would do if we won the football pools. The top prize, £75,000, was a fortune to us. We often discussed this and I never got bored of speculating about all the great things we could do together, such as buy a big new house, go on holiday to the seaside, and get a television set of our own. I loved those moments of closeness with my mother when I got home from school in the afternoon. It was just the two of us in our private little world.
I flung my arms out to indicate how big my new bedroom would be and my sleeve accidentally caught the edge of my plate. It toppled off the table then seemed to fall in slow motion to the floor, where it smashed into tiny pieces. My remaining slice of bread fell jam-side down on the wreckage.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I said, slipping from my chair to pick up the pieces.
‘Not to worry. Accidents happen. Careful you don’t cut yourself.’
Suddenly we both froze as the floorboards of the room above creaked. My mother looked up at the ceiling fearfully. The sounds of my father moving around his bedroom always signalled the end of our little tête-à-têtes. She hurried into the scullery and lit the gas under the kettle, holding her finger to her lips to signal that I should be very quiet.
I quickly gathered the broken plate and dropped it in the bin, then hurried to the far side of the table, opened my English homework book and pretended I was engrossed in my studies. I could hear my father’s footsteps stamping down the stairs and all of a sudden I wanted to pee. I always got the urge to pee when trouble was imminent.
The scullery door burst open and my father rushed in. He scowled angrily at my mum and strode purposely over to where I was sitting.
‘You little bastard.’ His right hand shot out and slapped me hard around my ear. ‘How many times do I have to tell you to be quiet when you get in from school?’
My Dad worked nights as a bus cleaner, so he slept during the day.
‘Leave him alone,’ Mum screamed. ‘We were just talking quietly.’ Acknowledgement
‘This one doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quiet”.’ He clipped my ear again and Mum rushed over to try and grab his arm.
‘Stop it!’ she yelled. ‘You only pick on him because he’s too young to hit you back. You wouldn’t dare pick on someone your own size.’
Mum’s sharp tongue often got her into trouble with Dad. This time, he drew back his fist and punched her hard in the centre of her face. She stumbled backwards and held up her hands to protect herself as Dad let loose a flurry of punches. One of them hit her high on the head and she slid down and sat dazed on the floor. Her nose and mouth were bleeding and she was totally at his mercy.
I was screaming at him to stop and in desperation I kicked him on the shin. It was the first time I had dared to attack him. I was only nine years old and a skinny, wiry kid – definitely no match for him – but I had to do something to protect my mother. He turned and backhanded me across the room.
