With three days left before the end of summer camp, I had to admit that, despite the expected minor clashes amongst us, it had been a relatively peaceful experience in the Lake District amongst my foes. It seemed odd that, whenever we were away from the approved school, the peer mentality automatically diminished to the point where we were able – if only briefly – to tolerate one another’s company. The teachers had also refrained from throwing their weight around too much, though they’d still felt the need to be verbal. Stingingly at times. Now, with the headmaster gone, it was up to Mr Alston, Mr Sweet, Mr Keenan and the two weird fellas, Barry and Norman, from the local YMCA in Liverpool, who were retained each year to teach us all forms of survival techniques, as well as canoeing, tickling trout and map reading.
I didn’t mind Mr Alston, the deputy head of the whole school. He was the only person I’d never had any issues with and he would let me use his office typewriter to write the odd letter to my brother Martin at St George’s Approved School in Freshfields, two or three miles away from St Vincent’s. Whether my letters were ever sent out was something I didn’t know at the time. But I’d never received a letter back from my brother. Perhaps, unlike me, he hadn’t learnt to read and write?
A very tall thin man, with a gaunt face, Mr Alston normally taught Religious Instruction and singing, teaching us all the new hymns as well as a few folk songs. I was always fascinated by his huge Adam’s apple, which bobbed up and down when he was singing the notes to us. I’d also suspected he was tone deaf because he tended to sing out of tune and then have a good moan at us, telling us we sounded like a choir of strangulated cats.
Mr Alston could be very strict, but I never saw him physically hit any of the boys, unlike Mr Keenan. The complete opposite to Mr Alston and more like the headmaster, Mr Keenan was cold, indifferent and very intimidating. When telling us off, he would get up very close, almost touching noses, so you didn’t see the knee or the hand coming until it made contact and you felt the pain.
Usually, I knew when a strike was coming a split second before it came, just by watching his eyes. Spotting signs of an imminent strike was a talent of mine, a gift, which I’d learnt when begging on the streets of Manchester. But I still needed to learn how to be quick enough to get out of the way in time.
I often wondered how these adults could be so cruel towards us. Why did they need to use such physical force against us? It was beyond me. We were, after all, defenceless children, even if we seemed different or came across as much tougher than the norm. This was hardly surprising, considering the kind of environment we were living in. Surely these people must have known their hard slaps, their fists and their knees did hurt and cause us pain – even if most of us didn’t care to show it to them.
I wondered, too, how these people expected us to feel when they had hit us, having already psychologically demonised us to the point of us having no feelings of self-worth or respect for ourselves, let alone for them, or anyone else. We accepted punishments, we accepted insults, we took everything they threw at us, and we turned it back into bitterness and hatred. All this was a part of our normal daily lives and we expected nothing less.
We lived in a place owned and run by the Nugent Catholic Care Society, along with the Catholic Church. From the outside, they were charged with caring for and protecting society’s most vulnerable young children, those unfortunate enough to have been born with dysfunctional parents who couldn’t care a tinker’s cuss. On the inside, it was run on a debauched ideology of Catholicism. We were sent to St Vincent’s Approved School to be cared for and protected. Protected from what? And from whom? I hadn’t a clue! Because no one had ever bothered to tell me.
I had always been happy and contented, in my own way, before coming to this cruel institution. And I certainly never needed any care or protection with my family around. I loved my brothers and sisters and cared so much about them, especially the younger ones. I would have done anything to protect them from harm. And I did everything within my own power to feed them, by begging, scavenging and stealing to put food on the table. And I know they would have done the same for me, if they’d had to. Yes, there were times when I had felt insecure and unsafe, but it was easy to run away and hide from trouble. Daddy was the one who’d caused most of our anguish, when he was drunk. But it was only a matter of keeping out of his way until he was sober again.
Here, in St Vincent’s, I felt unsafe almost every single day. There was nowhere to run and hide. We were stripped of our dignity and our individuality in their quest to rid us of our unsavoury past. We were pushed and prodded, and fed with their God-fearing values and morality.
Here, we were taught to fear a majestic being who, on a whim, could strike us down at any given time of his choosing, if we didn’t follow his way. But I didn’t believe there was such a terrifying being such as God, ready to come down upon us in a thunderous cloud of fire and brimstone! I was more fearful of those so-called Christian teachers, nuns and priests, who deluded themselves in their rabid belief that what they were doing to us was for our own good.
Brought up as a Catholic, I had always believed God had sent his only son, Jesus, down to us in the form of a human being. He loved us and knew what it was like to be us. And yet, how could this be the truth, when the very people who preached to us about this merciful God were the very same merciless parasites without a moral value inside their hearts? Yes, we certainly were learning so much from them. Hence the reason why we hated them, hated each other and hated ourselves.
Climb Every Mountain
Today was the day we were hiking up a mountain called The Old Man of Coniston. I was disappointed to learn the previous year that, in fact, there wasn’t an old man living up at the top after all.
We should have gone to Coniston a few days earlier, but the weather had put paid to that. I’d been really looking forward to our outing, remembering it well from last year, when we never made it to the top. It had started very hopefully: after a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, swallowed down with a pint-sized tin mug of hot, sweet, stewed tea, we’d set off across the smelly pastures anew, hopscotching over the sundried cowpats and lumps of sheep turds. Dressed in our red anoraks, khaki short trousers, knee-length grey socks and red hiking boots, we headed across and up the steepening terrain in the direction of Coniston mountain and the old man, who apparently lived up it!
We had been about half a mile into the trek when some of the boys began complaining of tummy ache and within minutes, the whole lot (all 48) of us were on our knees moaning and groaning, before involuntarily filling our kecks. By sheer coincidence, the only people immune from such a phenomenon were the staff…
With the awful stench following us, we marched like a battalion of mortally wounded soldiers, retching and farting our way back across the now smellier pasture to our camp, where we’d been ordered to jump straight into the stream running along the edge of the campsite, where, the previous day, we’d been taught how to tickle rainbow trout. But on this particular day, it hadn’t been necessary to do any tickling, as the stunned fish had come up to the surface before floating off downstream!
It seemed there was no medical explanation for our sudden illness. Not that there had been anyone in the camp qualified enough to give an expert medical diagnosis. We’d just accepted the suggestion given, that mass hysteria was probably the most likely cause. The coincidence – that the only victims of this strange occurrence were the ones who’d eaten the eggs – never got a mention. But that was last year. Hopefully, this time we would make it to the summit without incident, hysterical or otherwise.
Piling out of the three vans, we moved off upwards, following the rough track originally used to bring the quarried slate down from the mountainside. We passed the skeletal remains of rusting mining equipment and the ruins of small stone buildings, standing solemn and mute as silent witnesses to a long-gone era.
We’d been walking for at
least two hours and were looking forward to the rest Mr Alston had promised us once we were near the summit, which wasn’t too far off. Mr Sweet was at the back, looking all red-faced and exhausted, while Mr Keenan was in the middle of the pack, telling two lads off for throwing stones into the water. I could feel the atmosphere changing slightly as we steadily made progress towards the top. Even with our red anoraks on, I could still feel a slight chill in the air. Looking out at the sparkling blue quarry waters and breathtaking views, I had a wonderful sense of freedom, and the sudden urge to take a running jump and fly across the valley. If only!
We eventually came to an area strewn with boulders and small chunks of slate. Mr Alston decided this was where we would have our break. Me, Donkey, Barnes and Pete Collins sat at the top of a huge rock, looking down on the others. As we tucked in to our lunches, we were joined by some curious sheep who also enjoyed some of our spam sandwiches.
Spud Murphy an 11-year old lad from Cork, had been going on about having a stone in his boot. Taking it off, he shook out the small stone and began to massage his sore foot. He seemed petrified of a scruffy-looking sheep, with its fleece hanging off it like an old beggar’s coat, and we watched as it ambled over to him and started licking the inside of his boot. Taking an almighty kick at the creature, Murphy suddenly let out a howl of pain before falling to the ground.
“What’s wrong with you, Murphy?” asked Mr Alston.
“I think I broke me foot, sir,” winced Murphy.
“He kicked a sheep up the bum, sir.”
“Let me have a look.” Mr Alston, shaking his head, knelt on one knee in front of him. “You’re right for the first time in your life, Murphy. You’ve broken your big toe, which ultimately should teach you not to kick defenceless sheep, especially without a boot on.”
The three teachers had a brief discussion between themselves, before Mr Alston eventually informed us of their decision to cancel the trip to the summit.
Calling Murphy all the names under the sun, we let our feelings of disappointment be known to the teachers. Mr Keenan then had a word in Mr Alston’s ear, and to our obvious delight, the deputy headmaster had a change of heart.
“Mr Keenan, out of the goodness of his heart, has agreed to accompany a group of you who would like to continue to the top. Those of you who don’t want to go any further, stand just over there.” He pointed to where Murphy was sitting, looking at his swollen toe.
Lazy buggers! There were nine of us left standing on our own. That was 38 boys who would never get to see the view from the summit, through their own choice. What was up with them? For just two weeks of the whole year, we were given the opportunity to see things we would never get to see in our mundane lives. And yet hardly any of them were interested in doing something different.
Perhaps they were afraid of change. In some ways I felt luckier than most, in the sense that I was brought up not having any expectations. And so, I didn’t worry about where my life was taking me, or where it might end. I also didn’t have any need to be concerning myself, or even caring about seeing my Mammy and Daddy again. I rarely thought about them and didn’t feel I had anything to gain by being with them, except the freedom to roam the streets, which I didn’t seem to miss so much these days. I also had no desire to ask the question, how much longer was I staying at St Vincent’s? I was there, taking each day as it came, expecting nothing from the people caring for me, but making the best of whatever they gave to me. The best thing that had happened to me so far was learning to read and write. Not only had it opened up a new world up for me, I’d noticed I was increasingly on my own, preferring the company of a book, especially poetry.
So, onwards and upwards. The 10 of us, including Mr Keenan, continued the trek towards the summit. Our progress was steady, and a lot quieter than it had been when the whole group of us were together. Mr Keenan’s mood also seemed to be less serious than it had been all morning, even when he kept having to tell Donkey off for lagging behind and to shut up with his baa-ing at the sheep. Donkey lurched forwards with his head down, before suddenly screeching out that awful campfire song, “Ging Gang Goolee”.
The last part of the hike looked steep, with plenty of loose slate and stones, making the walk upwards slightly more difficult. But it was worth the effort to see the views of the surrounding fells and mountain ranges, which were even more spectacular as we neared the summit.
We finally made it! We were at the top of the Old Man of Coniston. We raced over to the tall cairn, where we added our own special rocks as a memento to the Old Man. Mr Keenan, reading from the little map, pointed out some of the landmarks to us, and we were even able to see the sea! As I stared out to the horizon, I felt an uplifting rush of emotions surging right up through my body, and I felt as free as I had in those days a few years earlier, when I was wandering the streets of Hulme and running through the heavy rain without a care in the world.
A light mist suddenly drifted in on us and within seconds we found ourselves engulfed in low cloud, with the temperature drastically dropping. Mr Keenan said we should be on our way, and though I felt disappointed to be leaving, I was glad to have made it to the top of the mountain at last.
“Hurry! Keep together! Keep moving!” There was urgency in Keenan’s voice as he spurred us on our way. We turned and hurried back down the mountain in the direction we had come up, as the clouds thickened around us.
It was difficult to see ahead of us, but we could at least make out the grey shapes of the landscape closest to us, as we cautiously moved back down the loose surface. I was suddenly reminded of the smog in Hulme, though in Manchester it could sometimes be so thick it was almost impossible to see your hand in front of your face.
“Bastard!”
I was sure I’d just heard Mr Keenan swear under his breath.
“Damned bloody sheep!”
He’d just sworn again! At a sheep! He’d once given me six of the best for swearing.
“Are you alright, sir?” I heard Paul Matthews ask, as he and a few others grovelled around the prone figure of the teacher, who was now on all fours, looking for his glasses.
I rushed over, eager to be seen playing my part in his rescue, as they manhandled him back to his feet.
“I’m alright! Get off me!” he protested.
On seeing the opportunity, my usual instinct was to seize on it, and I’d finally seen a chance to satisfy my curiosity. Reaching my hand through the mix of arms helping Mr Keenan to his feet, I grabbed a handful of his hair and gave it a firm tug. It stayed on! We had all suspected he wore a wig, because his hair was too shiny, thick and stiff to be normal hair. But it was real. What a shame. I’d already planned to sling it into the mist.
“Get off me,” he snapped again. “Just keep moving before this gets any worse. Are we all here?” He called out our names and we all answered, barring Donkey. “Carey?”
“He was ahead of us just a minute ago, sir,” volunteered Matthews.
“I don’t believe it! Right, follow me, stay together and keep moving.”
It was a strange feeling to be racing against the sky, or being chased by it, as we were. We heard Donkey’s faint voice calling out “Hello!” and we instinctively headed in his direction, wary that he could be sitting on the edge of the mountain, leading us all to our doom. I found myself saying a silent prayer in the hope that wasn’t the case.
“Donkey!” Paddy O’Neil screeched his name.
“Who is it?” came the faint response.
“It’s us! Yah feckin’ eejit!”
“You can cut that language out!” warned Keenan. “Carey! Are you able to see anything in any direction?”
“Stones.”
“Stones,” Keenan muttered. “We’re up a mountain!”
“Stones!” repeated Donkey.
“Lord help us. Stay where you are and keep making a noise. Sing a song! We’ll come to y
ou.”
“Ging Gang Goolee Goolee Goolee Goolee Watchaa! Ging Gang Gooo! Ging Gang Gooo!”
We managed to outrun the mist and within a short space of time visibility was back to normal. The sun was shining on us. And Donkey was still Ging Gang Gooleeing!
“Where is the fool? Carey!” hollered Mr Keenan.
“Who is it?” Donkey’s head suddenly appeared over the stone wall of a dilapidated stone quarry building, causing me to smile, as I realised why he couldn’t see anything around him but stones when he’d been sitting inside that building.
Arriving back in camp, Mr Keenan called the small group of us together and thanked us for the professional way we had acted. He said he admired the way we had all worked together as a group to get ourselves safely down off the mountain, and even had some nice words to say to Donkey, who was about to give us another rendition of “Ging Gang Goolee” until O’Neil elbowed him in the side.
To be honest, I don’t think any of us had a clue what Keenan was talking about. I didn’t remember working with the others as a team. And I could tell, by the blank looks on the faces of the others, they were probably thinking the same thing. In truth, once I’d found out Keenan wasn’t wearing a wig, I was only thinking about my own safety. But I was happy to take the plaudits Keenan was dishing out. He never uttered a word about falling over the sheep and calling it a bastard.
An Intriguing Find
Heading in the direction of Formby beach, we walked along the rough-stoned footpath that took us across a large expanse of overgrown wasteland, with a row of tall electric pylons running off to our left and across the fields as far as the eye could see. The path eventually ran alongside the edge of the nearby firing ranges belonging to the Ministry of Defence, which was sectioned off by high wire fences. Just inside the boundary fence, the large white signage written on the red metal backgrounds warned people to “Keep out. Live ammunition being fired!” It was quiet now, but sometimes when we came here, we could hear the loud pop-pop-pop of guns being fired.
Boy Number 26 Page 17
