Personal Stories/Opinions
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A DAY IN THE LIFE DATE 1964: When I was recently asked about punishments in
those places by someone who was never in those places I think she expected
an answer like: "well they used they're hands or fists to box us or clatter
us, their feet to boot us and they used blackthorn sticks or big leather
belts for more 'formal' punishments." Sounds like an answer that couldn't be
denied, even she could relate to those types of punishments. She was around
40 years old (don't wanna tell her exact age as a gentleman like me wouldn't
do that.) and was from the era when corporal punishment against children
(and children only) was very acceptable AND approved. But that wasn't the
answer I gave her.
In those places EVERYTHING was part of your punishment. Mealtimes were a
PUNISHMENT. Our food was vile, it really would have been illegal AND cruel
to feed pigs on what we "survived" on. Our main food really was bread and
dripping. And the dripping wasn't the nice white strained stuff you'd see on
the shelves of Tesco's, nope it was a funny yellow colour.
Funny isn't the right word there - it was a kind of OFF-YELLOW/KHAKI colour.
Having that spread on your skinner (slice of bread) in the morning at 7:00am
was meant to sustain until 12:30 in the afternoon. I remember getting
"porridge" too, note the quotes as when I became an adult and was given
porridge I hesitated because what I was being served as an adult didn't look
or didn't taste anything like what I got as porridge in those places. I
firmly believe that this "porridge" we were given was something that the
pigs had refused to eat.
Dinners were another PUNISHMENT. Let me describe a STEW in those places.
Imagine a gravy, not too thick now, with soft watery lumps, 3 strands of
meat - these strands are THINNER than your laces and about the length of
your thumb (this is the thumb of a 10 year old child), 2 slices of carrot
and 1 spud (green tinged of course). But wait now we also got desserts
sometimes, really we did. How ever so posh. May I describe the dessert? OK.
Well it was a bread pudding. That's not very posh I hear you say - but hold
on now - our bread pudding was also green-tinged AND had that
OFF-YELLOW/KHAKI colour. Beat that!
Tea/Supper was the old reliable: Bread and Dripping again but THEY did try
to vary our Tea/Supper because we'd get "Oxtail Soup" sometimes. Well THEY
called it "Oxtail Soup" and I've watched, with something approaching
jealousy, my own children having Oxtail Soup and let me tell you my
children's Oxtail Soup is nothing like the "Oxtail Soup" dished up to us in
those places. We'll never know what kind of dish it was as the Government of
the day didn't actually have the right to demand from these orders the diet
that we were fed on, as the institutions were considered private businesses
or something like that.
I'm just talking about our diets in those places being used as way to PUNISH
us. But really everything about those places was a PUNISHMENT. From the
isolation from society, to the regimentation of little children - being
forced to march from one place to another, children being forced to stand to
attention in the yard semi-naked while the "nurse" inspected us OR, if the
notion took her, have a good few of us scrubbed down with purple or brown
iodine.
Being forced to say rosaries was a PUNISHMENT, being forced violently to run
around the yard with a lighted candle at night in the rain was a PUNISHMENT.
Being forced violently to scrub toilets with your own toothbrush was a
PUNISHMENT. Being forced violently to learn how to darn a sock was a
PUNISHMENT. Being physiccaly separated from your brother or sister was a
PUNISHMENT. Being forced to listen to those black-garbed monsters denograte
you Mum and Dad was a PUNISHMENT. Being violently forced to become
right-handed was a PUNISHMENT. And most of these PUNISHMENTS you became
inured to, they became part of your everyday existence. You didn't think
much of the rights and wrongs of them after a while, you let them lie in
your sub-conscious mind until, as an adult, a certain aroma or sound or
sight would bring them into focus and you'd rage against those black-garbed
monsters.
These black-garbed child haters are STILL working with vulnerable
communities in this country, they've spread their particular poison around
the world. I believe THEIR PUNISHMENT should be the immediate closure of
these orders in this country, their properties and their riches should be
taken from them and these orders should be banished from this country. My
goal is to prevent them from working with vulnerable communities in this
country ever again.
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