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1952 – SEX EDUCATION – PART 1

Forest Hall Boarding School – Yorkshire – I’m third from the left looking at my feet.

There were more than a hundred acres of thick North Yorkshire woods, and in front of them at the top of a hill was the school, a beautiful country mansion like something out of a children’s story.

Sixty boys and ten staff. It looked like paradise, but it was a prison, too far from anywhere to run away from, though one boy did and was found drowned in the river a few days later. It looked like a childhood dream, long days of Latin and cricket, of playing in the trees, cross-country running and training to become a leader of men, uniforms and views of the world from Harrods, privilege for the privileged in yet another isolated cocoon. But there was a darkness about the place like an invisible cloak, a darkness that could stifle innocence, a darkness like a memory of Charles Dickens.

*Forest Hall is now a very smart hotel and spa. I wonder if they’d give me a discount.