AKBAR
THE TRAINING SHIP GOES ASHORE TO BECOME THE HESWALL NAUTICAL SCHOOL BUT IS STILL KNOWN AS AKBAR
By Mr Crispin
Of a number of scandals which have blown
up over the years, one of
the most celebrated concerned the Akbar school in Heswall, Wirral,
called a 'Nautical Training School' but in fact a reformatory school run
on naval lines.
The popular magazine JOHN BULL ran a
sensational piece on 22
October 1910 headed "Reformatory School Horrors - How boys at
Akbar School are Tortured - Several Deaths". Among the allegations
were that boys were gagged before being birched, and that sick boys
were caned as malingerers - neither claim, I should have thought,
being very extraordinary in the context of the times. But it was also
stated that boys had died as a result of other punishments, such as
being drenched with cold water and being kept standing all night for
trivial offenses.
The Home Secretary of the day, none other
than Winston Churchill,
set up an enquiry. Its report (Cmd 5541, HMSO 1911) confirmed that
"irregular punishments" had taken place. the medical officer of
Wormwood Scrubs prison stated that he had examined 88 boys who
had been caned and found that in 27 cases "the canings had left
injuries of a permanent character". The cane used had been much
heavier than the regulations specified, and "had been split at the end,
and bound up with whipcord, which...made it a great deal more
unsuitable for the use to which it was applied". As for the birch in use
at the school, it was made of "green willow twigs and hawthorn
branches".
Winston Churchill concluded in the Commons
debate (23 February
1911) that "there is a great deal more flogging going on in these
reformatory schools than is necessary or desirable". The result of this
affair was, inevitably, a Departmental Committee to "enquire into the
constitution, management, discipline and education of reformatory and
industrial schools in England and Wales".
The Committee reported in 1913 and recommended
increased Home
Office control and stringent regulations about punishment (REPORT
OF THE DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON REFORMATORY
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS, Cmd 8939, HMSO 1913).From the
Committee's report it is evident that practice varied widely, some
schools using c.p. far more than others, some using the cane or tawse
on the hand, some on the clothed backside, some using the birch on
the bare buttocks, some a mixture of all these methods; crtain of the
schools inflicted these penalties in public, some had an arrangement
whereby the other boys were assembled to hear the yells of the victim,
and so on.
And yet as far as I can see, the new
c.p. rules called for by the
committee did not appear until 1933, after the children and Young
Persons Act 1933 had abolished reformatory and industrial schools and
replaced them with Approved Schools.
Meanwhile irregular punishments and an ad hoc situation continued.
One former inmate who has written about his experiences was sent in
1922 to Axwell Park Industrial School, at Blaydon-on-Tyne:
Every year the boys went to the seaside
and [the housemaster]
gave each boy a penny [for] strands of thick seaweed. He took
a barrel of sea water back to the school in which he kept the
seaweed and with strips of this he succeeded in doing more
damage to our backsides than The Swan did to our hands.
One night I was caught by the Housemaster
in the driveway with
about two dozen eggs in a box. I refused to say how I had got
out or how I would have got in. I had already learned that if you
were caught you take the blame, you keep your mouth shut. I
said I had climbed out of the window, down the spout and was
going to eat the eggs myself. Of course he didn't believe me.
Had I told the truth I would have been beaten up and sent to
Coventry by the other boys. I got twelve strokes with the
seaweed and couldn't sit down properly for a fortnight. In
addition I had eggs for every meal until I had eaten all I had
stolen....
The author complains about his parents
taking no notice of his letters
complaining about his treatment at the school:
I had been badly tanned. All they had
to do was come when my
backside was black and blue and see it. Other boys wrote home
to complain and their parents came and something was done
about it, as least they were not thrashed so much.....
(John William Fletcher, A MENACE TO SOCIETY - My 35
years in prison for stealing Paul Elek, 1972
The relevant part of the Approved School rules read as follows:
Corporal punishment in boys schools
shall be subject to the
following conditions:
(a) It shall be inflicted only with
a cane or tawse of a type
approved by the Secretary of State.
(b) If applied on the hands, the cane
shall be used and the
number of strokes shall not exceed three on each hand, but no
boy over 15 shall be so punished.
(c) If applied on the posterior with
a cane or tawse, it shall be
applied over the boy's ordinary cloth trousers and the number of
strokes shall not exceed six for boys under 15 or eight for boys
of 15 and over; provided that in exceptional cases, with the
special approval of one of the managers, twelve strokes may be
administered to boys of 15 or over.
In Scotland the rules were somewhat different,
insisting on the use of
the tawse and with a reduced maximum of 4 strokes for boys under
14.
But, as ever, plenty of instances can
be found of the rules being
neglected. In an autobiographical novel based on his own experiences
in the 1940s Bill Meilen gives a graphical account of life at a Nautical
Approved School on Merseyside - Heswall (Akbar)
where there had been such goings-on 30 years earlier.
In the story two boys, Cummings and Dando,
have absconded. They
are caught and brought back to the school late at night. As their first
punishment they have been made to stand at attention all night in their
corduroy shorts in the rain (shades of the Akbar scandal). Now it is
the morning and the Captain is planning their real punishment:
"Mister Teague will be attending for punishment detail...."
Punishment detail. How simple that sounded. How innocuous.
Take a boy and dress him in thin cotton shorts, bend him over
a radiator and hit him at the run with a thin cane. Cut him so
deep you leave a long blue weal with blood seeping through the
broken skin. Cut him a number of times so that it takes him
weeks to learn how to sit down again. That was punishment
detail....
The Captain calls the absconders in.
Cummings tells a story claiming
to have left the ship only to fetch Dando back, but is not believed. He
is awarded one month extra work detail, no canteen privileges for one
month, and six strokes of the cane....
Dando, swallowing nervously, stood waiting
for his dose, which
would certainly be as bad if not worse....
"I intend to make an example of
you, Dando. A three-stripe man
should know better than to abscond. What have you to say for
yourself?"
Dando though quickly. Did he have the
guts? in for a penny, in
for a pound? "Whatever I say sir, it won't change anything.
Nothing to say sir!"
Bean sniffled, fingering his sharp nose.
"Humph! As you will,
Dando.." He started to write on a new card. "Reduce to 'D'
class...full loss of remission...one month extra work...twelve
strokes of the cane...Now have you anything to say?"
It was vicious, spur of the moment,
Dando knew that. he should
have kept his trap shut. He looked down at the bemedalled
despot, feeling sorry for a man with so much acid in his gut.
"Thank-you sir."
The answer surprised Bean. he had expected
an expression of
sorrow...indeed demanded it. Now it was too late.
For the caning, the two boys are marched
to the Port Bootroom by the
Gymnasium Instructor, Jildy Teague, "a military fiend with a back like
a plank" whose voice was said to be audible eight miles away. The
ceremony is to be witnessed by Kerslake, an officer who disapproves
of the whole business:
Jildy looked remarkably well-preserved
in his Gym-instructor's
red-edged white vest. The lean muscles rippled on his arms as
he tested the bundle of canes for the one with the right feel.
Choosing carefully, he came up with one that easily bent into an
end-to-end circle and straightened without a kink.
In the far corner the two prisoners,
jumpers pulled high, buttoned
the waists of the thin khaki cotton shorts that were DE RIGEUR
for the caning ritual. Corduroy offered too much resistance, and
if well soaped on the inside, reduced the impact considerably.
"Hurry and get those shorts on,
you two!" Quickly the boys
finished buttoning and stood to attention. Jildy held the cane by
its end and exercised it, making it whistle and swish through the
air.
Dando winced, watching the yellow blur
of the cane in terror. He
had never had the cane before, and wasn't looking forward to it.
Beads of fear exuded from his pores and trickled down his back,
cold....
"Cummings!" Cummings looked
over dully. "Me sir?" "You
know the routine." Cummings lumbered to a low radiator and
bent well over to grasp it. "Don't 'it me too 'ard sir. I'm on your
side."
Jildy snorted, knowing that Cummings
felt no fear. "The only
thing I promise, young feller-me-lad, is not to take both feet off
the deck when I 'it you. How many times is this....just out of
curiosity? I 'ope you're keeping tally?"
Cummings did a quick calculation. I...er..fink..yes!
Fifteen
sir...fifteen lots of six. I'm gettin' a bum like a rhino, I am sir,
honest..." Jildy sniffed. "You know it off by 'art then. If you rise
when the blow is delivered, you get an extra stroke."
"For God's sake, Mister Teague!"
Kerslake burst out, "we're not
here to chatter!" "Right sir!" He tapped Cummings on the
shoulder with the cane. "Get yer 'ead down!" Cummings
hunched, head tucked down between his arms, relaxed...Jildy
backed up ten paces across the room.
Holding the cane at arm's length out
to one side, he bent one
knee and stretched the other leg behind him, like a runner
waiting for the pistol shot. "Commander Kerslake, sir?" He was
ready for take-off.. Kerslake sighed. "In your own time Mister
Teague...."
Stooping like a spring, leg well splayed,
Jildy took a deep
breath...when he hit Cummings it needed to be hard. Cummings
didn't seem to feel it like most of the boys....
With a sudden explosion of energy, the
Old Marine launched
himself with flying plimsolls across the worn parquet, the cane
describing a wide arc at the end of his muscular arm, swung with
all his strength, to fast for the eye to freeze, nearing escape
velocity as it swung on the trajectory that from experience Jildy
knew would be a perfect cut. There was a ceremony,a pride, in
the way Jildy carried out his task. He didn't like doing it, but like
the fine soldier he was, didn't do anything unless he did it
well...from polishing his boots to scaling a cliff to killing the
enemy. Like a perfect coup de grace of the matador of Spain, he
brought the swishy yellow blur in on target, under and up with
a sickening thwack that could be heard on the far side of the
deck. That'd teach the little blackguard, I'll vouch," Jildy told
himself, knowing it for a master stroke.
"One...." Cummings' disinterested
voice came as a surprise, dully
keeping tally for him. Jildy blanched in annoyance. He'd never
landed a better one than that! "Shut up, Cummings, you rat-
bag!" "Sorry, sir..just keeping tally sir."
"Then DON'T. Get yer 'ead down!" Jildy returned to the
launching-pad to send off number two, knowing that however he
did it, Cummings could not be fazed.
Later on:
Jildy stood wiping the perspiration
from his arms with a cloth,
breath coming with difficulty. These sessions took it out of a
man of his age.
Over near the wooden partition Dando
and Cummings were
getting back into their cord shorts, tenderly, with care,
Commander Kerslake stared blankly from the window, his
thoughts his own, glad that the barbaric ritual was over. Nothing
could perused him that to thrash a boy in this kind of judicial
sadism would ever serve the purpose of good....
Turning, Kerslake could see Jildy, tunic
high-buttoned again,
tying the canvas of the Whacksack around the canes.
"Punishment Detail completed, sir." Jildy's arm snapped up
crackingly to his cap in a stunning salute, back like a board. "Is
that all,sir?"
"Yes Jildy...that will be all".
Heading for the door, Jildy paused
and fumbled with the string of the Whacksack, which was
perfectly tied and needed no fumbling. Kerslake caught on. "Yes
Mister Teague?".....
"If you don't mind me saying so
sir....a sore backside never did
no-one no larstin' 'arm..." Yes....I'm quite sure...Thank you
Jildy...."
Without a backward glance Jildy swung
out of the Bootroom
door, closing it after him. Kerslake listened to his footsteps die
away, then turned slowly to Dando, who was hanging on to a
roller towel in agony, not yet daring to try walking. "Well?"
Dando looked at him, eyes watering in
pain and discomfort. "It
hurts sir...." Blankly the Commander looked as him. Don't show
sympathy! "That, I believe, is the object of the exercise." he
walked closer to Dando, determined to voice his anger. "Sorry
sir." Dando's voice was in his boots....
Dando slumped momentarily, overcome
by the wave of searing
heat from his buttocks. "Stand up man! You're going to keep
your nose to the grindstone and show me that my time has not
been wasted. Is that understood?" Dando nodded weakly. "Yes
sir. Thank you sir...."...
(Bill Bill Meilen, THE DIVISON, Pather Books, 1967)