Evening all; pull up a chair and pin your ears back.
I have, this evening, had a long talk with Miss Margaret Jones, headmistress of Duncroft for many years. It was almost 50 years since we had spoken
Continue reading →Monthly Archives: October 2012
No! THIS is Sparta – Part 2: Agoge!
It has been a very serious week here at the Raccoon Arms, but our learned editor Anna kindly agreed to let your humble scribe burble on with one of my historical rambles, which are
Continue reading →Past Lives and Present Misgivings – Part Six.
The opening sequence of the Panorama film featuring the alleged sexual abuse of children at Duncroft lingered on a huge and imposing set of Victorian iron gates. Half open, they conjured up an image of a peek inside a forbidden and
Continue reading →Past Lives and Present Misgivings – Part Five.
Perhaps we should be renaming the BBC; instead of the friendly ’Aunty Beeb’ conjuring up a safe pair of trustworthy womanly hands, would ‘Uncle Beeb’ with all the connotations of the furtive, fiddling Uncle, whose lap you avoid sitting on, be more suitable? It
Continue reading →Past Lives and Present Misgivings – Part Four.
First some corrections from yesterday – I was very tired and didn’t proof read properly; dining is spelt dining, not dinning; I’m has got an m after the apostrophe; I was 16 and coming up to my 17th birthday
Continue reading →Past Lives and Present Misgivings – Part Three.
Duncroft! I never thought I would hear that name again – and suddenly it is on everybody’s lips! It is nearly 50 years ago that the car I was in drew up outside that familiar facade and I prepared to enter yet another
Continue reading →Past Lives and Present Misgivings – Part Two
Where was I? Oh, yes, Cumberlow Lodge, South Norwood. Politely described as a ‘children’s home’ – no doubt to honour the strictures of the will of the Victorian philanthropist, W E Stanley, who had left his much loved home
Continue reading →Past Lives and Present Misgivings – Part One.
The blog post that won’t go away is still bouncing around in my head; the Sunday newspapers today have further infuriated me – and after long talks with Mr G, I have made the decision to publish.
Continue reading →Paws for Thought.
THAT is one very full inbox…
I am touched, genuinely. I had thought that putting up a jokey message in place of the blog would reassure you that I was OK, and just taking a rest. I underestimated how many of you
Continue reading →New Squatter Law: Starting to Work
Just over a month ago, Squatting in a residential premises became a criminal offence under Section 144 of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012. We have been subjected to a series of misleading
Continue reading →To Huhne it May Concern….
Just as the CPS finally reach the starting blocks regarding the trial of Chris Huhne for allegedly forcing his wife to take his speeding points…
The
Continue reading →Is there a Worker in the House?
You know when you are reading a blog post and a phrase jumps out at you, reforms in letters three foot high, and won’t leave your brain for days afterwards? Round and round it goes, giving you no peace.
Continue reading →Of Freedoms Lost.
The Norfolk of 30 years ago was a wild and blustery place. The A.11 a single lane traffic jam of lorries grinding their way up to the container port at Lowestoft past wide open fields.
Just as well, so difficult was
Continue reading →Protect your Freedom – Please retweet and respond!
So many posts to be written today – I must do them in order of importance. This one is important.
I am indebted to my faithful reader who drew my attention to the original case.
Continue reading →This is a Public Service Announcement…
Yesterday, I endured the rigors of ‘part privatisation of a National Health Service’. Yes, a chauffeur driven limousine pulled up outside my house, precisely on time, in order to drive me in comfort some 100 miles to the specialist Cancer centre in
Continue reading →Yes,You’ll Have No Bananas! More Balls!
My oh my! After two years and five months of a coalition government, not even a Tory government, Ed Balls has reinvented himself as Stafford Cripps, and sees his future as one of pulling Britain out of ‘post-war austerity’. Does
Continue reading →Call me a Cab – just the one!
As a callow youth of 16 back in that ‘Summer of Love’, I ventured on a school-exchange programme with a similar youth in northern France. It was the familiar pattern: he came here and stayed with my family
Continue reading →A Nation of Addicts
I met Sam* on a cold, stormy Welsh November night, almost two years ago now. A young, articulate and well-dressed lady in her early 30s, Sam was decidedly out of place in the dirty, piss and vomit-stained custody
Continue reading →