Imagine a place where your every need is catered for: Your food appears on the dining room table every day. You never see it on a supermarket shelf, never see it prepared or smell it cooking. You are clothed, kept clean, even the number of times that you open your bowels is meticulously logged.
All of your time, including your leisure time, is supervised. You are frequently watched to ensure that you aren't able to take any small risk that could harm you.
Imagine then, that when you are taken to this place you have to give up your own room and everything that you have ever known and you are made to sleep in a room with seven other children who are complete strangers, some who snore loudly and some with very bad habits.
Lastly imagine that you are only seven years old.
HOW WOULD YOU HAVE BEEN AFFECTED AS A SEVEN YEAR OLD CHILD IF THIS HAD HAPPENED TO YOU?
Most children are fairly resilient and, after a period of adjustment, they usually adapt to their new situation and some of the stronger ones gain from the experience as they become older.
There are many arguments for and against segregated residential education but, based on my own experience of having spent ten years, (Nearly my whole childhood), in these institutions away from my family and my home town, I am firmly against the concept as a 'first, second or third option', [Just as I am against institutional 'care' in later life]. This option should only be used as a very last resort, especially these days when there are so many better choices available.
When I first went to St Margaret's in 1947 I coped very well by keeping to myself. My brother Arthur who was 2½ years older than I was and far more outgoing, fared less well until he became older. He frequently cried on the way to school at the start of term. I just stayed inside my shell with my thoughts. On the other hand, when I was bullied Arthur always came to my rescue so I guess the experience affected us in different ways.
St Margaret's School gave me a good primary education and there were many very special events and insights that I could never have experienced at home. My, (also segregated, residential), secondary school taught me other life skills but educationally didn't ever 'stretch' me as St Margaret's did, thus depriving me of even basic 'O' and 'A' level qualifications, well within my capabilities if I'd had more pressure and more encouragement. I also quickly learned at my second school how to deal with not so nice people, (but only disabled ones). I confess that outside of my lessons I had a lot of fun 'beating the system' at both schools.
The safe cocoon of a world that I had lived in from the age of 7 until I was 18 wasn't the main problem but the fact that I had been segregated away from society, my home town and my family certainly was the sole cause of the problems that started after I had left school.
The problems that first manifested themselves were the fact that my peers from school were scattered around the United Kingdom and in some cases the Commonwealth. Basically I had no friends and, with no work, little prospect of making any new contacts. I knew nobody of my own age group in my home town.
On the other hand; Children and young adults in my neighbourhood hadn't grown up with disabled children. As far as they were concerned disabled people were a race apart. Many of these children of all ages were merciless in their teasing and bullying. Most of this was verbal abuse but a number of times I had groups of children hiding behind the next door houses hedge running in unison to knock me over, as I struggled to cross the footpath to my car.
If you isolate a group of people you turn the individuals in that group into something less than human and make then an obvious target for abuse. Better to have had a bit of bullying at school in a controlled environment and had it over and done with rather than to be hit with it as a teenager when you're already having a tough time with all the hormone changes.
The next problem arose at about the same time: When Arthur and I were little my parents were told by the medics that, "They are mentally deficient. Better to put them into a hospital". That advice was being given, [and taken], all over the country. It took parents as strong as mine to challenge medical advice in an age when doctors were viewed almost as gods.
As a result of this, when I left school there was still a relatively small number of disabled young people coming into the employment market. On my weekly visit to the Labour Exchange when I asked for work my requests always produced a range of emotions by the officers ranging from pity to irritated impatience. No work was forthcoming.
The only options offered were day centres or sheltered employment miles from home; More segregation to maintain the status quo!
The problems don't go away either - even at the age of 79! Recently my older sister Pat died. On going through her photos I was suddenly struck by the fact that I had totally missed out on Pat's childhood and teenage years, also my younger brother's childhood - They in turn had missed out on Arthur's and mine.
I am strong and I survived in spite of the system - many didn’t!
The reader may well ask why I have taken the trouble to build and upload a website about St Margaret's when I obviously oppose the whole concept of segregated residential education?
The answer is threefold: 1) My own history – 2) The school in the context of it’s times – 3) Juxtaposition.
First of all; In my history St Margaret's is a fact. I spent over half of my schooldays, [The most formative first six years], at this place. I lived there and made friends there, I had good and bad experiences there and I learned a great deal both in and of the classroom. Summing up my relationship with St Margaret's is very simple. This school is in me and I am in it - It played a very large role in making me the person that I am. Coming out of this is a natural desire to contact people who shared this experience. An analogy might be with an war veteran. If he was offered the opportunity to return to battle he would almost certainly refuse but he still feels the need to visit Normandy, or another battlefield, and he still likes to meet other veterans for a drink at the British Legion.
My second reason for building this site is to highlight the differences between the middle of the 20th Century and the start of the 21st. In 1947 when I first went to St Margaret's there was absolutely no alternative. St Margaret's was a 'trail-blazer', it was 'state-of-the-art'. The school was providing a formal education for disabled children where there had been none before. Mainstream schools refused disabled children, (In my case even Sunday school!). Without the stepping stone of schools like St Margaret's many of the intellectuals who formulated the Social Model of Disability would have not received an early education.
Thirdly I hope that the site will help to show current politicians, education officers and other power holders the difference, in 21st Century terms, between good and bad practise.
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