St Edwards Approved School Melchet Court, Romsey -- APPROVED-SCHOOLS

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Date Posted: 14:25:33 01/24/09 Sat
Author: Dan Carlton
Subject: St Edwards Approved School Melchet Court, Romsey

SENTANCED TO 3 YEARS AT ST EDWARDS APPROVED SCHOOL, MELCHET COURT FOR BURGLARY.

A TRUE STORY:

Following the sad traumatic death of my dear Mum, I withdrew into myself and became hard and got into a lot of fights at school. My Dad was working nights at the Post Office and so I was left to wander the streets at night looking for food, as Dad had locked the pantry during the day and we weren�t allowed to eat unless he was there and that was pretty seldom!
My Brothers and I had blamed my Dad for our Mum�s death, as he drank a lot and would often beat Mum up, while trying to give any one of us boys a good kicking for giving him lip, or for simply not finishing our chores. Dad was a strict authoritarian and had been ship-wrecked twice in mid Atlantic during the war and was a hard (Royal Navy) military man.

So after Mum died I grew up without any real parental guidance and soon found myself hanging about with kids much older than I was, which was a recipe for disaster, as one night three of us broke into a parcel store just inside a railway station and began grabbing anything we could get hold of, it was like Christmas morning for me, as we frantically ripped open all the parcels; I incidentally was only looking for food, while the others had their eye on the more lucrative items, anyway we had not long been inside that store, when three Police vehicles came flying down the road with their sirens blazing. The race had begun and we were running for our lives but it wasn�t long before the Police caught us up and I remember being thrown headlong into the back of the Police car, wondering just what was going to happen to us.

I was just thirteen years old and I cried all night in Wimbledon Police cells, wishing my Mum would come and take me home, remembering the time I had sang a hymn to my Mum back in the days when we lived in Porobello Road (It was Praise my soul, the King of Heaven) sitting on her knees and I promised her faithfully that I would be a man of God.....some man of God I turned out to be!!!

My hope was that I wouldn�t be sent home to my Dad too soon, because I knew that he would beat me half to death if he got hold of me, so my best friend Alan Tomkins and I stayed in the tiny cell at Wimbledon Police station for a whole month, waiting for Police reports to be prepared for the court. When the lights were turned out at night in that cell, it was so dark you could cut the air with a knife, I have great victory in Christ today but I still hate the dark! The other guy Paddy Kempton, who was with us that night was much older than Alan and I, and was sent straight to Borstal, while we had to both wait for the courts to decide what they were going to do with us, though finally we had our answer and handcuffed between two Policemen, we were taken off in a black Police van to a lock-up Remand Centre (Pentlands) behind Mitcham Common, where we were to remain for the next six months. Well apart from jumping ship and legging it across the Common with a burly great Screw chasing after us, it wasn�t too bad.....that was a caper though, we escaped for four days, even got down to Brighton but eventually got caught, returning to face the wrath of the Head Screw, who beat us with a big stick�I think he liked me! We were so hungry we were glad to get caught......

After polishing and bumping the tiled floors and other tedious tasks my mind would always wander off in daydreams about me and my Mum together, seeing her happy and singing in the kitchen, where she would cook all our favourite Spanish food and natter on and on in Spanish, with me sitting there munching on some of her home made almond biscuits. Mum never spoke a word of English till the day she died, so not only did I lose my precious Mummy, I lost my whole culture and language in one day, eating Sopa de Pescado and Paella one day and stiff hard fish fingers with dry instant smash the next!

The weeks and months passed and only my Brother John came out to see me at the Remand Centre, only once though to my recollection. I give my Dad his due, he did come once too if I remember rightly, he had found five hundred cigarettes and a whole lot of other stuff I had nicked under my mattress and dutifully took it all down to the Police station, I only found out when I was asked to stand before the Judge, during one of many of our appearances at Wimbledon magistrates court and the list of offences were read out, including about ten other offences to be taken into consideration�good old Dad!

Eventually the day came for Alan and I to appear in court to find out whether we could go home and handcuffed between two Police Officers again, we were beckoned to stand before the Judge for sentencing, who to my surprise asked my Dad to stand also and said that he could take his son home today with a three year Probation order, or he will have to send me to a Young Offenders Military Training Prison for three years, the silence that followed seemed to last for ages and finally Dad answered �Put him away Sir� he said and sat down again. I can't repeat the words I called him as we ware taken away by the Police. Alan also got three years and my world just seemed to crumble before me, because I knew that if the Lock-up was tough, then the Approved School was going to be whole lot tougher, especially without Alan there.
And so Alan, my very best friend and I were separated after one last long heartbreaking smile of despair to each other, Alan went off to an Intermediate Approved School, Garston�s House, Philanthropic society, Redhill, Surrey and I was sent to St Edwards, a Military run Approved School, a place called Whiteparish outside Romsey. I never saw Alan again; he was involved in a car accident and was killed just after his release. He would have been no more than nineteen years old. That was hard for me to take, as we had done everything together like Brothers, even though he was three years old than me�.. I loved him like a Brother; we were the terrible twins, inseparable mates!

Arriving that day at the St Edwards Approved School on a cold March afternoon in 1967 was literally terrifying for me, as I was issued my prison kit (We were all dressed the same) and so began a long hard disciplinary punishment, with twenty five mile route marches to Salisbury every Sunday morning and memories which were to haunt me for the next ten years, bullying, fights and beatings were nothing compared to the loneliness, watching other kids getting parcels from home and visits from their Mums and Dads, while I was left just staring out of the windows, wondering why I had just been abandoned in that awful place.

Dad remarried again in 1967 to Doreen, I had been given some home-leave and had gone to their wedding, it was a very sad day for me and my Brothers, seeing it was just two years after Mum had died. Home leave periods were few and far between and if you got caught fighting or anything in-between, they would cancel your leave altogether. One day a Screw shouted to me down the corridor �Get changed Carlton, your Father is coming to see you� I couldn�t believe my ears and waited excitedly for him to arrive; eventually I saw his car coming up the drive and ran like a happy child down to the car to greet him, only to find the ugly old bat of a Step-mother sitting next to him, her face was strained with anger and no sooner had I got into the car she started telling me how miserable I had made her, having to come all this way from London to visit me. Well I was never more pleased to get back to the place and only ever saw them once again after that for about five minutes, in all the time I was there.

Often my mind would wander back to that beautiful garden in Portobello Road, where Mum and I would stand together and tears would run down my face, knowing I would never see her again, yet something inside me kept willing me on and telling me to hope, although there wasn�t much to hope for in there. Finally my release day came after many heart-stopping disappointments, where the Governors Review Board would consider my release, only to reject it for another three months, on and on it went!
I came out finally when I was sixteen years old and had been completely institutionalised and would even call people "Sir" when I was asking for the time from a stranger in the street and so I went back home to Wimbledon to live with Dad and my Step-mother Doreen, although I hated them both with every fibre of my being, I had very few choices and so tried to settle down. One day while I was out and about in Wimbledon Common I met some Christians, just lads they were (Maybe early twenties) but filled with a joy I immediately recognised and longed to have but I never had the courage to go and see them at the address they gave me, feeling insignificant and worthless, a quality quickly instilled into the boys in prison, by both the Screws and the Inmates!!!

I was home for just a few months, when I had the most devastating experience. I had been day dreaming again and was standing in the hall wishing myself somewhere else as usual, when suddenly the bedroom door opened and my Step-mother opened the door and began accusing me of listening to her conversation, this resulted in both my Dad and Step-mother brutally beating me up, dragged me half way down the hallway and throwing me out of the front door into the public hallway. I stood outside the door in unbelief and waited for them to say �Next time you do that, you�ll be out� but nothing came, just silence and so I went down and wandered the streets, frightened and worried that I might get put back inside, eventually I went back up, hoping they might have cooled down but only to find my stuff had been hurled out into the public hallway in black dustbin liners. Where was God? I remember wondering... If anyone wants to hear the rest of my story please E-mail.

Memories that will last a lifetime.
God bless
Dan Carlton

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Replies:

Re: St Edwards Approved School Melchet Court, Romsey -- KIERON CASHIN, 15:53:13 06/17/10 Thu
- Re: St Edwards Approved School Melchet Court, Romsey -- KIERON CASHIN, 15:56:39 06/17/10 Thu
  - Re: St Edwards Approved School Melchet Court, Romsey -- KIERON CASHIN, 15:59:17 06/17/10 Thu