Ted Heath next?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-20337495

' claimed that the former MP smacked him and stroked his buttocks'..'Accuser 'left in tears' after 'abuse'

Jesus Christ. People in Afghanistan including in the British forces are getting their limbs blown off.

People die or are maimed every day on the roads.

etc etc...and these claimants demand sympathy and moan and moan about something that happened forty years ago,

I was caned relentlessly by a teacher..6 of the best while he took a run from 6 feet away and jumped in the air. I couldn't use my hands all day.

I got over it.

As I describe in 65 My Life So Far, my regular beatings by headmaster Arthur Spring Rice Piper at Stoke House in Seaford when I was 8 or 9 were always delivered by him with one of his hands buried deep in his pocket and accompanied by him grunting and groaning. I could never work out why at the time.

Now I understand; I loathed the man but I'm sure he suffered from bad karma, just like my false accusers 50 years later.

Me? I'm fine thanks. So I got beaten. So what? But then I don't need "compo".

My word for these distressed accusers? Wankers. They would get on well with Piper.

If I can recall..in infant school students regularly had their pants pulled down and were smacked.

Perhaps the female teacher got a perverse pleasure out of it..perhaps she was just responding to the norms of the day.

I was always being slapped about the legs with a ruler because I 'fiddled ' with myself. It stung like crazy but I never stopped fiddling

you get over these things..but if someone in authority told me repeatedly that it would 'ruin my life' perhaps I would believe it.

Cyril Smith plaque taken down. Poor chap not here to defend himself unlike McAlpine. This has now become an extremely nasty and vociferous campaign and JK did warn right here that this sort of situation might come about. I wonder if Smith was on that list by that intrepid investigative journalist who is Philip Schofield? That list compiled from things he'd read on Twitter and Facebook.

Can someone please stop this roundabout...I really do want to get off!

"My dear UNCLE, I NEVER had my hand in my pocket I was a half blind diabetic" GOD he hurt, its all about the aim, remember the rowing oar mounted on the wall of the study??? Oh yes, I was a recipient of ASRP beatings, many times, probably warranted. Sometimes I would brave it out, sometimes I would whimp out and beg...."no sir, please sir"...but I have to hand it to a man I neither respected nor liked, I saw only an inevitability in his actions, no deviance. It was for me a lousy school, I never fitted in, probably me not the institution, but it taught me a lot about conformity and appliance and i went on to lead a wonderful life by disregarding all the strictures and codes of that awful establishment, How to fight bullies, how to treat people with empathy. Thank you stoke house for that, you taught me everything. No, ASRP was just a product of his age, his WIFE was FAR more scarey.

You may be right (the "hand in pocket" thing only recently came back to me). The wife was done for shop lifting, I remember; steel grey perm; my Mum had been at school with her (and never liked her). I loathed Stoke but loved Charterhouse. Funnily enough I just contacted Chouse to find the whereabouts (probably dead) of a couple of wonderful masters who nurtured and helped my love of literature.

Remember the "museum"? And Heard? Calhoun? Davidson Houston?

...NO NEVER...Mrs Pyper done for shoplifting?????!!!! ..bloody hell, she was the archetypal grand madame and she did NOT like me AT ALL!!!!!


What about the kids, Louise and Mark, they seemed to be OK must be in their 60's by now....jeez I am getting old!!!


No, I dont remember any teachers from Stoke House but I would have been there 5 years after you and I only had to survive for one term before it went tits up and almagamated with Brunswick House in east grinstead. Museum there I remember well, the first vaccination machine, bloody great flat plated device with lever on top that extruded three razor blades on either side never forgot that....

Anyway all the best people I have ever met either got thrown out of private/public School or fled, dont look back thats the rule, lifes too short! It was just last night thinking about ASRP for the fist time in 45 yrs (must be getting old) that I googled his name and your site was 3rd down, what an epiphany!!!!!

Yes it was in the local papers; provoked much hilarity. Perhaps ASRP had lost his drive by the time he beat you! I believe Mark went on to be a Headmaster himself.

No Mark Pyper became a teacher at Brunswick, he bever became headmaster of Stoke House his sister Louise was a student, the only girl student at the school. Louise looked like Alice in Wonderland, she had the most amazing hair...Marks best mate at Brunswick was a Jamaican teacher, Mr Jacobs. Alice Pyper was an absolute gem, she was the only one in the family I could relate too, suddenly she became 'large' and started to smell of talcum powder!!!...she married our best teacher, Mr Crokett, a wonderful history teacher at Brunswick, I was devastated, I was hopelessly in love with her!!!!!....Anyway, I shall CEASE from here on in....OH, the mueseum...RETRO ZULU!!!...Thanks for bringing it all back to me, Good stuff!!!!!!!!!!! Viva Angela a lovely human being.

The teachers I remember are Mr Calhoun, a Canadian with a foul temper. He regularly lost it completely while on duty at tea and would give the entire school five minuses!!! He could otherwise be quite pleasant! He taught maths and I was one of his worst pupils! He only knew one speed at which to impart his undoubted knowledge and that was FAST!!!! Mr Heard taught French, was Second in charge, had favourites and used to beat you if you were caught talking in dormitories before the gong went for breakfast, or if you had done a sub standard prep! Mr Davidson Houston. who taught me any Latin I knew! He also had favourites and was in charge of games and gymnastics. He had a good aim with a board rubber!! I generally got on with both and was neither hated nor a favourite of either. Being a favourite of either was not always advantageous to those who were! Mr Quinn, was pretty elderly and possessed a squeaky voice but was otherwise harmless as a Geography teacher. Miss Kemp was a kind of spare hand and very nice really. I was unfortunately thought to be Mrs Pyper's favourite, a tag I had done nothing to earn but had it sort of bestowed on me. However, although occasionally teased about it, I didn't really suffer because of it. After one Sunday lunch, I was caused tremendous embarrassment, in front of the entire school, when she announced that her youngest son, Timothy, would like me to go and play with him!!!! This unpleasant incident has remained in the far recesses of my memory to this day. She was very kind to me following the
death of my father in 1957 by inviting me to tea! This did not go down too well with
one of the King brothers, understandably. They had lost their father the year before
and had received no such kindness!!! There were two matrons, or three, all OK really.
Miss Atkins whom I remember captained the Sussex Ladies Cricket team! Miss
Ansell. The only cruelty she ever showed me was forcing me to finish a pudding of
dry boiled rice and syrup!! There was Miss Higham, quite pretty, I recall. It was widely
suspected that there was a thing going between herself and Mr Houston. Maybe it was that he would have liked there to have been!!!!

Or Harold Wilson???

After all he was the one with the flashers mac!!!!

giles2008 wrote:
Or Harold Wilson???

After all he was the one with the flashers mac!!!!

oh there's time for him but claiming he was a Russian spy isn't as sexy as an abuser.

But the precedent is there : turn gossip that spreads like a wildfire (no proof needed) into fact. That's today's news.

I was one of the Stoke House museum curators and used to have the tiger rug from under the guest book in my bedroom for years (Pyper gave it to me). I loved the school, the students, its teachers, and Seaford. Thought a lot of Pyper too. But those were happy days for me.

I loved Charterhouse, hated Stoke. But each to their own.

Mark Pyper went on to be Headmaster of Gordonstoun and only recently retired from the post. We had him teach us and thought we him very 'cool' at the time! I joined Stoke House in Seaford aged 7 (what were they thinking!) in 1964 and made the move to Ashurst Wood in 1965 when the two schools amalgamated. We had a very odd situation with two headmasters (Mr John Battlett from Brunswick) who both clearly favoured their 'old' pupils. Later we had another another Seaford based school Kingsmeas join us.

Louise Pyper was a pupil when I was there, thought she was great. Mrs Pyper as scary and yes I remember the old Oxford rowing oar on the wall and getting beaten by ASRP & Barlett the school took on the title Stoke Brunswick until it closed some 4-5 years ago. Odd place but I don't recall being hugely unhappy there. I left in 1970.

I remember also being totally intrigued with that vaccination machine!

Memories of Stoke House! My brother remembers it more fondly than I do. But then I didn't like the South Coast much at all either; it always seemed to be grey and rainy and miserable. Perhaps I was going through a difficult period, having to develop into puberty and losing my father; therefore having to take on the role - being the eldest male. And it was probably my first proper experience of autocracy and the establishment. I fought against it with difficulty but by Charterhouse had learned how to rebel effectively - as I continue to do. In prison one officer told me I was the only inmate he'd ever met who fought the system successfully whilst in it.

Charles Terry describes my time at Stoke House to a tee. I've just posted over 4 mins of 8mm Stoke House sports day footage (expensively digitally restored!) my father took circa 1961. You get a good look at Pyper a few times, also Davidson-Houston and Calhoun. Here's the link, the music should tell you what I felt about the place...

youtu.be/f0404pbYkjA

Forwarded to brother Jamie - would have been his time there; by then I was at Chouse.