Inevitably the atmosphere in the flat was tense as every day I’d tell Alex and Siobhan that I wanted to go home. I’d tell my parents the same thing every time they rang me. I was allowed to call them every other day but I noticed that either Alex or Siobhan would hover in the background while I was on the phone, perhaps to hear what I was saying. My phone calls were always the same. I’d plead with them to come and get me, and tell them how much I hated Tadford. Mum and Dad would then both say they wouldn’t come, that I was there for my own good and that everything would be fine because there were so many people at the Church who loved me. Then I’d cry, ‘Please, please, let me come home,’ and even though I could tell Mum was upset hearing me cry, she kept saying, ‘No, you can’t.’ The phrase ‘hitting your head against a brick wall’ kept coming to mind. The more I tried to convince my parents I was in a place that was nothing like the caring community they imagined, the less they seemed to listen. I felt instinctively that it all had dark undertones but I somehow couldn’t put it into words. I certainly didn’t tell them that during Church assemblies we were encouraged to forget our past and think of the Church as our family, even though to my young ears it sounded totally disloyal.
Mum would say things like boarding school is always very difficult for a child during the first few weeks and homesickness is very common. She told me she thought I’d soon get used to it once I made friends. Her responses sounded rather prepared and it crossed my mind whether this was what she had been told to tell me. But I knew it wouldn’t be fine and my fear was confirmed when I went to school for the first time a week after I arrived. It had been hard enough for me to conform to the comparatively free-and-easy school routine at my local comprehensive, but the narrow, restricted and unimaginative curriculum at Tadford School was mind-blowingly boring.
The school day started with religious assembly at 8.15 a.m., followed by lessons. I had been used to a large, open classroom full of children of my own age, all chatting and working together. Now, because there were so few of us, most of the time we were lumped together in one classroom. The younger children sat down one side of the room and older ones like me down the other, and woe betide any child who even tried to look at another. We were so repressed we weren’t allowed to speak during lessons, during meal breaks, or even when we were changing for games.
Despite being deeply shocked, I tried to analyse my situation. On the one hand, I felt it was far too cruel a punishment for someone whose only wrongdoing was to be a rather boisterous teenager. On the other hand, I never doubted that my parents loved me and wanted the best for me. It was all too confusing and I didn’t know where to turn.
Initially the school followed a Christian method of home teaching that basically meant self-learning. This was totally new for me and I missed the stimulation of having other children around me with whom I could share thoughts and ideas. Instead, each of us had our own individual work to do. I was given a work book which set questions, exercises and essays, and when I had finished one set I had to go to a table in the middle of the room, find the book of answers and mark my own work. I then went back and did the next exercise. If any of us needed help from the teacher we had to hold our hand up, and when, eventually, the teacher saw it she would come to help us.
It was all so excruciatingly dull that I used to keep falling asleep. The only thing that slightly cheered me up – proof that I desperately needed even the smallest crumb of comfort that could link me with my family – was the small Tony the Tiger I put on my desk, which I’d bought with my mother just before she left.
One of my worst tasks was to learn ‘memory verses’. This required pupils to learn a different set of twelve verses from the Bible every week. I’d never done anything like it before and was so hopeless at it that sometimes Black rebuked me in front of the whole school, telling everyone that I hadn’t made an effort and I should try harder. He turned up at school assembly about once a month and usually called someone up on to the stage for an alleged misdemeanour. Sometimes it would be a pupil who had showed what he called ‘an improper attitude’. At other times it was someone like me who didn’t do well with the memory verses. Although many of us cried, I didn’t dare discuss his behaviour with anyone else, and if it was an attempt to humiliate me, it worked every time. I felt useless and stupid, and this only served to highlight my chronic loneliness.
At lunchtime the older ones like me had to turn into dinner ladies and help dish up the meal to the other pupils, then wash up all the plates and cutlery by hand afterwards. Although there was a dishwasher in the kitchen, it was never used. I’d had to help out at home, but it had been a family thing, and we’d chat and laugh as we did the washing up or laid the table. Now I resented it, especially as everything had to be cleared up before I could go out to play. At my previous school I always had loads of girls to play with, but at Tadford there were only two other girls of my own age. Luckily I did enjoy the interaction between children of different ages and often played skipping games with the little ones.
There was always plenty of food to eat, but there was no choice and this led to my first confrontation with Black, shortly after he returned from Greece. The meal was Lancashire hotpot and the last time I’d had it – well before I was at Tadford – I was violently sick. There had obviously been something wrong with the meat but I’d decided I didn’t want to eat Lancashire hotpot ever again. Unluckily it was on the school menu on a day he came round to check that we were all eating – in fact he always seemed to be everywhere I went – and he asked me why I was leaving it. I explained what had happened and he replied that it was compulsory at Tadford to eat everything that was put in front of me. I refused and he told me I couldn’t leave the dining room until I had. I showed my fighting spirit by arguing with him for two solid hours until he instructed me to leave the meal on the table and come to his house. We went to the lounge, where Black, plus the head of the school, his secretary Charlotte Snelling, his spokesperson Siobhan Scott and his wife Heather, all key members of the Church, had already gathered. I don’t know if he had summoned them, but the argument was quickly established as five of them against one of me. I kept saying, ‘I am not eating it.’ They kept telling me, ‘Yes you are.’ It continued for another hour until finally I suddenly felt so worn down I burst into tears and agreed to go back and eat the hotpot. It was stone-cold and, in its puddle of congealed grease, tasted disgusting. I wasn’t physically sick but the damage that being forced to eat it did to my spirit was substantial.
Black and the others had won the battle and perhaps felt triumphant that my will had been broken. It was clearly something they considered much more important than my missing an afternoon of school. I, on the other hand, was left feeling emotionally battered, alone and trapped in a place where I didn’t want to be. I did, though, win another confrontation. When the builders finished partitioning Angie’s room at Black’s house and he told me that the new room was now going to be mine, I dug my heels in and absolutely refused to move in. Nothing would budge me and in the end I was allowed to remain with Siobhan and Alex. It was a massive relief, because he still terrified me.
On Wednesdays I had only morning school because I had to help cook, serve and wash up for the weekly group lunch of teachers and other Church staff. One adult and I were involved in catering for about ten of them, including Black, and I absolutely hated doing it. All the other children went home and after the elected adult had cooked everything, she went home too, leaving me on my own to serve, clear up, and wash and dry everything. Perhaps I was chosen because, apart from Angie – who was considered too young – I was the only boarder and didn’t have a real home to go to, which in itself made me feel very bad. I used to find it exhausting and didn’t finish until about 4 p.m. I had school on Saturdays, too. Mornings consisted of classes in dressmaking, which I was useless at, typing and cooking. Black had the idealistic, old-fashioned attitude that women were at their best in the home catering for a man’s every need and believed they should be taught the necessary skills from a young age. In the afternoon I had to play table