Road to Nowhere - 1976

We were four – Billy, Danny, Smudge, and myself. We’d had enough and had decided tonight was the night we’d escape. As if the muffled cries of Paul and Kenny being sexually assaulted by the night watchman, Wally, most nights weren’t reason enough to want to leave, Mr. Mitchell’s appearance in the early hours of this morning, lashing out at anyone unfortunate enough to be within range of his leather belt, had strengthened our mutual resolve to abscond. Sure, we’d all been deemed uncontrollable delinquents and been removed from the homes of our parents, but that didn’t justify our being treated in this way and surely didn’t give our ‘carers’ carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they wanted to us?

The reason for Mr. Mitchell’s 3 a.m. visit to the main dormitory was a late night burglary. The tuck shop had been broken into, loads of sweets, crisps and chocolate had been stolen, and he was beyond livid – the dormitory door had flown open, the lights came on in a bright flash, and the school’s headmaster had begun screaming for everyone to get out of bed while he began furiously lashing out at any boy within reach.

This was Winton House, Winchester in 1976. My first ‘care’ home - or ‘approved school’ as these places were also referred to; “Approved by who?” I’d have to ask today.

I’d been sentenced by the child courts to council care the previous year at twelve years old and had been assessed by Fairfield Lodge in Southampton for six months before being allocated to this house of horrors.

Interestingly enough, while living in Brighton in the early noughties, I was on police bail for some misdemeanor or other, awaiting a court date. The police knew my track record of absconding and had therefore attached conditions to my bail: I was required to report to Brighton police station twice a week.

One particular evening after finishing work I asked my colleagues to drop me off at the police station to do exactly that. I approached the desk sergeant behind his glass screen and announced myself by name. It was at this point he turned to a couple of plain clothes policemen behind him and said, “Here he is…”

I froze. “Fuck, what do I do?”

“Do I run? Do I stay? Fuck, shit…what do they want?” While this flew through my mind, the two plain clothes guys could see I was in mid- ‘fight-or-flight’ syndrome and hastily threw their hands in the air to persuade me not to flee.

“It’s okay, Christian. We’re not here to nick you. We’ve come down from Hampshire simply to ask you some questions about a school you were at in the seventies.”

Something imploring in both their voices convinced me they were genuinely not there to cause me any more problems, so I signed the book the desk sergeant proffered to me then followed them through some double-doors and into an interview room.

“You were in Winton House in the mid-nineteen-seventies, Christian, yes?”

“Err, yeah. Yes, I was…”

“We’ve been trying to locate you for some time now and, to be honest, you’re not that easy to find. It’s only because your bail conditions flagged up on the PNC (police national computer) that we knew to find you here.”

“Well,” I laughed, “I guess you could call that a habit of a lifetime, hey? Being careful you can’t be easily found. I’m happy to hear it wasn’t easy for you. Now, what you wanna ask me about?”

Long story short, they asked me whether I’d seen or heard any unusual activities in the days or nights during my two-year stay at Winton House. They were part of ‘Operation Grangewood’, a police investigation into sustained physical and sexual abuse by as many as eighteen members of staff at Winton House during the 1960s and 1970s.

“Okay,” I explained, “what you need to understand is this: I was an extremely violent kid and this is one of the reasons I was locked up in the first place…it’s also part of my catalogue of offences ever since, as you’ll be aware of.

“The kinds of activities you’re referring to didn’t happen to kids like me - they happened to the saps, the victims. Sure, we knew what went on. However, for two very good reasons, we said or did nothing. As selfish as it sounds, it was better for it to be happening to Johnny, or Kenny, or Paul, than it was to ourselves (the non-victims) and, secondly, Christ-knows where we’d end up if we began pointing our fingers at the very members of staff who wrote the reports which determined our futures. You get my point? It was best for us all to simply keep schtum and block out the muffled screams; these people controlled our destinies at that point in our lives.”

I mentioned the name of Wally, the night watchman I remembered, and said I felt he was responsible for a lot of what went on, but they weren’t able to comment as the investigation was, at that point, ongoing. I also mentioned I bumped into him again a few years’ later handing out clothes to all those of us working in the kitchens in Winchester prison. Through a historical lens, sitting there in Brighton police station in 2001, it felt like some twisted kind of reality…a weird cross between, ‘Where’s Wally’ and ‘Who killed Kenny?’ (after all, many of these victims took their own lives later on as a consequence of the members of staff’s perverse actions).

During my research for this book, I entered, “Winton House sexual abuse,” into a search engine and the first several hits lead to newspaper articles with photos of the school itself, a couple of photos of two boys whose faces I instantly recognise - both of whom are suing Hampshire County Council for their sexual abuse; and a chilling extract from a boy’s letter which reads:

“I’m crying now afraid of the night to come. Please see me tomorrow. I can’t take it anymore. I’m liable to do something silly. PLEASE GET ME MOVED.

I better not mention any names or I’ll get beaten.”

(This letter was never actioned and stayed in the man’s file for forty years…until it was uncovered by Operation Grangewood, in fact.)

Another boy goes on to say:

“It was horrific. It was like a serious game of hide and seek.

If you got found you got beaten up.”

As the solicitor, Mr. Derham, representing these abused boys himself states:

“Winton House was an approved school for boys. It means they had troubled lives but they had been assessed as needing specialist care. They were sent to the school for a multitude of reasons, including suffering abuse at home, only to suffer further abuse.”

So, for these reasons, myself and my three compatriots had decided, “Enough is enough…we’re getting out of here.”

We waited for cover of darkness and then left via the rear of the school, slipping out of the back gates and across a railway bridge in the direction of the old cattle market which is now a bus station. I must add here, Winton House wasn’t a secure school like its two neighbouring care homes, Ashbourne Lodge and Redhatch (the former being for wayward boys, the latter for wayward girls), so walking out of the front or rear entrances was always an option; too many of these exits, however, would (and, for me, eventually did) lead to one being placed in the more secure home next door.

It felt good to be putting some distance between that terrible place and ourselves with each step we made. I’d had nothing to do with the burglary of the tuck shop and had no idea who’d been responsible but the pure rage of Mr. Mitchell was fresh in my mind and I’d be happy never to see him or his school ever again.

We approached the bus station and found everything was very quiet. It was probably nine or ten in the evening and quite dark without much traffic around. We discovered a squat building with a small garden behind it and, while two of us kept an eye out for anyone approaching, the other two crept round the back to try and gain access within.

I found a rusting pair of garden shears lying against the back wall and tried to prise the wood-framed window from its frame. I heard one of the glass panes crack but it never actually broke so there was no resultant crash of glass on the footpath below. I was able to raise the catch by pushing one finger through the gap and the window opened. I began to climb inside.

I heard a brief, sharp, whistle. Stop. Hold everything, including my breath. Someone was nearby and one of the boys was warning me to keep quiet

We were operating like a small pack of wolves or wild dogs hunting prey, each of us an independent unit within the pack, each looking out for the others. With good reason, we had no trust in adults or authority and, over the past two years, had become our own teachers – learning how to fight and fend for ourselves in a world we’d been condemned to where it was hard to know who could and couldn’t be trusted. I’d been regularly absconding with fellow delinquents for these past two years and, although each escape only lasted for a few days or weeks, every one began with the need to steal money for the items we needed most: food, cigarettes, and sweets.

Another brief whistle gave the “all-clear”. I climbed in through the window and found myself in a small office. I opened the three desk drawers and, in the last one, hit the jackpot: a cash box. Yes! I drew it out from the drawer, rattled it about and felt the weight of coinage inside, then handed it out through the window to Billy.

“Just gonna find some tools to break it open with and I’ll be with you,” I informed him as he quietly took the cash box from my hands. I scrabbled about in the other drawers but there only seemed to be stationery and nothing in the form of screwdrivers, hammers, or anything remotely likely to open a locked metal box.

I gave up and climbed back out through the window. Billy was trying to jam the garden shears into the side of the box but struggled to keep it steady

“Here, let me stand on it to keep it still while you break into it. Don’t fuckin’ stab me, okay?” I whispered to him.

There was silence all around so we both knew the coast was clear of any passersby. After three or four stabs with the shears, Billy said, “Stay right there…I think I got it.”

I felt something give beneath my feet and he hissed, “Yes, it’s open.”

“Grab what’s in it and let’s go. Quickly.”

He emptied the box of its contents, stuffing them into his pockets, and then we left the shadows of the garden and crossed the street to join the other two boys. Now, this pack of street-urchins continued towards the city centre, staying in the shadows where possible and ducking into driveways or alleyways whenever we heard a vehicle approach. We were four young teenagers and definitely a target for a police car driving past as our absence from Winton House would have been noted and reported by this time. We headed in the direction of the train station where we’d jump the fence and walk along the train tracks in the dark to the next, much quieter, station along the line.

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We spent the night sleeping fitfully in the shelter of this station, named Shawford. It was the next station along from Winchester in the direction of Southampton, which is where we were headed. Two of our party hailed from there and, knowing my mother would simply call the police on me (as she had done first time I’d absconded and returned home), I agreed on Southampton too. Upon waking early in the morning, we shared an occasional cigarette between us until they ran out then waited for the first train.

We’d counted the proceeds from our theft and discovered we had a little over £300 between us - £75 each. In 1976 this was a king’s ransom (I’ve just put that figure into an inflation calculator which says £75 in today’s money is £488.42). We had the equivalent of £500 each at thirteen/fourteen years’ old…but no cigarettes, sweets, or food.

“Train’s coming, boys,” Smudge exclaimed and we all jumped up excitedly to await its approach. We’d feel a lot safer once we were on board, clack-clacking our way further and further from Winchester and those seeking us.

We paid the guard the sum for four tickets and found ourselves in Southampton city centre within the hour. Once we’d bought some food and cigarettes, we were all laughing and joking, slapping each other’s’ backs, feeling a lot less at risk now we were so far away from Winton House.

We walked past the Civic Centre with some trepidation and I’m certain our steps would have become faster to get out of its sight; there are police cells in its depths and all four of us had previously experienced them. The next sight to greet us was the Red Funnel ferry service. I think it dawned on all of us at the same time this was our destination – it feels today as though the Red Funnel sign was flashing at us in glowing neon.

“That’s it – the Isle of Wight! Come on, who’s up for some of that?”

“Of course,” cried Danny. “Yes – we’re on holiday. That’s where people go on holiday, right?”

We purchased our tickets and were told the next ferry would be in ninety minutes’ time so we went for a walk along the quayside. After finding a spot where we could simply hang out and wait without attracting attention to ourselves, we sat on the quay, kicking our legs, smoking fags, eating food and sweets, laughing and joking, and enjoying the smell of the sea air and that smell of freedom only recently-absconded boys know the smell of.

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We spent the crossing on the top deck, no change in our behaviour at all – fags, sweets, laughter, and the raw freedom of the wind and spray on our young faces.

The ferry docked in Ryde and we jumped on a double-decker bus which would take us all the way across the island to Yarmouth. Not one of us had ever been on the island before so we had no real idea where to head for…just followed our noses. I remember this being during the Summer months so the weather was fine and dry. We sat on the top deck and watched the countryside flash past us outside the bus windows. Cows, horses, and sheep grazed in the green fields, giving little attention to the bus as it glided past them, tractors slowed down our passage until they turned into open gateways, and we slowly worked our way across this southern-most island of mainland UK.

Gradually, a large cluster of buildings appeared on our right-hand side and grew in size until we could discern their purpose. Like long red ships with tall chimneys and windows peppering their sides, these were Her Majesty’s Prisons Parkhurst, Albany, and Camphill – a veritable colony not far from the island’s administrative centre, Newport.

All four of us were silent as the bus continued west. None of us broke this silence, for we all had a presentiment this was our future destination laid before us. I’m not sure I knew about these prisons being on the Isle of Wight at that stage of my life but I was very aware of the stories back in the care homes, stories with the names of those who had ‘come of age’ and climbed the hierarchical ladder to Winchester Prison and Portland Borstal, among others.

The way UK law worked in 1976, delinquent boys (and girls) could not be locked up in a prison cell until the age of fifteen years. Once this age was attained, the magistrates’ court could lock one up for a period commensurate with the severity of ones’ crimes but, until that time, we could abscond and become mini-crime-waves as often as we liked but only be returned to the home from whence we’d escaped; or, as happened to me later on, sent to a secure unit where it was more difficult (although not impossible) to abscond.

The prison complex became hidden from view as the bus continued towards Newport town and Danny broke the uneasy silence:

“Fuck that for a game of soldiers.”

The remaining three of us laughed at this but a sense of unease had certainly overcome me and it took a while to shift. I’m certain the others all felt a similar sensation. We knew we would eventually graduate to prison…it was simply a case of “when”?

In fact, most of the boys I spent the years 1975-1978 with in the council care system were all waiting for me in the prison estate once I myself came ‘of age’.

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‘The Harbour Lights’, this was the name of the café we landed at once we arrived in Yarmouth. Situated next to the ferry terminal, it had offerings of food, a plethora of drinks, and pinball and fruit machines – which to us pretty much amounted to heaven. We ordered a huge plate of food each, sat down at a table and wolfed the lot down while laughing and beaming at one another. Once the food was gone, we moved to the fruit machines which were highly addictive to all of us. The lady behind the counter asked why we weren’t at school and we fed her a line about our being on holiday with our parents.

“They’ve gone to the pub and left us to wander around the place and find our own fun,” we assured her while asking her to break yet another ten- or twenty-pound note into coins; more food for the insatiable fruit machines. This didn’t wash with her and, had we been a bit less excited by the flashing pinball and fruit machines, we may have done the sensible thing and moved on to a different venue, but we didn’t. She called the police on this gang of boys with seemingly limitless funds…

Shortly, a couple of policemen walked into the place, stopped our playing on the machines and began asking questions. It didn’t take these guys long to realise we were lying through our back teeth so they arrested us, loaded us into the back of their ‘meatwagon’, and took us to the local police station where they could separate us for questioning and, more importantly, search us.

We all had the paper money stuffed inside our underwear so their initial search in the café only produced hands full of shrapnel – the cash we were feeding into the hungry machines. Now, inside the police station, they instructed us to strip…which we did. Twenty- ten- and five-pound notes began to accumulate on the tiled floor as the four of us undressed and one of the police officers gathered all the notes as evidence. Next came the tedious questioning in the interview room:

“What’s your name?”

“What’s your home address?”

“Where did you get the money from?”

“Where are your parents?”

“Why aren’t you in school?”

We’d all been trained well so only responded with, “No comment” to every question they fired at us. We knew it was pointless anyway – we’d been nicked; four boys were on the missing list from a care home in Winchester (which was more or less in the same county as the Isle of Wight) and a bus station office had been burgled of £300 one mile and half an hour away from the school they’d absconded from. We didn’t really care what happened because, as I’ve stated, there was nothing more they could really do to any of us for another year or two due to our still being considered minors.

After questioning, we were locked in individual cells, then fed some food (which was nowhere as good as the food the Harbour Lights café was serving), and I lay down on the hard mattress to try and sleep (this was always a great coping mechanism throughout my entire criminal career – been nicked? Go to sleep and disappear off to a much happier place).

Sometime later, the sound of the hatch in the metal door rattling open woke me and a voice said, “Wake up, Christian, you’ll be leaving us soon.”

“Haha!” I thought, “They’ve added two and two and arrived at four. So, back to Winton House it’ll be then.”

Another short while later and a key turned in the lock and I was led back to the custody suite where I found the other three reprobates, all smiling and looking as though they’d also been sleeping off a fruit machine hangover.

We were returned our possessions one at a time – minus the cash – and each of us signed to say we’d received them. We were then bundled back into the meatwagon to be driven to Cowes, the island’s main port. I was interested to see how we’d be ferried across The Solent – surely not locked in the meatwagon?

It wasn’t long before I discovered we’d be ferried across in a police launch. How very bloody exciting…and it really was.

This launch was like a huge speedboat with the rear three-quarters of the craft open-plan, there was a very simple cabin behind a windscreen at its front end. The captain of the launch called us to the mini-cabin and showed us the navigation screen. This consisted of a glowing round screen, it was an orange/brown kind of colour I remember.

“You see the centre of the circle, boys?"

“Yes,” we all agreed, completely in awe of this whole exciting experience, flying across the waves back towards Southampton.

“Well, that’s us…in the centre. And you see the map moving around us? That’s the coastline and all the dots you see are other vessels and obstacles to be avoided. I can actually navigate simply by looking at the screen.”

“Wow!” We were all very impressed by this and, looking back today, that experience alone almost made the whole escapade worthwhile.

It was dusk when we’d embarked and it was getting dark as we approached Southampton’s docks. I enjoyed the salty sea air and wind on my face, only this time with a distinct absence of freedom. It really didn’t matter, though, because mostly these little adventures I experienced served a couple of purposes.

On the one hand, they were a wonderful release from the day-to-day of whichever approved school I happened to be absconding from at the time and, on the other – unbeknown to me at that time – I was learning the most valuable life lesson ever, one the fellow junkies and criminals in my home town never learned: that no matter where I am in the world, no matter how little I have in my wallet or my pockets, everything will be fine…I’ll be okay.

I one hundred per cent attribute these early escapades as a training ground for my future escapes from my home town when I’d had enough of the drugs and crime; my following the convoys to various festivals all over the UK in the eighties; sojourns to France, Portugal, or Italy for months with just a guitar or saxophone and a sleeping bag.

I just find it ironic it took such a circuitous route to arrive at a freedom those from my home town never discovered. I’ve given this plenty of thought since escaping the drugs-crime nexus: had I not become the violent delinquent youth the authorities felt it necessary to remove from society, I’d probably still be trapped in that home town looking like the near-skeletons I used to inject drugs with all those years ago, those who never learned it was fine to abscond, or that everything will be okay if you simply trust and have faith in yourself.