Scars that Run Deep Read Free Page B

unforgiving place. There is no room for posh, fancy words, Pat. In here, we got our own slang words for most things so I’m asking you to change. It’s not for the best but it’s for your own good. You drop your fancy expressions such as “over yonder”, and “oh, gosh”, do you understand?’
    I nodded, a silent, frightened yes. I began to hate him as I felt so scared.
    â€˜Look, Pat. They call me The Sly. It’s my nickname, okay? You’ll have one by the end of the week. Now watch me carefully, Pat!’
    As I was very slow on grasping things, and on the uptake, it would take a long time for me to realise I’d never again be allowed to return to my cottage home, to a normal life in the hills of south County Dublin in Barnacullia.
    Billy was right, of course. As a monitor he knew the ropes. Nothing would ever be so normal again, not in my childhood. I was only just eight years of age, and I had been thrust into Artane Industrial School, just one in an army of 900. The scars run deep.
    I was no longer the child with the blushing smile from the hillside cottage home in beautiful picturesque Barnacullia. I became hardened and Artane slang words took over from my way of expressing myself.
    My pleasant boyhood dreams of clear-water streams, plush pastures green, of the hills, and my pals, and going to school through fields, and growing up in a normal life in a cottage home all began to fade. As my dreams slowly became darker I began to walk in my sleep. My dreams turned to nightmares as I fought my demons. I was hunted and haunted as I ran from men in black.
    New visions haunted my dreams. Boys wet their beds through fear, fear of the collar; fear of the men in black. I wet my bed on just a few occasions in the early years, 1950 to 1952. I remember one bitter cold morning in the winter of 1951. The Brothers known as the Apeman and the Sheriff were on duty. After wash-up time we knelt down for morning prayers by our well-made beds. The Apeman marched up and down the long centre passage. The Sheriff stood in front of the altar and said the prayers, which we repeated together out loud. At the end he said, ‘Remember what Christ Our Lord Jesus said, “Little Children come unto me”. Remember in your prayers the good the Christian Brothers do for you.’
    â€˜Pray for us,’ we repeated aloud.
    Then he said, ‘Any boy who soiled or wet their bed, reportto the monitor and bring your soiled and wet sheets with you as we leave. Boys with dirty sheets must march around the centre lamp on the parade until all the boys are in the chapel. Boys with wet or soiled bedclothes must then march to the laundry and hand in your dirty linen.’
    That freezing cold morning I was one of the kids who’d wet the bed. I marched around the tall lamp post in the snow and ice. I had no overcoat, or gloves, as I recall. I cried with the pain of the cold as my fingers ached. I remember that, as I marched in a circle with a dozen boys, the Brother on parade duty was dressed in his long black cassock and a cloak was draped round his broad shoulders, his hat down over his forehead to keep the snow from his eyes. The Dude’s voice rang out crisp and as ice cold as the bitter east wind, ‘Left, left, left right left, lift ’em up or face the wall.’
    That wall haunted my dreams. We were made to stand there with our hands held high straight above our heads. It was torture. On bitter cold winter mornings no mercy was shown or given to those of us who were told to face the wall. We would face the wall just for being the last two or three in or out of the freezing cold wash room. And as we stood there, we’d be beaten across our naked bottoms, six of the best from the Apeman or the Sheriff with their iron-hard leathers. The pain was more cruel and excruciating as a result of the cold.
    In the autumn of 1952, late in the afternoon, I was playingwith my pals the Burner, Oxo,