Warwick School

31 days ago

How Different Warwick School is these days – but what on earth is the CPS doing with regard to paedophile ex-teachers?

Events in Edinburgh this week highlighted by Nicky Campbell, bring my mind back to historic abuse at my old school Warwick. The bastard who physically abused me, Geoffrey Eve, got a one way ticket to hell last year. But my long and, ultimately successful, campaign to get Warwick to name Eve and apologise lead to my involvement in exposing Warwick’s paedophile teachers.  I have already named one, the music master Charles Watmough.

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264 days ago

Sadistic abuser of countless Warwick schoolboys (including me) Geoffrey Eve is dead. Hell is too good a place for the old bastard

Eve abused me, twice throwing my head against a wall, one  made of brick, the other of metal. As I have exposed with numerous articles on this website, in two spells at the school he abused countless little boys and Warwick covered up for him. And now he is dead. The current headmaster dropped me an email to let me know.

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291 days ago

How a bulletin board moron tweets about historic sex abuse at Warwick School

Naming a paedophile teacher who used to abuse boys at Warwick School yesterday HERE is already paying dividends, a 5th victim has today contacted me and will be speaking to Warwick fuzz next week. I bet there are stacks more victims out there, now that the name is out there and with Warwick having finally ‘fessed last week to having had an abuse problem and apologised, this is only the beginning and at some stage The Old Bill must act. But some folks who object to my exposes of stockmarket frauds interpret it another way, as you can see below.

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292 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: ouzo after 12 years from Warwick and after almost as long from Advanced Oncotherapy

After 12 years of campaigning, a result from Warwick School last night as reported HERE but now another victim of sexual abuse has been in touch so I guess the campaigning goes on. I am almost certain that I will name a paedophile teacher tomorrow. Then more, after I exposed it in almost 300 articles, ouzo c/o Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO) which looks to be, effectively, brown bread.  I look at looming share suspensions including Premier African (PREM), Boohoo (BOO) and Revolution Beauty (REVB), the fraud Supply@ME Captal (SYME) and Cellular Goods (CBX), also on deadline day.

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300 days ago

BREAKING: Charles Watmough, a Warwick School alleged paedophile teacher - victim number 5 comes forward

Warwick School’s public admission & apology to we victims HERE, twelve years into my campaigning, that it did have a problem with historic sexual and physical abuse, and my naming of one master, the music teacher Charles Watmough HERE seems to be opening, in a small way, the floodgates. Since Thursday two more victims of Watmough have come forward. I spoke to number 5 this morning…

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302 days ago

BREAKING Naming alleged paedophile teachers at Warwick School, I start with the music teacher as a 4th victim comes forward

This week, after 12 years of campaigning, I finally got to see Warwick School admit, after years of denial, that historic abuse had taken place and it made a full apology to we victims in a letter sent to thousands of current parents and former pupils. Having been cold shouldered by certain former teachers and pupils for my efforts I slept well that night. But, on reflection, this not a time to let up because there is still unfinished business.

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304 days ago

BREAKING: After 12 years of asking Warwick School finally publicly admits to historic abuse and says sorry in letter sent to thousands

The letter below is being sent today to all parents of boys at Warwick School and to all OWs for whom Warwick has details. Twelve long years after I first raised the issue of the physical abuse I, and so many others, suffered at the hands of sadistic bastard Geoffrey, Geoff, Eve, during his two stints at the school, we are getting there with this public mea culpa. Last year Warwick apologised to Eve victims personally, accepting that our allegations were true. Now, for the first time, we get a very public and explicit acceptance from Warwick that it had problems with historic abuse. But we are only part way there.

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417 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast - 1 new Warwick abuse victim comes forward already

This is a good start to the day and my decision to run a slight legal risk HERE yesterday looks to have paid off as I try to force my old school to deal with historic abuse. After that I look at Ben’s Creek (BEN), Conroy Gold & Natural Resources (CGNR), Eurasia Mining (EUA), Argo Blockchain (ARB) and Vast Resources (VAST).

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419 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast - distracted by Warwick School matters

I refer to this. Then I discuss Totally (TLY), Versarien (VRS), Metal Tiger (MTL), Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO), Wandisco (WAND) and Flip Flop’s Kavango (KAV)

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423 days ago

Trying to confront the paedophile masters at my old school Warwick: No 1 the music teacher

Just over a month ago, I headed to Scarborough to confront a former music teacher at Warwick School who is a paedophile. Warwick covered up for him, ignoring complaints, and allowing him to head off to give private piano lessons in his own home after he left. Heaven only knows what went on in his front room in Scarborough. If you are an Old Warwickian (OW) who was at the old place in the last two decades of the last century I beg you to forward this article to any OWs you know for reasons I shall explain.  The music teacher is one of at least 6 paedophile masters at Warwick from my era. There may have been more.

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448 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: The rise and fall of Chesterfield Resources - surely it is now bust?

I start with a few thoughts on Holocaust Memorial Day then a few on Warwick School business which I attended to yesterday. Then it is onto Chesterfield Resources (CHFwhere THIS BEARCAST warning of the joke Pacton deal now looks to be very much on the money. I suggest it is bust. Then it is onto Cellular Goods (CBX) and Versarien (VRS).

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448 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast - Not sure when the next one is

I am on a road trip from tonight on Warwick School business so am not sure when the next podcast is. Maybe tomorrow, maybe Friday or even Saturday. Then there is the news that 45% of ShareStock seats now taken – book yours for September 23 HERE.  Ahead of that I have some very bearish macro ponderings about the state of the UK, then cover Caracal Gold (GCAT), Predator Oil & Gas (PRD), the fraud Supply@ME Capital (SYME), Deepverge (DVRG) and – in depth – Inland Homes (INL)

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451 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: Cellular Goods races towards zero, tough luck David Beckham ( statement on RTO & fund raise needed)

I start with a few words on the weather here in North Wales which brings much joy to my kids and then on Warwick School historic abuse matters. Then it is on to Caracal Gold (GCAT), Corero (CNS), Cellular Goods (CBX), Dev Clever (DEV), Skinbiotherapeutics (SBTX) and THG (THG). 

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467 days ago

Another victim of sadistic abuser Geoffrey Eve at Warwick School comes forward to tell his tale

Geoffrey Eve smashed my head against a wall at Warwick School twice in the late 1970s. Those incidents were so horrific that I have almost blotted out the daily terror he instilled in me for one whole year. After more than ten years of campaigning, Warwick has privately apologised to me for the abuse I suffered as it has run an enquiry into historic sexual and physical abuse. Within two weeks, I plan to name a living teacher who sexually abused boys at Warwick and who Warwick protected.

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474 days ago

So Headmaster: did you really listen to Alex Renton? Lessons for Warwick School

I flagged up my latest piece on historic physical and sexual abuse at Warwick School to the current headmaster yesterday.  He promised that he would listen to the excellent Alex Renton programme on Radio 4 last night. I listened with a glass of brandy in my hand thinking how much this reminded me of Warwick and almost in tears. It was very saddening but illuminating.

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475 days ago

Warwick School, protector of abusive teachers please listen to Alex Renton on Radio 4 tonight

It is not often hat I urge anyone to listen to the BBC. But at 8 PM tonight the excellent Alex Renton has a new programme on historic sexual abuse at the UK’s public schools. I urge the staff, Governors and Headmaster of my old school Warwick to listen to Radio 4 very carefullty. For the issue at hand is how schools covered up and protected abusers and Warwick is guilty of that to an extraordinary degree.

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524 days ago

Tom Winnifrith postcard: Jeremy Hunt's lie - there is NO case for not ending charitable status for public schools

Mr Hunt lied about what would happen if he ended the status which would have brought in material revenues. There is no case whatsoever for not ending such status and in doing so Mr Hunt protects the rich while the poor feel the squeeze. Now, of all times, this anomaly should be ended. The RSPCA is a charity. Woodlarks is a Charity. Eton College or Warwick School should not be allowed to claim charitable status.

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605 days ago

Fecking Warwick School – it happened again

My mind flashes back to that day in 1978, or perhaps it was 1977, when I was climbing out of the old outdoors pool at Warwick school, a place where penguins would have complained about the cold.

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651 days ago

Waking up with a pain in my ankle – thanks again Warwick bloody school: where do we stand on its historic sexual abuse?

45 years ago I was pushed back into that freezing outdoor pool at Warwick School behind the “new gym” as I tried to haul myself out. There was no real malice by the three boys who did it (Petley R, Townsend & Moffatt A) but what happened was part of a culture of bullying which teachers just overlooked. Moffat A was, in particular, a real bully in my years in the junior school. Both his parents taught there and so that was just part of life, part of what made Warwick such an appalling place. On this occassion, my ankle caught between the iron bar that went around the pool and the edge of the pool. As I struggled for breath the ankle became horribly twisted. I could not walk for many weeks. It has never fully recovered.

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681 days ago

Warwick School - more vile testimony of widespread historic sexual abuse

The behind-closed-doors enquiry continues into historic abuse at Warwick School. Victims like me aren’t allowed to see reports into what went on, even when – as in my case – the school has already concluded that I was physically abused by serial sadist, Geoffrey Eve, and apologized in private. Nor has there been any public apology or statement, as we victims ALL want. And, I fear, Warwick remains in denial as to the scale of historic sexual abuse.

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790 days ago

40 years too late Warwick School has today apologised to me for the physical abuse I suffered aged 11 at the hands of Geoffrey Eve

Since 2011, I have been urging Warwick School to do something about historic physical and, latterly, sexual abuse of young boys. Two headmasters of Britain’s third oldest school swept the matter under the carpet but, to his credit, the new headmaster, James Barker, himself an OW, has done something. Barker, myself and governor Ruth Weekes had a long Zoom chat today and Warwick says that it believes my allegations against Eve, apologises for what happened and for its 41 years of failure in doing something about it. That was welcome. But that is not enough for Warwick is sitting on far worse secrets.

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821 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: Amur Minerals, no insider dealing natch

A late and short bearcast. I have been distracted by news coming out about historic incidents at my old school Warwick. It is all very disturbing. In the podcast I look at Cake Box (CBOX), Amur Minerals (AMC), Novacyt (NCYT), Verditek (VDTK) and Red Rock Resources (RRR) where Andrew Bell has somemore explaining to do to we long suffering shareholders.

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1017 days ago

Photo Article from the Greek Hovel: a man diagnosed as Educationally Sub Normal at 4 teaches his 4-year-old about letters

Those who comment on my frequent typos may not be surprised to hear of this early diagnosis, prompted by the fact that my sister T – 15 months younger than me and a girly swot even at that stage – was more advanced in the reading department than her older brother. It was not until I was seven and interviewed by Jack Marshall the head of the Warwick Junior school that this cloud was lifted.

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1073 days ago

Warwick School – Now Headmaster Number 3 seems to go for the child abuse cover up

We are now on the third headmaster at Warwick School since I first raised the issue of historic abuse. At that time, Geoffrey Eve, the man who twice smashed my head against the wall, was 86 but Gus Locke then Deneal Smith kicked the issue into the long grass. Now it seems as if James Barker, the new head and an OW himself, is intent on continuing the cover up culture.

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1074 days ago

Another punishment beating: This is how Warwick School covered up the brutality of sadistic abuser Geoffrey Eve in the “good old days”

It was about four years after Geoffrey Eve twice slammed my head against the wall when this tale, relayed to me yesterday by a fellow Old Warwickian, occurred. The boys were 10 and in their final year of the Junior school waiting for the teacher to arrive and one piped up “where is Evo?”

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1106 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: Atalaya vs Kefi

I start with a few comments on paedophiles as yet another one is brought to my attention from Warwick School. Then it is on to the tawdry world of insanity that is Valereum (VLRM), a true nest of ramping snakes. I then cover Sosandar (SOS), Atalaya (ATYM) and Kefi Gold & Copper (KEFI). Finally, Boohoo.com (BOO) has made a very generous donation to rogue bloggers for Woodlarks and we are almost 1/4 of the way to target. Please make a small donation tonight to get us to that 25% mark, we are just £600 short, HERE.

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1123 days ago

Warwick School – Damning New Evidence of the cover up of abuse: no more excuses HeadMaster

The reason that I have detailed numerous accounts of physical abuse of schoolboys at Warwick School by sadistic history teacher Geoffrey Eve is twofold: Firstly, I hope to make other victims realise that they are not alone. Secondly, it is for Warwick to accept its failure in terms of a duty of care in not only ignoring abuse but in covering it up. Now I have been made aware of the clearest and most shocking evidence of that cover-up culture and it concerns sexual abuse.

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1124 days ago

After Everyone's Invited, will Warwick School's new Headmaster deal with the Geoffrey Eve abuse & other sexual abuse & the cover up, here's the old one washing his hands of it

It appears that after two years in the job, Deneal Smith is no longer headmaster at Warwick School, where 43 years ago sadistic brute Geoffrey Eve, a serial physical abuser of young boys, threw my head against the wall not once but twice. I reprint below Dr Smith’s last email to me, washing his hands of the whole affair. Perhaps new HM, James Barker, himself an OW, might – in light of revelations of Everyone’s Invited – actually deal with this issue.

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1615 days ago

Warwick School and sadistic abuser Geoffrey Eve, a new victim delivers shocking testimony – proof of the third cover up

My extensive coverage of Geoffrey Eve, the teacher who physically assaulted me twice when I was 10 has prompted two more victims to step forward, as the school continues its wilful denial of the scale of the abuse. I was almost in tears reading what happened to this man who, I am afraid I do not remember, but who was two years older than me. This testimony shows that Warwick has now  covered up the Eve scandal three times in forty years.

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1943 days ago

Warwick School – your mea culpa on historic sexual and physical abuse is an outright fail

The Old Warwickian, the glossy quarterly for those of us who attended Warwick School, arrived just now. As ever it is full of pages of smiling rugger buggers and sporty young men of old and of the same fine fellows at OW receptions around the world today. I see a couple of my contemporaries (Alan Dee and Clark Sergeant) at a reunion last year. They are still recognisable but, like me, much older, Do I look that much older? Almost certainly yes. But I suspect I look far less respectable.

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1974 days ago

Photo article from the Greek Hovel -don't my new shelves look amazing?

The brother of the infamous carpenter was as good as his word, coming back on Friday and Saturday of last week to finish the shelving in the master bedroom, the downstairs of the new wing. First up were three deep shelves underneath the stairs leading to the living room. These could have been installed earlier but he arrived with wood of the wrong colour so had to be sent back.

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2001 days ago

Historic sexual and physical abuse at Warwick School, progress at last ... the HM calls

On Friday I recounted harrowing new evidence of historic sexual abuse at my old school Warwick and feared that the new Head Master, Dr Deneal Smith, was set to do the same as his predecessor Gus Locke, that is to say more or less nothing. I judged the man harshly – he called me on Friday before reading my latest article.

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2004 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: Distracted by the growing sex abuse scandal at Warwick School and by the rantings of Brokerman Dan

I have been greatly distracted today. In part by some ludicrous piffle from Brokerman Dan, I explain why he is deluded. More importantly there is the growing sex and physical abuse scandal at my old school Warwick as I explained earlier today HERE. Today I have spoken to a second sexual abuse victim and been contacted by the new Head Master. Maybe something will happen. On the markets I look at First Derivatives (FDP), Angus Energy (ANGS), Purplebrocks (PURP) Totally (TLY) where Stevie Wonder could see that it is placing ahoy and Goldplat (GDP)

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2004 days ago

Warwick School – why continue to stick your head in the sand over historic sexual and physical abuse and the cover ups your organisation facilitated?

The abuse that I suffered at the hands of the sadistic Geoffrey Eve forty years ago was physical. It is now more than six years since I first raised this with Warwick School and the banning of Eve from the campus showed that the school knows it had a problem. But the last Head Master played for time and failed to take concrete steps until he got a better job, and the new HM, Dr Deneal Smith,  has now had almost two months since we met and appears to have done nothing. Meanwhile more victims of abuse continue to make contact with me… another one appeared last night.

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2053 days ago

If schools did irony, Warwick would be top of the league – meeting the HM to discuss historic abuse

The irony referred to has nothing to do with the new Head Master of Warwick, Dr Smith but is at the foot of this article. Following lunch with my father in Shipston, Joshua and I headed back to my alma mater to discuss the sadistic abuser Geoffrey Eve and other matters. 

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2055 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: thoughts on a dog & two placings

Events are moving fast on matters relating to historic abuse at Warwick School and that has distracted me somewhat. But in this podcast I look at Toople (TOOP), have more thoughts on TrakM8 (TRAK) and at CyanConnode (CYAN) where the placing has not happened yet. But it will. And soon.

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2055 days ago

Oakley Funeral date set – The Mrs has a book on the death of Mog for me to read to Joshua

Amid a flurry of calls on various matters including an invitation to meet the new Headmaster at Warwick School tomorrow to discuss Geoffrey Eve and another abuser from the "good old days" - a matter on which I have received shocking new information overnight- I have received a call from the vets. The ashes of the King of Cats, Oakley, are in an urn and ready for collection.

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2056 days ago

Colder Autumn air, my ankle starts to click, I think of Warwick School, the abuse, Mr Eve and the cover up

In the Greek summer heat my ankle causes me no problems. But my return to the colder British autumn nights sees it start to hurt, especially after a long drive, I stretch and it clicks audibly. The pain is minor but nagging.  The final smash up was playing for London Irish (amateurs), it ended my undistinguished rugby career. Twelve years before that I had hurt it badly at Oxford playing basketball. But the initial weakness was caused by that incident in the freezing outdoor pool at Warwick School aged 8 or 9. It was bullying by other boys and the physical scar is still with me. And so I think of my old school, of the master who threw my head against the wall twice, Mr Geoffrey Eve, and of the cover up that continues to this day. I had another nightmare about it all last night.

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2075 days ago

Photo article: the Greek Hovel starts to become an eco palace

And as a bonus, daughter Olaf and the Mrs will be able to get hot water for their showers. Those of us who remember the, post rugby, freezing showers we were forced to take at Warwick School with some old master perving at us all in the pretence that he had to ensure that we went home clean for our parents, do not need hot water. By the time the stuff has arrived up at the hovel in largely metal pipes it is already a lot warmer than those Warwick showers of old.

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2115 days ago

A photo from Warwick School you thought you'd never see - how times change (for the better)

I have written quite a bit about the brutal and borish Warwick School I attended where staff physically abused boys (including me) and got away with it, where sport was king and where diversity was despised. How times change as the photo below of Simon Lycett inspecting a guard of honour provided by the CCF ahead of his speech day talk demonstrates.

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2413 days ago

Back in St Nicholas' park cafe Warwick - thinking of girls and smoking 30 years ago

St Nicholas' park lies next to the river in Warwick. A small and rather run-down cafe in its heart lies about half way between my alma mater Warwick School (then) for Boys and Kings High School for Girls up in the centre of the old town. On Monday I had an hour to kill as my father suffered a routine check up at the Hospital and so I enjoyed a coffee and tapped out an article in a place I last visited more than thirty years ago. It has not changed much although a charming and rather pretty oriental waitress brightened it up a bit.

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2448 days ago

The law sucks - Geoffrey Eve Child Abuser of Warwick School pupils like me looks set to escape so Plan B?

I have written a number of times about Geoffrey Eve, a sadistic bastard who is still alive but who in the 1970s and 1980s physically, not sexually, abused a number of boys at Warwick School. I was one of them. Twice Eve worked himself up into such a furious rage that he threw my head against a wall. Earlier this year I went to the Police.

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2529 days ago

Speaking to the police about abuse at Warwick School 40 years ago - it gets so much worse

After almost six weeks away in London, Sweden and then Greece I had a good stack of mail to wade through. At the bottom of the pile was the Old Warwickian, the glossy mag for we schola warwicensis of days gone by. And to its enormous credit it has finally acknowledged, albeit almost sote voice, the issues of abuse from the "old days."

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2546 days ago

Sitting in Kambos speaking French - looming competition for lovely Eleni & FFS I am NOT a Kraut

There was I sitting in the Kourounis Taverna in Kambos having taken the Mrs and Joshua up to see his inheritance, that is to say the Greek Hovel. The Mrs and I were enjoying a Greek salad prepared by Nicho the Magician, that is to say Eleni's other half and Joshua was enjoying a few bits of bread and smiling at all passers by. A lady came up and introduced herself.

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2587 days ago

Floreat, floreat schola Warwicensis at Twickenham today

Driving through the Warwickshire villages where I spent my teens, as I have gone to and from the hospital, it is hard not to feel some nostalgia for the old place. The same music blares from my car as it did 30 and a bit years ago and at least I am starting to formulate the play list for my 50th birthday early next year.. The Mrs is not going to like it. She is far more George Michael than Jon Bon Jovi.

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2619 days ago

Geoffrey Eve, the child abuser, my abuser, at Warwick School - a 3rd boy comes forward

This is physical abuse not sexual abuse but it is still very serious. I detailed the abuse I suffered here and that prompted a second victim to come forward here. Now a third boy has stepped forward.

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2621 days ago

Warwick School - More Former Pupils speak up about the abuser, my abuser, Geoffrey Eve: Will the school please do something?

Two and a bit weeks ago I relayed on this website details of a meeting that I had with the current Head Master of Warwick School to discuss physical abuse that I suffered at the hands of a teacher Geoffrey Eve 38 years ago. The HM said swift action would be taken as Eve is still alive. I have heard nothing since but now another former pupil has stepped forward to recount his memories of Mr Eve. This scandal will grow and Warwick needs to address it rapidly for it is a scandal not only about abuse but about the way the School covered it all up so ensuring more boys suffered.

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2637 days ago

Tom Winnifrith Bearcast: The Red flags that flutter proudly at Techfinancials

In today's podcast I look forward to tomorrow and a meeting with lawyers to discuss legal action on behalf of shareholders in Cloudtag (CTAG) and the fraud African Potash (AFPO). I look forward even more to a night-time flight to Greece. I look in some details at Rosslyn Data (RDT) and in even more detail at Israeli tech dog Techfinancials (TECH). At a personal level I have been much distracted today by writing up my thoughts after a meeting yesterday to discuss physical abuse at Warwick School 38 years ago - more on that HERE

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2637 days ago

Back in the Headmaster's study at Warwick School to discuss bullying and physical abuse 40 years ago

The Headmaster's study at Warwick School is still in the old Victorian part of the school pictured below. Next door is the chapel which we visited and which has changed little. The names of those boys who lead their men over the top from the front, as second Lieutenants, in both wars stand proudly. It was that rank, the public schoolboy rank, that suffered the most heavily in the first war and that roll call of honour is a long one.

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2637 days ago

Photo Article: What a small world as I revisit Warwick School to discuss abuse 40 years ago

The current abuse scandal of the day concerns young men from Winchester College who were beaten savagely at some Christian camp attended by the current Archbishop of Canterbury wet Justin Welby. As if to make the scandal even more at the heart of the establishment Cathy Newman of Channel 4 Fake News told us that Winchester was Britain's oldest public school. In a sort of post fact era maybe. It was founded in 1382.

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2642 days ago

Time to start the Field? A Childhood Memoir

I know. I know. I have made minimal progress at all with learning Greek or with the novel based out in Greece so why start a third project? Well I shall make progress on both of my major tasks this summer as I take six months away from full time writing to work on a building site, that is to say the Greek Hovel. So before I get Alzheimers...

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2643 days ago

Summonsed to the Warwick School Headmaster's Study once again, after 31 years

It was the last week of my last term at Warwick School and my friend J and I decided we should have a whisky drinking contest. My A levels were finished and I only needed 2 Es to get into Oxford. J was an idle sod anyway and a year younger than me so his A levels were an eternity away. There was nothing else to do other than drink, smoke and chase girls- we were young and were going to live forever.

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2669 days ago

The Old Warwickian arrives - a sleepless night as I have nightmares about that swimming pool

The glossy magazine sent out to those who attended Warwick School arrived yesterday. For no particular reason I thumbed through page after page of the Old Warwickian reflecting on how the place had changed since my day ( 1976-86). I have written before of how I was physically (not sexually) assaulted by one master, Mr Eve and how I believe the school turned a blind eye to his activities against a number of boys over many years. Warwick has, to its credit, apologised and assured me that times have changed. I believe that they have. But I spent a sleepless night thinking of a photo from the current issue of the old outdoor pool which is where we swam when I attended.

There is a photo of a boy sitting in the pool reading a magazine in 1985. You can't make out the boy or the mag but I almost think it might be me. But it is not 1985 that I think of. As I lie in bed at night, especially in the cold, my right ankle stiffens. I twitch it and it clicks, a click that is sometimes loud enough for my wife to hear it. The pain is very minor but always there. 

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2790 days ago

Some schools produce great sportsmen, others great scholars, my alma mater serves up the UK's top flower arranger

The latest gripping issue of The old Warwickian Magazine has arrived on my doorstep and amid the usual grainy old photos of the Warwick School boarding house back in the 1950s or photos of folks my age and older with ever expanding waistlines attending reunions all over the place, two features stand out.

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2843 days ago

It was 40 years ago today, well not quite: back at Warwick School via Myton hospice

The route from Shipston to the hospice in Myton takes you past Warwick School which I attended between eight and eighteen. As I headed back to my father yesterday, having picked up the effects of my step mother and a death certificate, curiosity got the better of me and I swung left into the Car Park of the Junior School which cares for you between 7 and 11. 

The place has changed beyond all recognition. It is far smarter and more developed than in my day when three of the classrooms (those of Miss Jagger, Mr Wilkins and Mrs Birt) were portacabins. Some things remain. There are wickets painted in white on the wall of what was "the New Gym" but is now the Sports Centre which faces on the junior school playground. Or what is now the playground, we used to have two. The second, where the violent game of British Bulldog, now I am sure banned, was played is now a car park.

As I looked at the video display on the wall of another new building, I saw pictures of boys on ski trips and school trips to Russia and India. In my day it was Telford Gorge or the Museums in London or maybe just a short walk up to Warwick Castle. 

The old outdoor pool has gone, replaced by an indoor facility. Political correctness

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3018 days ago

My School Report from 1978, not terribly impressive

It was my second year at Warwick Junior School and somehow, when we were streamed at the end of year one, I had managed to make it into the A stream and so joined Tony Wilkins (Mr Wilkins or AMW) in Upper 2W. My School report from that year has been unearthed by my father and it is not very impressive. In fact, poor would be a more accurate description.

To be fair, I was the only boy who had joined in the Lower 2s, most boys joined in the First form so they had an edge on me in that my State Primary (Byfield) was a dire hotbed of academic under-achievment. I suspect that the death of my mother in 1977 did not help matters and I did not like Mr Wilkins and I think that it was mutual. I had been very find of Mrs Hobday (Lower2s) and was also a great fan of my form master in 3A, Keith Winterbottom, but underperformed in the year between as this report makes clear. Number in class 25. Position in term 22, Position in exam 11. Never again did I suffer such a rotten year.

For each subject the report laid out your term and exam position and a grade for Attainment and for Effort from E = Excellent through G = Good to S = Satisfactory via W = Weak to NS = Not Satisfactory before your subject master added a few words. I am pleased to say that, even in the 1978 year, I racked up no NS or W grades although there is an S- for effort in Nature/Science "Another rather disappointing term's work

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3374 days ago

The First and Second Oxford Interviews

My strange dream of Friday night about a failed third interview at Oxford brings back memories of my first two bites at the cherry – the whole process was surreal and almost of another era. The year was 1985.

It had been decided that I was capable of applying for Oxford and that I should sit the exam in the fourth term of my sixth form at Warwick School for boys, an establishment that these days also takes girls in the sixth form.  The choice of college was not in doubt. My grandfather (Sir John Winnifrith), my father and his brother Charles Winnifrith had all gone to Christchurch as had Richard Hobhouse who married my father’s younger sister Lucy.  My maternal grandfather had studied (very little) at Pembroke and my mother had attended St Anne’s which was just about to start accepting men in the year of my application.

Elder cousins Helen & Corinna Hobhouse had both failed to get into ChristChurch so it was not a family connection shoe in. A rather studious cousin Charlotte Winnifrith was already up and so as I always rather liked Lotte who has a hidden wild streak I went for the family choice.

The day of the exam came and I can still remember utterly screwing up an essay answering the question “Is poverty relative?” Of course it can be viewed in relative terms but it is absolute poverty that we must eradicate and that can only happen through the joys of capitalism which requires inequality of wealth for it to work. Greed, the desire to be richer than the best man is the only way to drive enterprise and so to make all of society better off, including the poor. There. I have answered the question in 45 seconds but in November 1985, sitting in the second desk from the front next to the wall, I made a right pig’s ear of it.

Despite that I was called up to the House for interview.  The Christchurch of the mid-eighties was a frightful place, known as the home of the Sloane ranger. Do you remember Olivia Channon

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3377 days ago

Childhood memories of snow at school – what a bunch of Jessies we are today

I was chatting to a chap in the grim North today. Snow was falling and he said that at 7 AM this morning with less than an inch of global warming on the ground the kids had been texted: School is closed.  We reflected how life had changed.

Even during the winter of 1979, I cannot remember Warwick School for Boys shutting down. When we are at the junior school snow meant that Headmaster Jack Marshall would allow us to wear long trousers rather than our normal shorts. It could have been minus 5 but if there was no snow, it was shorts as normal for the younger boys.

If the rugby pitches were covered in snow we played anyway. Snow is soft. When snow turned to ice it was a freezing cross country run instead. Boy did I hate that.

The point is that the school never closed. And snow meant snowballs which is not quite the harmless game it sounds. The sixth form would amass on the centre of a rugby pitch and the rest of the school would advance from a car park to throw snow balls. And then in snatch parties, as in the army, the brutes would rush out and try to catch an advancing “nipper” who would promptly find himself having snow shoved up

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3556 days ago

Photo Special – My Eco-Loo is ready

I am very proud of myself. Not only have I constructed an eco-loo but I have been uber- environmentally friendly in using 80% recycled materials.  For a man who came 127 out of 127 with 27% in the U4 Warwick School woodwork exam I think I have done well.

The box case is an old trunk. I took off the top with my early Christmas present to myself (an electric screwdriver) and cut a piece of hardboard (not recycled into shape). That was then reattached to the hinges and thus to the chest.

The bucket is kept in place

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3877 days ago

Just how frigging stupid is Facebook?

Please complete your education profile shouts the latest command: “Where is Warwick School, Warwick, England located?” I am asked to enter the City name in a box to make my education profile complete.


Er, um, let me think is it:

a) Tirana, Albania,
b)  Ulan Bator
c)  Downtown Damascus, Syria
or
d) Warwick, England.

Does anyone out there need to go 50/50 or phone a friend on that one?

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4239 days ago

Rethink Profits warning - buy

AIM listed recruitment group Rethink (RTG) has not covered me in glory to date. I tipped the shares at 9.125p in May 2011 and today, after a profits warning, they stand at 7p valuing the company at £6.7 million. Okay there have been a few dividends along the way but this is a valid chance for my cross-dressing critics to have a pop at me. But I have just had a quick drink with CEO Jon Butterfield (Floreat Floreat Schola Warwicensis) and I believe that the market has over-reacted and the shares are dirt cheap – this could be an excellent recovery play among the penny shares.

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4339 days ago

It's raining, it's pouring – it's not global warming

The “ drought” of Spring 2012 is just one of those things that happen. So was the drought of 1976. So were the ultra cold winters of 1947 and 1963. This is nothing whatsoever to do with global climate change let alone global warming. In fact the earth has actually been cooling for the past decade just as our leaders plan to trash our economy with new carbon taxes to tackle global warming. But any evidence of hotter weather is always trotted out by certain parties as evidence of global warming. Hence we turn to the drought of 2012 ( remember that?)

The usual suspects were quick to point out that this was further proof of global warming. Read through this hilariously biased document to see one such claim:http://www.ukrivers.net/climate.html

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