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.
It has been eleven years since I started campaigning to expose first the physical, then the sexual abuse that was widespread at Warwick and which, until this year, it pretended never happened. Last year it wrote to those of us who had complained about Eve and apologised to us. It also wrote to Eve to tell him what had emerged and to confirm his life ban from the school. Until I kicked up a fuss he was a regular attender of school concerts and OW’s reunions as he only lived down the road.
I froze when I met him at the only OW Reunion I have ever attended or will ever attend. I just could not believe that the old bastard was there smiling at me.
This year, Warwick publicly admitted to its past problems. But it never named Eve. Now he is dead I hope that can change and that public admission of not only what Eve did but of how Warwick covered it all up and failed victims like myself both at the time and for years afterwards, will mean that more victims of sadists like him or of paedophile teachers such as Charles Watmough now living in Scarborough and seemingly beyond the law, will come forward.
The Police now know of five victims of Watmough. But, knowing that there are almost certainly many more, will they do anything about it or will they, or indeed Warwick School, wait for another older man to die before anybody says anything?
I am glad that in his final year Eve was aware of how Warwick School was ashamed by what had gone on and what he had done and I can but hope that this shame was part of an unpleasant death. However, I am sorry that he died without Warwick naming him publicly so that he was aware that his friends, neighbours and family knew how he had scarred so many lives.
The old bastard is dead. Even in hell nobody will want to associate with him. On hearing the news I went to strim nettles in my orchard. As I slashed wildly I thought of Eve. I am still furious with Warwick for what it allowed to happen to myself and others. Eve abused little boys before I arrived at Warwick. The school gave him compassionate leave on full pay and after a couple of years he came back to teach again and I was one of the first victims of his second spell. He did not waste time easing himself back into child abuse he was at it straight away. He was a total monster.
The other teachers knew. Everyone knew and nothing happened. The school lost his personnel file so it could not explain why after five years of abusing in his second spell he was given early retirement on a full pension after he caused a boy to lose his hearing after one beating, one whack around the head, too many.
I will never get over what Eve did to me. I still think about the sheer hopelessness of having nobody to tell. I stil have nightmares about Warwick. What a truly appalling place it was. You tried to pretend otherwise as you could not admit to some of the horrors. There are other old boys out there who suffered far worse at the hands of other teachers like Watmough. I hope that the next issue of the Old Warwickian covers Eve in all his horror and asks other victims of all that was so wrong about Warwick in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and even the 1990s to come forward. Now is the time for Warwick to use Eve’s death as a reason to come clean.