Abuse

Sue Bush: Being Smacked


Sue Bush was born in 1948 in London. At the age of three she was sent to Chailey Heritage, a residential special school in Sussex, where she stayed until she was sixteen, then going onto college in London.

Here Sue describes punishment she received at her school.

https://howwasschool.allfie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/being-smacked.mp3

Transcript

I was three or four and we were in cots and I needed to go to the loo. And I kept shouting and shouting for a nurse to come and help me with this task and nobody came and in the end nature took its course and I had to wet the bed, and the fuss and the punishing and the smacking that went on because of that, and it was at that age that I realised that adults were not actually what they were cracked up to be.

I developed this terror for spiders for some reason and we used to sleep outside, which I didn't like much 'cos I was frightened of flying insects, I was frightened they'd nest in my hair 'cos some of the staff told me this was a possibility, it just shows you how stupid adults can be sometimes. And I remember there must have been a big creature, a beetle or a spider or whatever in my cot with me and because I can't use my arms I imagine it makes me feel even more vulnerable, and I was punished and denied tea or whatever it was and smacked for that as well because I'd screamed and kept crying with the sheer terror.

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