| Subject: Re: So.... who went to Borstal and are now workers or business men? |
Author:
Ian Catling
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Date Posted: 00:21:25 06/26/07 Tue
In reply to:
Kev_kar
's message, "Re: So.... who went to Borstal and are now workers or business men?" on 08:02:22 09/08/06 Fri
Well it took me a few false-starts, but I think I finally gave all that up when I was in my mid-20s.
I did a turn at Whatton DC (6 weeks, 3 days of a 3 month sentence) then 9 months of a 6-2 at Lowdham Grange. They changed the regime from Borstal to Youth Custody Centre (complete bollocks ... it just meant the screws went from civilian-clothing to uniforms and the sentences were changed to 12 months, with release-elligibility at 8 months and later they introduced parole for people with sentences of 12 months). I then went back a couple of years later to Lowdham for 9 more months, did some remand-time almost instantly after release, did some more time as an adult the following year (5½ months out of 6), then did some more remand-time. Grand-total of around 30 months.
After about 25, I finally straightened myself out a bit and by 31 when my record was finally clean, I got the hell out of the country.
I'm self-employed as a vendor at festivals and work an average of around 100 hours a week during show-season, 80-odd of it on my feet. I'm 42, divorced, live in Northern California, and have too much going on to have time to think about crime.
I don't think Borstal or prison deterred me in any way ... it taught me to sew mailbags and shovel shit, and while I met some absolute scumbags in there, I also met some pretty nice guys in there who were mainly there cos they were unlucky or did something stupid. Most of them weren't hard-core bad-lads.
I was one of the youngest in the place when I went there at 17, and now it's 25 years on since I was one of the last Borstal Boys, I still think about the guys I was on Stansfeld House with in Lowdham grange (The FIRST purpose-built outdoor Borstal in the UK - Built by Borstal Boys.)
They tried to teach us a trade or something to help us be useful members of society when they kicked us out with our Discharge Grant and a suitcase full of clothes that even Stevie Wonder wouldn't be seen dead in, and they tried to instil a sense of pride in us with sports and other competitions.
Mainly I remember being scared a lot and looking forward to getting my next letter.
I made it a point every time I was inside not to watch tv (cos it was too depressing) but I read A LOT (usually one book a day, and it's a habit I've still got - along with squaring-off my tee-shirts when I fold and put the bloody things away!! hahaha)
Anyway, I've probably rambled-on more than I should have, but guys, please .... don't romanticise those days as if it were some fun vacation or summer-camp ... it was organized savagery in the disguise of discipline, peppered with slave-labour and shitty food.
On top of that, it created resentment and basically became a finishing-school for juvenile-delinquents.
Most of us went in there knowing how to commit only one or two crimes, but we came out almost fluent in burglary, TDA, fraud, or deception.
Personally, I gradusted from petty-theft all the way up to bouncing cheques and using bent credit-cards, then committing fraud across half of Europe before I called it quits and went straight.
I was lucky (or smart) enough to clean my act up before I became institutionalized ... not all my pals from those days got that chance.
I didn't get religion or anything like that, although I DID stop drinking about 20 years or so ago.
Oh yeah, one last thing ... I ate my last breakfast ... every bit of it, porridge and all.
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