Whatever the reason, I suppose the initial reaction of those who attended was in general similar to my own and consisted mainly of the shock of seeing people after twenty years and surprise perhaps that this all that anyone has seen fit to organise/arrange? Which isn't to belittle what someone has done on their own initiative in this case Karen Parker and Stephanie Cuthbertson: but rather to say that most people felt that such a landmark might have deserved more acknowledgement.
Insofar as the role of schools/education in modern society has continued to grow in significance (or has it) I suppose it is surprising that more people have not retained enough enthusiasm to want to publicise such an event more widely and so on. I suppose the truth really must be that certainly for me even though I haven't married or reproduced, the fact of seeing people again after all this time really brings a few things home and the relevance of having attended a state school, the the question of national identity, civic and personal loyalties and so on, and this has been tinged with the increasing sadness that an inevitably greater percipience of mortality brings: it's all a very heady mixture and I must promise myself to have a proper snivel about it sometime if not a reasonably full blooded weep. There have been so many painfully slowly learned lessons, so many long lonely nights, so much anguish and heartache after all. There's a lot in the site about what I don't like, I'm sorry that their is such a negative portrayal of events but I didn't start at Copleston until the 2nd year and so had no friends as such. Having absolutely no doubt that I wished I had never seen the place, that the state on the whole can keep it's Education and that if I ever have to send a child to such an Institution I shall certainly make sure that it understands that it will seriously have to learn to fight before it can take advantage of any of the material facilities it is also quite true that of individuals who have assisted me over the last few years I do find ex Coplestonians a bit more helpful with borrowing tools and petty cash and that sort of thing in the entrepreneurial environment in which I have found myself.
If anyone has any ideas or anything worth mentioning I can put text and photos on this page, or even make up a special site for such gossip which wouldn't require a great deal of effort. There have been odd suicides (bit about Conrad Payne's in my CV Life History) and misfortunes and I daresay the odd character has made a fortune or two.
I was sorry to see in the local rag that Jean Tricker had succumbed to Cancer, I do remember her quite well as a stoic and conscientious teacher, of which there are too few and I did actually get my RE 'O' level out of her Husband Roy, whom is one of perhps half a dozen including ex staff that I have spoken to since we left and as far as I'm aware the fact of Stephen Rhind from 5MDA having said that he had spoken to virtually no-one is a fairly typical story.

I obviously want to go on in particular about the unrelenting campaign of hatred with which Wolfgang Powell (Heinkel) poisoned my experience of Secondary Education ; if anyone is willing to add any testimonies of this (I'm thinking of Class 5MDA) which witnessed one or two of his more unpleasant avowals of what he would do with his authority for my own, hem medium term legal purposes ???.
I was sorry to hear that David Healey has been badly burned in some sort of accident according to Stephen Rhind ; he may be a bit of an establishment lackey but he had a certain amount of genuine concern for others that many such, yes men? have failed to evidence.
It was wonderful to see you all and here's wishing everyone all the best for the future.Here's an exerpt from my CV life History
I'll never forget, and it is topical, insofar as there is a great deal of talk in the media about violence in schools (Remember Diana Spencer) and what we can reasonably expect from our teachers ; that one morning back in late '78 or early '79 the Head of my school year paid our form class at Copleston School a visit and made a particular point of telling me in front of thirty odd pupils and a class teacher that, "I hate you Whiting, it is my sincere hope that you will end up on the scrap heap." Aside from the fact that Secondary schools in the UK are very violent places and that I had probably been kicked and beaten with the usual malice in making the effort just to get there : I was being asked to tolerate such behaviour as normal in the staff. You understand that this wasn't being said jestingly but with genuine outrage, hostility and malice and it would be no exaggeration to say, after the fact of my having had to make an elaborate plan to travel three miles across town every day, very often to run a painful gauntlet of undisciplined thugs lying in wait, and that after arguably on occasion having been little less than raped by my 'Guardians' the previous evening. I can recall having gone with the School on a Geography field trip for a week whilst in the last two years with 'O' level students to Wales and having been quite severely beaten the previous evening and having some noticeable bruising to show which took some time to vanish. In respect of labelling Mrs Cormack, Noy, Nightingale ( not to be confused with any of her three sisters) or whatever she calls herself nowadays a paedophile, the fact that I was bruised and did have her fingerprints all over my private parts certainly ought to be considered more of an offence than perhaps that for example which appertains to one of perhaps two friends of mine from Copleston with whom I have consistently maintained any contact having been officially arraigned, for taking some allegedly saucy photos of girls he knew whilst half drunk in the local park some few years ago. I haven't asked either the Geography Teacher Mr Moon who seemed to have noticed these facts or the capable Lady Biology teacher we had as to what their opinions might be on this score: I think most of them were aware that my Father was a peevish drunk but what not many might be likely to know is the extent to which I was consistently sexually harassed by Mrs Whiting as she was at the time. So much so in fact that I almost told Miss Lennon the Biology teacher as she then was that I was being forced to enter into sexual liaisons with her and that if I really wasn't going to have any rights to protection against this in principle that I would prefer to ask her to give me a proper bath, which I obviously needed if I was to derive the slightest benefit from the School as I was basically obviously too miserable and depressed. What this actually adds up to is the comment that I was being told to engage in prostitution at the age of fourteen in order to acquire the material resources to take advantage of any Education.
That Head of year has now become the Deputy Head of that school Wolfgang Powell and whilst it is obviolusly true and I know I can obtain a near unanimous agreement on this score from ex Coplestonians that he deliberately overlooked what were regular and savage beatings from other pupils I cannot help but wonder to what extent he specifically organised this or blocked my attempts to get myself taken into care until it was too late and Mr and Mrs Whiting were splitting up. I don't personally know how the story came into circulation that he was the son of a Nazi Rocket scientist by the name of Heinkel who was brought here near the end of the war but it is one which is generally reckoned to be true hereabouts and doesn't surprise me in the least. He had assaulted me within 30 minutes of my starting at that school in a fit of temper, about his being unable to stop 250 twelve year olds from slinging their hymn books around en masse during Assembly: at the time I was a natural target because my Father hadn't itemised sufficient funds for such things as a school uniform and I had an odd coloured jacket. Such incidents were to characterise my nightmarish days at Copleston High, a chapter in my life that I simply could not close quickly enough for a whole variety of reasons besides the immediately obvious. The basic legal mistake being made was that I was violently forced to permit access to a good deal more than my mind and memory which she could only legally claim from FJK Whiting who as I have been at pains to emphasise has always struck me as a severely disturbed individual. I did not find her attractive, she was overweight had quite serious skin trouble. a suspiciously yellow complection and a disconcerting habit of exhaling bubbles of spittle whilst talking: this woman would simply not take no for an answer to continual nagging for intimacy. It is possible to argue convincingly that their two year marriage was a padophilic scheme from its inception as he put it to her, when initially eyeing up her fortunes that he had a fourteen year old boy she would like to live with, whilst it is perfectly legal to insist on some things from stepchildren who utterly loathe their stepparents it is not a legal act to go seeking to mistake it for the the spouse. Since I have arguably been unable to conduct relationships as a result of this adolescent 'abuse' and cannot bear being photographed. The whole idea that I should have moved in with the Cormacks was ludicrous and offensive, I had nothing but Irish Aunties all of whom were considerably more respectable, than the sum of her various pregnancies and social security claims. All things considered it can only be considered that I should have been given into my Mother's care from the word go as I could have had a perfectly acceptable and respectable Catholic Education at St Albans.
Exerpt Ends
The friend I have mentioned in was someone whom I remembered well from Copleston as he was one of the few who did not follow Wolf's violent incitements to make my life a misery he was quite well known for raucous misbehaviour and was nearly murdered by Negros who poured petrol over him and lit a match back in about '78. I only make some further mention of this case because of a few related facts and my desire to expose the double standards, injustice and nepotism that taxpayers are being asked to fund. The paedophilic schemings of my Father and his 3rd Wife and his sister, who has consistently lied to me about his record and the assualts carried out on me by the former two in many ways constitute to the best of my knowledge a significantly greater offence than that which this person was prosecuted for recently, which merely consisted of the fact that he had one too many and took some quite saucy photos of some girls near the paddling pool in the local park: this could have easily been overlooked especially in view of the fact that he's a keen photographer and a single parent himself. An additional fact is that he fell from grace so to speak, having been unwittingly exposed to pink ultraliberal propaganda via the fact that I had neglected to remember the fact of the existence of my Father and the fact that he and his, were surreptitiously circulating the kind of sentiment that said it was OK to scheme at paedophilic sex. This happened sometime after I was personally considering warning him that he didn't want to start getting interested in any especially lurid Pornography to help cope with life as a single parent. The story is unusually distressing in that his Father passed on soon after and had just missed a vital insurance payment. One cannot help but wonder how his family might have fared if they had not been exposed to the vile trash that originates from my own Father's mind and ended up embroiled in this sort of scandal.
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Continuing in a similar vein, does anyone know anything about Mr Mullet having been sacked for calling the West Indians black or something such. This surprises me as he always struck me as a talented, capable and conscientious teacher who perhaps only got irritated at persons of low ability whos pupilage he found onerous. My only thought on having heard this particular rumour was that it was a red herring to those who rightly suspect that fascism is a brooding malignant and unfortunately influential philosphy and that Wolfgang Heinkel (nee Powell) was the real source of any such sentiment.
Does anyone attending Copleston presently know anything of a Mrs Booth of Constable Road? I only mention this as her bald boyfriend Andy who works in Car advertising (snigger) ripped me off for several hundred pounds on a Job of decorating his Conservatory some years ago: any assistance anyone might care to vouchsafe in making their lives unpleasant will be gratefully appreciated.
('scuse me while I polish my Halo) :) Kevin