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Please Don't Make Me Go (2008)

by John Fenton(Favorite Author)

4.15 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0007263783 (ISBN13: 9780007263783)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Harper Element

review 1: I was frankly disappointed in this book. At times it came across as a rather violent boy scout camp. The mention of drives out to take part in sporting contests, ballroom dancing lessons, police being called in didn't ring true! Although it might have been for those times. It wasn’t at later datesThese kind of places usually get better as the years go by and as society allows less punishment...this approve school seems to have been the exception. I know this because I was in it 1969 - 71. Caning was indeed rare being considered too normal a punishment, but a casual beating, regardless of the author’s assurances, continued and was an everyday occurrence!Boys who were beaten so severely, either by staff or other boys, they needed treatment, were not taken to hospital or ... morereferred to the police but hid in a room called 10 bed until they mended. Again I know this as fact being one of those boys. So many inconsistencies within this book and the 'gentling' down of the violence really angered me to the point I feel I need to be the voice of the boys who suffered after the author claims to have changed the violence of the brothers. He didn’t!There are boys out here who never got closure to the pain they experienced in this place. This being the case I will endeavor to give us boys who still carry the physical and mental scars a chance to tell how it was just before it turned into a community home. Ill write a book that actually tells the full story of St Vincent’s and its Staff both brothers and masters. Of how the authorities left the boys to the mercy of these degenerates. Governors meetings, police called in! Not in my day. We saw no one say those who abused us. One of the things I did get from the book is how Brother Ambrose got his name (Nutty) If that is indeed the case. The man indeed did have mental health problems and yet he was a brother superior at this school!The brothers mentioned I didn't know save for Bro De Montford... he was headmaster at this den of iniquity more than once, leaving to return to his place of crime. I carry a burn scar on my foot courtesy of this Christian brother, and he was not the worse there. The staff were just as given to wanton violence and molestation. To sum up the book, the author seems to have been at the school when it was more liberal and the brothers more humane, they turned out violent and damaged boys…as for the many mention of Jesus..I am still rated a Catholic but I’d would spit in the face of Jesus for the deeds we suffered at the hands of his ‘soldiers’
review 2: As I was reading this book, I kept muttering "bastard". There were many rotten people in young John Fenton's life.This is the true story of the author growing up in the suburbs of London in the late 1950's. His father was always beating up his mother and he was bullied at school. Finally, at the age of 13, he took a knife and threatened his father with it during one of his mother's beatings. The father had the courts through him in a juvenile home for a couple of weeks. He liked it; he was not bullied and he didn't fear his father. At the end of the 2 weeks, he told the court he liked the juvenile home. For being out of control, he was sentenced to 3 years in an approved school which is another juvenile home. This new home, St Vincent's, was run by monks who believed in caning. Young John learned that to not be bullied, he had to fight back which meant he would be caned if caught. This happened several times. He was also sexually assault by an older boy.Even the good guys in the story such as Father Delaney and Tom Banks who disapproved of the caning and helped John whenever possible never stopped the violence.Through all the turmoil, he learned to look after himself, stayed loyal to his Mum, and kept his faith in the Roman Catholic faith.I cried throughout the book. Poor John. I believe in violence begets violence. I hope John learned how to break that cycle. less

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