What have the Salesians Ever Done for Me ?
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DH: Everything I Am Now, I owe to the Salesians…
Many, many years ago, I was an emotionally disturbed and a rather disadvantaged juvenile delinquent in quite a toxic home environment and in the care of the local council with my maternal Grandmother as my Legal Guardian… In my early teens, I was “out-of-control” and Bournemouth Council sent me to a boarding school for “naughty boys” run by the Salesians of Don Bosco 1,2 at Blaisdon Hall, near Longhope in Gloucestershire
“Don Bosco was an Italian Catholic priest, educator, writer and saint of the 19th century. While working in Turin, where the population suffered many of the ill-effects of industrialisation and urbanisation, he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth…“ Wikipedia
So the Salesian School @ Blaisdon Hall ran on the classic “Don Bosco Business Model” (as above) with various local authorities paying all the fees 3
I was a very damaged and broken teenager, but in spite of that, the Salesians recognised “something in me” and granted me “privileges” within the strict discipline regime they ran… 4 I was given my own key to the “Science Lab” and could be there “out-of-school-hours” (and unsupervised) when the other boys were required to only be in specified places and under supervision… 5
I thrived in this environment being away from my toxic home situation during term-time 6 and after a couple of years, the Salesians decided to “transfer” me (for the start of the 4th Form) to their Grammar weekly/boarding/day school in Cowley, on the outskirts of Oxford 7
Once again the Salesians showed me great kindness and gave me some extra priviledges and I had my own key to the basement under one of the dormatories 8 where I did my electronics stuff… One time I built a low-power “single-valve” radio transmitter and ran a pirate radio station… 9
One of my fellow boarders was David Tang 10
More to follow…
“The Salesian Preventive System is the educational method of the Salesians, built upon the pedagogical 11 experience of Saint John Bosco with poor children in 19th century Turin … It is based on the three pillars of reason, religion, and loving kindness” ↩
“The Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB), formally known as the Society of Saint Francis de Sales (Latin: Societas Sancti Francisci Salesii), is a religious congregation of men in the Catholic Church, founded in 1869 by Italian priest Saint John Bosco to help poor and migrant youngsters during the Industrial Revolution in Turin” ↩
And this business model was lucrative for the Salesians and why not? (see below) ↩
The boys (including myself) were all damaged and broken and their behaviour was “challenging”… ↩
I realise now that the Salesians were “putting their money where their mouth was” and the kindness and trust they showed me was a practical manifestation of St. John Bosco’s basic principles… ↩
But I had to return to my toxic home environment during the school holidays, so it was very much “two steps forwards; one step backward” ↩
“Salesian College, Cowley, Oxford” whose business model seemed to be based upon catering for the sons of UK military-service parents who qualified for the “Continuity of Education Allowance (Board) (CEA (Board))” payments… “The aim of the Continuity of Education Allowance (Board) (CEA (Board)) is to assist Service personnel to achieve continuity of education for their children that would otherwise be denied in the maintained day school sector, due to the mobility of their family as a consequence of consecutive assignments” Source: serviceschools.co.uk ↩
… where my past “Science-Lab mentor” from Blaisdon, Fr Renshaw, did his Marquetry hobby… ↩
The boarders were banned from using transistor radios after “lights-out”. At that time (late 1960’s) “medium wave” was still predominant; BBC Radio 1 had only just launched and Radio Luxembourg on 208m was still “cult listening”… So as a test to establish its range, I parked my new transmitter 1kz away from the 208m frequency (to produce a loud 1khz whistle on 208m) and left it on overnight… That did not make me a popular person (as it blocked 208m in a distant dorm, too), so I only did that one night… Subsequently, I managed to “FM modulate” it and ran a casual pirate radio station called “Radio Sally” on around 99MHz (The name was suggested by one of the Salesian Brothers)… Highly illegal, and so therefore exciting, but those were the days !! ↩
David Tang’s Wikipedia page says: “Tang was sent to board at The Perse School, Cambridge: he later claimed that he was then ‘aged 13, hardly able to speak a word of English’“ - This is incorrect. From that age he was at Salesian College, Cowley and he was there with me (and others) in the 4th and 5th forms (having already been there a couple of years)… At the end of the 5th Form, Salesian College stopped being a “grammer boarding school” and became a comprehensive day-school. He was not there in the 6th form. I know because I was !! His Wiki page goes on to say: “After leaving Perse in 1973…“ so he would have gone on to “The Perse School, Cambridge”, for the 6th form onwards… ↩
“relating to teaching” ↩