John Brownlee, former Deputy Head of the Edinburgh Academy Junior school, has been found guilty of violent behaviour towards boys over a 20 year period both at the boarding house where he was housemaster and in his classroom.
His wife and sons have said that they believe the accusations are exaggerated or untrue. Considering this verdict it feels like all they have done is add insult to injury. It is possible, and perhaps quite likely, that when Brownlee was working at the school he was a Jekyll and Hyde character. Like many abusers he could probably turn on the charm when he was in the company of other teachers, parents and his own family.
This is in stark contrast to the interview Hamish Dawson’s daughter gave to Nicky Campbell where she revealed the neglect and abuse she and her sister suffered at the hands of their father, though much of the time he simply wasn’t there – he was an absent father who wanted to spend as much time as he could with the boys in the boarding house or, during the holidays, on school trips away from home.
The Brownlee family's lawyer asked those giving evidence why they did not speak to their parents about what was happening to them. One said he did speak to the headteacher’s wife which resulted in him suffering less abuse so at least in that case speaking to an adult did have a positive effect. But for many kids – and remember, we’re talking 8 to 11-year-olds – it was difficult to understand why you were being treated like this by a teacher. Was it because we were naughty and deserved to be punished? Perhaps so on occasion, but the punishments doled out by Brownlee were totally out of proportion and were far, far worse than any other teacher would ever have given out. Apart from, that is, the likes of Dawson and Iain Wares but Dawson didn’t teach at the junior school.
And again, I come back to how old, or rather how young, we were. This wasn’t teenagers being punished for smoking or fighting or whatever. We were young children which makes Brownlee’s actions all the worse because of the pleasure he seemed to take from hitting and scaring the boys in his care or in his classroom.
Since Nicky Campbell went public with this there have been many others of our generation who have come forward and given their accounts of the abuse they suffered at schools throughout the UK, including high profile people such as Earl Spencer. So many lives have been damaged by these predatory, violent and perverted individuals who seemed to be free to abuse as many children as they wanted to with the authorities either being kept in the dark or turning a blind eye to what was going on.
At least for those of us who were at the Edinburgh Academy it feels like justice has finally been done, as far as Brownlee is concerned. While the lack of a punishment for him is understandable, considering his health issues, it is hugely ironic as he punished so many of us at that school, often for no good reason.
I can still picture my 9- or 10-year-old self sitting in his classroom watching one of my classmates being manhandled and assaulted by John Brownlee. I fear those images will stay with me, and I’m sure many others, for the rest of our lives. But maybe now we can put those Brownlee-related demons to bed and this dark chapter may now be over.
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I may have repeated some of what I wrote in an earlier blog posting but writing all this down is therapeutic for me and helps me process it all. I have been in and out of therapy over the past 22 years and my current therapist has been very helpful in not just being someone sympathetic to talk to, but someone who has given me strategies to cope with the anxiety which has plagued me for much of my adult life.
On a couple of occasions (thankfully not recently) things got bad enough for me to phone the Samaritans. They really do provide a life-saving service. https://www.samaritans.org/
