I’m haunted by abuse at my prep, says Capt Corelli author
NOVELIST Louis de Bernières revealed yesterday the ‘hellish abuse’ he suffered at a prep school in the 1960s.
The author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin recounted the savage beatings he received at the now defunct Grenham House in Kent.
De Bernières, 66, wrote that there was ‘a culture of extreme physical and mental cruelty’ at the school. He said in a letter to The Times that the headmaster Denys Jeston ‘would move the furniture so that he could get a good run up’ when he beat pupils.
‘After punishment we were supposed to say “Thank you, sir.” We would have neat, bloody, parallel wounds across our backsides, in shades of yellow, black, blue and green that took weeks to heal. He could admire his handiwork during compulsory naked bathing in the pool.’