St Mary’s Graves End

A Memory of Gravesend.

My name is Gary Canham, my brother Richard and I were placed into care at St Mary’s School in Graves End on the 24/04/1961, aged 3 and 2, we remained there till being returned to our mother and stepfather on 22/06/1963.
I have horrid memories of this time in care with beatings and mental abuse from the Nuns and Priests, I was separated from my brother due to age differences but as a 3 year old I did not understand why and constantly attempted to find my brother only to be stopped by the Nuns and beaten and return to my area. I remember one time I found my brother only to be the other side of a fence which was not very high and I climbed over it to get to him and in doing so I got tangled up with some sharp wiring on the fence and cut my self I remember being dragged back to where I was supposed to be, received a belting from the Nun, there were some friendly Nuns but most were cruel and quick with a slight of hand a belt across the head and being led up hallways by the tuff of my side leavers, walking on tippy toes to alleviate the pain endured by the Nuns.
This occurred on a daily basis, I wet the bed most nights and was made to sleep in a soiled bed and I remember trying to lie on the edge of the bed to stay out of the wet sheets and on a cold winters night it wasn’t fun.
The Nuns would hide a stick up their sleeve and would whip it out and strike you and whip it back up their sleeve as if nothing had happened and if you so much as gave them an even scared look of shock, that you soon learnt not to do as you would suffer another hit or your side leavers would be lifted and you would be on your toes again.
The priests we dealt with less but I remember being spoken to on numerous occasions and being berated for being naughty and bed wetting and being examined by the priest I can only think he thought there was something wrong with my Penis as he spent a lot of time examining it whilst repeating how I was committing a sin by bed wetting.
On leaving the so called care of St Mary’s to return to our mother and who we thought was our father, from the moment to came into the home they had secured the beatings commenced by him, I continued to wet the bed only to have my face rubbed into it and be called a dirty dog which only made it worse, my brother and I endured these beatings until we emigrated to Australia and we thought things would change, this we soon learned to be not true and the beatings and mental abuse continued until we were teenagers and we left home, it was in our later years that we learnt that this man was our step father and had not legally adopted us, we changed our name back to our birth name, we recently was given access to your complete records and correspondence between our mother and St Mary’s see there was no records of bed wetting and my absconding to find my brother but there was 67 pages which made some interesting reading, I am now 67 and my brother will be turning 66 this July 2025, I have continuous nightmares of my stay in care I am grateful of the help I was given in getting my records and if anyone would like the contact details to get their own records I will happily give this to you, I have already answered a request re same and I hope he and his brother get this valuable information that belongs to them, it’s their story and it’s yours too.
Gary Canham
Sydney, Australia.

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