Ystrad Hall

my memories of ystrad hall are for me not to vivid remember Saturday lunch time if you had behaved could go into town I was lucky as I was there when it first opened I was one of the older boys there so was never abused but was constantly beaten about the body often for very little reason but even then at 14/15 years of age I knew it was wrong being older now I now realise on reflection I remember some staff being over friendly with certain boys a lot of your memories jogged my memory horse shoe pass copper kettle remember going up a big hill other side of the river had a ruin castle sliding down in plastic bags going on a sweet hunt along what was then a disused railway line which has now been reopened

I was at Eirianfa in i think 1976-77, I remember a lot of things that I saw there, there were some good staff, Richard Caldicot was one, Chris Williamson once gobbed me for orchestrating a mass runaway by a number of boys when Caldicott was on duty, we ran up the hill and Caldicott was running after us so we doubled back and all went back into bed and so when Williamson arrived they were all pissed off and he smacked me right on the gob, that was one memory , have so many but because i live in Australia I never got involved with the law cases once the police started looking, because I didn't really see sexual abuse it was more that it felt like something was going on