The Castle School

A Memory of Stanhope.

My name is Alan Brogan, though I changed my name many years ago. I was in the Castle School from 1963 to 1969/70. My six years there were an unrimitting trial of severe punishment, all for a bag of sweets and refusing to totally obey orders when in the children's homes. I am having more spinal surgery now as a result of injuries I recieved there from beatings and a walking stick broken across my back by the then headmaster Mr Bowls and from many other beatings from various 'masters' as they were called. I have written a brief extract about my time there, in a book about my 45 year search for the Irene, who is now my wife. Its called 'Not Without You' by Alan & Irene Brogan. It may stir-up a few memories of that place and you may even be one of the boys in it, who knows, as I have lost bits of memory particularly the boys' names. Hopefully someone out there will contact me and perhaps together we might tell the untold story of that place and the devastating effect it had on the lives of so many young boys who went on to become career criminals, often traumatised and as we know some have left us by their own hand, unable to cope in later years with what they were left with after their spirit had been broken. And after all, we were only children!