About this time too influences were shaping me that were a better substitution for the parents that were not around, and the Brothers that were. It was the movies! There was everything in them to shape, question, and impress a young mind that had no guidance. They gave me my heroes, who were in short supply around here, and bad guys, who were not. This world was opened up to me in one of the ramshackle Victorian buildings of the school, This so-called movie house was nothing more than a rat-infested, air less, cold and damp structure.

The seating arrangements were rows of single wooden chairs lined on large concrete steps, at its rear stood the special luxury seats reserved for the Brothers. The place felt creepy and oppressive and I was sure if someone died in it, they would never be found, but when the movie started! I was instantly transported to a different world, one where art imitated life and began a journey in me of " knowing myself." One early film that influenced me and is still one of my favorites was ; 'The Magnificent Seven.' The character Vin, played by Steve McQueen, was talking to Yul Bryner's character, Chris Adams about the wisdom of change. Those simple words that he spoke, "If you do not bend, you will break," recharged the batteries in my head and helped move my attitude in my struggle with this prison. I was inspired by the way the characters stood for a principle, an ideal, despite the fact that they were paid mercenaries. When the gang's leader asked the poor Mexican farmers what they could pay him to help fight their enemies, they offered him pennies, some beads, and food that was scarce and said, "you can have everything." The gang leader replied, " I have been offered a lot for my work but never everything." Great lines, great characters, and principles that I could identify with. There would be many other films I would see in this place and over time I became a right little movie buff. In the real world outside this building my circle of friends was ever widening too while being bonded together by extraordinary circumstances that would surpass any movie I had seen yet.

In that little inner circle of mates that never changed too much, there was Johnny Doran, Gerry Hunt, and Sammy. Others would come and go, but they were more of a constant in my life. Like all lads in this place, their backgrounds were ones of misery. Johnny had a mother who never wanted to know him and a father unknown. He had been in the reformatory school since he was a baby.

Sammy was born to a mother who was in a hospital since he was an infant, and a father so old he was already returning to his second childhood. The reform schools were the only homes that they or he could remember.

Gerry was one of three brothers who were inmates here too with a sister left in another institution. Their mother died young in childbirth and they were left to the care of a father full of ignorance and little courage. A small-time farmer who gave all of his children up to the state as if he was going to the farmer's markets to get rid of unwanted stock that had exceeded the cost of keeping. These forgotten three would share the same class as me for the next couple of years and a big part of my life.

On the margins in my circle of friends were the Coyles. Three brothers who were left here from the outset of their birth. Their story is almost surreal and its telling hard to do. At least back then times were happier for them, even in this place. Their future would hold only unimaginable tragedy and the darkest of horrors, and all because they were believed to be a kind of subspecies.

Their parents had an unknown amount of children. What is known is that they gave up all of them to reformatory schools all over Ireland and they were numbered to be at least fifteen of them. Most were not aware of each others' existence. Their Mom and Dad had been encouraged to copulate and multiply in the best tradition of their faith. Blindly they did so even with more than a hint that something was gravely wrong. Huntington's disease contorted and wasted their mother's body. Their Dad kept passing what was now a poisoned chalice between them on to a body that was all but dead. As more babies followed, no one wrote anything down. The nightmare was not at its beginning and it could have no end as long as the heart beats in them for this is a hereditary disease. A killer with a name but without identity for there no known cure.

For Tommy, Dennis, and Tony Coyle, no one would tell them or their siblings, or the many children they would have between them, that a killer tracked and coursed through their ancestry. Only their parents knew. No history was traced, and no doctor came to visit except one in the eight years I was in this place. He did not stay long and never came back. By the time the disease was identified by name to them when they were in their thirties, it had already taken out many of the Coyles including Dennis. At this writing Tony is in the final death throes of its unrelenting grip. At least back in the day this tragedy was two decades or more away from them. It could not have been understood anyway by children who were not even sure they even had a future, and not many others thought they had one either.

The rumour mill was right when a new prison manager came to replace the old one.

His name was Brother Hourigan, and he brought with him two seemingly harmless old men, and anybody over twenty five was pretty old to us. They were Brother O'Connell and Brother O'Brien. One should have been in an old folks' home, while the other was older still, and was a veritable living fossil.

O'Connell, the younger one, was partly deaf and wore an ear piece, and the rest of him was thin, haggard looking, extremely cranky, and prone to somehow comical fits of temper. I never saw him smile or ever heard him giggle. He was bitterness wrapped up in old skin and better left alone. His mate, the fossil, was no bag of laughs either.

O'Brien rarely left his bedroom that had become his temporary and living coffin.

His sickly face was shapeless, like unmolded sculptor's clay held together by skin that was mottled and of very dried texture. He always wore a wig that draped his skull in a hopeless and vain attempt to look younger and reeked of death and decay that permeated every corner of his room. This was a feisty old crust though who would defy the grim reaper for years to come. His room was designed for his ailments. There was a special chair beside his bed that doubled as a toilet, while another bowl was set into the bed in case of a sudden avalanche.

Different boys were wheeled in over the years to cater to the whims and toiletries of this fossil, and in time I would become one of these boys. His nickname was Wiggy due to that strange hairy rug on his head that would outlive even him. I never did stop to think what these two old men had been when they were Hourigan's age or much younger.

Hourigan himself was a big man in his mid-fifties, heavyset, and with a severe limp.

He carried his handicap well and with it, kindness. With him there was a hint of better times ahead and with that, Logue and Sweeney's days were numbered. He was quickly given a new nickname "Hop-a-long." Liked or hated, there was no discrimination around here when it came to giving nicknames, except perhaps the names.

One morning after breakfast, Gaynor announced that O'Connell was going to speak to us all. The hall quieted as O'Connell tried to imitate a younger man's walk and show purpose before bluster, and after rattling with his earpiece for a while, he launched into a tirade about what an ungrateful lot we really were. One of the most memorable lines that came out of that mouth and delivered that morning was, "Put a beggar man on a horse, "he thundered," and he will ride over you." The message was clear, we were the beggars getting a free ride from the caregivers.

These verbal telegrams of philosophy and plenty like them were used as daily reminders of not only to us of our place here, but to the brothers as well. The lines were delivered with such spit and bile that I believed O'Connell must have known them to be true.

At dinner that same day, shepherd's pie was on the menu, or should I say Gaynor's pie. The last of it was dished out into my bowl by him, when without warning, he launched into one of his rambling incoherent speeches of how miserable we really were, echoing O'Connell's earlier affections. All the boys had their eyes fixed on him, trying to get a bead on what he might do next. Gaynor's voice rose to fever pitch and spit rained from his mouth while everyone braced for the expected random attack on some poor helpless child that was sure to follow. His voice suddenly became garbled as his false teeth became dislodged from his mouth and fell straight into my shepherd's pie.

Everybody in the hall waited for the next scene to play out. He stopped mid-rant, looked to see where his false teeth were, picked them out of the pie with nicotine stained fingers and shoved them back into his mouth. Having found his teeth and lost his thought, he just roared at us to eat our dinners. As the rattle of Delph and cutlery filled the hall, much mirth and sniggery (not to mention relief) ran through each dinner table. I kept looking at the indention that had just been made in my pie, toying at the outer rims of the plate pretending I was eating it. That is until Gaynor slapped me across the head and grunted, "Eat your dinner, Clifford." Rather than risk the rabid attentions of him any more, and luck was holding so far because he didn't turn into Mr. Hyde, I ate it. At least there was no danger of me playing the part of Oliver, crying "please, sir, I want some more," this was not going to pass my lips for it was no more than playing russian roulette in this place. Gaynor was the most unpredictable man about the reformatory, and the only place he should have been was in a hospital for the insane. We would never know whether he would creep into an unstoppable rage, be the quiet friend to his other self who never talked back, or be a muted savage who stalked and attacked you from behind.

Like that, everyday carried with it its own layer of mine fields and I had to tread carefully, very carefully. I wrapped myself in my friends' company and the antics of any now eight-year-old boy as best I could and over all, Michael and I, were getting along with everybody. In this mad house, though, the only expected thing was the unexpected and the unpredictable could be counted on with the weather. It was a case of them or us in this place, all so close together and yet worlds apart, some closer than others like Sammy and me. Yet I still did not know him, I could not know him.

It would take that age-old ritual of male dominance to bond us as Sammy challenged me to a fight. We didn't need much of a reason to get it on and it just seemed like something to do at the time, and he fought hard. I had never been in a fight before but I carried enough hate in me to keep me from being a pushover. A few minutes later with blood, torn skin and wounded pride, I got the better of Sammy with a last desperate flurry of punches. Less than a minute later and to my great relief, Sammy shook my hand. Another few seconds of fighting and it would have been the other way round. Unsteady legs held me up and I'm sure that we both wanted to give each other a hug but that would not do so in an all male society. But I had now earned my place in his inner circle and held the passport to his world. That one and only fight between us cemented a life-long friendship that would at times be severely tested but never broken.

Everybody picked on Sammy as a figure of fun, and always behind his back, few had the courage to do otherwise. Even knowing this he still wanted so much to fit in. What no one knew then was that he was the boy that had been raped several times by Dalton, the night watchman. He was not yet nine years old. Ten summers later with his attacker polluting the ground that he lay under, Sammy was still stalking his ghost or it was stalking him. On the night it caught up with him he killed another child predator in England, beating him to death with his bare hands. One ghost was at last overcome but not Sammy's internal demons that still raged with anger that left him very dangerous if provoked, whether provocation was real or imagined.

TIME MOVES ON On my third year of schooling, I was lucky to have another lay teacher, a Mr. O'Donnell. A distinguished and refined looking man who was soft-spoken that never raised his voice in anger in the entire term that I was in his class. He seemed oblivious to the daily cruelty of this place or just ignored it. After all, he was a nice man that just worked here, and if that was his only crime in this place, it was the nicest crime of all. The best thing that I remember about him was that he taught me the rudiments of reading, and one day handed me a book to test my progress. In that book there was a little gem of a poem about a boy and his barge. The poem read, "I saw a great barge on the river today, All roomy and large, All painted and gay, And only a boy and a dog were in charge, Oh think what a joy it is to look after a barge." A simple poem, and a powerful message for me. It threw up images of freedom, responsibility, and of being loved. I knew a world like this existed for I still had misty memories of it, had seen it on the movie's screen, watched Lassie on TV, and was now reading about it. My mission would be to find this heaven. Mr. O'Donnell's classroom was a doodle, as relaxing as a stroll in the park like the first summer I had spent here, and there was even a real danger I might like this place. Before the next couple of weeks ended, though, it would prove that there had been no danger at all, only evil that intended to destroy even acts of kindness that came from children. It would come from an unlikely place.

Down at the farm is where I wanted to be. I had seen old Tom, the farm horse, from my classroom window, and wanted to hang out with him for the summer holidays. A middle aged fat man with three chins was working the horse and showed more kindness to him than anyone else. At least not human anyway. This man was employed as the farm labourer and I hoped he was all right to deal with. In vain, as it turned out. He would go on to prove himself as a living, breathing, pile of hate mixed with manure, with illusions of being an emperor in a past life and in this one. Two run-ins with him painted that picture of this man named Bartly Naughton. I would face the full fury of this monster, masquerading for years as a human being, with my 'new best friend', Michael Cleary.

Michael was an abandoned gypsy child that started to hang out with me for a while.

On one of our ramblings around the reformatory we ventured down to the farm buildings in the hope that Naughton would notice us, he might even give us a job feeding old Tom.

Poking around the place, we heard a noise from one of the farm sheds and peered behind its big intimidating door to see where the sound came from, and found ourselves looking down on the ground at two baby swallows that had fallen out of their nest on the exposed rafters.

They lay there bruised, hungry, and helpless, sending out frantic and distressed chirpings. Michael fed them some bread that he carried with him for emergencies, as hunger was a constant companion, and I got water from a drain. Over the next couple of days, we would come down to feed and wait on them until one evening when something was waiting for us.

As we both knelt down to feed the open-mouthed swallows, I felt a presence just before I saw it. Hiding in the darkened shadows was Naughton trying to blend into the background, no small feat for a pile of blubber that rumbled and farted under his own weight. Held upright and pressed against his body was a pitchfork, and that man of war was now moving with surprising speed against us helped by the power of ambush. Michael, fast on his feet, broke into a run, and a well-connected boot in the arse from Naughton drove him to new track records. The big wooden door of the shed sat on a metal runner and needed strength to open it fully, but it was opened enough for Michael to squeeze through. My own fear had rooted me to the spot with my voice broken by the sheer terror of the moment.

Naughton, with eyes rolling now and a fully captive audience, decided to put on a little show.

He stabbed the pitchfork repeatedly at the swallows until the blood ran from their tiny bodies and their plaintive cries sounded no more. I started to hyperventilate with fear and somehow managed to make a break for freedom. Naughton threw down the pitchfork as saliva dribbled from his mouth. This sadist was only getting warmed up and seemed to be really enjoying himself. I did not see the kick he caught me with on my lower back. I cringed at the jarring pain, but sheer will power kept me on my feet and keep me running as best that my small legs could carry me. I crashed past the door and broke into a hobbled run. It was then that I felt a splat of soft wet tissue hit me on the back of my neck. Still running, I reached back to find out what it was. In my hand lay the mangled, punctured, and lifeless body of one of the swallows with its blood dripping through my fingers and down my neck. This children's world of imprisonment was out of control and on a different planet, The Planet Of The Apes.

The next time I encountered this missing link I thought he was away on holidays. It gave another boy, Anthony Doyle and me, a chance to help ourselves to carrots that lay in a large heap inside one of the farm sheds in an attempt to dull the constant hunger. As we crept out of the building after we had already tucked several bunches of carrots beneath our jumpers and unaware that it showed, to our nasty surprise we found Naughton was patiently waiting outside.

"What's under your jumper," he barked.

"Nothing Sir," I replied.

"Tell me the truth and nothing will happen to you." 'Not bloody likely', I thought, so again I replied, "Nothing Sir, nothing," Then thought better of it and admitted, "carrots." Several seconds passed while I braced myself for the attack. Naughton was enjoying my obvious terror, and let the anticipation of ending up perforated by his pitchfork like the swallow build in me. Finally he said to the two of us, "Get out of here" with a dismissive to tone. He didn't have to tell us twice as we ran out of there faster than the Roadrunner in heat for Caesar had spoken and we didn't need reasons.

Far beyond this farm and prison and the mind-set of those who ran it, fledgling social ripples of change were working their magic against this place. Families across the Country were not only being encouraged to help black babies in Africa, but also to take an inmate from the Industrial/ reform schools out for the coming Christmas holidays and the summer ones as well. It bettered their chances of getting into heaven and took me out of hell, at least for a while. This idea did not come from the Brothers, but from the creation of the social services in Ireland which was very much in its infancy. Ireland's past was catching up with it even though a little late for me. It's self reflection would cause a lot more tears than cheers but it was a beginning.

Even that first Christmas I had spent here had fallen on hard times. All of the presents that most of us got were thrown out from local homes and called charity, and I even felt sorry for the presents. Action-man dolls looked like casualties of war with missing arms and legs, jig-saw puzzles that could never be finished along with all the other sad bits and pieces, just discarded toys for discarded children. But there were several months to go yet before this Christmas as other changes saw October threw off a few leaves and tanned the rest, and I was happy in class with my new teacher, Brother Mahoney.

With a balding head and a wide mouth, he looked like the "Michelin Man," and always he spoke in a high voice with a sense of hurry and urgency. The whole class enjoyed his antics and he was funny, though I'm not sure that he knew it. In his hopes to give us a sense of right and wrong, he told us many stories that not only impressed but also helped me to see the grey areas between black and white. He also taught me what it really meant to take or steal something that did not belong to you and of things you had taken but didn't know you stole. As in a person who steals a packet of cigarettes from a store that cost fifty pennies, and the cost less profit of that item ran to forty pennies, then five similar items would have to be sold just to cover the cost of the cigarettes that had been stolen. In another story, he said, "I find it wrong that a working labouring man on a building site should be made to wait till the last minute of payday to be paid his wages and worse still, after working hours.

This was the same as stealing for his dignity had been taken from him." In later life, these powerful messages stayed with me and nurtured thoughts that helped me see beyond the obvious and felt I had become a better man for having known him. Brother Mahoney was a caring man and a sense of innocence made him shine that little bit brighter and everybody loved his easy company. About three months after the school term started, his health began to slowly deteriorate, never complaining in class even when his lungs seemed to be crying for air. His medicine pill in those moments of crisis was a cigarette, which drowned out his death warnings at least for a while. He carried an unspoken promise that he would not be there the next day but always managed to break it, driven by his love of teaching. He wanted to die with a pencil in his hand. It was sad to watch his everyday battle just for breath, but I was also too busy thinking about the coming holidays that promised so much change to notice then that he was fighting for his very life.

That Christmas I sat in the waiting room of the Christian Brothers quarters with several other boys, waiting for persons unknown to collect me. I was high with excitement, we all were, just at the thought of being free for a while. At last, a refined looking woman of about fifty years old glided into the room like one of those angels that would visit me in my dreams. After introductions, she extended her hand and shook mine warmly and a good feeling was sensed by me that carried forgiveness if I got up to any mischief. Her name was Mrs. Blane. As I traveled with her by car to her home I became scrambled eggs with this hint of freedom. Just like a caged animal, when somebody opened the door of that cage, I was wary of what lay beyond it yet more than willing to find out.

When I saw her son for the first time, I thought that he was her husband and remarked to Mrs. Blane, " Is that your Husband?" She burst out laughing and said that was her son, John. I knew she considered it a great compliment, but I wasn't sure how John felt, so to even the playing field, I said to Mrs. Blane, "You look so young!" She blushed and said "thank you." I delivered the coup de grace, " I know, you use Palmolive soap!" referring to an ad on television about how that soap keeps you young looking.

The thing was, in my innocence, I meant just what I said even as they both fell about laughing at my serious face. Tea and biscuits later and a great sleep, I felt Christmas was really coming and the "goose was getting fat." I was starting to taste and experience my first feelings of freedom and sense of normality since I was five years old, and even got to be treated with a certain trust.

Some evenings, Mrs. Blane would give me some money to get a few groceries at the corner shop. I would always take my time and wander down to the river nearby to watch the ducks and sagey looking fisherman conversing about a world of days gone by. Walking home, as people passed me on the street, I wanted to believe that I was the same as them, and at times I did.

One afternoon when a group of children my own age played down at the river, I was sitting nearby. One girl looked up at me and then turned to share a joke and they all laughed.

Wanting to join them but unsure that maybe I was the joke, I just moved further up the bank and hung out with the ducks.

The Blanes were great people and I went on to spend a great happy Christmas with them and felt right at home. They also gave me a beautiful watch, I thought it was a toy and was happy enough. Then I discovered it actually told the time. I was delighted and used it to count down the seconds as the world rung in the New Year. Unknown to me, the final bell had tolled for Brother Mahoney. He suffered a massive and fatal heart attack alone in a room somewhere and was dead before 1966 had begun.

The holidays were almost over and apprehension was beginning to set in at the thought of returning to the reform school. At least it was not fear, not yet. The Blane family assured me they would take me with them for the summer holidays and they were true to their word. When they were driving me back to the school, I was content with their promise and almost looked forward to seeing the place again. When I landed back, two new Brothers had arrived with me, one was named Devaney, the other, Hogan. Standing together, they looked like "little and large," and with them, a new inmate walked beside them straining on a chain leash.

This inmate was very short and very friendly, did pretty much its own thing, never talked back and gave unconditional friendship, the trade off was it expected food every day and to have its belly rubbed. Her name was Rosy and a dog of pedigree I do not know but was probably illegitimate anyway, so she fitted right in here. She was the most loved animal that I ever knew, this was easy considering she now had a "pack" of two hundred strong behind her. The Brothers let her stay in one of the dilapidated older buildings and her arrival was also a harbinger of still more change for we were never allowed a pet before. Rosy had no other skills except to give and expect affection and that was skill enough. After a couple of months she was part of the furniture.

When I arrived in the recreation hall that first evening back, another new inmate was a little less agreeable. He was ready for war, carried the brightest smile and darkest skin colour that I had ever seen, and was one hundred per cent African. His name was Larry Sullivan, and would go on to prove to be different in many more ways and that was led by his courage.

Larry had been left at the door of a church in Dublin when he was a couple of weeks old. Nobody knew how he was left in Ireland, and the only passport he had was the Irish name he was eventually given. With a background like that, his road was sure for him to end up in a place like this. The Brothers were wary of him for the nearest they or we had ever come to seeing a black person was in Tarzan movies. Larry was long and gangly, with teeth that would light up a room. In 1960s Galway he would have stood out, but in here he was just another inmate. He was also my new classmate and after a couple of weeks, no one noticed his color much, and if they did, it was no more than if he had a pimple on his nose or was a bit overweight. And with the food around here, that was not too common either. Over the next couple of weeks while Larry was trying to fit in, I was getting to know my new teacher and recent arrival, Brother Devaney.

He was a big middle-aged man with an effeminate voice that carried the only fragile connection to his feminine side. This was a walking, talking, bulk of testosterone given to violent rages when he felt provoked, something like the animated cartoon character, "Shrek." It was a case of gently, gently, there is a sleeping rhinoceros about, and if awakened, it will trample all before him. On the day before school term, he was awoken and whipped into a one man stampede. It all began when Devaney shouted at a group of boys to stop horsing around. One of them, with more courage than brains, grumbled something beneath his breath. Devaney ears were like satellite dishes that were always on high alert. The faint sounds delivered with a certain body language from the boy made him believe he heard the actual words, "fat bastard." This broke his voice into a high screeching grunt of indignation as he thundered towards the boy with the ground shaking beneath him. The boy ran towards the corridor tunnel that led to the playing fields and sailed through it like a gazelle. The exit door was tiny and meant to be treated with a certain respect and not meant for a rhino in full charge. The door groaned under the violent trembling pressed against its veteran wood and rusty hinges, and became dislodged, broken, and bowed under the onslaught, giving up a twenty year struggle from knocks, neglect, and the elements. A fear ran through the boy like none before as he looked back and saw Devaney looking like a monster emerging from his cocoon. That fear weakened his legs and narrowed the distance between them. Two Christian Brothers ran up behind Devaney, each grabbing an arm in a desperate attempt to stop him.

He just carried them with him, but it was enough to slow the juggernaut that gave the boy a gaming chance to brush up on his vocabulary skills.

As late evening closed, it was hard believe the fury that had spilt forth earlier from the now amiable giant. He was now tenderly rubbing the tears from my eyes after I cut my finger and then offered me a sweet from the great reserves that he kept in his pocket. I munched contentedly and felt glad he was to be my new teacher, and with confidence growing, I threw him a great smile with an open hand. Devaney threw his arms up roaring with laughter as he gave me a few more. He walked away then, looking back at me a few times shaking his head. I suddenly become aware of a charm I had that was just learned, and of the success that was just made with it. My bag of tricks was getting bigger, my arsenal to survive this place getting better, and I was making an impression.

Larry was making an impression too, and the Brothers were making a few on him.

He was causing more trouble and rebellion in his first few days here than I had seen in a few months, not obeying any rule or Brother in general and I loved him for it. This was something I had not witnessed too often in this prison; it certainly disturbed our jailers enough for they feared mutiny. They would set upon him with leather straps, fists and boots with daily regularity. Brother Devaney never got involved in any kind of bullying and loathed anyone that did. But the little fellow who had arrived here with him, Brother Hogan, had no such qualms. When it came to Larry, Hogan attacked with glee and never alone, relishing the pain he dished out. Larry didn't care and this nine year old boy could throw a punch that would make Hogan blink now and then, and told him or anyone else to "fuck off" that challenged him. Through tears and pain, bloodied or beaten, he would not give in. In the end, Larry won a certain victory and was pretty much left alone. His beautiful ebony defiance impressed me for I was yet to find that mantra and that courage, and when it did come, even I would be shocked by the violence that raged within me. For now, I suppose I was just marinating.

The days stretched into weeks and spring was trumpeted in by the calls of the many birds that lived full and part-time in the aged and sad looking buildings of this place. New life gave new hope for me and a promise that there were better days ahead. In the distance I could see Galway Bay and the freedom that lay in its waters, and in the city spires. I would imagine all of the hustle and bustle that must go on below them. I would wonder years later looking at those same spires, did the tourists that came to this postcard town at that time know of the thousand plus children that lay within prison walls of this County, and of the other thousands that were imprisoned all across the rest of the country. But back then, spring feelings were about to be rudely interrupted like a frog during mating when along comes a predatory pike fish, to make a life all over before it had even begun.

As spring ended, Brother Devaney was transferred suddenly out of the prison, out of the country, and into Africa. He simply did not turn up one morning at class. In his place and into our lives, up close and personal, was the small fellow who suffered from a very bad case of "little man syndrome" and bad breath. This prison would prove to be his utopia, and his classroom, our dungeon. It was Brother Hogan, by now nicknamed, Ching Chong.

Ching was about twenty-two years old and only six years older than the oldest inmate of this place. He had thick black hair that was closely cropped sitting on an oval face. He was gap-toothed with round-rimmed glasses that covered predatory eyes which made his face looked like the "fiendish fu man chu" without the moustache. His nickname was born out of childish prejudice from what we saw as the bad guy, and in itself lay a lesson of how prejudice is born.

He stood a little more than 5'4" tall but looked like a giant to me as he stood in the black uniform of the Christian Brothers, with black leather weapon hanging out of his waistband as a permanent visible threat. I could sense his satisfaction as it steamed up his glasses, with crocodile smile and eyes that drooled and danced at the vision of helpless fawn children sitting in front of him unaware of the danger in their midst. His first day as our teacher saw him pace up and down the classroom like the Japanese commandant in the movie, Bridge on the River Kwai. I could almost feel the heat of the tropical sun and hear the rushing of the river itself. That barely concealed smile gave it all away when he forced himself to speak in velvety tones. He had just got the highest rank and power position of his miserable life so far, the ecstasy of which could be compared to the failed chicken farmer, Himmler. This was a man who after years of kissing Hitler's arse, suddenly found himself the commander of the SS and executioner of the Jews, the crippled, and the maimed; a man who did everything wrong believing it to be right, seduced by the belonging and power of a piece of sack cloth that had been weaved into a uniform. For the Brothers running this prison, this was also their belief and intelligence had nothing to do with it. All of it could be measured by their ignorance in a climate full of it. As Ching rambled on in his introduction speech that first day, he hoped that we would all get along as one big happy family. By the second day, he had executed such a savage beating on a helpless classmate that he felt compelled to say something in defense of his actions.

"Now boys," he began, "I don't like to punish you, but I have to when you are being bad," and in order to gain sympathy for his actions, he added, "this hurts me more than it hurts you." Of course I firmly disagreed with his opinion and by classes end that evening, I knew that I was dealing with the most singular image of evil that had stood in front of me so far.

A weekly schedule of terror lay ahead for us, and each being subjected to a daily lottery of beatings. We were to be his completely until that final day when school broke for that summer.

One day, Ching asked me a maths question, and as I was still trying to come up with the answer, taking too long for this gargoyle, he ambushed me with a leather strap hitting the top of my head followed up by a barrage of punches. My nose bloodied, I fell to the floor unconscious and lay there for several minutes, until Ching Chong decided that I was faking it. He dragged me to my feet, shaking me until I started to come round and then kept shouting, "What is the answer?" By then I didn't even know the question as he threw me back against the desk in an act of disgust. I lay there frightened, humiliated and silent, and swore again to myself that I would set out and try to kill him. I had even been working on a plan.

Just a couple of weeks earlier, Ching had been teaching us how a thermometer worked. One hung on the wall of every classroom. He told us that it took only a tiny drop of its mercury to kill a man. Now and again I would look lovingly at that shiny mercury that hardly moved behind the glass and figured it would take a lot less to kill a rat, in this case, Ching. Just a little drop in his tea that was always brewing on his desk, and "he" would become a "was" in a heartbeat. My plans were set aside for now as school finished and even forgotten about a few days later for I had survived his class and knew I would have a different teacher the next term.

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