We knew that our world was surrounded with sin in the most surprising, embarrassing and horrifying places. So when my wife and I decided to send two sons to Downside I told them what they should do if confronted by an obvious evil: go first to your housemaster. If you are not satisfied with the result go to the headmaster; and if still unsatisfied go the abbot. If the matter is still unresolved... well, I didn’t think that far.
Whatever complaints we had, our boys experienced no sexual violation, and the same had been true when I was in the school during the early 1960s. I did not know that much about the life of the monastery. But we were happy to entrust them to the care of monks dedicated to the service of Almighty God who had 1,500 years’ teaching experience behind them.
