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1 entry for Br Benito

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Another former Prefect, who worked in Ferryhouse for periods during the 1960s and 1970s, complained about the long hours required for the job. He was exclusively in charge of 100 boys, for 24 hours a day, and had limited time on his own. He had just reached his twentieth birthday and had been appointed straight into Ferryhouse in the 1960s as a Prefect. He found his experience of being Prefect ‘difficult to cope with’. He agreed that trying to control 100 boys made him feel ‘like a sheepdog’. He had no previous experience of any kind in relation to boys in care. When asked how he was trained for the role of Prefect, he replied: Well, you would have just learned from Br Benito.2 He was there before me and, you know, you would have fed into a system in some sense. Albeit there was never any written, any programme as such, you know, of what you should or shouldn’t do, like ... Yeah. It was learned on the job, really, I suppose, yeah.

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