{Trust [continued]}[21st May 1989]

[Redbook6:132-133)][19890521:1000b]{Trust [continued]}[21st May 1989]

19890521.1000

[continued]

I think my own lack of trust probably stems from various childhood factors in relation to the rather sensitive child that I was: I can dimly recall being quite happy and well-adjusted with other children at the age of about four, at kindergarten (or “governess” as we rather snobbily called Miss [A]),* and perhaps at the beginning of my time at pre-[boarding] school, which I started when I was six.** But somewhere along the line my parents began to go into social retreat in [C] during the school holidays, and I with them; and the combination of this with an ultimately barbaric [boarding] school from 8 to 13 seems to have finished the job.

It took me almost the whole of my time at [secondary-level boarding school] to construct at least the outward appearance of trust sufficient for social interaction. By the end of that cycle, although I had a great and genuine love for people en masse, I still did not trust individuals – except, on the whole, my own immediate family, and particularly my parents.***

*[An elderly teacher shared between a dozen or so parents at the house of one of them]

**[& left at 8]

***[This is ironic (although not ironically written) in view of earlier journal entries (re property &c); and particularly given that the writer’s father’s authoritarian behaviour towards his children (he was described by one of his closer personal friends, who was also one of the writer’s godfathers, as a ‘Victorian paterfamilias’), frequently uncontrolled temper and occasional violence seem likely to have played a significant part in the writer’s lack of trust.]

[continues]

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