Gareth | Lucky Boy Ep1

Summary

Tortoise Investigates: Lucky Boy - Episode 1 Summary

Introduction and Setting the Scene

In the premiere episode of Lucky Boy, hosted by Chloe Hadjimatheou from Tortoise Media, listeners are introduced to a deeply personal and investigative narrative exploring the long-term impacts of a childhood relationship between a 14-year-old Gareth and his teacher, Sally Ann Bowen, at Christ's College, Finchley.

Host and Guest Dynamics

The episode begins with a lighthearted exchange between Chloe and her long-time friend Mark, showcasing their camaraderie and setting a contrast to the gravity of Gareth's story. Mark reminisces about their teenage years in the 1980s, highlighting their transformation from Goths to their current adult roles. This introduction serves to ground the listeners in the era and environment where Gareth's experiences unfolded.

Gareth’s Background and Initial Contact

Gareth grows up in a middle-class family in North London, the youngest of four siblings. His father, an editor battling alcoholism, often beats Gareth and his mother, leading to familial instability. Despite these challenges, Gareth excels academically and builds a close-knit group of friends, including Mark. In June or July during the first COVID-19 lockdown, Mark receives an unexpected call from a woman claiming to be the wife of Gareth, urging him to revisit their shared past for Gareth’s sake (05:10).

Unveiling the Past: Reconnecting with Gareth

Chloe delves into Gareth's history, revealing that Gareth was abused by Ms. Bowen, a young chemistry teacher, when he was 14. Despite the pervasive rumors about this misconduct during their school years, Gareth had long suppressed the trauma, initially considering himself a "Lucky boy" until the relationship's abrupt end led to severe personal struggles, including homelessness and suicide attempts by age 23 (11:17).

The Relationship with Ms. Bowen

The narrative intensifies as Gareth recounts his first interactions with Ms. Bowen. Onboard a school bus, Gareth engages in a seemingly innocent yet inappropriate exchange where Ms. Bowen manipulates Gareth into sharing explicit content from a magazine. At 32:38, Gareth describes the moment:

"She points to a page and said, 'That's what my pussy looks like.' And I knew I was gonna fuck her. ... It was a new boundary that had been crossed."

This incident marks the beginning of a grooming relationship that profoundly affects Gareth's psychological well-being.

The Incident and Its Aftermath

Gareth and Ms. Bowen's inappropriate relationship escalates, culminating in Gareth visiting her home under the guise of casual interactions. The pivotal moment occurs when Gareth realizes the nature of their relationship, leading to confusion and emotional turmoil. Ms. Bowen's denial of the events further complicates Gareth's ability to seek justice or understanding. As Gareth describes:

"This is not a dream for me." (13:24)

His vow of silence isolates him, causing internal conflict and anger as he grapples with the betrayal and manipulation he endured.

Current Reckoning and the Quest for Truth

Ten years prior to the episode's release, Gareth decides to press charges against Ms. Bowen, seeking acknowledgment and resolution for the trauma he endured. However, his efforts are met with disbelief and denial from former classmates and teachers, leaving Gareth feeling gaslighted and isolated. His determination transforms into a crusade for truth, despite the lack of support and the teacher’s steadfast denial of any wrongdoing.

"I think what you'll find if you do interview ex Christ college boys, ex teachers, they'll be like, oh, 40 years ago, let it go, blah, blah, blah." (10:22)

Emotional and Psychological Impact

Chloe captures the profound emotional impact on Gareth, highlighting his lingering anger and unresolved trauma. Gareth reflects on the complexities of his feelings towards Ms. Bowen, torn between viewing her as a first love and recognizing the abuse inflicted upon him.

"I could have killed her. I could. If I met her now, I think I'd strangle her. She's ruined my life." (40:08)

Conclusion and Teaser for Episode Two

The episode concludes with Chloe emphasizing the pervasive silence surrounding Gareth's experience and the school's apparent complicity in allowing such abuse to continue unchecked. Gareth's internal struggle and his fight for acknowledgment set the stage for the subsequent episodes, promising a deeper exploration into the systemic issues and personal ramifications of such abuse.

Notable Quotes

• Mark on Recalling School Days:
  "We have spotty teenagers, greasy hair, you know, dodgy school shoes." (04:09)

• Gareth on Pressing Charges:
  "And it makes me really angry that people would even for one moment question my account." (13:24)

• Gareth Reflecting on the Abuse:
  "I knew I was gonna fuck her. And that's really bad for me to say that because it's like, oh, well, you had intent." (33:07)

Final Notes

Lucky Boy Episode 1 meticulously constructs a narrative that not only recounts Gareth's personal ordeal but also sheds light on broader themes of abuse, memory, and the struggle for justice. Through intimate interviews and reflective storytelling, Chloe Hadjimatheou provides a compelling examination of how past traumas can shape and distort an individual's life trajectory.

Listeners are left anticipating the continuation of Gareth's journey in the subsequent episodes, where further layers of this intricate and heartbreaking story will be unveiled.

Resources for Support

At the end of the episode, Chloe provides crucial information for listeners who may have experienced similar issues:

• Children: Contact Childline at 0800 1111 or visit childline.org.uk.
• Adults: Reach out to Samaritans at 116 123 or visit joesam.org.

---

This summary is crafted to provide an in-depth overview of Episode 1 of Lucky Boy, capturing its essential themes and emotional depth, making it accessible to those who have not listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Hello, I'm Chloe Hegemotheo. I'm a narrative editor at the observer and the host of the Tortoise Investigates podcast. Lucky boy. I'm popping up here to say thank you all for continuing to listen and to support Tortoise Investigates from the observer. If you like what you've heard already. The good news is there are more observer podcasts that you may not know about yet. There's the News meeting, where Tortoise journalists and special guests battle it out to see whose story will lead the news the Sense Maker, one story every weekday to make sense of the world and the Sloan Newscast, a weekly investigation into a story we think you should know about. We're proud to bring you our journalism in audio, so make sure you follow all our shows so you don't miss a single Observer Podcast episode.

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[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Tortoise. Just a heads up before we start. This episode contains strong language and references to sexual abuse. Can you just talk for a sec? Hello.

[Mark]

How are you? My name is Monty and I like golf.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

I don't know why he said he's Monty. This is actually Mark. He's one of my oldest mates and he doesn't like golf. Again.

[Mark]

1, 2, 1, 2. 1, 2. Testing. 1, 2.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

He's always been the funny one in our group of friends. It was the same when we were kids growing up in the 80s. It's a bit embarrassing now, but back then me and Mark were Goths.

[Mark]

No, I mean, it wasn't, you know, like we were, you know, it's the mid-80s, late-80s. We have spotty teenagers, spots, greasy hair, you know, dodgy school shoes. You know, we just.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

You had a crimped fringe.

[Mark]

I had a crimp fringe, yeah. But I was quite cool, do you know what I mean? Like, Arnott weren't sort of quite cool.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

But then at least we thought we were. For our lot, it was all about going to gigs. Susie and the Banshees, the Cure and some pretty dire stuff too, like Fields of the Nephilim. That still makes me cringe. It was easy for teenagers back then because tickets were affordable only around a tenner and in venues that seemed so edgy and happening, like the Town and Country Club and the Camden Palace. Most of them years gone now. Local places pretty close to home, which for us back then was a little patch of North London, specifically Finchley. But I digress. Since those teenage days, I've ended up becoming an investigative journalist and Mark's an actor. But we're still close friends. Okay, so I've asked Mark to come to the studio at Tortoise because of something that happened to him a while ago. So, basically, tell me how this all started.

[Mark]

So it was first lockdown, I'd say June or July. And I get a phone call from this unknown number and it's this woman, this sort of Spanish, Latin sounding woman, saying, my husband's asked me to call you.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

She tells Mark he was in the same year as her husband at Christ's College, Finchley. A boys comprehensive school that had a pretty good reputation. I was at the girls school just up the road. This woman asks if Mark remembers her husband, Gareth. Actually, that's not his real name. I can't tell you that for reasons that will become clear. Pretty soon I was like, yeah.

[Mark]

And then alarm bells started going off because I remember being at school at this time and there being all these rumours and we all kind of knew that something was going on, but we didn't know for sure.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Mostly because the rumours were about what happened between this guy Gareth, and a teacher at the school. His wife is calling Mark because Gareth needs witnesses and he remembers Mark because they were both misfits.

[Mark]

You either did well in your exams at Christ College or they weren't interested.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

They just wrote you off.

[Mark]

They wrote you off completely. I mean, they wrote me off completely and they wrote him off completely.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

And because Gareth remembers Mark suffered at the school just like he did, he thinks Mark might be more likely to help him out. Mork and Gareth end up having several long conversations, sometimes late into the night, rewinding to the 1980s and playing out their school days. Who had a fight with who, the fact that caning was still allowed in their first few years, which teachers would use it and which would just throw books at you or clip you round the ear about the hours after school spent sitting on buses smoking cigarettes or hanging around Golders Green station trying to look cool and get the attention of girls. Memories of that sweet time in the early years when they were still blank slates. And then they talk about the real reason they were having this call, what happened between Gareth and this teacher at Christ's College.

[Mark]

And he was saying, look, if I got you to a police station, would you talk? I said, look, if I remembered anything that wasn't an embellished memory, then absolutely. But I can't guarantee my memories for you, but I do know what happened to you was wrong.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

The first time Mark tells me about all this, that this former classmate of his, Gareth, had called him out the blue to talk about how he'd been sexually abused by his teacher at the age of 14, I have to admit I immediately jumped to what I thought was a pretty obvious conclusion, that the teacher carrying out the abuse had been a man. It's an easy assumption to make. Most abusers tend to be male. And recently I've been hearing more and more of these cases about boys being abused in boarding schools and churches. But this is not that story, because in this case, the abuser was a woman.

[Mark]

You know, everyone Everyone knew it, but, you know, the culture at that time was not a problem. It's not really a big, it's not a big deal.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Were you all like, you'd all have fantasies about her?

[Mark]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Still do. No, but I was talking to one of our friends who will remain nameless. He was saying, what's what, what good is it happened so long ago and she was quite fit.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

So the sort of, the implication was it was his fantasy and he got to fulfill his fantasy.

[Mark]

Yeah.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

What's he complaining about?

[Mark]

Yeah. But anyway, I think the bottom line is there are two camps. There's the, yes, it was really wrong that it happened and there's hello. He got to basically stub this gorgeous woman.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

All Mark remembers from back then was rumors. But what I want to know is, were there people who saw stuff who can give me a better idea of what really happened? So I get him to ask round. He tells me there are WhatsApp groups where loads of old boys, now men, still stay in touch. And he's happy to connect me.

[Mark]

But I think what you'll find if you do interview ex Christ college boys, ex teachers, they'll be like, oh, 40 years ago, let it go, blah, blah, blah. But you know, there are, there are teachers out there who are probably in their late 60s, mid-70s, who you would be able to talk to. Whether or not, whether or not they, they would want to, you know, I don't know, but I, I, what about Gareth?

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

I don't remember him, but Mark's sure I knew him back when we were kids.

[Mark]

Me, Ricky, Tom, Zach, that like, you know, we'd be out on the streets. You've met him, You've met him.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

I probably have. I was always with him.

[Mark]

He used to wear this quite sort of Tony Soprano leather jacket with up to the elbows, pull the sleeves up to the elbows. Hair grease, you know, grease down.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Like I said, everyone thought they looked cool back then. So Mark asks Gareth whether he'll speak to me and.

[Gareth]

Hi, Chloe, how you doing?

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Good, how are you?

[Gareth]

I'm okay, I'm okay.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

The voice on the other end's a bit rougher than I expected, but it's also thoughtful and intelligent, you know, it's.

[Gareth]

Also just to put it in perspective for them, even though they're 50 year old men now as well, what they were part of was, was an open secret that when I ran that school.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Gareth tells me that for a long time he found it difficult to pin down the harm this relationship caused. He thought of himself as a Lucky boy. But one day, the relationship ended. The teacher just walked away. And when she did, his whole life fell apart. By the time he was 16, he was homeless. And by 23, he tried to kill himself several times. Much later in life, he realised he needed to process what happened to him. As I listen, I can feel the anger sitting just under the surface.

[Gareth]

I was accused at one point of starting the rumors from there. It just snowballed. What are you complaining about? What's the matter with you? The male has to get aroused for the act to happen. And that's a huge problem for people. That's the truth. Everyone did know. You're joking. I'm the one that protected her for 26 years.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Various life events brought Gareth to the point where 10 years ago, he decided to press charges against his teacher. Truth be told, he almost instantly regretted his decision. He still had lots of warm feelings towards her, still thought of her as his first real love. It wasn't really revenge he was after, more a general acknowledgment of the harm he'd suffered as a result. But then, one after another, the people he'd considered solid witnesses denied being aware of the relationship. And the teacher? She denied ever having any kind of sexual contact with him. Gareth knows what happened between him and his teacher. He tells me he's sure of it. Those events are seared into his memory. And the fact that no one wants to talk about it now, well, it's like the entire cast of his childhood all gaslighting him at the same time. So now he's gone from being hesitant to being on a crusade.

[Gareth]

And it makes me really angry that people would even for one moment question my account. This is not a dream for me.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

So what do you want to get out of this?

[Gareth]

How about the truth? How about we do that first and then we work out where we're going to go from there? How about the truth?

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

The truth is a good starting point for me too. But also, why are people so reluctant to talk? And why was this teacher allowed to have sex with a child without ever facing any consequences? Could it have something to do with the fact that the abuser in this case was an attractive woman? I'm Chloe Hajima. Tho I'm from Tortoise. This is lucky boy. Episode one. Gareth. It's 1986. We still get our music news from magazines like Smash Hits and Melody Maker. And every Thursday evening, we're glued to Top of the Pops on TV to see who's leading in the charts. The nightly comedy offering on the BBC is Benny Hill chasing big breasted half naked women around parks. If you arranged to meet someone and they didn't show up, you went back home again and you used your turn dial landline to call their landline.

[Gareth]

We have on the telephone now, Mrs. Thatcher.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Hello, good morning. The same kind of landline that Margaret Thatcher used to call into Radio 4's Today program whenever she heard something that surprised her. IRA bombs seemed to be going off every other day. And most kids around the country were fixated by only one north London secondary school, Grange Hill on kids tv.

[Mark]

And you don't believe me either, do you? The best mate. See how much heroin you can find among that lot.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

In which every issue under the sun seemed to be playing out all at the same time. Although the writer's imagination didn't stretch as far as an affair between a young boy and his female teacher. Back in the real north London, a new term's just started at Christ College and boys in dark blue uniforms are tumbling out of buses, flocking loudly into the school. The three story red brick building's more than 150 years old and it really stands out because of its huge tower. More like a turret on a castle really, with little arched windows spiraling up in line with a narrow staircase on the inside. The tower's where the science labs are. And this term there's lots of commotion up there because the school has a new young chemistry teacher, Sally Ann Bowen. This is her first teaching job, not long out of training. She's 27 with long blonde hair and like loads of the boys, 13 year old Gareth can't help staring at her.

[Gareth]

Well, yeah, because I mean like you can speak to any of the boys about this as well and I'm sure they'll back me up. I mean, everybody knew when Bowen hit Christ College.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Gareth's birthday is in May, so he's pretty young for his year. But he's a bright kid, athletic with wavy brown hair.

[Gareth]

My mother was a English teacher, my father was an editor. So I guess you would say that I came from a middle class family. I was the youngest of four, two older sisters and a brother. My early years, yeah, they were very happy.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

He's fiercely proud of his dad being a journalist. He teaches his son never to blindly accept what he's told, question everything he says. Of course that doesn't always go down well with Gareth's teachers. Precocious and lippy is probably what they would have called him, but his dad's also an alcoholic and he can be violent sometimes he Beats Gareth with a belt. And when he's drunk, he goes after his mum too, till she can't take it anymore and leaves.

[Gareth]

I think I was in second year, so I'd have been about 12, 13, I think.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Gareth ends up living with his mum. He misses his dad, but he's busy hanging out with his mates. They like going into the fields just north of Finchley looking for golf balls, which they sell back to the golfers and use the money for sweets or comics.

[Gareth]

I was 13 when the conversation on the bus happened.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Gareth's not in any of Ms. Bowen's chemistry classes, and so his story with her doesn't really begin until about halfway through that year. There's a bus that takes pupils from one part of the school to another. Gareth's only in the third year. These days we call it year nine in the UK or eighth grade in the US.

[Gareth]

Then they got on the bus, Bowen and MacIsaac together, as they most of.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

The time were Ms. McIsaac's, the other young female teacher at the school. She and Ms. Bowen are really good friends.

[Gareth]

She would have been Beautiful ranked number one and McIsaac would have been beautiful ranked number two. Yeah, I mean, is a boys school and we were kids, so I mean, that was probably the way they thought about it.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

So on this particular day, he's sitting on the bus when the two teachers climb up the steps and get on.

[Gareth]

Board, they sat at the front because the teachers would sit at the front of the bus and the kids would sit at the boat.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

So Gareth moves up and sits in the road just behind them.

[Gareth]

Me being me, I was never shy with teachers. I could always talk to adults.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

And he leans forward and says, do.

[Gareth]

You know when you get on the bus, everybody knows you two have got on the bus because, like, they can smell you.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

What he means is they smell good.

[Gareth]

And Bowen made a big thing out of this and started saying, oh, what do we smell of? How do we smell? What are you trying to say? And I sort of said, well, you know, you smell a perfume. And she said. She said, I don't believe you. I don't believe that's what you meant. And then she engaged in this game. Well, she said, I want you to tell me what you meant.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

But he's too young to play the game. He just doesn't get where she's going with all this. So Ms. Bowen gives him clues.

[Gareth]

I think you meant something that we came out of the sea, like it's a creature out of the sea. You think at one point it did dawn on me, you know, at 13, even then, it did dawn on me what she was trying to get me to refer to.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

But he's really embarrassed.

[Gareth]

And when I eventually said fish, I think I said whale before or whatever, I was trying to be polite. And when I said it, she was like so delighted that her little joke had come to fruition.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

The other member of staff, her friend Ms. MacIsaac sitting right there.

[Gareth]

And, and she just like, like she cringed. Like, that's disgusting. Like, I mean, what would woman wouldn't.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Years later when she's asked to corroborate this event, Heather Mac Isaac will say she doesn't remember anything about what happened on the bus that day or the inappropriate things Gareth remembers Ms. Bowen saying to him at the time. Gareth was confused. He didn't know a teacher could be like that. She had crossed a boundary at that moment.

[Gareth]

Yep. I mean, I'm sure there were other inappropriate things she said to me, but they just haven't stuck out in my mind.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

But that was the first.

[Gareth]

Yeah.

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[Chloe Hegemotheo]

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[Gareth]

Okay, one judgment anyway.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

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[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Memory is an elusive thing. When I look back on my years as a teenager, the images are hazy. Time's sort of taken the sharpness out of it all. But Gareth says specific moments are extremely vivid for him. Events that affected him so much that they're imprinted on his mind indelibly. Everything else he admits has faded away. So what he doesn't know is what happened around those key moments.

[Gareth]

I mean, for me, the next instance is the cafe instance. But I mean there was, there must have been hellos and nods and whatever else.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

The cafe instance, yeah, we're coming to that. But that's a little over a year after that first interaction with Ms. Bowen. So let's jump forward to 1988 now. Gareth's 14. He's in his fourth year at school. That's year 10 in the UK these days, or ninth grade in the US and he's doing pretty well.

[Gareth]

I mean, I stopped messing about and I got into all the top groups for the fourth year.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

At some point that spring term, Ms. Bowen starts taking the same bus as Gareth to and from school.

[Gareth]

I've got a lot of images of her standing at that bus stop in my head of me arriving at the bus stop and her standing there.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

And soon the conversation moves onto the bus. They're sitting next to each other, Gareth and Ms. Bowen. Do you think you'd have been walking to Golders Green station in the morning or waiting at the bus stop in the evening after school and thinking, I hope she's there?

[Gareth]

Yeah, obviously, Obviously that built up to that.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

They talk about all sorts of stuff like what they got up to on the weekend. He asks her about the other teachers at Christ College. Who out of the men does she fancy? And she tells him. He doesn't remember whether Ms. Bowen asked him if he had a girlfriend. He didn't and hadn't ever at this point. He's briefly kissed a girl once outside her place on an estate in Hendon. But that's it. That's the extent of his experience with the opposite sex. Do you think at that time, having her give you that kind of level of attention, which was very kind of specific to you on the bus, you're slowly creating a friendship.

[Gareth]

Yeah.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

How would that have made you feel, the 14 year old dad?

[Gareth]

Something like, Jesus Christ. No, I mean, what would. Of course, that made me feel extremely special. Well, she's got 900 kids there and she selects me, so yeah. Well, that's what that did to me. I thought I was something special. I was. I just didn't know what kind of special they meant.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Right, so I'm gonna need you guys to come a little bit closer. I can't remember how I thought when I was 14, at what point in my development I was. I know I felt very grown up and although I try, it's really hard to imagine Gareth aged 14. All I see when I look at him is this large angry man with a deep voice.

[G]

One, two, one two. Coming in from the radio.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

I have two boys, but they're much younger. So I ask a friend of mine if I can talk to her 14 year old son and his friends.

[G]

Speak up, speak up.

[Mark]

Hi guys.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

We meet in a cafe around the corner from their school. It's 3:30 and they're still in their school uniforms. And right away I'm surprised by how young they look. I'd pictured 14 year olds as halfway to adulthood, but actually these guys are still baby faced, not quite through puberty. Can I ask you something else? Are you all shaving?

[Gareth]

I'm not yet, no.

[G]

Where.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Are you shaving your faces?

[G]

No, I've always said Alfie should because he needs to trim that stash of him.

[Gareth]

It's not, it's not that big.

[G]

I haven't, I haven't got that much facial hair to be honest. To be honest, I've never, never really see a boy in this year who shaves. No, tell me, tell me.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

I mean they do go to the occasional party at friends houses and there are girls there but like. So, so is there any ever anybody getting together at these parties?

[G]

Not us, not me, but basically almost like lots of other people, like.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Yeah. And what does getting together mean? Like kissing and stuff?

[G]

Kissing. Nothing too, you know, big so far but there has been some incidents where people went further. You know, I knew someone who got to second. Yeah, I knew someone who got to second base in one day at our age. Yeah, yeah.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

There have been a few kisses.

[G]

I've had one at the age of my current age, now 14, but I've had it 1 13.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Gareth]

Me personally, mine was really underwhelming because.

[Mark]

It wasn't like romantic, it was just on a dare.

[G]

Oh, that don't count then.

[Mark]

Okay, don't count, fine.

[G]

I'm sorry, but that don't count.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

A really good weekend for them is usually one where they get to have a sleepover. And once I turned the recorder off, one of them admitted to me he still sometimes plays with Lego. It's probably one of the trickiest times in life when you're in such a hurry to grow up, but in reality, you have no experience of the world that qualifies you as being an adult. A time when a day of pretending to be grown up is so exhausting that all you really want to do is go home to your Lego.

[Gareth]

Right? Anyway, so that day, we'd been up to Tesco. He's got our pasties, whatever.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Now Gareth's a bit older. He's in the upper school, which means he and the other boys are allowed out for lunch. But actually roaming up and down the high street, lunch is the least of what they get up to. This particular break, Gareth's with a group of mates, including a boy called Ben.

[Gareth]

Ben was fucking crazy anyway. Ben was fucking nuts, man.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

He's one of these kids who doesn't seem to have any boundaries. On this day, Gareth and a group of other boys follow Ben into the local newsagents just up the road from the school. They think they're in there to buy a can of coke and some sweets, but Ben has other things on his mind.

[Gareth]

I saw him do it. Five fucking magazines he's pulled off the top shelf.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

That's where the porno mags always are. You could be as subtle as you liked, but if you were buying one, there was no hiding it.

[Gareth]

When you reach to the whole the top shelf, even the people on the till would look. Everyone would look because they'd see this hand going up from all other. And Ben's fucking done it five fucking times. Yeah, he's taken down five porno magazines. It's like, fucking hell, Ben. You're not gonna get out of shot with that, mate. That's not like stealing football stickers, mate.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Brazen as hell. And somehow he walks out with these five mags without any trouble.

[Gareth]

So anyway, we've trundled down this, you know, we're going back towards the school, and we trundled down and it's like, oh, are we going to the caf?

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

The caf was a little Italian deli. Gareth used to go in there with his mates. Not to eat, but to hang out. His lunch money was already spent on a 10 pack of Benson and Hedges. Ms. Bowen was often in there too. Did you clock her as soon as you got in?

[Gareth]

Yeah, yeah, I did. Well, the thing is, I'm having conversations with her on the bus. She's like, my friend at this point.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

So the boys all come in laughing because they've just pulled off this heist in the newsagents and. And Ben's really excited about it. He's opening up the porno mags and waving the pictures around for everyone to see. And he's trying to get Ms. Bowen's attention, sticking the mags under her nose and saying, what's this, then, Miss? What's this? And it feels like it's getting all a bit out of hand.

[Gareth]

And if I remember rightly, the way I remember it is like, I grabbed one. I think Danny grabbed one. As in, like, listen, you're embarrassing us all now. You're being a prick.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

She didn't react.

[Gareth]

I don't know what she said. I can't remember that. I mean, you've got to remember. The next event coming was such a huge event. It's hard to remember small memories surrounding that huge memory.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

For me, what Gareth does remember is that the action sort of dissipates, and Ben and the other boys get bored and leave. So Gareth slides into the seat opposite Ms. Bowen. The porno mag he grabbed off Ben is tucked away somewhere inside his blazer pocket or down the back of his trousers.

[Gareth]

She said, have you still got no magazine? I said, yeah. And she sort of said, give me the magazine. And I sort of like. At first, I was like. I think I said, no, no. I think I. I think I questioned why she wanted it. And she. She just sort of said, give me the magazine.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Gareth thinks she's going to confiscate it, but instead, she opens it up under the table so it's out of sight, and she starts flicking through the pages.

[Gareth]

She then just came to her page, and she pointed it, and she said, that's what mine looks like. And I said to her, what do you mean? And she said, that's what my pussy looks like.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

And at that moment, what was going through your mind?

[Gareth]

Were you on the truth? Yeah. I knew I was gonna fuck her. And that's really bad for me to say that because it's like, oh, well, you had intent. I actually, actually. Do you know what? I shouldn't actually say that, because that's really wrong. No, no, it's really wrong because I shouldn't say that. It misrepresents me badly. I didn't know what I was gonna up, because I had no idea what was.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

But what it had done was cross a boundary with you.

[Gareth]

It was a new.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

A new boundary that had been crossed.

[Gareth]

I knew that. That's. That's what I'm trying to say. It's like hindsight. I'm saying that. Oh, I knew I was. No, I didn't. I had no concept of it. How could I know I was going to do something I had no concept of? That's the first thing I'd say about, like, sort of like putting that in context. But you're quite right, there was something. There was something profoundly different about that. Hold on. Now we're looking at vaginas and we're talking about, like, which one's yours? I mean, I know you're not having this conversation with no one else, so, I mean. Yeah. Huge. Huge. That was huge.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Did you say anything? Were you shocked?

[Gareth]

Yeah, I was fucking shocked. Of course I was shocked.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

And then the curtains of his memory fall on this scene and it ends there. He doesn't remember how, but he knows. He and Ms. Bowen get back to school and he knows however hard it is to keep his mouth shut, he can't tell anyone what happened. If all this went down as Gareth remembers, that incident with the porno mag has completely tilted his relationship with Ms. Bowen. Now, she's not just an attractive teacher, she's a woman who's given him explicit permission to think of her in sexual terms. She's invited him to. I'm not an expert, but I imagine this is probably what grooming looks like. And Gareth, he's hooked. The next day, when they meet up after school, he tells her he loves her. And now he can't bear saying goodbye on the street corner. So one day, he just keeps walking with her towards her place. That's when he clocks the other boy.

[Gareth]

There was an Asian guy from Christ College that obviously lived in the vicinity, otherwise he wouldn't have walked down Hamilton Road like that.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Do you remember his name?

[Gareth]

No, I don't.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

It seems this Asian boy's been walking her home regularly. Gareth joins them. And this one afternoon, when all three of them get to Ms. Bowen's house, instead of saying goodbye at the gate, she goes in, leaving her front door open. So Gareth wanders in, closing the door in the Asian boy's face, and Ms. Bowen lets him in for tea and a cigarette.

[Gareth]

And we sat on the sofa in the front room and had a cup of tea.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

The living room's pretty bare and nondescript. No personal touches. Probably because it's a shared house full of young professionals where Ms. Bowen's renting a room none of the other tenants are in.

[Gareth]

Spoke about, like, I don't know what we like when I say nothing untoward. The whole fucking situation's untoward. Right? You don't have to say something that's going to make this worse. But yeah. So then I had my cup of tea and I left. And then the next day, the next.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Day when he walks her home again, they're alone. The Asian boy that was walking with them. Gareth never sees him again. And now it seems to be a given that he's going to come inside. But this time, halfway through their cup of tea on the sofa, Gareth stands up.

[Gareth]

So I've gone up and used the toilet. She's come upstairs and I've said, which room's yours? And I said, I think that room's yours. I said, well, surely we can sit here and drink our tea. And she said, I'll go downstairs and get the tea. And she sat next to me on the bed like that.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

It's a small box room. There's a cupboard and a cool looking record player on a shelf. And they sit kind of awkwardly side by side sipping tea, both facing the.

[Gareth]

Wall, sort of like on a single bed, sort of like sitting there like it was a sofa. And then like. Yeah.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

And then.

[Gareth]

I don't know, we were close together, our heads were close together, we were looking at each other and then like just started kissing.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

That first time. They don't go all the way, but when it eventually happens, he has no idea. She has to stop and explain to him that they're actually having sex.

[Gareth]

It's just a feeling that I'd never had before in my life. I didn't understand how it felt. I couldn't recognise that I had actually had sex. And then we had this big discussion on whether or not I was a virgin because though she had sex with me, I didn't ejaculate in her. And so it was all this big debate on whether or not I was really still a virgin or I wasn't a virgin anymore.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

So can I just. 14 year old Gareth after the first time.

[Gareth]

Yeah.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

You leave her house, close the front door behind you and you're walking home.

[Gareth]

Yeah.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

What's going on?

[Gareth]

Cat that got the cream. High as a kite.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

Lucky boy. He thinks I'm a really lucky boy. Ms. Bowen's clear right from the outset. You can't tell anyone, but she needn't have bothered. There's no way Gareth's gonna risk it because he knows what they're doing isn't above board. He knows if people find out, there's a good chance they're gonna put a stop to it.

[Gareth]

You think a 14 year old boy's gonna blow the whistle on that?

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

It must have been so massive for.

[Gareth]

You yeah, this world. What are you talking about? What the. I'm lying here. Like just mental. Mental, Absolutely. I didn't like. I mean, you'd have to sit down and speak to a psychologist about or a psychiatrist about what would come out of that. The thoughts and what that child would think and the boundaries broke and I can't even do it now.

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

So he takes this vow of silence. What he could never have guessed is how that silence, which right now feels so sweet, is going to turn so toxic and going to extend to the whole school. How he's going to end up desperate for someone to blow the whistle. Coming up in episode two. So the school would have known the teachers 100%.

[Gareth]

100% in that summer. It was me and her right against the world. Like we were powerful. Right?

[Chloe Hegemotheo]

I could have killed her. I could. If I met her now, I think I'd strangle her. She's ruined his life. In the past, Sally Ann Bowen has denied the incident in the cafe with the porno mags ever took place. She's also denied that Gareth ever came into her house or that she had any kind of sexual contact with him. Lucky Boy is reported by me, Chloe Hajimotheu. The producer is Garry Marshall. Additional production from Rebecca Moore. Sound design is by Hannah Varrell. Original music by Tom Kinsella. Podcast artwork by Lola Williams and the executive producer is Basha Cummings. If you or someone you know has experienced the issues covered in this episode, there are places you can reach out to. If you have any concerns about a child. Then you can contact the NSPCC's helpline by calling 0808 N800 5000 or emailing helpspcc.orguk or visiting their website. Children can contact Childline and talk to an impartial counsellor. No concern is too big or small to discuss. Simply call 08001111 or visit their website for a one to one chat for general concerns or talk. Adults can contact the Samaritans on 116123 or email jomaritans.org that's joamaritans.org.

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[Chloe Hegemotheo]

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[Chloe Hegemotheo]

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[Chloe Hegemotheo]

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