The Empty Honour Board

Martin Flanagan’s new book, The Empty Honour Board: A School Memoir is a raw and graphic account of his time at a religious boarding school in an unnamed Tasmanian town in the late 1960s.

Clearly a defining moment in his life, in this book he looks back on those years and the actions of the priests. But he also considers the actions of his fellow students, and indeed his own culpability and moral responsibility, as bullying, corporal punishment and sexual assaults were all rife.

Flanagan is known as one of Australia’s finest sports writers, particularly on Australian Rules Football. He’s also known for his writing on matters relating to Indigenous affairs. This new book is obviously very personal, and it’s one he was warned against writing. Indeed, ‘I was warned against writing this,’ is the first line in the introduction of the book. It is later followed by, ‘You don’t want to go stirring up that shit again.’

I didn’t attend boarding school, but I did attend an all-boys Christian Brothers school, and I must say some of the stories here brought back memories of my time at school in the 1980s. Certainly, there was some violence from the Brothers, although I am sure nothing like what Flanagan and others experienced. Also, at my school there were many stories of the Brothers acting inappropriately towards the students. Indeed, some of the teachers from my school have gone to prison for their assaults. Another familiar story is the way the Catholic Church knowingly moved perpetrators to a new school or parish, as if doing so absolved them of their crimes.

Flanagan writes unflinchingly about what he and others experienced. It is not an easy read, but very powerful in its examination of abuse perpetrated by institutions upon the very people they should be looking after.