Eton Suicide
Rach...@aol.com
'WE NEED TO KNOW WHY OUR NICHOLAS DIED' THE anguished mother of hanged Eton
schoolboy Nicholas Taylor sobbed yesterday: "Why did my son die?" After
speaking to pupils at the scandal hit school, Liz Taylor and husband Malcolm
said they were convinced 15-year-old Nicholas did not commit suicide.
Instead, Mr Taylor fears his son may have died while experimenting with
thrill- seeking. Nicholas was found hanging from a dressing gown cord in his
room on Monday.
Eton - where princes William and Harry are boarders - has been plagued by
bullying, boozing and drug taking.
Yesterday, Mrs Taylor said: "Boys there told us about experimenting with drugs
and bullying at the college. But we still don't know why Nicholas died.
"There was no sign this was going to happen. We can only think it was an
accident.
"We just want police to get to the bottom of it. We've asked them to find out
why. We don't even know where Nicholas was or who he was with."
Mr Taylor, a former Gulf War hostage, said: "We can only think it was some
sort of thrill seeking that went wrong."
Asked if the thrills his son may have been looking for were sexual, he added:
"I have no real idea what kind of thrill seeking the kids were doing, maybe
something like that with tragic results.
"For him to put a pyjama cord around the door and deliberately kill himself
just doesn't add up."
Twenty-four hours before he died, Nicholas rang his mother before eating out
with pals, going to chapel and having supper.
Mr Taylor - also father of Jamie, 16, Katie, 12, and Robert, eight - said:
"After that, we don't know what happened.
Sensitive
"I understand from the boys who saw him that he was in good spirits. There
was no indication whatsoever that he was unhappy, depressed or in any
psychological trauma.
"He wasn't being bullied. He was a big boy, very sporty and athletic. And he
absolutely didn't commit suicide. There was no suicide note and no reason to
take his own life.
"He was a well-adjusted, sensitive and thoughtful kid who had everything to
look forward to and was doing well academically.
"Jamie was very close to him - they were just 14 months apart. He said if
there was any suggestion of Nicholas taking drugs he'd have known about it.
Nicholas wasn't.
"Now we just want to know why this happened. We want no stone left unturned."
Nicholas, a keen cricketer, had returned to his parents' £500,000 home in
Esher, Surrey, the previous weekend.
His father said: "We measured him. I'm 6ft 1in and he was half an inch shorter
than me.
"He spent a few hours mastering a new computer game, then we got the cricket
stuff out in the garden. He'd already started nets at school. But the weather
was bad so we packed up.
"We had lunch and he left around 8pm and got back to school around 8.30. He
was perfectly happy."
Mr Taylor revealed his son was a keen skier who didn't shy away from danger.
He said: "He was not necessarily a thrill seeker, but he'd go down a few
black runs no human being should have gone down. That was because he was a
bloody good skier - he liked to do things to the limit."
Shortly before he died Nicholas was offered places on two separate skiing
holidays. Mr Taylor said: "He was thrilled." Yesterday a post mortem revealed
Nicholas died from asphyxiation. There was no trace of drink or drugs.
His father said: "The coroner said it was a tragic accident. Nicholas was a
completely clean, normal child.
"He was the most wonderful, gentle human being you could ever meet. He had no
reason to kill himself."
Nicholas had been studying at £13,400-a-year Eton since September.
His aunt said: "We want to know what is going on at Eton. There are a lot of
questions that need to be asked and a lot that need to be answered." Another
family friend added: "Malcolm and Liz don't want a cover-up.
"This is the worst thing that can happen to a human being, and they have no
idea why."
It is the second nightmare the family has had to face.
In 1990, Mr Taylor, the owner of an agriculture greenhouse company Gulf Link,
was kidnapped in Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's forces.
For five months he was one of Iraq's notorious "human shields." Every day, he
faced the threat of death. But back home his children were also suffering.
After the ordeal, Mrs Taylor admitted: "It was like the effects of a divorce
for them, except they had no letters or birthday cards.
"I wonder now if there will be long-term consequences. I know I was a pretty
nasty person to live with for those five months."
In another interview, she said: "It was very difficult for me and the
children. They became very quiet and developed nervous tics and things like
that.
"We were all under enormous pressure because Malcolm is self-employed and we
had no income. For the children it was almost like he was dead. Our youngest,
Robert, did not even recognise him when he got back."
The kidnap plunged the formerly wealthy Taylors into financial problems. For
five months, they had no income.
Mrs Taylor was forced to claim single parent allowance while her husband was
away.
To make things worse the Iraqi invasion meant that Gulf Link lost a £250,000
Kuwaiti deal.
The family eventually received thousands of pounds in compensation from the UN
Compensation Commission, but not for years afterwards.
Today, they show few signs of financial hardship.
Jamie attends Harrow while Katie and Robert go to Nicholas's old school
Milbourne Lodge, just down the road.
The £6,000 prep school acts as a top feeder school to Eton with more pupils
than any other winning scholarships to there and Winchester.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO a boy who doesn't quite fit into the secretive culture of a boarding
school, a very mild mis-demeanour can cause sleepless nights. There seems to
be nowhere to turn and no-one who can put things into perspective.
Who can he tell about the bullies? How can he refuse the cigarettes late at
night in the dorm? How does he say no to drugs if they're considered "grown-
up"? One of my sons was completely panicked at school when he couldn't figure
out how to get to the changing rooms after rugby because there was a rule
against crossing the polished hall in football boots.
Of such apparently trivial problems are suicides made.
Boys should know that there's an escape route - a call home. Mum and Dad can
nearly always find a solution to what seems an insurmountable problem, in a
discreet way.
But before that can happen the most sacred of all public school practices has
to cease.
That's the insane system whereby no-one grasses on another boy.
It goes under the supreme misnomer of honour. When we lived in Iver, close to
Eton, I took my four sons to look it over, it being our nearest school.
My sons were free to go to whichever school they chose and they all turned
down Eton out of hand.
It was perhaps one of the wiser decisions they ever made.
There are some boys who'd be better off at the local comprehensive. Eton isn't
good for everyone by a long chalk.
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Rach...@aol.com
PALS FIGHT BACK TEARS AT ETON BOY'S FUNERAL HANGED Eton schoolboy Nicholas
Taylor was remembered yesterday as "an all-round top-class guy" at a moving
funeral service. Many of the 150 classmates among the 500 mourners fought
back tears as they packed into his local church to pay tribute to Nicholas,
15, found hanging in his dormitory eight days ago.
His favourite music by Nirvana, Skunk Anansie and Guns n' Roses rang out and
floral tributes were carried in by brothers Jamie, 16, and Rob, 10, and sister
Katie, 12.
Jamie said: "We had a great time fighting and arguing. And I only wish you
were here to argue with me now." His prep school headmaster Norman Hale told
the mourners at Esher, Surrey: "When I think of Nick I think of summer. Of
brightness, constant movement and always surrounded by friends."
He was buried at a private service. His distraught parents Malcolm and Liz
believe he died in a "thrill-seeking stunt". An inquest has been opened and
adjourned.
Rach...@aol.com
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Wednesday, March 17, 1999 Published at 10:42 GMT
Education
Eton boy's fatal strangling game
An inquest has heard that a pupil at Eton College who was found hanged had
been indulging in a 'fainting game'.
Nicholas Taylor, 15, was found by a fellow pupil last month, hanging from a
dressing gown cord in his bedroom at the top independent school.
An inquest at Windsor Guildhall, Berkshire, heard how pupils would
deliberately starve their brains of oxygen in the game.
The East Berkshire Coroner, Robert Wilson, recorded a verdict of misadventure
on Nicholas, who was from Esher, Surrey.
"I have been sitting in this court for 28 years and I thought I had heard
everything," he said.
"How naive can I be? The fainting game - in my language, attempted
strangulation - taking place between boys who are some of the cream of our
society and probably of above average intelligence. Why?
'Inevitable'
"What words spring to mind? Crazy, mad, stupid. What on earth were they
thinking of? What would be the inevitable outcome sooner or later?
"It is clear to me that Nicholas tried to do it himself. He had no intention
of taking his own life. There was no-one who was pressuring him or bullying
him to do it."
The headmaster of Eton, John Lewis, said later that since Nicholas's death it
had emerged that eight to 10 boys in his house had been involved in the
practice of "induced fainting" last term.
Housemasters had now spoken to boys "in the strongest terms about the
importance of not doing such things or allowing others to do them," he said
in a statement.
The inquest was told that the game had begun after Nicholas had accidentally
strangled another boy during a playful fight.
"We were just fooling around and Nick started strangling me with his jersey
and I fainted," the boy told the hearing.
"It was a surprise and the next thing I knew I was coming round and I did not
know where I was.
Dressing gown cord
"I saw Nick laughing. He thought I was joking. He did not think I had
fainted, but I had bumped my head on the ground.
"That was the beginning of the fainting game."
That night, back in their house, they strangled another boy until he passed
out briefly.
Another boy, aged 14, said the practice usually involved a group of friends.
"Someone would tie a dressing gown cord around your neck and pull it tight
until you fainted," he said.
'Something different'
"You sit on a bed and someone produces a dressing gown cord and it is wrapped
around your neck. One or two friends will pull it until you feel dizzy and
faint for a few minutes.
"The attraction was that it was something different - it made you feel
abnormal."
The 'victims' would tap on a thigh, he said. When they stopped tapping, that
was the signal for the cord to be released.
It is thought that Nicholas was alone when he died on February 22. His
father, Malcolm, said at the time that he did not believe his son had
deliberately committed suicide but that he had died whilst "thrill seeking".
Variations
"One of our other friends came running in and told me what had happened," the
14-year-old friend said. "I ran to Nick's room and saw his body facing the
door.
"We got him off his dressing gown cord - it was around his neck and the other
end was on his dressing gown peg in his door."
He said the game was played throughout Eton between supper and prayers in the
evening. Every house had its own version.
A variation involved hugging someone hard. When they then stood up, the blood
rushed from their head and they would feel faint.
Another pupil, who also cannot be named, said he was always worried that
something might go wrong.
"It was something we thought about, but only at the back of our minds," he
said. "It was just a prank. Usually people faked it and they pretended to
faint."