The woman, known as “Julie”, told the Scottish Child Abuse inquiry in Edinburgh on Tuesday that she was sent to Fornethy House in Angus in 1965 when she was around eight years old.
(Image: Fornethy house)
Giving evidence, she said girls were forced to finish all of their food at meal times and when she was unable to eat her porridge, her hair was “pulled back” by a teacher, while another “shoved” food into her mouth.
When she gagged, she told the inquiry she was forced to “swallow what came back up”.
Julie said: “My head was put back as food was shoved in. I was told: ‘It’s good for you.’ I was so distressed.
“I still gag on food. The experience of being force-fed has stayed with me.”
In another case, a woman known as “Susan” told the inquiry girls were expected to “eat every last morsel” on their plates.
She said: “I saw a girl at another table. They force-fed her to such an extent that she threw up on her plate.
“Instead of leaving it at that, they force-fed her the vomit on her plate.”
She described being “terrified” by the experience at the home, which was run by Glasgow City Council, and ate all of her food to avoid similar treatment.
The inquiry also heard children who attended the residential facility were not allowed to tell their families about what was happening to them.
Julie said the girls were instructed to write letters to their families, but they were ordered to copy exactly what was written on a blackboard.
“I remember writing that it was a terrible place, please come and get me,” Julie told the inquiry.
“[The teachers] read it and ripped it up right in front of me. It felt like a great betrayal. I thought ‘how will my mummy know what is happening to me?’ That feeling stayed with me – helpless to do anything about my situation.”
Susan said she also tried to tell her mother she “did not like residential school” and that teachers hit her when she wrote her first letter, but she said she was beaten by staff after they read it.
“[The teacher] picked my letter up, glared at me, and stuck [my letter] in her pocket,” Susan told the inquiry.
At the end of class, Susan was instructed to stay behind, and she was taken to a closet alone.
She said the teacher returned with the head teacher, who was taking her shoe off as she approached.
“I thought ‘why is she taking her shoe off?’ Then she started beating the hell out of me with the shoe,” Susan said. Susan said the other teacher stood with her arms folded and watched while she was beaten.
She told the inquiry: “I remember feeling like I’d been sent to jail. I thought I’d done something terrible.”
A third witness, known as “Margaret”, also gave evidence on Tuesday. She was sent to Fornethy House two separate times with her sisters.
When she was seven, Margaret said two adult teachers at Fornethy physically beat her and her sister for three to four minutes.
Margaret told the inquiry what happened one evening when she and her sisters were sitting at a dinner table.
“My sister was sitting opposite me and then in a funny way – she was trying to put on a posh accent on – she said, ‘Pass the salt, please’. We were giggling. Then, two teachers came. One grabbed my sister and one grabbed myself from behind,” Margaret said.
“They dragged us into the [television] room. They got us in there and closed the door, and they were holding us and slapping into us – into our legs, kind of our backs, our bottoms. It felt as though they were never going to stop. Two big adults, and they just continued.
“Even now when I hear ‘pass the salt’ it upsets me and it takes me back to the dining room.”
The women were giving evidence during phase 10 of the inquiry, which is being chaired by Lady Smith, looking into child abuse at 20 establishments across Scotland as far back as the 1960s.
It is expected to hear evidence from Fornethy House survivors throughout this week.
The inquiry continues.
