Club Foyer>Chillout Room>Correction
Dear Lorraine,
I was a guest at the Boot Camp. My parents arranged for me to stay when I was drinking heavily and smoking a lot of hash. It was nothing like the place shown on tv. It was far harder.
I went with my parents on holiday to San Francisco. They had me kidnapped and thrown into a van right on a busy street in Fisherman's Wharf. I was hooded and handcuffed and taken north over the border to Vancouver then to some remote place deep in the forest.
Here I was stripped by some tough women and given old army gear to wear.They put my wrists and ankles in irons that were riveted on with a hammer by a massive man. Heavy chains connected my wrists and ankles together. Another heavy chain linked the two sets of chains together.
I was shown a dvd of my ma and pa telling me it was for my own good. I shouted and swore and bit one of the guards. I was dragged into a wooden cabin and told my de-tox would start then and there. They chained me to the wall with a chain round my body and under my arm pits and pulled the hood of the big old army parka over my head so I was blinfolded. I spent a week just chained there being very sick and having horrible dreams. I had an awful withdrawal from the hashish and booze and pills I had been taking.
Eventually the dreams stopped and the guards started talking to me. Saying they would unchain me from the wall if I stopped swearing and did what they said. They did and even let me wash and go to the john.
Two women took me and another girl camping deep in the forest there and then. If we argued we got to spend the night chained to a tree standing up. If we co-operated we got a sleeping bag and food. We soon learnt how to make fires and cook the fish and squirrels we caught.
The forest is vast, empty and silent. We saw beavers and black bears and lots of different birds. Found roots and nuts to eat. The guards became friends but still I wore the heavy chains and old army trousers and parka. The fall turned into winter and the snows came and we still spent a lot of time camping out. We built igloos and snow shelters. We worked chopping down trees and sawing up logs for fuel and fence posts.
The chains were only laboriously removed and replaced once every few weeks when we had a shower and change of clothes.
We must have stunk. I got used to wearing the chains and thouht nothing of or wearing the same heavy hoody and parka with the hoods always up for weeks on end. And in the coldest part of the winter S A S Balaclavas with only to eyes showing.
When the spring came I didnt want to come home but see the new life coming into the land as the snow melted. The last few weeks they took the chains off but the parka and hoods stayed on. As they do now back in England. I am now studying nature and agriculture and help maintain a nearby Nature Trust area. I don't drink, smoke or take pills. I've got so much to do I have no time for foolish things.
The boot camp was the best thing my parents ever did for me. I intend to go back to Vancouver and Alaska soon.
Ex-bootcamp Hoodie
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