After a rough beginning in 1941, I found the place to be a healing environment. The building was (and still is) a place of wonder. A spiral staircase up to the flat roof with battlements; courtyard surrounded by outbuildings (used for pottery, art room, etc).
The grounds were beautifully planned with lawns, kitchen garden, and many types of evergreen trees and bushes. There were yew, box, and tall larch, redwood and pine trees. Also, a large cedar with branches that looked like plates. Tree climbing was one of our favorite activities, including sliding down the branches of the cedar onto the ground. There was an outdoor theater made from formed and carefully shaped yew trees, in which plays were performed. There was a delightful aroma after the rain!
Up the hill beyond the woods, Ingleborogh Hill was in full view. It looked magnificent in winter covered with snow.
As far as formal education went, I have little recollection. I know that I did not attend class several times. Most memorable is the occasion when Kenneth assembled our class out in the courtyard and dissolved a piece of copper pipe in nitric acid. The brown choking fumes (which we mostly avoided) added an additional sense of reality to the occasion. Then the remaining liquid was boiled down to a black powder which was then used to produce a beautiful green glaze on fired pottery. This was the beginning of my intense interest in chemistry, and admiration for Kenneth’s extensive knowledge. Kenneth taught my first woodworking class. We were making egg—shapes out of rectangular blocks of wood. One of the students asked him to reach something down from a high shelf. He did so, but asked how a monkey would have reached it. "get a stick and pull it down". He always encouraged resourcefulness!
My sense of worth was low. But then a teacher admired the way I cleaned my shoes! Other examples of practical Christian love were to follow. Then I was also learning freedom, but it was a long time before I learned discipline and responsibility.
We built "dens" in the woods. The best was half underground built up with logs, and a pole and corrugated iron roof covered with dirt and branches. A cast iron oven door complete with frame provided the only entrance (and exit!). There were about 8 of us sitting round the table in the den "testing" a large bowl of gunpowder, which someone had brought for making "bombs". A small pinch was lit and a spark got into the bowl. There was a blinding flash, and we were all enveloped in smoke. No one was hurt, and we made an orderly exit one at a time crawling through the oven doorway!
On our free afternoons we would walk down to the store (post office) in the small village of Wennington to spend our tuck money. We would buy chocolate or jars of meat spread. One time we discovered a tank parked on the village green. The crew was sitting on the grass eating cake. This was an awesome sight, and we talked with them. Hard to believe a war was on. People being killed, wounded or displaced every day; and for what purpose? (A book I read "War Cycles/Peace Cycles" by R.K. Hoskins provides answers to this question.)
The river Wenning runs through the village under a stone bridge. We spent time there fishing and sometimes swimming (with supervision).
There were quite a few memorable occasions, which would take up too much space here, but this sampling may satisfy the curiosity of those who were not at "Old Wennington".
"All the good the past has had
Remains to make our own time glad."
On reading Energy Unbound by Kenneth Barnes, I have just come to realize the enormous courage and dedication that went into this school enterprise. The purchase of Ingmanthorpe Hall was God’s provision and a masterpiece of creative financing: selling trees for lumber and some of the land, to help make the payment.
This was a much larger place, and something new to get used to. Progress in education, sports (soccer and cricket) was made. My final year there was the best for me. I became the only student doing metalwork, and built a model steam engine with Martin Eden as my teacher. I still have it, and it still works! I rebuilt a bicycle, which I found in a stream near the school grounds. Even history and geography were coming alive!
On leaving in 1948, my new guardians (bio—parents) were opposed to references to socialism which were so prominent in the school, and would not consider the possibility of my returning.
On reading Energy Unbound, I appreciate Kenneth’s background and the process of his thought. He was driven by an ideal together with his Christian faith to provide better opportunity for humanity to live in greater freedom and on a more equal footing. Even though socialism was part of this ideal, he admits in the book that a socialist government would have such an enormous bureaucracy that it would stifle initiative and freedom. His reference to Marxism, I believe, was for him to better understand history through the dialectic. He was a man of high ideals, with courage to live up to them and make them practical.
"Government . . ., is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master." George Washington
"Men will either by governed by God, or ruled by tyrants." William Penn
Shortly after leaving Wennington, I was introduced to Christian Science. Owing it partly to Wennington’s encouragement of initiative and freedom of thought, I started to study this totally new and revolutionary view of creation and existence. I read the main textbook: "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures", by Mary Baker Eddy. This answered many questions: Why am I here? Who and what is God? How is the material universe explained? How does all this relate to human experience? How does this relate to the Bible? As well as providing answers, it helped me to discard beliefs of limitation and live a healthier and more productive life. It is almost like discovering the Earth is round, after believing for a long time that it is flat!
"Take away wealth, fame, and social organizations, which weigh not one jot in the balance of God, and we get clearer views of Principle. Break up cliques, level wealth with honesty, let worth be judged according to wisdom, and we get better views of humanity" S&H p239.
(Mrs. Eddy uses "Principle" as one of seven synonyms for God: Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love — capitalized.)
After leaving Wennington I attended what Kenneth rightly called a "cram shop". I made entry into Manchester Tech where I got a degree in Electrical Engineering. A two—year apprenticeship at a large manufacturing plant followed, during summer vacations I worked in hydroelectric power plants in Norway and Switzerland. After two years conscription in the British Army, spent mostly in Germany, I went to Canada where I worked for Honeywell Controls in Toronto, and taught electronics at a technical school. Then I transferred to a Honeywell plant near Washington, DC. After a few months there the plant closed down and they moved me to a new plant in Denver, Colorado.
In 1964 I married Anita, an elementary school teacher from Oklahoma City. We have two daughters, both single (as of this writing). One lives in Vail, Colorado, and the other in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
For the past three decades I have worked at my own business in the Denver area. My specialty is combustion controls as applied to industrial and commercial boilers, incinerators and process heaters. I provide repair, upgrade and new equipment at customer locations. Some of my customers are hospitals, asphalt roofing plants, etc.
I have not retired yet, but sometimes I think I may be close to it! I would like to spend more time in my own workshop, and devote more time to the study of the Science of Being.
My wife and I are taking classes in silversmithing. She makes a lot of jewellery, which she sells at craft shows. In the past we have given a lot of time and effort to church and political activities, but not so much recently. We used to go to England but I have no close relatives there now, so we will see when the next opportunity presents itself.
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