Dear Keith,
You will not know me but I have a strong interest in the John Smyth Review that you are involved in. In writing this open letter I am not proposing to offer any new inside information about the whole sorry affair. Everything I know about Smyth is what I have gleaned from the Internet and through contact with just one of his victims. This individual sought me out because I have been writing on church power and abuse issues for some time in my blog: Surviving Church. This blog is an attempt to understand the way that power operates in the Church for good and for ill. Smyth’s record of appalling behaviour in a Winchester garden shed together with the subsequent cover up on the part of many prominent Christians represent, in different ways, examples of power being abused in a most shocking manner.
In this letter I intend to offer a number of observations based on the public evidence that has been available to me. From my perspective the most damaging part about the Smyth story is the way that it was allowed to remain hidden for so long. Enormous energy was expended to keep a lid on this scandal. Those who allowed Smyth to flee the UK to continue his nefarious activities in Zimbabwe could be said to have blood on their hands with the tragic death of 16-year-old Guide Nyachuru. There are also reported at least two suicide attempts among his English victims. As I see it, there are three groups of actors in this drama. There is the central figure, Smyth himself, who seems to have acted alone. Alongside him are his victims, all of whom were recruited from the Iwerne Christian camps. Then there is the third group, those who knew what was going on but were unwilling or unable to do anything to check Smyth’s behaviour. Within this last group, some are deeply culpable. A group of supporters and financial backers effectively allowed an evil man, not only to escape justice, but to continue to offend against the young. The important group within the Smyth drama are of course the victims. In a completely different way, they also were involved in a cover-up. Their cover-up was not of course to do with preserving reputations, defending institutions like the Iwerne camps and the dubious theological ideas which Smyth preached. It was a cover-up forced on them by a powerful man using the tools of shame and fear against the vulnerable young. The testimony of Mark Stibbe in the introduction of the recent book by Lisa Oakley and Justin Humphreys tells much of what we need to know about the horror of Smyth’s spiritually abusive behaviour which resulted in their silencing for decades.
In a file on my bookcase I have a stack of papers marked ‘Smyth stuff’. It contains, apart from the document which is prepared for you as ‘terms of reference’, other primary sources. I have a copy of the original 1982 report prepared by Mark Ruston which was originally given only restricted circulation. I also have a report prepared in Zimbabwe about Smyth’s activities by a group of Christian leaders based in Bulawayo. With the various other print-outs from the fall-out of the Channel 4 programme in 2017 and other press cuttings, there is a particularly useful chronological document of Smyth’s life and the other dramatis personae in the story. We have for example in this latter document the names of the Trustees of Zambezi Ministries who from the UK supported Smyth and his family during his enforced exile. The timescale chart in the document is also useful. It is easy to forget dates or become confused about the places where Smyth went to in Africa. I want to be assured that all the documents I have mentioned have been made available to you.
From my perspective, reading all the material again, there is a story which can be retold in a few sentences. A man with a fanatical religious impulse decided that he could make young men spiritually pure by administering acts of physical violence against them. Those who discovered the truth of these events were unable to call him to account but shipped him off to Africa where he continued running camps for teenagers for another ten to fifteen years. One young man, Guide, died and others were traumatised like those in England. I hope, Keith, that you can open up the mysterious question how and why no one raised the alarm over Smyth’s behaviour. We are looking to you to expose the wickedness of this institutional cover-up in your report. Actively protecting a fugitive from justice is surely itself a crime, even if many did not know the full picture of what was happening at the time.
It would appear that although the crimes took place in Winchester, a lot of the action is linked to the city of Cambridge. The Iwerne camps from which Smyth recruited his victims were strongly supported by Christian Unions in Cambridge. It is here that we find in the mid-70s Mark Ruston and Jonathan Fletcher at the Round Church. Both these clergy were strongly involved in the Iwerne camps and they would have known Smyth well, both as the chairman of the Trustees and as a camp speaker. The current Archbishop himself was recruited as a Cambridge undergraduate to work in the camps. The Iwerne spirit was apparently strong in the city. Also, among the clergy working in Cambridge within these strongly conservative Christian circles, was Michael Nazir Ali, later Bishop of Rochester. He would have known personally all those in the Iwerne network in the mid-70s at that time, whether or not he himself attended the camps. There are various other witnesses to the events of this period. Another name of a potential witness that has not been mentioned in any of the reporting on Smyth is David Conner, the Chaplain of Winchester College in the late 70s. He is now Dean of Windsor. He must have known personally many of Smyth’s Winchester victims.
Keith, I hope that you are going to be able to penetrate the secrecy that has been allowed to descend on this episode of English church history for so long, one which has resulted in a cover-up of monumental proportions. Cover-up and silence results in a corrupting disease for any organisation. There is a further mystery to be explained from more recent years. When the scandal began to be revealed in 2012/13 and known at the highest levels of the leadership, why did nothing decisive happen? More recently, following the Channel 4 programme in 2017, why has no one put pressure on the Trustees of the Iwerne Camps to open their files and tell us what they knew. The Church of England has suffered and is suffering as the result of this scandal and the coverups which continue to this day. Unless much more light is shed on what happened before, during and after this scandal, there is going to be a continuing smell of rottenness within the institution which will never be cleansed. Your review is important. But there are so many people that need to be spoken to if truth is to be revealed and a disinfecting light shed to reveal the complete story.
We are now into the third month of the review and I hope that your efforts to achieve clarity about what happened are proving successful. Many of us who have been watching this story unfold are incredulous over the constant claims of forgetfulness/ignorance that seem to appear. Even though I have absolutely no information beyond what is published on the Net, I believe that my perspective on the complete picture is of some value. You are very welcome to contact me if I can be of further help in your work of review.
Stephen Parsons
The Winchester system often had 2 concurrent chaplains (senior chaplain and assistant chaplain) among what John Thorn calls ‘the chaplaincy team’. Eton of course had an inordinate number (8?).
The rollcall of chaplains is distinguished. Lawrence Waddy was a fairly prolific Christian author who was based in San Diego at the time of the student uprisings. We saw him on Brain of Britain in 1984, reaching the grand final on a tiebreak. Canon HCA Gaunt the hymnwriter and Malvern College headmaster.
In the relevant period, chaplains were:
Paul Bates 1970-80 (senior chaplain 1973-80) – later Canon of Westminster but left after deserting his wife.
John Woolmer (assistant chaplain 1972-5) – maths master and much loved Christian author and butterfly enthusiast – who has written especially on healing, deliverance, angels. Sponsored the decisive mission to Winchester College (calendar year 1974-5 led by Keith de Berry outgoing rector of St Aldate’s Oxford) from which the Christian Forum’s heyday began. On staff at and around St Aldate’s Oxford 1975-82.
David Connor (senior chaplain 1980-7), went on to be Dean of Windsor, & officiated at Meghan’s wedding.
Mark Ashton distinguished old boy known as ‘captain of everything’, and all-round admirable individual, military background, appointed as a sort of evangelical-chaplain (specifically appointed with that brief because of burgeoning Christian Forum, see John Thorn autobiography) 1978-81. Later, took over from Mark Ruston as vicar of Round Church, but not before writing superb guide to Christian Youth Work as head of CYFA camps. Close to John Smyth’s family and also highly critical of John Smyth.
There were initial fears that the diminutive Keith de Berry’s mission would be a flop, but these fears reckoned without his inner spiritual power. As it happened, the moment that won over the boys (who collapsed in utter mirth) was the time he cracked the joke about the man who went to visit the mental hospital. His icebreaker: ‘Why are you all here?’. The response in unison: ‘Because we are not all there.’.
In part in reaction to the Christian Forum which had latterly run into the buffers and attracted some criticism, Winchester alumni and others set up an ‘Open Forum’ on related issues in Oxford University from 1985. A leading light (sec) was the later martyred (Revd to be) Christopher Gray, a consummate scholar, together with (Rev to be) Joshua Rey and (son of Lord Justice) Harry Bingham. Some of the speakers were in fact too New Agey and insufficiently rigorous – others were great, as was the whole concept of the society.
I recall Canon Gaunt as Precentor of Winchester Cathedral. He had a most beautiful speaking as well as singing voice. He once ministered to my late wife in hospital.
The point needs to be made that John Smyth had no official connection with Winchester College. He happened to live in Winchester near the College. He was warned off by the Headmaster John Thorn when the facts came to his notice.
(Christopher Shell: Whoever in the C of E drafted Mr Makin’s terms of reference clearly wasn’t a Wykehamist! To be clear, nor am I, but inordinately proud of a nephew from a humble background who became one.)
The situation at Winchester was rather more complex, surely. There were were other Chaplains around — Rev Philip Willmot (1950-1977), Rev Dr John Smith (1975-2006) and Rev Stephan Hopkinson (1973-90). The latter two were definitely at Winchester in the aftermath of the Smyth revelations. So there are Chaplains still alive who might shed light on what they were told — John Smith and David Conner. The latter was approached by Channel 4 but claims “no memory of the episode. This is not to mention “moral tutors” and “most of the schoolmasters” whom John Thorn writes were concerned parties.
Here I bow to your superior knowledge. The HM’s account did seem to presuppose a larger chaplaincy team, and these were they.
No memory of the episode – the HM’s ‘Road To Winchester’ indicates that neither he nor the Christian Forum saw a lot of similarity between the comparatively bland chapel services and the charismatic ministry of Jesus. So the former were probably part of the problem. I am sure I am not the only one who (say, late 1980s) was affronted by the way in which senior figures like the Abp of York seemed so (what to us seemed, and not without evidence) cold and conscience-less on life issues. Something like that, so unparalleled in Christian history, will leave people wanting to expose the fact that there is, by contrast, such a thing as true life-transforming Christian power, and many have found it. Maybe D Conner’s words expose the culture gap (not unique to Winchester) between the Christian Forum and chapel cultures, albeit Matthew Scott on barristerblogger says there was an overlap of personnel. I recall too how university chapel missions would have as their *main* speaker [sic] people unenthusiastic about calling themselves a Christian either at the time or subsequently, such as Primus Holloway. We noted how the greater this tendency, the higher the office the person would probably achieve (sic).
As to the mellifluous Canon Gaunt, envy me for having sat through lessons that consisted of nothing other than his equally mellifluous son (husband of Winchester HM Walter Oakeshott’s daughter) intoning Arnold’s great ‘Sohrab and Rustum’.
As Bp Alan was on here, it reminds me that there are some inaccuracies in what Stephen calls above the Zimbabwe/Bulawayo document (the one with the timeline).
First inaccuracy: all UK victims are assigned ‘Winchester’; Bp Alan’s summary on 6.8.18 Archbishop Cranmer thread ‘a minority were from Winchester; he recruited extensively in Cambridge, Bristol and Durham’ is much more accurate.
Second probable inaccuracy: the events assigned to latter part of 1981 seem to belong much better in the period subsequent to mid-Feb 1982.
A run-down of the different kinds of support offered to victims by Iwerne leaders:
(1) Mark Ruston report 1982 says that MR spoke at length with 13 of the known 22 victims, in the context of being especially concerned for 2 of them (one of the original victims and one of the perpetrators). Pastoral input, therefore.
(2) The timeline says D Fletcher toured the UK visiting victims – this would likely have been the first half of 1982 rather than the end of 1981 as seems from the timeline. This shows commitment to go far and to see presumably as many as possible. He was and is highly pastoral and caring.
(3) In or around summer 1982 I witnessed at Harrow part of the extended care or rehabilitation when 2 (or 3?) victims and DF unexpectedly turned up at a CU meeting and the young men gave their testimonies in turn.
(4) When victim 004 requested in 2012 further counselling, this was later funded by 2 ex Iwerne leaders.
Victim 004 and his still-suffering perspective clearly speaks for several, as witness joint statements by victims. (We could compare early disruption -sexual or emotional – of normal healthy development: it effectively means that a healthy overall life-pattern is beyond recovery. This is why , for example, Christians generally press for a marriage culture rather than vague and unstructured moving in and out of attachments in an unplanned way.) There are also those who, while agreeing that the pain was/is intense and affected healthy development, have functioned well, sometimes exceptionally well, and shown no longterm ill effects. For this reason one should hesitate before presenting either group (or any other group) as typical. Neither/none is fully typical. They co-exist. Victims varied in numerous ways: psychology, resilience, degree of involvement, degree of suffering.
A footnote to that is that several victims remained part of the camps and the network, which means that (a) communication (of any kind those victims wished) could and would easily continue with the Iwerne leaders – not that they were not in some cases leaders themselves, for some victims were already of the status of travelling Iwerne-network speaker before 1982 anyway; (b) some victims retained that status after the exposure of Smyth; (c) I would strongly suspect that many classified themselves as ambassadors rather than as victims. 1982 was, unlike today, not a time when our culture was accused of being a ‘victim culture’.