Editor writes: This is the first, we hope, of several comments on Andrew Graystone’s important new book, Bleeding For Jesus. We hope also to publish a response by Andrew to some of the early comments which have appeared, even though the publication date is only today September 6th. I also propose sharing whatever observations I have to make after I receive my copy and have had a chance to read it. They may be other reactions in the pipeline which Surviving Church is happy to carry. There is an urgent need to explore this vital new book on the topic of power abuse in the Church and it lasting impact on members.
Two weeks ago, my attention was directed to the publication by the Titus Trustees of a Timeline https://www.titustrust.org/john-smyth/ which they had produced to assist everyone in understanding the actions of the Trust and its de facto predecessor the Iwerne Trust, in the longstanding saga of the John Smyth sadistic abuse of multiple victims 40 years ago. This was a welcome development for two reasons.
First, this information is useful and long overdue. Second, Titus, knowing – and in fairness not complaining – about my interest in these matters, wanted me to know that they were as good as their promise, via an intermediary, to advise me when it became available.
This engagement with a known and vocal critic is progress; honest dialogue is important even as we wait for the CofE Report which is already two years in the making, and unlikely to be available before next year at the earliest.
The Church has recently announced that it wants to receive all submissions by the end of September; that deadline is not at all well known or publicised; some of us are inclined to the benevolent view that if significant new revelations were to come forward later, the Church would hardly refuse to receive them..
There is however, currently no work being done on Smyth’s abusive activities in Africa where 90 African boys were beaten in a replication of his UK activities thanks to the negligence of those whose only thought was of moving their little local problem on, regardless of the unlikelihood that a leopard would change its spots. That deficiency needs to be urgently remedied in the light of the book’s revelations.
Although the Makin Report will not be in the headlines, for a while, the story is now, thanks to the journalist Andrew Greystone’s detailed book on the Smyth scandal and its aftermath. “ Bleeding for Jesus” https://www.eden.co.uk/christian-books/the-church/bleeding-for-jesus/ which was reviewed in the Guardian here https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/21/bleeding-for-jesus-book-tells-story-of-qc-who-pitilessly-abused-young-men
It is hard to believe that the Titus document was not published with one eye on the book’s publication. I do not blame the Trustees for that: they are not the same Trustees who made the original decisions although their perspective was inevitably shaped by the information recorded by that generation of leaders. Some of the recorded explanations on which the new regime relied would inevitably have been self serving by those those responsible at the time.
We shall undoubtedly be hearing a lot about this book in the coming weeks for a variety of reasons. First it is drawn from primary sources.; victims have trusted the author and have given full co-operation. Second, Andrew Graystone has extensively interviewed Smyth’s own son and that offers fascinating fresh perspectives. Third, he has been to Africa to follow up the story which no-one else has. Fourth, he became interested in the story when he was originally engaged by the Titus Trust itself, to act as their PR advisor, and thus was given much inside information. Fifth, knowing that the book was ready for publication, Lambeth Palace requested and was given an advance copy following an inducing offer to provide a Foreward, commending it to be read as an important contribution to this longstanding saga, which it is. However, the book does not include such a Foreward…….
The book will to be read carefully and reviewed in its own right, but anyone seeking to understand how the CofE and its Iwerne Conservative Evangelical wing have approached this matter will do well to start with an examination the Titus timeline.
Already there are some interesting revelations which even the earliest victims who came forward, did not know. The story was known to have been buried in the early days, ostensibly in the interests of the beaten boys/young men, although by no means all were consulted, and neither were all the parents of those under age at the time of the crimes.
Journalist Anne Atkins played an early significant role in bringing the matter forward in her newspaper column, but what leaps off the page for me is that on 8 November 2012, the matter was raised with the then Iwerne Trustees by one of their own people described only as R1.
I understand that what is not made clear in the Titus Timeline is that R1 is the woman who ran the girls counterpart camp at Lymington. This needs to be more fully explained. I understand that this information is contained in a separate report by James Stileman, a senior member of Titus staff, which has not been put into the public domain, and that relevant parts from the report do not feature in the Timeline. That needs to be remedied and amplified if the commitment of the new Trustees to openness is to be maintained.
We learn that only three Trustees and four Titus Trust employees were told of the 2012 disclosures, and they jointly made a deliberate decision not to tell the whole Board. That is extraordinary. Even if it were believed that the transfer of the going concern from Iwerne to Titus had severed the legal responsibility (which is itself contentious), the Titus Trust undoubtedly had a reputational interest in knowing and addressing the allegations, and all trustees ought, for that reason alone, to have been told the complete truth. Hiding such information in such circumstances certainly looks like somebody was covering up.
We further learn that the original Ruston Report http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/970485/27843482/1519929269713/The+Ruston+Report+on+John+Smyth+1993.pdf?token=b5ZM1XU9leAUV05%2BfBelEJFZCiE%3D which identified that crime had occurred, was also not shared with all who ought to have been told, and that it was consigned to a sealed envelope and stored for many years in Chairman Giles Rawlinson’s attic and thus kept away from future Trustees eyes. That too looks like cover-up.
One adds to this the fact when the scandal began to break in 2012, the other trustees had to wait 19 months to be told the truth, and even then it took another four months before the police were approached. When the former and then current Chairs of Titus Trust, Revd David Fletcher and Giles Rawlinson were unanimously asked to resign, and did so at a meeting on 29 November 2014, nobody seemed to think it appropriate to notify the Church of England that a priest had behaved so badly that he had to be required to step aside as a Charity Trustee for reasons of Safeguarding mishandling.
Given the above, the assertion in the concluding summary of the timeline that there was “no cover-up” may attract a certain scepticism. If the new trustees are saying that that this was the old regime’s view, one would accept this as a historical observation. To appear to adopt and defend that view does look like a serious own goal on their part. It is not the best way to salvage a tarnished reputation. There is plenty in the book to show that cover up, wilful blindness and blinkered loyalty was exactly what was going on..
This is doubly the case when one notes that the decision to go “low key” was against the advice of not one but two PR advisors. Both, Andrew Graystone and a Christian journalist Andrew Boyd advised the earlierTrustees to be proactive open and honest; their advice was not followed.
The “no cover up” narrative falls further into disrepute when one remembers that Titus is but part of a wider Iwerne Conservative Evangelical community. When the facts of Smyth were taken to Winchester College where many of its victims had been prepared and encouraged to attend Iwerne by the Christian Forum, teacher Peter Krackenberger wrote to summarise the way that part of the constituency viewed the matter. “Basically everyone’s reaction was magnificent and just what we could have hoped for. After the initial shock and horror, all parties are agreed that discretion is by far the best policy and that there is no merit in the information being spread any further.” [Italicised words underlined in original]
The current Titus trustees are entitled to suggest that there was previously a small group which knew all, but elected to be economical with the truth when dealing with their fellow trustees. They might be entitled to say that some trustees were less than vigorous in their curiosity. They might even want to be legalistic, steering clear of moral considerations, though that is not exactly a good look for “ Bible based Christians”. What cannot be said with much credibility however, is that there was not a widespread consensus amongst their constituency leadership to avoid having these matter known and scrutinised, because that would reflect very badly upon the entire Iwerne/ “Bash Nash” project.
The victims have compiled a list of 125 people who are likely to have known something was amiss, and yet turned a blind eye. Many of them are named in the book with full particulars of their deficiencies. Andrew Graystone explains that when he learned of the facts he felt that he could not join them in leaving it to others to act – walking by on the other side of the road like so many. That is why he has written the book. He will take severe flak for it; his willingness to do so is to his credit. The very publication will force the unwilling to be frank against their former instincts.
One of the victims issued his own statement addressing evasiveness within the Timeline.
https://anglican.ink/2021/08/21/smyth-victims-respond-to-titus-trust-document-dump/ which includes the following,
“The Titus timeline covers only 2012-2017 and ignores the 30 year period when senior Iwerne camp leaders, and two Trustees of Titus Trust until 2015, had known about the abuse throughout the period. The apology does not mention the scores of African children, younger than the UK victims, who were abused. There is no apology for the failures in 1982 to stop John Smyth QC from ever working with children again”.
“Titus response hides behind their long-claimed legal distinction between Iwerne Trust and Titus Trust, when the latter took over the assets, the responsibilities, the camps and even the Trustees of Iwerne Trust. The trust hides behind legal advice to claim no responsibility, and their response from 2012-17 is devoid of Christian care and compassion”.
When the Graystone book is widely read there is likely to be a necessary revision of how we view the timeline and perhaps how the Trustees then understand the story: it will be more fully rounded than what currently available to them through the incomplete notes and recollections upon which they have necessarily relied.
The story of Smyth and the wider cover up is much more complex and unpleasant. It will not be hard to see why there is no encouragement to read the book from the CofE.There will be much discomfort in Lambeth Palace, Church House and amongst the big beasts of Iwerne Conservative Evangelicalism.
The story is not, as a non-Iwerne Conservative Evangelical colleague properly pointed out to me, representative of the entire Evangelical constituency, the vast majority of whom are properly disgusted by what they are learning.
As more people read it, it is going to be a very big story for the Church, and its fall out will last well into the work of the next General Synod.
We are already hearing allegations from those criticised that the book has inaccuracies. Personal statements have been issued. Those assertions, the context, and motivation will need to be carefully considered.
Fundamentally however, the importance of “Bleeding for Jesus” lies not in its author, his motives or any factual controversies: it is important because it is the first comprehensive account by and on behalf of the victims, both in the UK and in Africa, of crimes by John Smyth and the cover up by the Iwerne Trustees and officers who knew the facts and chose to look the other way. That is where the primary focus of the discussion needs to be.
Andrew Graystone has done a huge service to the victims and all who are concerned for truth and justice. His detractors are irrelevant. They just need to see the book as a proxy submission to the Makin Inquiry. But it is actually more than that. Facts matter, but it needs to be remembered that Keith Makin is not asked to ascertain all the facts; how could he possibly do that? But he will make many findings, on the balance of probabilities. This was a cover-up to make Watergate a tea party. Indeed, no Woodward or Bernstein could possibly have found a ‘Deep Throat’, such was the oath of silence. I am surprised that only 125 people are ‘named’ by UK victims as having knowledge, although I knew it must have been in the hundreds. By the time I was told in about 1995 that Smyth had left the UK under a cloud, very many more would have been privy to ‘something’. I was pretty fringe when it came to Iwerne alumni, SHB/ASLP/HTB etc. What saddens me is that by then the pattern of sadism was continuing unabated in Zimbabwe, and had done so in all likelihood since 1986, although Coltart didn’t report until 1993. Indeed Guide Nyachuru drowned in the pool of Ruzawi School, where 20 years earlier I had taught in my gap year. I have reflected deeply on all aspects of Smyth, and know very many of the leading players who would have been deeply involved, although at the time of writing only two (to my knowledge) of the recipients of the Ruston Report are still alive. I will say more when I have read Bleeding for Jesus.
RMC, DCMF, TJS – three still alive.
To say ‘his detractors are irrelevant’ is a sweeping generalisation and thereby suspect. Within a book of 200 pages will be stronger and weaker bits. Are we not allowed to point out weaknesses in any of the 200 pages? We are, in fact, allowed to do so, and to do so advances the discussion/
Point of information: if TJS is who I think it is, he died last year on 13 October.
Source: https://stjohnswimborne.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2020-10-18-St-Johns-Weekly-News-for-website.pdf
You’re more up to date than I. RIP.
My thoughts exactly
Frankly, surprised to see this comment, particularly with the admission that you have not yet read the book. Nor have I.
“His detractors are irrelevant” is insulting to people who have provided thoughtful and careful questioning comments on this thread. Others say above that they will reserve judgement on the moral (and legal?) issues until they have read the book. That is fair enough, but maybe they should consider their judgement to be an interim one until they have further read the Makin report.
I’m afraid your point on the burden of proof which Mr Makin is required to apply escapes me.
My apologies. My misreading, working just from the ‘recent comments’ list, thinking that this was the still active ‘The Smyth Story revisited’ thread. That was, of course, where the other comments to which I refer were posted.
RW
Fine. Re burden of proof, see Makin Terms of Reference.
I’m familiar with them! I read them the day they were published and have since had cause to refer to them many times both here and on TA. I immediately realised that they placed some limitations on Mr Makin, not least that he is not to engage in any kind of hindsight. I just wondered about your perception of the burden of proof – a different issue – having some particular relevance. Telling me to read the terms of reference is hardly an answer!
There seems to have been a hold-up at the printers in Glasgow so that copies have not yet even reached the author and publisher. There is an indication that copies will arrive at a warehouse on Friday coming. This will mean that we will not get our copies till next week. Meanwhile I hear that the anticipated response is such that a reprint is being considered. The planned time-table for Surviving Church blogs has been affected as I had assumed that I would be able to write something this week. This is obviously not possible.
I have this afternoon received an e-mail from Amazon informing me that they have a revised delivery date and stating: “Estimated arrival date: September 18 2021.”
‘I understand that what is not made clear in the Titus Timeline is that R1 is the woman who ran the girls counterpart camp at Lymington.’
I am reliably informed that R1 didn’t run the girls camp, but was a camper and officer.
This is wrong. Whilst it may do a ‘service’ to some victims, it offers no service at all to the many victims I am in contact with. Sadly this incorrect rhetoric, regularly repeated, damages them further. Many have nothing to do with Christian things, and certainly not ‘conservative evangelical’ things. They are grateful for how Winchester College lead the discrete response, and are daily terrified of the contemporary revelations, many by those who promised discretion themselves.
The abuse was abhorrent and continues to damage. But now, so does the clamour for airtime, opinion and comment.
Can you specify which ‘incorrect rhetoric’? I’m not clear whether you’re responding to another comment, or to the blog as a whole.
You mean discreet, I think. Sadly, I have found that many in the church don’t understand the distinction between discretion and secrecy. I’m sorry that people you know have been hurt by shining a light into dark places, but that doesn’t automatically mean it is always wrong. Exposing abuse and any other wrong doing is not just gossip. And people who have been harmed by secrecy are entitled to consideration too.
Exactly – it should always have been possible for J. Smyth QC to stand trial for those crimes in the early 1980s, with court provisions to ensure the ongoing anonymity of the boys who inevitably would have had to become crucial witnesses to convict him.
Yes discreet – thank you.
One struggled to hold back the tears. He had also read the statement by the victim that Andrew Greystone reveals in this book (a vicar somewhere I think). My friend hadn’t heard this mans name in a very long time. However he found it devastating that Greystone had revealed his identity and is now terrified that the same might happen to him and others.
He remembers how carefully the headmaster communicated with him and his parents, and remembers the wishes of all – discretion. Rightly or wrongly he has built his life on that promise of discretion, and now it all feels very fragile.
I’m so sorry. Truly. But for some, realising they are not alone is a life saver.
I feel for your friend, and am sorry that he is being re-traumatised.
I was a bit puzzled by the statements issued by James Stileman and Alasdair Paine re ‘Bleeding for Jesus’, since the book isn’t out yet. Martin Sewell read a proof copy, which is why he was able to write the blog above; but not even Andrew Graystone has a copy of the print edition. So I’m not sure how Mr. Stileman and Mr. Paine know what was, or was not, written about them.
I haven’t read the book either, of course, but I doubt that Andrew would reveal the identity of a Smyth victim unless it was pretty widely known already.
It’s very difficult when the need of some survivors for privacy clashes with the need of other survivors for openness. I really don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that abuse thrives amid secrecy and silence.
I wish your friend all the best, and, especially, peace of mind.
Thank you. I agree secrecy and silence allows abuse to thrive, of course it does, often a silence achieved through threat. I think in this instance the discretion was more widely agreed and has enabled some to rebuild their lives. It is clear that discretion was wrong, especially reflecting 40 years later.
I’m reassured by your confidence that Andrew not to reveal a survivors identity, I’ll pass that on.
I don’t know the people you mention, but does there need to be such a focus on these people when the abuse was Smyth, and the policy of discretion lead by the headmaster? Smyth was clearly a monster.
Well, I haven’t read the book, though I do know a fair amount of the story (and some survivors). But Smyth wasn’t the only abuser to thrive in the Iwerne environment, so there are valid questions as to how that culture might have fostered abuse. There is also the issue of 40 years of apparent cover-up, including by some powerful people.
Wow, oh my. I have just read the statement by Paine.
Are you sure his identity was widely known? And are you sure his need for privacy clashed with other survivors need for openness? I cant see how they are not compatible.
It seems this Paine is the very survivor who first blew the whistle in 1982. I can’t see any possible justification for Andrew Greystone naming him without his permission. Unless Paine himself has perpetrated the same abuse as Smyth.
I don’t know much about this group or environment, it is sad to hear.
I think abusers have thrived in every kind of environment though from football clubs, swimming clubs, schools, scout groups, church’s, even dentist practices, I’m not sure there are any that are unaffected are there?
If the initial policy of discretion was agreed, lead by the headmaster, I think I would call it something other than a ‘cover-up’?
Not all of Smyth’s victims were boys from Winchester College, so the headmaster’s decision of ‘discretion’ doesn’t apply to everyone. As for Alasdair Paine, I have heard from several different people (not all from the same circles) that he was a Smyth victim, so I think probably it was fairly widely known.
The thirty one:eight/Scripture Union review makes it pretty clear the matter wasn’t handled well at the parent organisation.
As for the rest, including what Andrew actually says about Mr. Paine, I’ll have to read the book, when it arrives.
I have not read Andrew Graystone’s book and don’t know whether he covers these points.
(1) In February 1989 the Headmaster of Winchester College published his autobiography, in it stating unequivocally that Smyth had abused College boys. Some have sought to dismiss this fact, suggesting that the book only had a limited readership. Some have suggested that the Headmaster’s motivation was self-protection – frankly something which is hard for me to understand. Silence would surely have been more obvious for that.
(2) By the mid-1990s Smyth’s abusive actions were well-known at Government level in Zimbabwe. The law slowly ground to take its course but Smyth was arrested and arraigned on a charge of culpable homicide in September 1997. The subsequent trial in November and December of that year ‘collapsed’. Smyth subsequently moved to South Africa where he established a specialist legal practice and as late as 2013 appeared on S African national television as a legal consultant.
My question: How can people continue to assert that nothing was known in the light of the above – decades before the UK television documentary?
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You ask, “there are valid questions as to how that culture might have fostered abuse”. People write about Smyth as though he were in some way unique, as though these kinds of things were unusual in the private school system at the time. While he was certainly an extreme case, the physical punishing of boys by hitting them hard on their naked backside occurred every single day I was at my prep school, the Dragon School in Oxford, and occasionally at the next school I was carted off to, Winchester College, in the late seventies. These institutions, and the two I went to were in no way special in this regard, were home to numerous paedophiles and sadists.
Let me give a few examples: in my first week at the Dragon, aged 8, with my parents safely thousands of miles away, I was repeatedly beaten on my naked backside with a slipper for talking with other boys after lights out. No one thought anything of this; it was completely normal. It didn’t take long for this to progress to a gymshoe or whatever other weapon was to hand. Then there was the red-faced French teacher who dragged you up from your chair by your hair, the young teacher, also a sadist, who took indecent photographs in the basement, the teacher who’d bawl at you in an incandescent rage, “Do you want the hairbrush?”, not to mention the teachers that slowly strolled up and down the edge of the swimming pool as us young boys took our mandatory naked “midnight dips” during the hot summer nights of the 1976 heatwave. I could go on and on…
Winchester was simply a continuation of this sordid tale of private education in England, older men abusing children after they’d all sung Anglican hymns together in the morning, and John Smyth but an extreme version of the same old same old. I was taken to lunch at his house several times and was lucky not to get assaulted, but I should mention that when the head of PE at Winchester left the school, the next I saw of him was on the front page of the Daily Mirror, jailed for child abuse after being made head of a private school in the West Country. John Thorn himself caned a close friend of mine, aged 15 or 16. His ‘crime’? Writing on the blackboard that he, the headmaster, was ill and that we should go back to our houses and have a free lesson. An Eng. Lit. teacher at the school jumped in front of the Portsmouth to London train after being summoned to face Mr Thorn for interfering with boys, and another friend of mine was attacked in a garden on Kingsgate Street by a large, jolly, bearded teacher.
If you’d told boys about Smyth at the time we’d have shrugged and said, ‘Well, of course,’ although the quantity of blows and the foul religious justification for it would have made us sit up a bit. But no one would have been much surprised, as being thrashed on your bare skin was completely normal. Why does no one see this?
I personally assumed the rumours and jokes were exaggerated. And most of us don’t go to public schools. Thanks for this. It’s an important piece of information. And best wishes to you.
Anon, that is horrifying. No wonder most of the ‘upper ranks’ of our society (and church) seem to be emotionally illiterate. They’re traumatised.
What Iwerne/Smyth seem to have added to this ghastly scenario is the encouragement of one-to-one ‘personal work’, with an older man mentoring a younger man or boy. Often this involved very intrusive probing into questions of sexuality, relations with the opposite sex, masturbation, etc. In the case of Smyth and Fletcher, the ‘wrong’ answers resulted in physical punishment; with Smyth it was brutal in the extreme. In this way the violence was compounded by distortion of the most intimate parts of the self. This evil legacy has, tragically, proved enduring in the lives of those affected.
Anon, I hope that in some measure you have been able to recover from your painful childhood, and find happiness and peace of mind.
I have lived all my life in conservative evangelical circles, and on the camps you mention Janet. I have received one2one attention and support throughout. I have never been asked a probing question as you suggest, never. Smyth and Fletcher were abusers, and there may have been others, however it is just not right to say the culture of the camps did this. The personal work I received and witnessed was a gentle and caring support, something I will be forever grateful for.
However, as I reflect and listen to Anon above, there is no doubt that public school and boarding school system I experienced would have made physical abuse acceptable.
Whenever abuse occurs hard questions must be asked of any organisation involved, however jumping to extreme positions and conclusions may not be helpful or wise, it will just perpetuate hurt, often to the longterm detriment of survivors.
Anon 2, I’m glad your experience has been so positive.
I don’t think I made myself sufficiently clear above. What I meant to say was that the accepted custom of one-to-one personal work and mentoring was one which could have been, and sadly was, exploited by abusers for their own wicked purposes. This does not mean, as you point out, that all who engaged in such mentoring were abusers.
Incidentally, I also spent some years in the conservative evangelical tradition and didn’t encounter this ‘personal work’ – unless you count my ‘counselling sessions’ with my vicar Gordon Rideout.
I have been asked by a Smyth victim to check you have shared this testimony with the Winchester Reviewer ( Jan Pickles 07961024888). She has heard testimony from multiple sources, but the more she hears, the better quality of the information. To this Smyth victim, ‘it is news that JLT ever beat……’
I have mentioned on an earlier thread that the ‘senior’ PE teacher at my state grammar school abused boys on an industrial scale. He was also ready to wield the slipper on boys, whether dressed or undressed, and on one occasion did so to an entire class. When the sexual abuse was discovered, he disappeared overnight. This was in the 1950s. Quite fortuitously a friend mentioned similar experiences in his school, also state grammar, probably a decade later, in another county. Sadly, I fear these two examples were not untypical and abuse was not confined to public schools or boarding schools.
Corporal punishment was common in state schools in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s, but was usually employed (to my knowledge) only by the school principal in his office, and for relatively serious offences. The principals in the schools I attended had a wooden paddle which was used for the purpose prominently displayed in their offices. I think it was mostly a deterrent.
I did have one junior high maths teacher who was a sadist. He used to throw chalk erasers at students, or put them in stress positions at the front of class for prolonged periods. I was terrified of him, especially since maths was my worst subject. My parents spoke to him, however, and after that he was quite gentle with me.
I never heard of anyone being hit while unclothed, or of a ‘paddling’ happening very often.
This is highly relevant background, and explains why JS activities were not seen as being as much out of the ordinary as one might now have expected. Shows that more historical and cultural imagination is needed, and not assuming a monocultural or 21st century pattern. In truth all cultures and ages have their strong and weak points, some more than others.
Reading the above has come as a great shock. I can’t say more. I have mentioned on earlier threads similar experiences in state schools, and indeed a C of E Primary school, but nothing of the magnitude described above. I’m not sure about some of the chronology here, but corporal punishment has been illegal for a long time now, and anything of this nature today would result in a custodial sentence.
A young relative of mine was recently in the sixth form at Winchester College (all are borders there), and in that environment he flourished both personally and academically, and went on to get an impressive degree in theology. A totally positive story and we are proud of him. The College was the catalyst for developing his talents.
The type of behaviours described have always gone on in the care system and still do sadly. Class and status has little bearing on how and why these atrocities are committed but in working with older adults it is only some of those that went to public school that say to me, “a damn good thrashing never did me any harm.” Those that suffered through the state care system never say that.
Perhaps this is a concern I have for the book, not all readers will be sympathetic or even believing of the victims. Personally I would hate my story told unless it was in a properly commissioned report because the negative reactions can be really hard to cope with. I do hope Andrew Graystone collaborated properly with psychologists in writing it.
I’m grateful for these sympathetic responses. In particular Christopher Shell’s view very much echoes my own from day one, although I realise it is not a fashionable one or ‘politically correct’ to hold in 2021. Whilst I am totally opposed to corporal punishment, the punishment attributed to Headmaster John Thorn for the ‘offence’ as described above would have not been considered in any way out of the ordinary in my time. I would not expect it, of itself, to need to be a subject for inclusion in a report decades later without other features to suggest it was abnormal or unduly severe for those times.
I remember a not dissimilar scenario in a case heard (I think) in the Reading County Court. The parents of a boy receiving corporal punishment sued the teacher (and probably the school). The trial judge, the late HH Judge Claude Duveen QC was characteristically robust. Dismissing the claim he said “the punishment fitted the crime”.
That would not be my personal view, nor my wish, but I quote it as a very clear example of how attitudes were different then (1970s/ 80s). So much current comment is by people who simply have no idea how things were 40 or 50 years ago.
Keith Makin’s express instructions from the C of E are to give opinions based on received practice as it was at the time of the events and, in effect, to exclude hindsight entirely. It’s entirely feasible that his conclusions and Andrew Graystone’s may differ.
I do not think Andrew Graystone’s approach is tenable here, because (a) it diminishes historical understanding (rather like McDonaldising quaint villages), which when lost could be lost permanently, (b) it privileges one age over others, when the track records of that age do not deserve that, (c) it does so because one’s age is felt to be the ‘real’ one which former ages failed to live up to – or because people know only about one age: their own. Neither is a promising start.
Perhaps it would be better to read the book before deciding whether or not his approach is tenable? Or maybe your copy has already arrived?
It came on 14th, so I expect others’ copies will not take long to come.
Mine came on the 15th … minutes after I’d emailed the publishers, enquiring!
You are absolutely correct in your sense of the way that this caning wouldn’t have been perceived as at all outrageous at the time (and that was partly the thrust of my entire depiction of the era: it was brutal, and brutalising, and the cane, the gymshoe and the slipper were by no means rare or even remarkable forms of punishment).
I recall the incident quite well. JLT had been detained for one reason or another before his class began, this boy had already written the message on the board in JLT’s handwriting , which was not difficult to forge (I did so myself on occasion), there was a collective intake of breath as we knew full well the inevitable outcome, we all went back to our houses with the perfect pretext, and the boy ‘took’ his caning with a smirk (at least by the time he returned), aware that he had, despite the pain, gained a victory over the authorities.
In a military world, which the school in considerable part replicated, you simply cannot undermine a general officer’s authority; that was the reality of the situation. The boy knew it, we others knew it and JLT knew it. In the end, in a sense, everyone went home happy, although JLT might, paradoxically, be seen as the loser, given that he was a tremendously liberal, encouraging and fair teacher.
I didn’t feel I needed to comment further, but your description of John Thorn as “a tremendously liberal, encouraging and fair teacher” very much counters some of the things which have been said about him, including some by former pupils who knew him suggesting that he was a prime mover in the ‘cover-up’, and by outsiders who didn’t know him at all. In those years he was a prominent figure in Winchester, in the city not just the College, and as Headmaster of the College was felt to be a very different personality from his predecessors; in fact both ‘modern’ and, as you say, liberal. As one of the outsiders, but very much closer to the scene than most of the people commenting here and on ‘Thinking Anglicans’, it came as a surprise to me that he resorted to corporal punishment. It seems that the ex-pupil mentioned by Janet Fife above was similarly surprised.
I attended a state grammar school in which corporal punishment was frequently employed by masters, as they were then always called (this was earlier, in the 1950s), but in the whole of my my time there the headmaster only used the cane once to my knowledge. He maintained control and discipline without it. Somehow I had assumed that John Thorn did the same.
We need to keep a sense of proportion in this. HH Judge Duveen QC, quoted above, accurately reflected the attitude to, and acceptance of, corporal punishment at that era. However much we may disagree in 2021, we cannot apply today’s view retrospectively.
The headmaster taught me daily for a year and I greatly enjoyed his classes, but the three words I used about him, ‘fair’, ‘liberal’ and ‘encouraging’, stem mainly from an occasion when I was called to see him in his study, an intimidating experience for a boy in those days, because I refused to toe the school line on a particular matter. I imagine that most public school headmasters would have told me that I jolly well had to follow the school rules or else, but he listened carefully to what I had to say, was entirely sympathetic, explained the school’s position and we arrived at a compromise that suited us both.
The last thing I wish to do is to place JLT in the same camp as some of the monsters that either taught at these schools or were associated with them. He couldn’t have been more different. I merely mentioned the caning, which I believe, as you and others suggest, was highly unusual for him to carry out, to illustrate how the behaviour of even such a modern, thoughtful and considerate teacher as JLT was determined and constrained to a certain extent by the norms of the time. And these norms included beating boys, the very starting point of my contribution to this discussion of Smyth.
My wife began teaching (state primary) in Scotland in, I think, 1972 and was duly issued with a tawse. She did in fact use it once or twice, fairly gently across the palms of the hands, to chastise miscreant pupils. Now of course she is horrified at the thought.
More recently, a private school used the buildings of the church where I became Minister in 1994. I fairly soon discovered a leather slipper in the vestry and was appalled to discover that this was still used for punishment. This was still legal in private, though not state, schools and the Principal basically said, “If it’s good enough for Eton, it’s good enough for us”. I don’t know how often or how hard it was used, but I do know that the Principal felt it was a retrograde step when its use became illegal – he saw nothing wrong in the practice. I felt helpless to intervene as the school’s discipline policy was known to parents and was legal at the time. As it happens, the pupils’ behaviour was atrocious!
There’s no evidence that state violence against criminals is a deterrent, but plenty that it tends to increase violence.
Thank you. That’s very helpful in putting matters in a proper context, and I hope people will read it and absorb the message.
My copy has just been delivered by Amazon (Friday afternoon, 17 September at 2.50 pm BST.)
Mine came from Eden this morning. I’ve read several chapters already.
I’ve read about half of it and it’s truly horrific. I’ve just got to the cover-up and Smyth going to Africa.
Thinking of it merely in “book” terms, I wish it had been better edited as there’s quite a lot of annoying repetition.
It is sad to reflect that after all the work put into writing this book it might have been a missed opportunity. Perhaps Andrew Graystone in a more reflective moment will come to regret this somewhat. The book, littered with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated innuendo, muddles our understanding of this sorry account of abuse and cover up. Interestingly, Andrew in 2012 prayed a prayer publically for the BBC as follows: ‘May they resist the temptation to follow the consensus, jump to easy conclusions, pander to prejudice or cut corners.’ By his own standards it seems as if he might have yielded to temptation.
Ronin, what serious inaccuracies are there?
Ronin, may I echo Janet Fife’s request for you to identify the inaccuracies (and ‘unsubstantiated innuendo’) with which you assert that Andrew’s book is ‘littered’. There are inaccuracies, some of which I have pointed out to him privately and which may have been avoided had the book been proof read by a lawyer: e.g. the statement on page 26 that as a Recorder Smyth would “sit as a part-time judge in the circuit court” and “wear a violet robe with lilac trim… and a red sash over his left shoulder, ” and “From now on he would be addressed as His Honour Judge Smyth.” What Andrew is referring to is the court dress of a full-time circuit judge, not a part-time Recorder, who would wear his ordinary barrister’s wig and gown and be addressed as ‘Sir’, not ‘Your Honour’. Also, the reference should be to the crown court, not the circuit court. But none of these inaccuracies, irritating though they are to a lawyer reading them, detract from the important service that Andrew has rendered in recounting Smyth’s crimes, their continuation in Africa, and the cover-up by those who knew but, for reputational reasons, chose not to speak out publicly or report to Smyth to the police. Andrew has (with a 4-years start on Makin) done much of the work for which Makin was commissioned and we (and the church) should be grateful to him, harrowing though many of the stories may be.
Robin, can I invite you to set out what new information you learned from the book and where you think the author has given purposeful service to bringing the truth of the disgraceful goings on within the Iwerne leadership in its various forms – or do you think it’s a lot of fuss about nothing?
Thanks so much for commenting and for your invitation, which is much appreciated, and also your reflections on this sad topic.
I do not think it is a fuss about nothing – did I write that? It is that innuendo thing again …
I learned from the book in outline what I think we could know already, but not in detail, but which Andrew helpfully put together in one extensive narrative, namely that John Smyth horrifically abused teenagers and young adults and this was covered up by people associated with the Iwerne movement. The latter I find shocking having attended a Iwerne camp, and contrasts with the good things that fortunately happened to me as a consequence of attending. This included a camp leader encouraging me to attend a local Baptist church, which improved my social life as a teenager, also with girls, and to develop a social conscience which led me to work as career in the NHS, including in mental health. I owe in part Iwerne and probably Eric Nash to having had a fulfilling career and a happy family life. By the way, Eric Nash did talk about his family, as is wrongly inferred in the book, and he was broad in his conversation, at least when I spoke to him.
The cover up led to further abuse and the victims were not provided the help they needed, which is very troubling and obvious this is ongoing.
I learned that there is a group of people, including Andrew who think the Iwerne movement was a bad thing and completely flawed ethically, although I disagree with this overall conclusion.
The problem with the book is that the details do matter (you said in your letter to the Church Times that you were not worried about the inaccuracies, and I wonder if you really meant that? In passing, if Andrew were writing a book on you he would problem write – ‘Martin admitted he did not care at all that the book was inaccurate’).
As a solicitor, you will know that if a person cannot be trusted with facts, then this discredits their credibility overall, something solicitors and barristers spend a lot of effort in demonstrating this in adversarial situations. I cannot imagine your instructed barrister defending in court a client by saying the facts do not matter. Unfortunately, once inaccuracies emerge through obvious careless journalism, then this starts to muddle the narrative and you do not know what to believe.
The inuendo’s are fairly obvious to a detached and careful reader, going beyond the facts. I have some sympathy with Andrew Graystone, because the temptation as writer on a mission is to cut corners and write to a particular audience, rather than provide an as objective account of events as possible.
By the way, my name is Robin and the Ronin was a typo in my original comment, there being no copy editor to spot the mistake. Sorry for that error and thanks so much for correcting it in your comment – obviously it mattered to you! Also, thanks to Trish for pointing out that I was pounced on, something I have got used to.
I am saddened by your last comment to Ronin, Martin (important to read comments properly and get the name right not just pounce on them) no one, even if they have raised concerns about Graystone’s account, has doubted the seriousness of the abuse and the devestating long term impact it has had on the survivors and their families but as a retired lawyer you, more than anyone, are aware that very serious cases where convictions should be achievable completely crumble because of technicalities.
I certainly do not know enough about this dreadful saga to know if there are inaccuracies but I have also wondered why Graystone did not draw upon or was even open about his connection to SU, something that would certainly have been questioned in a legal setting.
Those that are critical of Graystone are simply saying they would like to see the factual account by Makin which is fair enough, this is not about Graystone’s ego, but no one that I have seen has dismissed the abuse as anything other than completely disgraceful and mis-managed.
I was speaking to a retired cleric who used to be senior in Oxford. And he said that guarding the reputation of the church had indeed been official policy. He also said that he could see now how that was wrong. And how good and eye opening the new safeguarding training is. And can now see how much of it translates as bullying and abuse of power.
Having sat through a deeply traumatic meeting with my diocese yesterday though I think there is validity in what your friend says Athena, training is better, largely because the church has been shamed into improving it, it remains completely abusive in another. My diocese is happy to sit and say how good they are now, how much they have learnt from my case, how those things wouldn’t be allowed to happen now but when I asked if that meant they would now resolve my case by removing my abuser’s licence their answer was ‘this is not about your abuser.’
To have improved training is only acceptable if all those that have gone before, and paved the way for that change are treated in accordance with it. Sweeping us under the carpet because ‘we don’t want to be reminded of that, it’s all a bit uncomfortable’ somehow makes improvements hard to bear. I am glad if people now are treated better but I ache for better treatment myself.
‘This is not about your abuser’? It damn well ought to be about your abuser.
They still don’t understand. Maybe they don’t want to.
Trish, I’m sorry your meeting was so traumatic.
All disclosures of abuse have to be about the abuser. Not least in order to prevent future abuse. I too had a meeting yesterday, with my very clued up Bishop. So rather nicer than yours. For all that, it’s complex, and I’m still processing. Might it have been a careless turn of phrase, do you think? Well meaning people can be very clumsy. Like you, I want better in the future, but still don’t want the past to be brushed away.
Bishop you say Athena! I am not allowed to see the Bishops, the diocesan secretary won’t even agree to the mediators meeting them. And well meaning people and diocesan secretary don’t naturally go together in my mind. I am glad you have confidence in your Bishop, just getting to see a Bishop is an achievement in my diocese.
Oh dear. Are these people stopping the Bishop even knowing that such and such wants to meet them? I know I’m lucky in this, but I’ve had a long wait. Obviously, his time is expensive, so you’re nearly all going to have to pass through a filter, or possibly a guard dragon! But only a bishop can offer restitution. So it has to be them, however guilty I feel about bothering them. And I do. But really, if a modicum of time had been spent earlier, it would have been solved years ago. That probably applies to you, too. If an institution has been abusive, it is the CEO that is responsible for putting it right. Even if it’s a new CEO.
I was initially reticent to comment much, out of concern that the thread would get derailed and Stephen would reasonably exercise his prerogative to trim out the diverting posts. But now that many such have been left on record, in principle it would seem permissible for me to say a good deal more without compromising his efficient editorial management of the blog.
However, I will confine myself to just one point, which possibly hasn’t been raised before, and to which therefore I’d ask for everyone’s serious attention.
To illustrate the significance of the point I’m about to make, I would like to draw a contrast between the present subject-matter and the Ravi Zacharias scandal.
Steve Baughman, the freelance American attorney who first investigated RZ’s academic credential claims, who then when he discovered that they were overblown, attempted to draw wider attention to the deception, found himself facing a dilemma. He knew that as an atheist his testimony would likely be regarded with suspicion by the Christian leaders to whom it was most important to make the matter known. On the other hand, he was mature enough to realise that if he attempted to say nothing about it at first, there was a risk that someone would ‘out’ him as an atheist before he could self-declare, and then he would immediately be suspected of craftiness in his dealings. So he decided that it would be better to be open about it at the outset, even though it still meant that many of the relevant Christians found it hard to take him seriously. And he has stated as much for the record, concerning his strategy. But there’s another aspect that’s worth mentioning. Having heard a fair bit from him recently, I think he also takes care not to criticise Christianity as such – in fact he often says how much he admires many Christians and finds Christian philosophy interesting, etc. And above all, while there’s been plenty of recognition of the danger of evangelical celebrity culture and what Baughman calls the “evangelical industrial complex”, neither he nor anyone else I’ve ever heard of has attempted to claim a causal link between Christian theology as such, and Ravi’s various offences.
Now let’s turn to the other side. If theological liberals truly wish Iwerne types, or indeed CEs more widely, to truly learn lasting practical lessons from the Smyth scandal and its aftermath, what do they think would be a good strategy for doing so? Is it to come out all guns blazing and blaming CE theology per se as the direct logical progenitor of Smyth’s shocking deeds? Do you seriously think that’s going to be effective, any more than the wind in Aesop’s fable managed to blow the man’s coat off? Let me tell you frankly: you are shooting yourselves in the foot and sawing off the branch on which you sit. So there’s one respect in which your method is the exact opposite of Mr Baughman’s. [TBC]
[ctd.]
And so is the other respect. Having first demanded absolute openness from the Iwerne fraternity, few if any of you have been open enough to declare your true theological colours at the outset, as though pretending to be neutral participants in the fray. Occasionally someone will drop a side hint such as “…in my conservative evangelical days…”, without ever letting on just how far from such doctrine they have long since moved.
And having overrun one permitted post length, I think I’ll pause there and leave some of you to reflect very, very carefully on what you are doing and the way that you’re doing it. Search your hearts as before the Lord. Do you really sincerely want Iwerne’s ways permanently reformed, or are you just venting a moss-grown grudge?