Obituary, Vivian (Viv) Bartlett.

I learnt about Viv’s death on Monday. He and I worked together in Swindon in the first decade of this century on a project to raise self-understanding in school children. At first the children we worked with had opted out of schooling and learning, with acute social and family issues. The project began shortly after the millennium exhibitions in The Dome and Viv’s part in the work with children was called The Discovery Zone. This consisted of exercises with difficult children to draw out discussion on the consequences of actions and attitudes, and how to cope with the emotions driving us to a pro-social or anti-social outcome. The detail simplified over the years, asking the young people to decide whether to be consumers or contributors – that is, whether to be part of a wasteful throw-away society, or to contribute to creating a better world.

Viv had been a secondary teacher who based his teaching philosophy on patience and respect. Viv and his wife were members of the Baha’i Faith, a monotheistic faith which teaches equity, justice, the continuity of religion, anti-racism, anti-misogyny, environmental protection and many other issues which chime today with ethical living.

I first encountered Baha’is in the 1980s but almost did so in 1967. This was the year I went up to Manchester University to study Biblical Studies. My theology was fluid since I had unhappy experiences with the fundamentalist Christian sect I was brought up in. I saw a flier for a Baha’i meeting in my first term and had I attended, the outcome may have been different. The Christian fundamentalists continued to campaign abusively against my critical understandings and we parted company in early1969. I became a school teacher from 1973 since no university posts were available. My wife and I met in 1967 and we became close in summer 1968 and married in 1969.

Since the 1980s I built up a substantial number of Baha’i books including scriptures, and met many Baha’is. . I agree with the ethical underpinning but my rationalist understanding of theology is not compatible with Baha’i theology.

Viv and I collaborated on his book on the Youth Empowerment Programme under the title Nurturing a Healthy Human Spirit in the Young (published by George Ronald 2014) which described and explained the empowerment process in detail. He asked me to write an introduction, which I did. I had been an external evaluator of the programme throughout 2004 to 2008.

Viv was a man I was privileged to know and work with.