My 1970s

Have spent today sorting out my attic which has revealed a few things I am sharing here. Boxes of stuff from the 1970s. It can be hard to remember  what I was involved in. I notice a notebook of prehistiric features including stone circles. I was living close to Stonehenge, which might be the reason. Whether this list is of any use today is an interesting question but I don't have the time to type it out.  The source was Treasures of Britain (AA 1973). What was the point? Why was I interested? A good question. I remember my wife asking. Over the years since we have visited many of these sites from Cornwall to Orkney. Ancient history gives me a buzz.

My files have regular clippings (from the Guardian) about Israel (this was the time of  the 1973 war which brought Sinai into the Israeli empire. We were to visit during that decade, going to St Catherine's  monastery when it was in Israel. There seems not a lot worth keeping now, but it is a good reminder of those days

I was a good friend then of Tony Brown, a peripatetic music teacher in our school. He drove an ancient grey  car, Austin 8 or something. His daughter Iona was a talented violinist with The Academy of St Martin in the Fields and conducted The Lark Ascending on a record which I will take to my desert island. She was later to die of cancer as her father did. I visited his cottage in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, with veg beds and bee hives. He lived close by William Golding, and Tony used to visit him regularly to play chess. Golding was deeply into alcohol at that time and not writing. After Tony's death he wrote a moving obituary for the Salisbury Journal (I hope I find it somewhere) and settled down to write Rites of Passage. I was to become neighbour to Brian, who was taught by Golding in Salisbury and depicted as one of the twins in Lord of the Flies. Sadly Brian died last year of a brain tumour. His response to the specialist was 'Bugger'.

Other press cuttings reveal an interest in social justice. I notice book reviews on social morality. I was becoming involved with world religions and I notice pieces about ethnic minorities living side by side positively with white neighbours were preserved. Not outstanding today, but the memory of Enoch Powell's rantings was still recent then. Inter-cultural friendships were something I hoped for and would enrich my life a decade later.

I joined then the Wiltshire Folk Life Society concerned with social history and folklore.. Why? No idea. We were invited to an outing to Longleat where we saw the 'mucky murals' (sexually explicit  reliefs made of oilpaint and sawdust covering the bedroom ceiling). There must have been an intellectual point to the meeting but I can't remember it.  The Society had a journal which I wrote for and built up my skills in writing for publication. I haven't made these openly available (though I have them), but they were OK. Since then I have been regularly involved in non-academic writing, which helps my academic writing. An important person to attract me into this was June Buckley, who became a key figure with the National Trust's Beatrix Potter/Healis operation in te lake district. She sadly who died early this year (2017). The Society developed The Great Barn in Avebury into a Folklife Museum. By 1980 I had stepped back and moved on to other things. One wise member, Bernard Stiles said to me (just before his own death) 'choose your battles, your time is short'.

I had sent off an article on Incest to the Journal of Biblical Literature - not earth shattering and I would write it differently today. I tried to get a book contract called The Curse of Eve: Ancient Hebrew Sexuality and Marriage. I have the sample chapter and may put it online. However, the relevant literature, especially of feminism, developed rapidly so a book then would have been premature so I am not unhappy that the book never happened. In addition, I had no support or mentoring to help me publish. I have since then encouraged PhD students to publish, although most have not. Warren and Bigger, Living Contradiction: A Teacher's examination of Tension and Disruption in School is my latest effort.

Spent the day sorting out the family archives. Here is my grandafther, born 1898, died 1990, introducing one of his notebooks:
On Old Age.
Age is a quality of mind.
If you have left your dreams behind,
If hope is cold
If you no longer look ahead
If your ambition's fires are dead,
Then you are old.
But if in life you seek the best,
and if for life you have a zest,
If love you hold,
No matter how the years go by,
No matter how the birthdays fly,
You are not old




It is from How Old Are You? by H. S. Fritsch an American poet from near Chicago. Zest in this version is 'jest' in the Google version, but I think zest works better. Grandad talked about helping old ladies who were usually twenty or so years younger than him. He was a Nottinghamshire coal miner who was down below from the age of 12 till 65. He refused to become management as he said this took money from the working man's family and produced a non-productive member of staff. That tallies with my experience of universities, anyway. He refused to strike in 1926 (the general strike) on conscientious grounds. I have been uncomfortable with the song Death to the Blackleg Miner when I hear it. He was an evangelical preacher with fundamentalist biblical beliefs, refusing to believe in the moon landings (the Bible says the moon is a light, not a solid body). A conspiracy theorist before conspiracy theory, maybe influenced by his reading of the Daily Express. Strike refusers were gathered together into Newstead Colliery where he saw out his years 1926 to retirement in 1963. I have an 8 hour tape recording of his life, which I asked him to do in the 1970s. I remember having a row with Nottingham University when they sent him a form ascribing copyright to them. I did not let him sign. And received no reply. He died of miner's lung, prematurely, cross and in pain, at the age of 92. His compensation was £5000, payable after death, which crooked solicitors tried to get their fingers on

Old Bill - Tutor

One of earliest stories of James Lennox Kerr, in a 1931 issue of the magazine/journal Blue Peter, was called Old Bill - Tutor. In it the narrator is 18 years old and about to jump ship in Melbourne, Australia. The story recounts a conversation with an old hand, Bill who had left home to return to sea, intending to return. But he drinks away his wages and probably never will return. The story ends: "I would be almost afraid to meet him now; for I might look with the eyes of maturity and see him for what I suppose he was, a lying old cadger of "fills", muddied yet glorifies by the life he had led". He mentions this story in his 1948 book A Tale of Pimlico which features another cadger.

Marriage, God's Sacred Institution?

May Day 2017. Republican Congressman Randy Weber has just spoken to a Christian conservative rally in America. "Father we've trampled on your holy institution of holy matrimony" referring explicitly to same sex marriage, sometimes called  marriage equality. This is by way of a fact check.

Across the world girls barely teenagers are married to someone of their family choice, someone they may previously they have only met briefly and sometimes not at all. The illusion of consent may be promoted, although in reality the girl may feel that the match is a fait accompli, and that saying no will heap trouble on themselves. Or there may be no pretense of consent.

It has been a modern aim to set a minimum age of 16, the effect of which is to disrupt the girl's education and future career prospect. Such marriages give the husband unfettered sexual access resulting in a career of childbearing which prevented social progress. There is a class divide, since wealthy families can encourage their daughters into law of medicine and hire very cheap servants to look after the children. Families who marry their daughters at 16 in many cases take them out of school just before their GCSE exams resulting in early pregnancy and no qualifications. Across the world, this happens in all religions.

It is clear that marriage is a social institution to protect a daughter's sexuality and fertility to serve family needs. The husband may be a cousin to keep matters in family. In large extended families there may be dozens of eligible family members and parents may seek an early understanding even when the daughter is very young. The function of such marriages may be to promote migration to the west.

The tradition of making one's own choice of a spouse is in historic terms a recent phenomenon. In the west we take it for granted when from a global perspective we shouldn't do so.

So how does this relate to marriage being a holy institution? The context is an attack on same sex marriage based on the assumption that marriage is ordained for the production and upbringing of children. I have been married for almost fifty years, so i have no ax to grind. Maybe my choice of PhD, on marriage in the Bible (Old Testament) was influenced by my getting married as a student. We didn't I am afraid fulfill the stated purpose of marriage as we had no children. Marriage created a status in law providing tax and pension advantages and security if a spouse died. When a broader range of relationships became regarded as socially acceptable, it became increasingly difficult to prevent same sex couples having the same benefits.

Not all include themselves in regarding this as acceptable, and in particular conservative Christians and in America the 'Bible Belt' of fundamentalist Christians, represented here by Weber. The new President did a deal for votes which may lead to this minority attitude attacking same sex relationships. Although there is no chance of influencing conservative Bible interpretation, I am engaging here in an analysis of its basis. Brought up by evangelical Christians, I challenged their position even as a teenager and suffered the full wrath of offended believers.

Marriage was declared a sacrament by the early church and this influenced the language of the marriage service. One passage seems to prevent divorce, regarding remarriage after divorce as adultery. A parallel passage adds the words "except for porneia" (porneia possibly meaning fornication here) causing the early exception in law to cases where a guilty spouse had committed adultery. There is no great narrative evidence for marriage practice in the New Testament, Jesus not being presented as being married. With asceticism in the wings, marriage was on occasion not even advised, with Paul suggesting that it was for people without self control. In the Old Testament, marriages are arranged by Abraham for Isaac and in cases when a husband of a child-bearing wife died, she was passed on to the next son. That it is true that many instances subverted traditional custom this was not within the context of marriage being a holy institution. It was a social institution which was protected to some degree by law and custom.

Same sex relationships are criticised via an ancient 'law' from the Holiness Code fixing the death penalty to homosexual sexual relations. This came in a long list of sexual offences, including incest and adultery but we do not know if this was ever an exacted law. Some of the discourse around gay bishops presumed that they are not sexually active. The story of Onan in Genesis 38 appear to imply that the purpose of the sex act is to impregnate, and any deliberate waste of sperm is itself a sin. This has had an effect on some Christian views of birth control. Paul also condemned homosexuality in the New Testament.

Evangelical Christian assumptions are based around this muddled mess of folklore and church order and realistically has no place in modern discussions. I can hear evangelicals shouting back at me on Adam and Eve, so that will take a separate post. Then Abraham, and then the rest. If you are impatient, check my other blog  where continuing posts will appear.

Vocational Education.

Paper from 2000. Click pictures to enlarge.

James Lennox Kerr, Pimlico

I have just written an obituary for Adam Kerr (actually in real time this is two months later) but I have scheduled the two items to appear together. I collected the writings of Peter Dawlish in the 1980s, and once I had discovered (in the late 1990s) that his real name was James Lennox Kerr I went on to collect his other works. Many were in his own name but he also wrote as Gavin Douglas, crime thrillers to start with in the 1930s.

The one book which evaded me was  A Tale of Pimlico by Gavin Douglas (Robert Hale, Publishers, 1948). To be sure I had read it. On my annual visit to Lamorna (I would guess about 2008) I begged to read Adam's copy before I left for home and took copious notes. A few months ago, as I was taking in the news of his death I looked again and secured a reasonably priced copy. It actually came from the library of my childhood, Kesteven in Lincolnshire. It was bought in 1948, rebound and re-guillotined in November 1953 and last lent out in November 1956. Where it has been from then till now is anyone's guess.

James Lennox Kerr started out as a socialist writer in the 1930s. One book I would pick out of the 1930s is The Woman of Glenshiels, a story of an enterprising but starving woman on Clydeside trying to make ends meet, but encountering the recalcitrance of the body distributing welfare, madeup of course by rich aristocrats. More on that later when I find my review.

A Tale of Pimlico has curious features. It is partly autobiographical in that Kerr left sailoring, and settled in Pimlico to write, where he produced a book a year. In this story, Captain Douglas had written a few articles in Blue Peter (I found this one and gave it to Adam) and Nautical Magazine (which I haven't found). In this story, as Captain Gavin Douglas, he rents a room in a seedy guest house, tries to write without success, and in the end goes back to sea. That's where the autobiography finishes, since in his real life he became a successful writer, found and married his wife and continued until war broke out.

In the story the author is also narrator. Captain Douglas arrives in Port Bellamy in South America (modelled on Belize/British Honduras) and discovered that he had known the Bellamy after whom the port was named. In his Pimlico guest house there is a resident called Bellamy. We hear his story told, which has two directions. When Douglas the narrator knew him, he was a bum, cadger, pimp and ponce (in the language of the book). That is, he was living on immoral earnings of a young woman who prostituted herself. One has to say she did so willingly. There was no love lost between the narrator and the bum Bellamy. This is where the socialism kicks in. Bellamy was from an aristocratic family, had a wife who expected him to make her rich and comfortable but he had the wanderlust and roamed free (and despite his popularity was cadging even then. He expected food on his table and had no way of providing for himself, and no incentive to do so. So he cadged. His room was a tip because there were no servants to clean it. His wife became an awful busybody chairwoman of some patronising society and his children became insufferable prigs

The second perspective is when Douglas arrives in South America in the republic of Porto Bellamy.  Bellamy had encouraged the locals to develop the port themselves and not let the major powers develop it and take out the profits (although this colonialist project was exactly why he was sent out).. Bellamy was looked up to as a national hero with statues all over town. He had also seduced most of the women.

Douglas had a secret. I will not reveal it, even if the likelihood of you finding a copy is remote. The memory of Ballemy helps to solve some political issues of some sensitivity. Lots of insight into aristocratic attitudes and socialist responses. Jimmy Kerr died before ever I could have known him but we were very happy to have known Adam and Judith.
to be continued...

Adam Kerr, chart maker, fisherman, sailor, watercolourist

Adam Kerr (1933-2016) died 8 August 2016 in his home in Lamorna, Cornwall after a heart attack. He described himself as a ’chart maker, fisherman and sailor’. He was a former director of the International Hydrographic Bureau. who wrote:

“We remember Adam as a most brilliant civil servant, one who could see very far - without being drawn into small matters, and a master at using his superior charisma and diplomatic skills to resolve conflicts that looked like unstoppable forest fires. We also like to celebrate Adam as a great example of how to enjoy life: the party at his home and his curriculum as a boater have always been a great inspiration for us.”

He leaves his wife Judith and his sons Andrew and Timothy.

My wife and I last met Adam and Judith in June 2016 at his home and in the Lamorna Wink, the refurbished pub in the valley. We have meet up every June since the year 2000, which is itself an interesting story. We had been interested in the writings for children of peter Dawlish. Though written for boys, my wife Jean remembered reading them as a young girl with great affection. We collected the Dauntless series, not knowing who the author was, until in 2000 reading a short book on Lamorna purchased from the watermill shop, written by Keith Gardiner whose artist father Stanley was once painted by Richard Copeland Weatherby. Keith by good fortune was with us last June. In his little book was the story of how Peter Dawlish was a pseudonym for James Lennox Kerr, who happened to be Adam's father. A notice said that the Kerrs, artists, still lived in the valley so we knocked on the door. The rest is history. We had literally walked past his house unknowing for over twenty years The internet makes book finding much simpler today so before long I had accumulated most titles, and had many a chat with Adam about his father. We even managed to find and bring home an unpublished manuscript, languishing in a Wirrel Record Office on the history of Cunard in Birkenhead. He was pleased with this, because most other people wanted to talk about his grandfather, the artist Lamorna Birch. He decided to follow in his father's footsteps and write his own autobiography. I read early proofs and was delighted to be given the published book, equally as good as his father's adult writings.

We were fortunate that our annual visit coincided with his 80th birthday party, held in the Millennium Garden that he worked so hard to establish. The whole community turned out to partake of fish hotpot and wine. We were staying just up the hill, in the cottage, he told us once somewhat mischievously, in which he had been conceived We spotted him too sailing his beloved lugger Barnabas in the Thames at the Queen's regatta. Adam was also an enthusiastic watercolour painter of marine life and used to send watercolour Christmas cards which of course we keep.

Adam Kerr, Charting Polar Seas, 2016.

Sea Adventures: Peter Dawlish (James Lennox Kerr), a Writer Amongst Artists

Vivian Bartlett, Nurturing a Healthy Spirit in the Young

Publisher's page

I was very pleased to be invited to write a foreword to Vivian Bartlett’s book. I was then the Director of the Research Centre for Motivating Learning at the University of Worcester. Though not a Baha'i , I have been a friend of Baha'is for many years and keen reader of Baha'i  writings. One of my keen interests was to find positive ways for teachers and other adults to interact with pupils in ways which encouraged motivation rather than compliance with behavioral diktats. Motivated teachers and motivated pupils tend to go together, but authoritarian teachers are more likely to produce either timid or rebellious charges. The objective of schooling has been long discussed, and when I was beginning teaching in the 1970s, it was described as “autonomy”, that is pupils making up their own minds about things. We encouraged open minds and discussion. It may be true that the loudest voices were from closed minds, but we teachers were skilled at helping even these to be thoughtful. Autonomy (following rules you think out for yourself) contrasts with heteronomy, obeying rules given by others. Our education system follows the latter, with schooling informing and filling up empty vessels.

For two years we worked closely with disturbed and disengaged young people on ‘Tranquility Zone’ and ‘Discovery Zone’ activities. The first group of 11-13 year olds was chosen by secondary schools as needing particular support. I interviewed several after the project as part of my work as project evaluator. At that point the young men and women were of an age to go to College and University. They described their early lack of aspirations and expectations, which starkly contrasted with what they had managed to achieve. As one young woman said, ‘If I hadn’t come across the Tranquility Zone, I would have committed suicide long ago. I would not be here now’. She progressed to College, another to university where he did very well.
It is important to say that this work was an act of service of the Baha'i Community seeking to be of help to troubled and vulnerable youngsters. Readers with little knowledge of Baha'is are invited to find out more through books like The Baha'i Faith: A Beginner's Guide by Moojan Momen. The teachers and other champions in school who enthusiastically facilitated the Programme were not Baha'is, but professionals in tune with the (Baha'i inspired) approach to the spiritual empowerment of young people, and concerned about the well-being, potential and future aspirations of their students, especially those who for various personal and family reasons were most needy. As evaluator, I also am not a Baha'i, though fully sympathetic to its history and social values. The Project did not promote the Baha'i Faith focused on classroom pedagogy.

The project has simplified over the years and two key themes have stood the test of time – that the individual is full of potential, a ‘mine rich in gems of inestimable value’; and that the best way these gems (inner positive qualities and capacities) can be developed is in service to others.  These are two sides of the same coin: we need to recognize that we have something to offer, and then understand that we can make a huge difference to the community. We might express this as being contributors rather than consumers.

The journey towards this is however not simple. The young people enter the process with various life experiences, including in some cases dysfunctional and destructive relationships which can damage self esteem and cause emotional pain. Such personal burdens can be left behind once they are recognized and dealt with, and you will see in this book how The Discovery Zone (a period of activities and discussion) begins this process of personal reflection.  We may be drawn to bad habits and negative behaviour, experiencing their pull which needs to be resisted. Other activities  identify and celebrate the gems and positive attributes we see in each other,  increasing self worth and developing positive and empowering relationships.

The Tranquility Zone is however something else. An ambient space is created with drapes, candles, soft furnishings, flowers and gentle music. Participants sit on cushions and enter into a contemplative state. The voice of the facilitator takes the group on an imaginary journey to an island where each are met by a personal guide, a wise-person constructed from their own imagination.  A number of storylines speak of the mine of gems, fruit on a tree and similar metaphors of fruitful lives.      Outsiders would see the group in a very relaxed state, to be discussed later.  Troubled youth seemed to benefit most and the general feedback was positive.   

Going alongside these activities were a group of people, in the project and in schools, who cared and made it clear to these youngsters that they are valued and valuable; that friendship among the team of people survives the project as lives changed direction and new aspirations became possible. Vivian’s book charts the programme over the years and explains its spiritual basis, demonstrating that lives ‘lit up’ have a chance to overcome obstacles. This is not an easy time for children and young people to grow up, maybe with little hope of a career and the too tempting availability of drink and drugs leading too often to criminality. Schools would rather have winners than losers, so a too sizable proportion of school students are left to founder.

 I once worked with city comprehensive schools in Birmingham to raise the achievement of all pupils – a project called Birmingham Compact. Its results over the whole cohort were dramatic, raising achievement levels from 30% to 70%.  But the arrival of school league tables, and Ofsted, meant that it was more profitable to coach a small group of borderline pupils to obtain a grade C rather than a D. The league tables were the tail that wagged the dog. The work with all pupils was degraded  to service the league tables. What happens to the lowest achieving 20% of a school is a matter of huge concern. Instead of writing them off, or even expelling them so they don’t spoil a school’s league table returns, these troubled lives can be turned around. Of course we might add, should be turned around.

I am reminded of some comments by my great mentor in education, John Dewey. Writing long ago, he set out his ‘Pedagogic Creed’ (1897, in McDermott, 1981: 442-454). In it, pupils participate in the social consciousness of the human race, so learning has to be embedded in society and promote the welfare of the group. The individual is a social being with responsibilities. An effective school will encapsulate positive social relationships and the well-being of the group. Far from education being a preparation for future life, it has to be relevant to the present lives of the pupils, addressing their issues and experiences, confident young people will adapt to whatever the future throws at them. The curriculum needs to focus on social activities, to build a foundation for the ethical study of school subjects. “Examinations are of use only so far as they test the child’s fitness for social life and reveal the place in which he can be of the most service and where he can receive the most help” (p.447).

Dewey’s educational philosophy dominated school thinking in the 1970s and 1980s, but has been supplemented by a subject-based national curriculum which teaches content and builds no ethical foundations. Nor does much school study encourage pupils to reflect upon life. Dewey ends: “the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life... every teacher should realise the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart ...for securing the right social growth ... in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God.  (p.454).

In other words, using the language of his time, teaching is a spiritual calling, the prime purpose of which is to promote personal well-being and intellectual curiosity about life itself.

There are many more recent books on well-being, emotional intelligence, happiness, spirituality, resilience and similar themes to do with the education of the whole child. Society today has many problems and pressures which impact on young people. Knowing old-fashioned knowledge will not help them to become effective members of their social group. When faced with the question, what do we want our education system to do for our children, having good qualifications is not at the top of my list. Rather it is to encourage young people to be well-rounded, personally confident, helpful and responsible members of the group, unprejudiced, intellectually curious, critical of authoritarianism, and champions of the less fortunate. 

Such young people are likely also to achieve well in reasonably constructed qualifications.  This needs to apply to the whole school population in the spirit of ‘no youngster left behind’ – with no pupil being written off as being beyond teaching and learning. This is still a challenging agenda; and unfortunately it is the opposite of the aspirations of successive governments, resulting inan increase in punishment systems and exclusions.  Vivian’s book offers a straightforward way of bringing more light into the lives of not only challenged and challenging pupils, but all pupils. Every young person needs help and support as they build up resilience in the face of the many burdens with which modern life encumbers them.