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In educational circles the influence of the informal education in the home is often underrated. In my case, school education was introduced by the little school following the Parents National Education Union syllabus in Aunt Sarah’s house at Street. This prepared me for the more intimidating school in Oxford. It was five small fields away by footpath from Millfield, where I at the age of five, was living while my father and mother were in South Africa. The first day began inauspiciously for a future educationalist. In the first field I encountered a bunch of frisky cattle, which certainly had no udders. The way they scampered in front of me seemed to imply that I was taking an unreasonable risk, and so I retraced my steps and went back to report. I felt that I had not described their threats sufficiently vividly when I was told to go back and ignore them. On the second attempt I got by with the greatest difficulty. Despite my shyness, school was easy by comparison!
As it happened the Dragon School at Oxford was barely ten minutes away on foot. Being a younger brother it must have been much easier for me, than for Jan and Tona. A majority of people felt that starting school was an ordeal, which could have been eased for them, and Jan in particular had paved the way for me.
The School did three things exceptionally well. The daily lessons in Latin and Greek made it easy to excel in those subjects, even so I was taken aback when asked to write Latin verse for homework. The Roman Imperialists would have wondered had they heard us using their language nearly fifteen hundred years after they

had left. It not only occupied us in class but formed part of our playground lingo because at one time schoolboys had been compelled to speak Latin all day. It had after all been the international language for Western Europe. At present, views are divided on whether agreement on an international language, such as English or simplified English, is desirable or whether it is more important to preserve a variety of living cultures for which, a variety of languages is essential. At the Dragons we began Latin at the age of seven, French a year later and added Greek at ten. This left us assuming that a precise translation was possible rather than welcoming the many occasions when, owing to differences in culture, an explanation ought to accompany the translation. This still bedevils the interpreters in such institutions as the United Nations where interpreters are not permitted to make corrections even when they know misunderstandings are occurring.
The school also laid stress on rugby football as a means of toughening the otherwise cosseted sons of well-to-do homes. At that time the majority of them were boarders so that we dayboys felt somewhat on the touchlines of school activities. Girls were accepted only if they had brothers in school, one once gained a place in the first XV Rugby team. One school cancelled its fixture with us on the grounds that ‘our boys don’t tackle girls.’ The school and its ethos were surprisingly unconventional and congenial at the time I attended (1922-28); the jingoism due to the recent war was to be expected. Some teachers seemed freshly home from the trenches, and liked to be coaxed into recounting their experiences. One had lost most of one cheek, but the one who suffered from shell-shock terrified me for a whole year and I promised myself that I would take it easy under the kindlier teacher during the following year. The school supposed that I was home-sick for my parents absent in South Africa. An annual Navy League Lecture added to adulation of the armed forces, there was an opportunity to practice with rifles in preparation for joining the Officer’s Training Corps in the next school after the age of fourteen. I enjoyed trying to get bull’s eyes but, when new cardboard targets were put up with an unmistakable drawing of a German helmet in the centre, I gave up without explaining either to the school or at home.

The third activity to which the school attached importance was swimming and diving. At that time few schools had access to swimming baths so full use was made of the river Cherwell which passed by on the far side of the playing fields. The diving boards provided an opportunity for daring. Trying to keep up with Tona I had put myself down for the under eleven’s diving competition despite the fact that I had never dived from the high board in the willow tree some ten feet above water level. Instead of practising, I calculated that in front of a crowd of onlookers I would not dare not to dive. The day came, the crowd assembled and I somehow contrived to get to the water and came second in the competition. The confidence I gained that day lasted me a long time and later coloured my approach to ‘A form of education in which everyone is good at something.’ For the sake of their self-confidence, or self-esteem.
Despite my successes at school, I only learned twenty-five years later that I was thought to have even more promise than Jan. I was well aware that the ways of the school were not our ways, the teachers never penetrated my thinking, I was like a stranger in a strange land. Had I not at the age of five, with my cousin Jenepher aged four been sent out into the streets to collect for saving German children from the famine, which I could barely imagine? A tall indignant lady reproached us: ‘What, German children?’ She asked with a severe emphasis on the word ‘German.’ I was dismayed. Before I could say anything Jenepher replied for us ‘Yes, but they are children.’ I felt reassured when the lady stamped away. Some time after this I walked in a League of Nations Union procession under a banner saying PAX, a word, the meaning for which, I was proud to know already from our childhood games? It meant of course peace.
It was puzzling for me when elections came in 1924 and the whole school seemed to be supporting the former pupil of the school who was standing for the Conservative party. Was it because he was an old boy that there seemed to be only two other boys wearing yellow ribbons for Labour and not many red ribbons for Liberal? I wore yellow to school at first but eventually courage failed me and I told my mother, I am ashamed to say, that I did not want to wear it again, although I knew it was her colour. My father was a Liberal despite his elder brother Uncle George being elected as a Labour

M.P. Later on Uncle George was appointed Commissioner for the Special Areas, to do what he could about unemployment. The answer was ‘Not much.’ By this time I was old enough to wonder whether unemployment caused wars, following the principle that ‘The devil finds mischief for idle hands to do.’ I am still wondering. By now it is apparent that there is a dire flaw in the economic system causing labour-saving machinery to result in excessive unemployment, despite the obvious needs for more work to be done. That flaw could well be a contributing factor to the instability which sometimes leads to war.
The year I left the Dragons, when I was thirteen, I screwed up courage to enter the speech competition in the belief that the ability to make speeches was essential for would-be reformers. My passion at the time was building crystal and valve radio sets so I wrote an account and learnt it by heart. As may be imagined I did badly because what was expected was an effective debating paper not a handbook of how to do it, but I had at least broken the ice. On the other hand I lived in great fear of the initiation ceremony at the boarding school, at which I would have to sing or drink soap and water.
As a result of going to South Africa the second time, I arrived at Leighton Park in the middle of February 1928 and then missed most of 1932 due to a serious mastoid operation followed by the third visit to South Africa. Having had diphtheria when I turned four and coming on to suspected ulcers in my forties I have always had time for reflection, a re-shaping of my values and a form of meditation to use a current term. I shall never forget the end of the period of deafness after the mastoid operation when all the world seemed new because I could hear sounds again. It may well have accentuated my interest in Quakerism that my brothers and sister were casting away. It was about this time that I was taken to visit Mrs. Mallory, the mother of the climber lost on Everest . I was aware of the deep suffering in her gaze, and wanted to speak but could not find the words. Sometimes silence is better than words, but I was not sure that mine was better, because my silence was based on shyness. Later on I was to hear of my mother's great aunts who lived in Bristol by the Downs. They were thought to have died of broken hearts when the peace ended in 1914. Hearts do not

seem to break nowadays, though as I walked past their houses on the way to the University in the morning, I seemed to know how they felt. I wish these great aunts could have known that much later after their deaths, at a meeting in a crowded church nearby, when asked whether I could imagine Jesus pressing the button for an atomic explosion, I replied that it would have been unlikely that anyone would have asked Jesus such a question, and this was loudly cheered. It was impossible to tell how far my bad health caused my subsequent academic failures, after studying classics for a first year in the VI form, I was persuaded by my friend Michael Foot to change over to History. From then on I never felt I mastered my academic work and ended up with a Third Class degree, in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, which might well have excluded me from teaching.
The atmosphere at Leighton Park in Reading was a delightful change from the Dragons, instead of living in fear of the teachers, I found them to be people I admired or even hero-worshipped. It is a Quaker school which was set up to provide at least one public boarding school without an Officers Training Corps, which could offer courses leading to Universities. Although the Council for Education in World Citizenship was not created in time to influence much of the teaching, when a Scout Troop was formed the Scout officials had to give way and allow the flag of the League of Nations to be flown alongside the Union Jack. A branch of the League of Nations Union was formed and as we stood together to agree a time and place of a meeting, the History teacher said ' And you, Gillett, will be the secretary.' Michael Foot must by that time have moved on to Oxford University. By this time I had already decided at the age of sixteen to prepare myself for working in peace organizations by teaching myself touch typing and improving my French, with Lansbury as leader of the Labour Party, a political career was a possibility for me. It was easy for my mother to arrange coaching in French when there was time during holidays and I had gained a distinction in French and oral French at GCSE, despite the English accent which still amuses my children.
French teaching has become much better since those days, though my accent was not as bad as Mr. Edward Heath's, the Conservative Prime Minister 1970-74, one of my fellow students

at Balliol College. It leaves a lot to be desired and the French do not appreciate people who maul their beautiful language. I had two valuable periods in France, once with my sister Helen in an 'Ecole de Vacance' and the other while waiting to go to South Africa in 1932. Nowadays more emphasis is laid on speaking the language and this is eased by the use of audiotapes, which were not available to me. Aunt Hilda used Linguaphone records for her international work but they were less convenient to use. There still seems to be much to do to help overcome shyness and gain languages orally while staying in a country.
Learning French and later German was an act of faith. I had no idea at the time that it was going to be extremely useful in widely different circumstances. This raises the important question of when it is desirable to explain to children the reasons for each part of the curriculum. At present the teachers themselves are not very sure, even though until recently each school used to be responsible for its own syllabus. For example one of my acquaintances was a great believer in Esperanto as a way open for every school to make a contribution to international understanding so she introduced it into the whole of her Secondary Modern School. Her success was striking and the children were glad to have a language which their parents couldn’t understand, and this led eventually to a deputation of parents applying for Esperanto lessons for themselves.
At Leighton Park the new headmaster Edgar Castle had enthusiasm and very persuasive theories of education. They centred round the concept of 'the whole man,' which implied a new balance between the classroom, the gymnasium, and the games fields, the Quaker Meeting each Sunday in Reading and in the school's hall and the elaborate provision for hobbies each evening. It was this last activity of hobbies, which appeared to make the school unique, and the winner of the prize for the best exhibit gained as much prestige as the cricket or rugby captain. It was becoming common for radio sets to be made, fishermen might make 'flies' for catching fish, photography was in great demand, the list seemed endless. My brother Tona won the prize one year by designing and making an armchair, Jan had collections of plants and went on to become a professional tropical botanist. It came as a surprise that everyone was good at something in contrast with the academic classroom.

Everyone had an 'identity' a term now used in peace conferences to indicate that minority groups often have a sense of group identity which they may fight to maintain as fiercely as ordinary nationalists. One of my own contributions to the Hobby Exhibition was a tent, which I had made with considerable difficulty, not being accustomed to using a sewing machine, an indication of an inner urge to travel and thus become acquainted with other places and other ways of life. I chose a lightweight material of a sky blue colour and spent many happy hours stitching and thinking of the places where I might use it. I woke one morning and looking up, wondered why the sky seemed to have indistinct lines in it, when suddenly I realised I was lying in the tent. Years later, on a very separate occasion I restrained my anger when two of the boys, romping in my sky-blue tent, tore it beyond repair. When and how should anger be restrained? To me it was like the loss of a peasant’s land. My dream had been broken; so I was angry, but Quaker-fashion I tried hard to swallow it and to this day, I believe, they do not know how upset I was.
There are many ways in which the years at school have influenced my work in education, which followed. The Hobbies Exhibition at the school appeared to be firmly linked with the hour each evening when we were expected to be occupying ourselves with hobbies. On such occasions instead of a whole class studying the same subject, individuals followed and developed their own interests and often grew in specialist skills and knowledge. In my time there were stories still circulating of a previous boy who had written a book on The Green Roads of England, while still at the school. Another boy captured a very rare malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquito in the school grounds, and a third boy recorded the eruption of the volcano on the island of Krakatoa, off the coast of Java with a seismograph. Such a tradition of enterprising activities had a profound effect throughout the school and encouraged us to raise our sights. Creativeness of this kind is not appreciated in all schools and yet it is well said that you can always judge a person by what he does with his spare time. It is when he has leisure that he becomes truly himself. Leisure activities, to counter the overuse of television, were, and remain, of very great importance to schools, parents, and children. During the exhibition we learned who the people were who might help us with

our hobbies, as I received help with my photography. I won a prize for my first photo that appeared in the school magazine. Others were also interested in the lightweight tent that I had made. Often the hobby pointed the way to a life-long career, a boy became a chef this way, my brother Jan became a botanist, an amateur meteorologist became a professional, one boy who kept hens, set up a poultry food business based on the new knowledge of the value of vitamins, and so with many others. In any case hobbies help anyone who has time on his hands to avoid getting up to mischief.
I turned this experience of my schooling at Leighton Park to good account when teaching at Turves Green for my own class. The exhibition of hobbies on this occasion was spread over several weeks so that everyone had a chance to answer questions about how their work was done. In brief the idea of an exhibition could be adapted to a whole school, to a class, to one or more Parent-Teacher Associations, or to holidays. When teaching, the staff could build on the confidence derived from the skills exhibited, and it made an excellent background for parent's day; in this way parents are able to deal with the long school holidays, though they may have to pay for it. One mother put up with a lathe in her front room and was well rewarded; her son became an outstanding performer on the lathe, and was chosen to meet the Prince of Wales. In Birmingham not only were many schools willing to hold exhibitions, but the most imaginative objects, with a lesson or suggestion for other children implied by them, were gathered in a department store, so that all parents and many teachers were able to visit, sometimes bringing children with them. With these exhibitions I felt we were touching the main joint field of interest of both teachers and parents. Teachers wish to develop such interests to be so strong that they spill over into leisure time: one commented to me 'I had no idea Tom kept bees; I'll base some of the arithmetic on bees and honey in future'. It seemed as though the film Kes of the boy who had difficulties at school until his teacher learned that he kept a pet Kestrel, had come alive. I was happy that teachers and parents cooperated so well and that my early experiment at Turves Green had taken root.
Again, later it proved possible to publish 'Holiday Books' containing suggestions for occupations at home, but this was less

successful than the school or class exhibitions. Some of the head teachers said that their pupils did not do anything when they were not at school with the exception of watching television programmes. Several were honest enough to admit that they had made a mistake. There was much support for the schools exhibitions from parents who took pride in what their children could do and were glad to play their part by providing facilities. One commented 'I have never thought I'd see a canoe being built in our front room!'
Teachers also saw the great advantage of knowing their children better. The son of a poverty-stricken smallholder had a great day when he was able to show the class round the smallholding. When they came to the pigs, which were his special care, he was very proud to be able to answer questions about feeding the piglets. It was not so good when, at the school exhibition, one of the pigs escaped from their pen, rushed past the beehive, nearly turning it over. The BBC reporter looked aghast as though no one would believe her if she told the story.
Strode School, at Street was of special interest because it had successfully applied to a charitable trust and appointed a teacher Peter Preston to spend half his time 'improving the quality and quantity of the leisure activities of the pupils in and around their homes.' It was assumed that he would work through his colleagues, and partly with parents to ensure that the facilities were provided, as well as with the children themselves. In two cases this led to the building of sheds, one for bicycle repairs, and one for building radio sets. The exhibition was obviously supported by the children who made friends in a new way, learned from others ideas about developing their own interests and discovered to whom to turn to for help when in difficulties. That occasion at Strode School was made famous by two boys: One of them found instructions for making telescopes and asked for some help from the Metalwork Department, and then they set to work. It was a Secondary Modern School, but of such high standard that when they found constellations and wanted to take photographs of them they took themselves off to the public library for some books to help them. They noticed that one of the authors lived thirty miles away from the school. He turned out to be willing to see them and so they went off on their bicycles and had a very good time with him and his apparatus. The

exhibit of their photographs and equipment was so impressive that it was given pride of place at the entrance to the exhibition. One nine year old boy, who did not have an expensive Meccano set to make windmills, cranes and tractors, hammered out empty tin cans and used nails to make the holes for his home made set.
After the introduction of splendid work such as this it was unfortunate, to put it mildly, that it was not continued. We have ourselves to blame if our time is filled in coping with juvenile violence and delinquency rather than providing time for creative alternatives. A culture of peace is best created among the young and the opportunity was missed to create it by methods and exhibitions such as these, at the end of the war.
It was not that Leighton Park was out of touch with the state system of education. On the contrary, Edgar Castle not only helped found the council for Education in World Citizenship but also went on to be the Professor of Education at Hull University. However, he may have been unaware of the potential of the Hobbies Exhibition. A good subject specialist should judge his own teaching of his subjects by how far it penetrates leisure interests. In schools people matter and people are made up of bundles of interests that need to be cultivated more than they are at present.
The virtue of leisure activities is that everyone can do something different, and be good at it. The evils of a highly academic competitive system can be avoided. Some examples from a variety of schools came to my notice. This was more than lateral thinking it was lateral living and my friends and I were ready for anything. Hugh Doncaster, who shared a room with me was of like mind and also shared my interest in birds. We were allowed to ride our bicycles into the countryside at weekends and we talked as we went. One of his recurrent thoughts was about a personal God. 'Why' he asked 'do Christians create such difficulties for us by expecting us to believe in such improbable, if not ridiculous doctrines?' I wanted to move on to other subjects but he wanted, it seemed to me, to keep worrying about the one question as though he was planning to convert everyone to his point of view. Later on in life he became a lecturer on Quakerism at Woodbrooke College in Selly Oak, Birmingham. I was more interested in finding out the purpose in life, 'what are we here to do?' I kept asking. Some six years later I

got an answer which was satisfying if not satisfactory, a girl from the London School of Economics talking in a home in Vienna quoted Goethe: 'Der Zweck des lebens ist das leben selbst.' I stopped listening after that, I had at last got my answer 'The aim of life is life itself.' She spoke with such delightful gusto, wie ein wasserfall (like a waterfall) as one of the Austrians commented after she left, while I was busy digesting, what may seem a platitude from such a wise man as Goethe, it meant that I no longer needed to keep asking my question, now I could replace it with 'How do the good people, whom I admire, spend their lives?' It is, after all, their most important expenditure, but no one looks at it that way so far as I could learn from what was spoken in the Quaker Meetings. I never met her again to tell her how much Goethe's saying had meant to me; by encouraging me to say 'Yes' when in doubt, to making the most of life with gusto.
When Hugh and I, sometimes with a third boy, could not cycle we might visit the nesting holes of the Greater-spotted Woodpecker and watch the goings and comings, or, during an autumn evening listen to the calls of invisible waders migrating overhead. As if that was not enough for the two would-be naturalists’ worship and wonder, there was often a Red-backed Shrike on the fence by the playing fields and a nightingale in the lane nearby. The nightingale sang so loudly that some boys complained they could not get to sleep. There is always more than one way of looking at a thing. Its song is certainly not a lullaby, but anyway, what does a nightingale think of the average boy? 'Oh would that god the gift would give us, to see ourselves as others see us,' comes readily to the lips of any would-be peacemaker.
In terms of international understanding this dictum is of the greatest importance, when teaching I made use of the journalist's unintentional joke: 'Fog in the Channel: Continent Isolated' as well as the intended joke of a Dutch writer 'Britain is an island off the Dutch coast' to convince my students that we all suffer from prejudices which may exacerbate animosity. A school can mitigate prejudices, and dispel xenophobia by encouraging good foreign travel but also by including on its staff at least one teacher from abroad and some pupils with roots in other countries. However, it is best if this happens in a context of mutual appreciation of other

cultural values. Variety is a blessing to be nurtured, uniformity makes for a dull life, and variety depends on freedom. There is a famous poster showing a barbed wire stretched across a patch of sand. On one side are two human footprints and on the other side three human footprints. The caption runs 'I like you. You're different.' Such abstract ideas may not make converts – nobody seems to know what does – but they certainly confirm and strengthen those who are already convinced.
We were spellbound when Mr. Maw came to speak to us at our Sunday evening Meeting at school, dressed in his Indian clothes. He had used them, he told us, when as a Quaker missionary he had joined other pilgrims to go to the source of the Ganges. After the injustices of British rule in India, this was an act of reconciliation, of apologising maybe, or an act of solidarity with another religion. He knew how Britain looks when seen through Indian eyes. It was especially interesting for me because a number of the friends of my parents worked in the Indian Civil Service and came to stay with us when on home leave and appeared to be very able people, sensitive to the feelings of the people they were serving and committed to their work. With the help of my father, one of them arranged for E.M. Forster to go to India. This led to the well-known book and film Passage to India. My father's activities included acting as Treasurer of Somerville College and Governor of Leighton Park.
Michael Foot had been on good terms with my brother Tona and had learned to tease us for not following more closely in John Bright's footsteps by supporting the Liberal Party. It was against tariffs and most of them believed, along with the 'Manchester School,' that the contacts made in commerce would promote international peace both because there was a financial interest in maintaining trade and because international understanding would be enhanced by business friendships. Already in mid-Victorian times Liberal industrialists sent their sons to learn French or German in the factories of their counterparts abroad. As for Michael, he used to like chanting such lines as: 'The land, the land, the land on which we stand God gave the land to the people.' Alternatively he would point to some article of clothing and again chant its supposed previous owners 'George Fox, William Penn, John Bright, Jan Gillett, Nicco Gillett.' Later in life he was to suffer from teasing by

his fellow journalists about his simple inexpensive dress intended to show that he preferred to spend money on books. I have prided myself on getting married in a recycled Oxfam suit for the same reason. He came from a very political family: in the 1945 election his father, two brothers, and he himself were candidates. He was the only one not standing for the Liberal Party and the only one to be successful. I always wondered what this surprise result did for family relationships! Moreover, they loved books even more than we did. I remember reading books he lent me with his father's markings in them, sometimes just an ordinary line to indicate interest but also a hand and cuff complete to mean very interesting. I was shocked at first at such treatment of a book, but have accepted the value of such markings since, though instead of the pointing fingers I put a list of topics and their page numbers at the back. It was Tona, I think, who invited him to take a holiday with us at Porthcothan in Cornwall, but when Tona finished at Leighton Park, I saw much more of Michael. He played wing-forward in the rugby team and I was scrumhalf, we shared responsibility for the club for younger boys from Reading, where Leighton Park is situated and helped run their summer camps. We acted together in Barrie's play ‘The Admirable Crichton' as the two domestic servants from the country house, who with their employers shipwrecked on a desert island had to take over the running of the makeshift company, the others being too incompetent. This attack on Britain's class system was much appreciated by the audience and, I like to think, may have helped Michael move or prepare to move from his strong Liberalism to his strong socialism, a change which John Cripps did much to help at Oxford. Michael was never at a loss for words in political discussions, what he believed he believed passionately and I used to listen with admiration.
We never doubted at the time that Parliament was the place to bring about progress. It was assumed in the history we studied, and in the families from which we came. The question was: what else does one do? For Michael it was journalism, which provided him with the information and skills for politics. If we are ever to have peace, he might have asked, how can this be achieved without first persuading the House of Commons? At that time I agreed with him, and before leaving Balliol, after hard work during vacations

in the Clarion Campaigns for the Labour Party in rural areas, I was invited to stand for Parliament in a strongly Conservative constituency, but I refused. At that time I did believe that arms firms helped create wars by over-selling their products and that nationalising them would be a good step towards peace, but at that time it was too difficult for a pacifist of any sort to enter politics. Nowadays it looks differently, almost as though parliament has become an agency for helping campaigners, as the post office has always been an agency for helping those who write letters. Large companies and the media have as much or more power than politicians. When the Oxford Research Group identified eighty people as the most influential persons concerning nuclear weapons, only two were politicians.
A further inspiration was Bernard de Bunsen who came back to Leighton Park School to speak about the virtues of the new Village Colleges in Cambridgeshire, as an administrator in a local education office. He had become an education official in Wiltshire and he described the work of Henry Morris in glowing terms. The Colleges were to become the social centres of the areas they served by providing school education during the daytime and adult education in the evening. He indicated some of the advantages of strengthening communities and community caring by providing communal activities, which would provide scope for the flowering of friendship, while reducing social barriers. He hoped that the level of conversations and discussion would rival those in residential colleges such as Oxford and Cambridge. For this kind of education, he said at the opening of Bottisham College, the countryside will be our textbook where young and old can contribute from their own local experience and build upon it. He spoke as a former member of the school and his message went right home. The school could be developed in such a way as to make it the educator not just of individuals but of the whole area served by the school until it could be said that it was an education just to live there, a life-long education for some. As I listened to him I did not guess that years later on the opposite side of the world, I would be introduced as coming from England – the land of Village Colleges. In this connection I was once asked 'Who has ever heard of a revolution which started in a Garden Suburb?' Peasants, who often have a

mystical relationship to the soil, may be forced into going to war; unlike town-dwellers, they seldom go willingly.
Leighton Park was frankly experimental and taught by example. It responds to the idea that democratic principles should apply, at least to some extent, and therefore set up a School Council. Previously my brother Jan had got into trouble for collecting up all the mats beside the beds in his dormitory and throwing them out of the window. The miscreant owned up at breakfast time and made a speech in self-defence about 'harbingers of dust' but did as he was told and put them back in their places. Corporal punishment was not used at the school as it had been at the Dragons, we were treated with respect and did not live in fear, and perhaps for this reason bullying was almost unknown.
Respect for people is one of the characteristics of a good school and of the Culture of Peace and likewise respect for the truth. It is considered likely by many people that Michael Foot lost his position as Leader of the Labour Party because he said what he believed to be true about nuclear weapons. Well-informed people believe that Lord Mountbatten, a brave member of the Royal Family died for the same reason when the American CIA persuaded the IRA to kill him. Since his death his remarks such as 'Nuclear devastation is not science fiction, it is a matter of fact,' have been amply justified.
I recall with shame an occasion when a teacher accused me of diving into the swimming bath after the whistle had sounded for getting out. I answered with a direct lie. Journalists, advertisers, and politicians have much more reason to depart from the truth. Those who maintain a high standard of truth deserve admiration, more admiration than is usually accorded to them. Telling the truth, specifically when it hurts to do so, is another contribution towards peace. When war breaks out truth is the first casualty and quickly a web of propaganda around the enemy is spun, whether his name is Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, or Osama Bin Laden.
Sometimes as I read political history both in the sixth form and at University, I longed to follow in the footsteps of John Bright and learn the political way of life, including the difficulties in the House of Commons. I had acquitted myself well in the Clarion Campaign

for Labour in the rural areas, but I was not sure that I could make any difference. It seemed to require more power to exert any influence over party or Parliament than I could muster, despite the example set by George Lansbury as Leader of the Labour Party and later by Clement Attlee. The question whether change can more easily be brought about best by sudden revolution or by gradual reform has always intrigued me, as it was a bone of contention between my two elder brothers and myself. I keep an open mind at the present time regarding the better way to challenge the monopoly of power by the large firms. Their short-term policy of maximising profits is a threat to the whole world by exhausting resources and blocking a more just division of wealth. They ride roughshod over parliamentary democracies.
At Leighton Park it was too early in the century for this problem to have been recognised. We were engaged in discussions about the merits of free trade and tariffs and about the methods of reducing unemployment. Such discussions were supported mainly by those from Quaker families and those sympathising with Quaker values rather than by those who had difficulty in getting in elsewhere, either because they were from abroad or because they had difficulty in passing examinations. The age-range was fourteen to eighteen and we numbered a hundred. This low figure was due to the economic slump. Having such a small number of pupils enabled the staff to know all the pupils personally and some of them made good use of it. There was one member of staff for every ten boys, a ratio, which is about right if the intention is to train democrats and not be driven into producing fascists. I made this my main theme when speaking at a National Youth Parliament in 1939. Three of the staff won my admiration early on.
It was a crisp September morning, a new teacher of gymnastics had come to replace the Sergeant Major, and we were gathering on the gravel outside for “breathers”, when suddenly I felt a heavy punch on the shoulder. I swung round to see who was spoiling for a fray and saw a short strongly built man, the new teacher who had introduced himself in this unorthodox way. Our friendship never looked back, my anger melted and I felt intrigued by such treatment. He had been an Olympic gymnast and then trained in Denmark in Danish gymnastics before starting to teach

at Bootham, the Quaker boarding school for boys in York. We responded eagerly to his teaching and some of us were soon doing handsprings, headsprings, and backward flip-flaps on the grass or in the gymnasium. The purpose, I learned later, was to substitute gymnastics for military training in the ordinary boarding schools as part of the education of the whole person. It was a pacifist move in the reform of the curriculum, clearly in accord with the wishes of Quaker parents.
Thomas Hopkins, or Hoppy as he was known, was an admirable advocate of the subjects he taught and could demonstrate his prowess by kicking up to handstands in the most unlikely places, such as on top of a gate, or in the middle of a dining table laid with crockery. On one small point we differed. After a rugby match in which as usual I was playing scrum half, I was blocked, contrary to the rules, by an opposing wing-forward swinging sideways from his pack. The referee did not notice and Hoppy urged me on another occasion to charge him in the ribs with my head so as to wind him. Hoppy demonstrated what he meant and left me gasping for breath. At the time I felt doubts about playing that way. Thinking it over now, I feel sure that in children playing field-games and in playing other games respect for law including international law can gradually be established. A greater respect for law is essential for campaigners against war and pollution; the same interest in law and order locally has to be extended to practices, which are inevitably international, and this can be best taught during childhood. The sports coaches who encourage youngsters to defy the rules are guilty of a serious offence. If there is any difference between international law and local law, then international law has become more vital.
Another brilliant teacher was Billy Brown. He always had new ways of looking at old things. The geography he liked best was not the geography of books, but the geography of adventure, of landscapes, of peoples and their customs. He arranged a journey for two of us on the Berkshire downs, a weekend camp and a climbing holiday in the Austrian Tyrol, in which he joined himself. I regretted very much indeed that in describing to my father how we lost our way to the Alpine Hut where we had booked for the night I conveyed the idea that excessive risks were being taken

Reasonable risks have to be taken if pacifists are to believe in themselves and not be regarded as cowards. Unfortunately the people left at home suffer, and suffer more sometimes than the people travelling in dangerous places.
Billy Brown had a great scar across his cheek from the war but he seldom indicated his views about the war, with the exception of the flag incident before setting up the Scout Troop. I thought at the time that he must share more opinions of mine. He did not accept the schools ethos; so much as create it by contributing his delight in new ideas, along with adventure. It was left to de Bono to coin the term 'lateral thinking' but the habit of mind preceded him. When invited to speak to the Sunday evening Meeting he began 'I was an unhappy baby.' Teachers in those days were expected to hide pacifist views for fear of being accused of abusing their positions but the issue now is how best to avoid and abolish war. There were many gaps in my education when we as a family travelled to stay in South Africa, and it might be supposed that these big gaps in my schooling would put me at a disadvantage. However, Dr Douglas of Home and School , reporting his researches to a very large meeting of teachers, indicated the supreme importance of parental encouragement and 'We found to our great surprise that children who were away not frequently but for substantial periods of time not only caught up, on average, but went ahead of where they would have expected to be if they had remained at school.' My comment to the meeting was 'In the Parent-Teacher movement we would not be surprised because parents would be likely to show their concern for school work in such circumstances and encourage their children to read while convalescing by talking with them about their books.'