Tag Archives: John Badley

Reflections on conflict

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By Will Goldsmith, Head of Bedales

n Monday we held our first face-to-face Jaw since September and my first since becoming permanent Head. It was a very special moment for us as it marked, hopefully, a shift away from many of the restrictions we’ve had to put up with. It’s two years now since the pandemic started and, while it’s not over yet, we’re definitely moving into a different phase. I spoke to students about two things – why Jaws are so important here at Bedales and about how we as a community respond to conflict – which I will share with you here.
 
Jaw at Bedales is the equivalent to ‘chapel’ that happens in schools with a religious foundation. Our school was founded deliberately without one, not because the founders were not religious themselves (Badley was a very committed Christian) but because they did not believe anyone should be forced to attend a specific religious ceremony at school. However, that does not make us an amoral school – far from it. One of our founding principles, ‘Work of Each for Weal of All’, is not dissimilar to the Christian commandment: “thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself”. It reminds us that, in living as a community of learners, our collective endeavours should contribute to more than just our own individual advancement.
 
In talking of community, of being together, Jaw is a time when we regularly come together to reflect on specific ideas, moral dilemmas or powerful issues that impact on our lives. It is an important moment for us to reflect more carefully than we sometimes do, to find perhaps a stillness that we normally struggle to achieve. Doing so together is a sign of our solidarity with each other, the support we give to one another in response to some joyful experiences as human beings, as well as more challenging ones. We then finish with the famous handshake (or bow, namaste or fist bump), where we take a moment to properly acknowledge each other’s existence. To connect in a way that says we exist, we recognise each other as fellow travellers on the journey of life. All of these things hold us together and, as we’ve not been able to do this for the past two years, it has placed strains on our community. So now we can do it again, I am feeling very hopeful that we will all benefit from this.
 
This brings me on to my second topic which is, perhaps, the opposite of community – conflict. I’m sure all of you will be aware of the current conflict in Ukraine. I don’t want to dwell too much on what is a disturbing and fast-moving situation. I know that there are people in our community directly affected by this and it is upsetting to see horrific images of war in Europe once more.
 
Instead, I’d like to remind you more broadly of the way Bedales has responded to times of war in the past, but also what our approach to conflict on any level should be. 
 
Conflict is as much part of being human as community, so the idea that we can live our lives while avoiding any friction with those around us is naïve. A finite amount of resources, different levels of comfort and security, and comparisons we make between us will inevitably lead to times when we disagree, when we feel angry towards each other and when that might even spill over into a fight. War is the ultimate dividing force we humans have – where one group of people decide another is ‘the enemy’ and that we want to kill them or at least control them by force. As an act, it is one of the most horrific things we can do but should be avoided at all costs. You may have seen the hundreds of thousands of people across the world protesting against the war this weekend, you may even have been amongst them. 
 
Bedales has a strong tradition of being horrified by war, building a library as war memorial, choosing not to have a Combined Cadet Force like other schools and emphasising in both of the World Wars from the last century, our bonds with people on the other side, knowing that students of the school ended up fighting against each other because of accidents of birth and geography. In doing so, we make a strong statement about war and conflict, and it is one the endures today.
 
Whatever the outcome of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I’d like you to remember that we should always do everything in our power to resolve conflict wherever we find it, whether as national leaders or private individuals. You may not be making decisions about what this or other countries do in the face of conflict but at least some of you may well end up in that position later in life and the lessons you learn here, the habits you develop and the actions you take will shape who you are when you go out into the world. 
 
So I have two messages to finish with – firstly, remember conflict is inevitable for human beings. There will always be times in any community (including this one) where we won’t get on, where we might want to hurt someone or show our anger. Knowing and accepting that we have that capacity within us is an important lesson in life. Secondly, however, you should also know that there are ways to deal with that anger, that pain, that aggression which don’t lead to escalation that leads to war or fighting. While many leaders past and present have clearly not learned this or valued it, you should know that learning is at the core of peace – learning about each other so that we can empathise with how people feel; learning about history so that we can see what mistakes have been made in the past and how people have reacted in similar situations; learning about ourselves so that we can spot the signs of anger or even violence early enough to walk away; learning how to listen to others rather than just to say what we think.
 
So, as we start this second half of term, remember that in investing energy into your education, in and out of the classroom, you are hopefully on the path to making this world a more peaceful place. As you file past your teachers on your way out, see the handshake (literally or symbolically) as a sign of peace.

‘No plan survives contact with the enemy’

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Quoting the German General Moltke rather than John Badley in a ‘beginning of the new school year’ blog might seem unusual, but given the exhaustive planning that has gone into re-opening the Bedales schools this week, an acknowledgement of the importance of planning and strategy seems appropriate. ‘No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength’ is often represented in snappier form as ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’. Having stepped unbidden into the role of senior mask monitor I share Moltke’s view. Day 1 of this much anticipated and much heralded term demonstrated the clash between plans and reality. Badley’s ‘work of each for weal of all’ has been prominently presented at all our beginning of term gatherings to underline how individual actions and decisions can have community wide resonance and consequence. With studied patience I say to an unmasked student squeezing their way through a crowded door, ‘Where’s your mask?’. To which they reply, ‘I don’t have one. I thought the school were supplying them’. Or rather, ‘Work of you for weal of me.’ I reach for my handy stash of disposable medical face masks and hope it might last beyond the end of the lesson.

The essence of the Bedales School rules are enshrined on a board in the corridor around the Quad that all Bedalians shuffle past on their way into the dining room. Badley’s stricture that whatever causes ‘Needless exposure of oneself or others to danger or infection’ has suddenly received extra historic resonance. Those rules pre-date 1942 and the development of penicillin by 40 years. Infection in 1893 could mean death, and the 1918 Spanish ‘Flu pandemic would not have left the Bedales community unscathed. There isn’t any direct reference to Bedales’ students losing their lives due to Spanish ‘Flu, but the fear of the spread of infection, as all seasonal winter ‘flu epidemics can spread, would have been very profound. ‘Coughs and sneezes spread diseases’ would have been as relevant and true then as it is now. So everyone in the Bedales School community: students, teaching staff and support staff across all three schools, some 1,300 souls all in all, have to safeguard and protect each other, from the immune to the vulnerable (who won’t necessarily know who they are).

Bedales School rules

Students, parents and teachers have had so much to endure since the end of March. The panicked decision to close schools and cancel exams, the A level results’ fiasco, and the uncertainty about when and how schools could re-open, were all caused by a dysfunctional government found wanting. At least now within our own school campus, re-imagined as a self-governed city state, we have the opportunity to return to that sacred exchange of teaching and learning that seeks to link ‘head, hand and heart.’

By Magnus Bashaarat, Head of Bedales

Remembering Bedales co-founder Oswald Powell

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By Matilda McMorrow, Librarian

“It is never good for the governed or for the government that injustice should be tolerated without protest,” began Oswald Powell in his letter to the Hants & Sussex News in 1913. At the time he was fighting alongside Winifred Powell in solidarity with all women, in a society that took women’s work, money and lives whilst refusing them the right to be seen as people. The Powells would protest this injustice for five more years before any UK women had voting rights. They confronted the tax authorities, took local action in Petersfield and international action at a Budapest conference, and of course, tried to model social change in their work at Bedales. This collaborative, action-driven spirit seems to have been at the heart of the man who co-founded Bedales, and certainly put life into the ideas of John Badley, whose name we might be more familiar with.

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Stoner Cricket Club

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By Rollo Wicksteed, Old Bedalian 1949-54

Eighty-five years ago, at the end of their final year at Bedales, two boys had a meeting with their young games master to discuss the future. Jim Atkinson (1930-34) was about to
embark on an engineering degree at Cambridge, and John Fox (1929-34) was preparing to study Civil Engineering. ‘Benn’ Bennett (staff 1930-71) was in his fourth year at the school. However, it was not their futures they talked about, but the much more important question of cricket and in particular, cricket at Bedales. An idea was suggested: at the end of the Summer term, OBs should be invited to return for a week of cricket. Benn agreed to approach ‘The Chief’ (Mr Badley) to see if the proposal met with his approval. It did, so he was promptly chosen to be the Club’s first President, and Stoner Cricket was born.

Fifty years later, as the Club celebrated its half century, John recalled his memories: “Although a performer of little talent, I was quite potty about cricket and when I was due to leave, the idea of abandoning the cricket field was quite awful. I don’t remember being overly impressed by the scenic marvels of the place where I spent 14 happy years successfully resisting being taught anything… but when I found myself leaving it for good, its beauty came upon me suddenly and the notion of arranging some cricket softened the blow”.

Jim, who was not usually lost for words, was less effusive and wrote, “If the cricket has been no more than a vehicle for the making of friends and the interplay of eccentric  personalities, then never mind”. Jim was a more than useful village cricketer and was
a Stoner regular for the next 30 years, during which time he proved himself a considerable eccentric and made countless friends.

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Benn was, of course the driving spirit and a cricketer good enough to have earned a place on the Lord’s ground staff. As curator of the Bedales wicket he supervised the creation of the ‘Mem’ Pitch after the war, ensuring that it was the best ground in the district. On the death of Mr Badley in 1967, Benn became President of Stoner. Since Stoner’s foundation, hundreds of OBs and their friends have played for the Club including over half a dozen Head Boys. Staff have also played an important part including Ken Keast (staff 1939-49), Harold Gardiner (staff 1952-68), John Batstone (staff 1968-93), Norman Bellis (staff 1956-63) and Anthony Gillingham (staff 1946-70).

For those too young to know him, Anthony was an Old Etonian Marxist who helped sink the Bismarck during the war and had a father who played for Essex!

There have been many other interesting characters who have worn the club colours.  Richard Tomlinson (1970-76) has written a highly acclaimed 400 page biography of W.G. Grace. Roger Lloyd Pack (1957-62) became a film and TV star whose brief innings in
the film The Go-Between was featured in its entirety. Matthew Quantrill (1978-83) was a remorseless compiler of runs who tragically died before he could record his 100th Century.

Peter ‘Bunny’ Layton (1940-46) was a stockbroker whose legendary generosity did not always extend to his racing tips or his running between wickets, Alastair Britten (1957-62) invariably slept in a tent during Stoner Week as a tribute to the Club’s pioneers. Finally, Connor Wilkinson (1976-78), was always available to make up the numbers and his unfailing optimism with both bat and ball won him wide admiration. I could go on but enough.

After 84 years, the news that the 2018 Cricket Week had to be cancelled due to lack of  players saddened me and only Hitler had managed that. However, amid the wailing and gnashing of teeth, there are cautious grounds for optimism that a renaissance may be round the corner. Cricket at Dunhurst is flourishing, and both the Bursar and the new  Heads at Bedales and Dunhurst, love cricket and may even sport MCC ties, which shows the right spirit! We also hear that staff and parents have their own team trading under the name ‘Gentlemen of Bedales’, which includes some enthusiastic pupils.

The idea of a week’s cricket after the end of term has been discussed, and sounds an attractive possibility. Perhaps it’s worth a try – it worked last time!

This article was originally published in the Bedales Association & Old Bedalian Newsletter 2019. Find out more about Stoner Cricket Club, including this year’s fixtures, here.

Journeys

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Keith Budge leaves Bedales at the end of this academic year. This final blog is based on his last school assembly.

As I contemplate the end of my time with Bedales, I am minded to think about journeys. Last week, in a very literal sense, I was part of a group of 24 that walked from the original Bedales home in Lindfield to Steep. This journey – all 125 km of it (I completed the first 70 of them) – marked the 125th anniversary of the school’s birth, and so I have also given thought to this rather more abstract journey.

The story of our walk from school to school is pretty straightforward. We had the idea, and it generated some enthusiasm and support. There was planning, resources, logistics, administration, risk assessments, food, water, maps, sun cream; and above all a group of people who wanted to make it happen. Substantially, that the walk was a success was the result of our teamwork.

It’s more difficult to tell the story of the first 125 years of Bedales’ existence, but two really striking things occurred to me vividly over the past week as I walked. The first of these is how very unlikely it is that the school has survived and prospered. John Badley’s idea in the early 1890s that he would start a school and that it would be based on such very different principles to the ones that enabled schools like his – Rugby – to thrive, was pretty left field.

The second striking thing, and this chimes with the story of the walk coming together, is the extent of the teamwork that enabled the fledgling creature that was early Bedales to take wing. Those of you who have followed my blogs will know that I have written regularly about John Badley. His story is well known, and so I will concentrate here a little more on the other two members of the founding triumvirate. Amy Badley, a suffragist, brought a passionate belief in women’s suffrage and women’s rights. She was, some believe, the driving force behind the introduction of girls to the school in 1898. Oswald Powell, or ‘Oz Boz’ as he was affectionately known, was multi-talented (a musician and modern linguist), and brought a great capacity for making things work.

What must it must have been like in those early days of the school’s existence in Lindfield, in Summer 1893? Fortunately, we have Oz Boz’s account to guide us – and what a fascinating read it is. You can hear in his voice the sheer daring of the school’s founding and the gamble he was taking, moving from Manchester Grammar School to join such a madcap scheme. His passion for this place “where we could all learn by doing and haply teach by being and so revolutionise English education” is both palpable and infectious. This is no po-faced account, however – he cheerfully confesses to feelings of incompetence when observed teaching History by Badley, and a comic note is struck when he talks about giving a lecture one Saturday evening on the subject of bee-keeping, despite never having kept bees. By a great quirk of fate, and with charming symmetry, his grandson, Ben Powell, joined us on Day 2 of our walk, so we heard more about Oz Boz from him.

Powell died just short of his 100th birthday; Badley reached 102. I suspect that it was this enduring partnership and the complementary qualities that they brought to it that enabled the school to be what it is today. Badley supplied that informing vision, the passion; but it would have been as nothing without the ability to deliver the goods, at which (amongst other things) Oz Boz excelled.

My final thought about the journey, and the quality that has enabled the school to thrive, is its ability to innovate and to welcome change. Whilst the school has been single-minded in preserving its founding ethos, we should remember that it is a particularly distinctive and nuanced one that invites reinterpretation by successive generations. Indeed, I particularly like Oz Boz’s take on it – that we all (staff and students alike) learn by doing, and in that process remake our idea of education. Such an approach, allied to such an ambition, is demanding: we each of us need to be part of a process of continual self-scrutiny, to share a restless determination, and to be willing to change as we each of us help shape this school’s extraordinary journey.