The Bendrigg Trust
John Kinross and the Mary Kinross Charitable Trust
In 1957 John and Mary Kinross started a charitable trust; the Mary Kinross Charitable Trust (MKCT). From the start they wanted to use it for ‘whole projects’ and not just to ‘write cheques’ in response to appeals from charities of which they had no personal knowledge. They created the Good Companion Workshops for elderly people in Hertfordshire where they lived, and later in North London they started Bernard Johnson House, for overseas medical postgraduates and their families.
The Acquisition of Bendrigg Lodge
By the 1970s they had accumulated enough funds for another ‘whole project’. JBK, as he was known at work at what is now 3i but which was then the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation [ICFC], wrote to his friend Roy Jenkins to see if he had any good ideas. Roy Jenkins was at the time quite busy being Home Secretary and he referred JBK to the Voluntary Services Unit [VSU], of the Home Office. In 1975 JBK was presented with three ideas and chose to create in England a permanent base to do what an exceptional Borstal Governor, Charles Hills, was already doing on an occasional basis in Scotland. His Six Circle Camps took groups of trainees from the borstal to Iona, to camp with and assist groups of people with disabilities from the adult training centre next to Polmont Borstal.
By the autumn of 1975 the London-based VSU had assembled a group of people from York, Manchester, Market Drayton and Birmingham who were all interested in establishing a ‘Centre for Co-operative Community Care’, CCCC. JBK thought he could walk into Derbyshire and find a Victorian mansion and convert that, but his searches proved fruitless. A derelict property in the countryside near Preston was identified but the word ‘borstal’ frightened the local community who petitioned against the proposal. It was Mick Knight, an assistant Governor from Market Drayton Borstal, who heard that Bendrigg Lodge was on the market. They bought the former hunting lodge on the spur of the moment – later to discover that it had no mains water supply and that the small well on site did not supply water fit to drink.
A telephone call made by JBK to the Chairman of Old Hutton Parish Council in 1977 ensured that resistance to the word ‘borstal’ did not recur. In the mid seventies the CCCC was planned in minute detail as far as the ethos and theory was concerned – but less thought was given to the practicalities of running a centre. ‘Risk assessment’ and ‘Health and Safety’ did not trip off our tongues as easily as ‘the philosophy of shared experience’. For years I have said I would write the story up using the title ‘How not to set up a project’, because so much was learned the hard way. One of the main lessons I have drawn is that the appointment of the first members of staff is not the point at which the founders can relax and think their job is done. If the spirit and intentions of the founders are really to be embodied in the place, the initial staff team needs constant support.
Initial Funding
The VSU commitment was to fund the running costs for three years while the MKCT was to provide the capital to purchase and adapt the building. JBK loved dealing with architects and plans. In fact the Home Office funding was phased out after nine years and brought with it the enduring benefit of the interest of first Mary Bagenal and then Tom Hibbert who had been appointed as monitors to oversee the Home Office expenditure. The benefits Tom has contributed in financial oversight must by now amount to many times the VSU grants.
JBK thought that after three years the fees paid by the groups using Bendrigg Lodge would cover the running costs – an early lesson was to realise that if the groups whom the CCCC intended to help were to be able to visit, a fee that covered all the costs would be prohibitive. There would always be an operating deficit and fundraising required.
Another of the initial difficulties faced by the founding members was to attract local people to join the management committee. Those who did join found off-putting the somewhat strange procedures of the founding members – which included a group hug before each meeting and the use of a bio-rhythm calculator. Well, it was the 1970s and early photos reveal flared trousers, kaftans, long hair and side burns.
It was JBK’s connections at the ICFC office in Leeds who tracked down Peter Hensman who volunteered his wife Claire to help, and as many of the present committee members will know, it was Claire who enthused them with the idea of helping at Bendrigg.
The Bendrigg Trust
The MKCT has continued to take a detailed interest in Bendrigg. It started an endowment fund to help meet the annual operating deficit. It has made substantial contributions to previous building projects which have included the dining room extension, building over the area where the first staff members kept chickens, the rebuilding of the bedrooms to make much better accommodation for wheel chair users and to create a new entrance, and now the indoor activity centre – The Kinross Building. I am particularly delighted that this will also provide somewhere for the committee to meet without having to sit three deep and round corners in the staff room. The MKCT will continue to take a particular interest in the Bendrigg Alternative Scheme which enables individual young offenders to have life-changing experiences while assisting groups who are using Bendrigg.
This tale does not pay much attention to the staff of Bendrigg. I hope that all who have read this far will have already discovered that the way the experienced and long-serving staff team, under the leadership of Trevor Clarke for the last 20 years, run Bendrigg enables many people to have experiences and opportunities the memory of which will stay with them when they return home. The professional skills of the present staff team are not flaunted, but Health and Safety and Risk Assessment are now an integral part of all that happens here.
The Kinross Building
The Kinross Building has been long in the gestation. With so much that could have slipped in such a substantial project, it is a tribute to the professional input and time commitment of certain Trustees and restraint by Trevor, that it has been delivered on time and on budget.
All the present Trustees of the MKCT hope that the facilities created in the Kinross Building will provide new opportunities for the staff and visitors at Bendrigg. If so, it will continue to fulfil the dreams of those idealists from the 1970s to touch the lives of many by co-operative community care.
Fiona Adams.
