|
|
|
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. |
|
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. |
|
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 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 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. |
|
|
