1961-02-18 — Page 13

FINISHING SCHOOL

AT FINCHDEN

where masters wear plimsolls and boys drink out of jam jars

TWO shaggy-haired youths wrestled good-naturedly on the floor of the baronial hall. Untidy young men sang "Fight "the Good Fight" heartily round the piano. It might have been an ordinary youth club evening. But these were not quite ordinary young people.

There were tough boys with police records, far-from-tough-

by DAVID ASH

boys who had had nervous breakdowns; public school boys from well-to-do families; and lacks trom poor, back-street couldn't get on with

homer.

There are 48 of them, and they are all called boys, al- though their ages rango from 13 to 30.

Some of than have parents who are paying nine guineas a week; some of them have no parents at all. Some have been sent there by a court. Somo have gone voluntarily,

them.

any of got mugs drank their dea from jam jars. The new boy พาย settling in well and passing round his elgarettes.

"I joined the 'Merchant Navy and couldn't get on with that, so I decided to pretend suicide to get out of it.

"Then I was all on my own and I stole some things because I was fod up.

Someone at my table told me about "pessions."

"If somebody has dong pome-

thing wrong we all came here plains his action and then for a session. The offender ex- Wo all discuss it and Mr Løward- "Then I came here, and I sums up. There is no punish gradually became one of the ment at all," I was told. te- community because I could mix with people who weren't always being disapproving. don't want to be anti-social.

at

They are all "trying to discover their personalities,” Finchden, an Elizabethan house deep in rural Kent.

This is the place a magistrale

public rehool Boy

sent a

recently

because he had

mania for stealing cars.

At play

Now

A very urbane looking man of 21 put his hand up and said in the cultured voice that every- one seems to have at Finchden: "Sir, may I go to the pictures

priest when I leave," he said.

"I think I should like to be a this afternoon?"

to

A 17-year-old saki:-

u

used to be called

the

I went to try to find out how

it worked, and 1 saw how

it

played, which is probably more important.

ניי

"Not today.

weat out you yesterday," he was told,

This young man told me: "I was in trobute for passing dud Menace. I stolc more han cheques. In the two months I once because I wanted things have been hore I have noticed and couldn't wait for them. I all sorts of change in my never bothered about the con- character. What I mean 15

discipline the effects of my, Getions on

Strict

sequences, mant nothing to me.

other people have been brought

"But bere each member of home to me." the staff seems to be one of us.

Me George Lyword, who runs You can't really annoy anybody Finchden, said: "Well, if you and after a while you find you

want to know what happens don't want to." here you'd better ask the "boys themselves. We work as a

group."

Shocked

No pretence

An "uwlable" 29-year-old said:-

or MOTO

"The funny thing is that you The boys trooped in wearing

never notice any difference in A young ex-convict said: paint-stained jeans and sloppy "What you're most conscious of pretends to be older

people's AR here. Nobody swesters, and sat usually down in prison isn't on the floor, the armchairs, and punishment as the waste of time

so much the sophisticated than he really is, piano stool. They it when you think of the creative cigarettes.

things you could be doing."

the

Mr Lyward beamed at them through his spectacles. Grey- haired, but a young-looking 57, he is a former housemaster at a famous public school who has spent 31 years of his life and a great deal or his money "help ing emotionally disturbed boya to become real people."

'Love'

or

Lea

He refuses to call Finchơn á school-it has no timetables classrooms-and objects words like **teaching" and #lessons." He says he treats boys with "stern love."

"We have a sort of 'play' atmosphere here nearly all the time. Nobody is compelled to work," he told me.

For they had also planned, 11 вегесп they confessed, to Idol Charlie Chaplin when he visited Tokyo. It was not that they had anything against Mr. Chaplin. But they were sure

A lad with a three-day growth that this MUST ating America into declaring war on Japan. ns the rebels held siege in the saw for Japan a way to great-¦ of beard and a book of his own

to Pollee Headquarters, the Sanno mess through the sword.

told poems in his pocket Then Japan would have

discuss Aght. Then the old warrior flotel, and the War Offee. The black plot had worked. "We hardly ever

our matter again. They held out for three days, Months later, Japanese hordes parts among ourselves, but we virtues would

defying every attemp! of the were swarming bloodthirstilu ink to each other and the staff Then Japan's soul would saved from the slow corrosion Imperial Guards, troops with

all the time about any problems, of too much überalism and 100 bombs and flamethrowers, and into Northern China. Nippon I have had plenty,

bombers droning overhead, to was much peacet.

dislodge them.

be

me:

Mr Lyward mid-

"A lot of us learn that it is not ammanly to have tender feelings. But that doesn't mean we just go around being coppy "Some people are shocked be little friends to all the world." cause these boys are allowed to

The boys went out to paint enjoy themselves, but how can sheds, read, wash up, play the they learn to live if they are plano, or just lounge about and not happy?

talk.

"I have a special Joke about

Half past mine was every one of them, and there is and nobody made plenty of teasing. It is almost about going upstairs. Bke the leasing that wool needa

it, it has to be 'disentangled.

bedtime, #ny bones

I looked in the staff room, cat down on an old bus seal in the "My staff includes masters corner of the room and had a Iran public schools,

but they mug of tea from a dented two- don't teach, they discuss.

gallon teapot-and realised I "The boys become so relaxed had been mistaking some of the that they begin to take a really staff for the boys.

One or two were in their early deep interest a things on their

twenties and wore open-necked own Initiative. They forget

slacks, their old troubies and will often shirts, leather jackets,

and patched plimsolls.

"Why

said one, not?" schoolboy who lo under pres- classical scholar. "We want to

work much harder

sure."

than

sny

be one of them-on their side. A gong sounded and we went Yes, they respect us, but I think bato the roughly furnished trust is a better word. It may dining-room for roast lamb and all sound rather namby-pamby, three veg, cooked by four of but lite here is really_poetry." the boys. The boys overturned It did sound & namby-painby stools and threw bread about, place to send a young man who but I was told it was all "good, has stolen four cars. As the harmless group therapy,"

magistrate said when sent

he him there: "Let's hope it's the tight answer."

-(London Express Sarules).

embarked on the bloody way to her ancient destiny-the "I lived with six different They held out CO-

when way that led to the Second pairs of foster even

parents atter The salt was passed round in leaving a children's home and a 01b. Lin, and boys who hadn't warships filled Tokyo Bay, and; World War, the admirals threatened to shat- ter the city's centre.

Premters who stood for dis- ammament and peaceful existence were cowardly villains who had advised the Gud-Em- peror badly. They had to die. The court hud understood them. if the west had not. Pleading Jetlers had poured in. stressing the loyal intentions of the 54. Even the leaders had

Disapproved

But on March 1, soon after

been sentenced to no more than mid-day, two aircraft dropped

15 years' imprisonment.

And even they were ect free, their sentences barely begun, in time for the Day of the Black Dragon--when their colleagues struck a dealer blow for Nip

pon.

leaflets on the mutineers. Read- that Ing them, they learned

had caused their bloodshed "profound grief and sorrow" to the Emperor.

It was enough. Within two

The marching men, deployed hours the rebellious troops had મામ from their strongholds, necording to a carefully-pre-

pared plan, did not find Prime laid out their arms, and our-

rendered. Minister Okada in his wardrobe.

But 15 of them fount bis Their dozen-and-a-half lead- brother-in-law, who looked like era remained behind. Everyone

For them ther him, and mowed him down with understood. machine-gun-bullets,

could be only one way out with honour.

Murders

Meanwhile, another group had Intercepted the Lord Keeper of the Imperial Seal, Viscount Sallo, on his way back from dinner at the U.S. Embassy, One of their bullets ripped into his wife's arm as, screaming in terror, she tried to protect him. But the rest found Salto, and killed him.

Nor was the massacre Dyer

But only one oMeer took it. Only Caplan Teruzo Ando had shot himself through the head when the Imperial Guarda look over the Sanho Hotel.

There could be no leniency now. This 15me,

army Ari Quurt-martial, Carefully screened from publicity fol lowed swiftly. The death sen- tence was passed on leaders of the bloody rising. This time motives could not

yet. Bursting into the bedroom help.

the

of Finance Minister Korekiyo And on March 5. 1930, the Takahashi, a man of 89, more last chapter closed for the furo- of the warrior fanatles severed eating assassins of the Black his hend with a samural word Dragon when they faced fring as he lay sleeping.

squids in the yank of Tokyo's

The Director-General of Mill- army prison. tary Education, Generat Watar- Dut the work was done en abe, was found at home and completely that none could undo bludgeoned to death with rifion. it. Liberal politicians of suffl- The Imperial Grand Chamber- elently senior slature for major lain, Admiral Suzuki, was shot posts had been in strictly' limit In the chest (but later recover- ed supply. Now there were none ed).

left. it was all over by mid-day, But to replace them therei Frenzied chaos reigned in Tokyo were plenty of old warriors, who'

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