Goodbye to all that...

The end of a national asset

What is possible and What isn't

and Why

 

INTRODUCTION and CONTENTS

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At the end of 1988 I was employed by the Planned Environment Therapy Trust, a small charity founded in 1966, to explore various options for looking after the records and other materials of a way of living and working with people who presented problems to themselves and/or to others. (Apologies for that circumlocution: Over the years I have come to dislike the heroic terms that come and go, and obscure the person behind the diagnoses and designations; but to place yourself historically they have included "maladjusted", "emotionally and behaviourally disturbed", and more recently, "traumatised".)

That way of 'living and working', which is an important conjunction, sometimes has names, but often hasn't, except locally, as it arises from human relations and the realities of being human together. This presents an interesting problem for an archivist building up records and memories of the field; but of the gifted terms I was asked to address, 'Planned Environment Therapy' is, for me, a kind, descriptive term which came from people who invested themselves in others, and made major sacrifices to do so. The term which blossomed out of the Second World War and which largely filled the space which the way of living and working refers to was "therapeutic community", which in its two terms, interacting and brought together, captures an essence which is lost in its common abbreviation TC.

Anyway, in 1989 I was asked by the Planned Environment Therapy Trust to establish a comprehensive, activist Archive and Study Centre devoted broadly to Planned Environment Therapy/ Therapeutic Community, and continued to do that for almost 30 years, until the week before Christmas 2018, when I handed in my keys, and possession and responsibility passed to the Mulberry Bush Organisation. The Mulberry Bush renamed the 'Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre' the 'Planned Environment Therapy Archive and Special Collections', and renamed the site, formerly the 'Barns Conference Centre', the 'Mulberry Bush Third Space", or MB3.

A little under seven years later, in October 2025, without warning and without consultation, apparently even with the archivists who would have to carry it out, the Mulberry Bush announced that they would be closing the site and disposing of the Collections with a deadline of May 31st, 2026, 'disposal' being the term used in the announcement.

This is an evolving website in which I try to come to terms with what is being lost, and why. And, importantly, how it has come about that an award-winning national asset, and what Jonathan Stanley of NCERCC has called a national treasure, is being/has been broken up and dispersed; and what this means for the future of therapeutic community work with children, adolescents, and adults, nationally and internationally.

This is a rather immense and distressing task, as you can imagine, and I am grateful for your being here, and bearing with the odd way in which different parts are being written and re-written. If you have visited before, you will see that I have significantly restructured the site as of April 12th, 2026, as the process at MB3 has developed, and hope for a re-think has disappeared. The old structure can be found here.

In theory, if you would like to, you should be able to begin with the 'Introduction to a Foreword', and click through at the bottom of each page to move to the next, as in a book. And despite the context, I think you will find a lot of joy and love here. You can not work successfully with archives based in traumatic experience, and with the people and institutions represented in them, without a sense of play.

Craig Fees

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CONTENTS 

The Author

Introduction to a Foreword (2026/03/15)

Foreword, February 27, 2026

PREFACE

Acknowledgements

Some notes and conventions

 

PART I: WHAT IS BEING LOST

 

I.1: A BEGINNING: Goodbye to all that

1. The Archive: A visual tour
2. "It may be that you have never heard of this archive..." In the words of others
3. Origins
4. Goodbye to all that: footnotes

 

I.2: WHAT IS BEING LOST?

1. AN ECOSYSTEM

1. 1. 1. "But the roof doesn't leak when it stops raining": The target audience and the target task
      2.  "organisations and individuals behave stupidly, if not destructively....": Naked Self Interest and archives
      3.  Celebrations and funerals

 2. A SPECIALIST RESEARCH AND REFERENCE LIBRARY

1. Research Library: Acquisitions Policy (1999)
2. Building a Library: Every book that comes into the Library....comes with a story (2004)
3. Cascade of People: "In a Healthy Ecosystem, the Library Builds Itself"
4. Through the core sample, down the rabbit hole: two techniques for discovering the magic of an internationally used, unique research library
5. Short notes:
           - People: Who is Bill Garner?
           - People: Roland Meighan
           - Seeking the Source (Personal Blog from 2011)
          - "When I come in to work that night, I am stunned..." 

3. MATHOM HOUSE: A STOREHOUSE OF PHYSICAL CULTURE, STORY AND MEMORY

1. Case Study: "Course members were clear that they would like these symbolic reminders of their Therapeutic Child Care course to go to The Planned Environment Therapy Trust": The University of Reading Therapeutic Childcare Tea Chest

4. A TRADITION OF RESEARCHERS AND RESEARCH, WITH SPECIALIST ARCHIVAL KNOWLEDGE AND SUPPORT

5. A TOOL TO DEFEND, GROUND, EVIDENCE, SUPPORT, AND PROMOTE THE WORK, THE WORKERS, AND THOSE THEY WORK WITH AND FOR (One of those essential things which is not needed until the wind changes, which it will)

6. A SITE OF BELONGING

7. BELIEF (Trust, Belief, Hope)

8. POSSIBILTY

 

 

PART II:
THE PREDECESSOR, THE ARCHIVE AND STUDY CENTRE

 In its public statements and public-facing documents, why does the Mulberry Bush not only obscure, but negate its predecessor? 

 

II.1: Context - background, history, and surrounding environment

1. Origins: Précis of the Vision
2. A History of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust (c. 2013)
3. "A field which was notoriously profligate with and dismissive of its archival heritage..."

 

II.2: The basic work of the Archive and Study Centre

1. Archives

 2. Oral History/Oral Archiving

3. Library

4. Museum

5. Outreach: Putting the Archive to work in and for the community

6. Welcoming, developing and supporting researchers and research

7. Active participation in the fields the Archive intersects with

8. Community-building/ building Communication

 

 

II.3: Discovering and Demonstrating the Possible: Selections from an entrepreneurial Archive

1. The Joint Newsletter (2000-2004) or, to give it its full, joyous title:
The Joint Newsletter of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust, the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities, and the Association of Therapeutic Communities, with the Community of Communities

2. Archive Weekends (2004-2018)

1. "everybody was part of the experience" : The Performance Weekend 5th/6th March 2011 (Peter Still, Red Hill School)

3. Association of Therapeutic Communities Administration (2005-2013)

4. Therapeutic Community Open Forum/RadioTC International (2005-2018)

5. "Wind Down the Week" Cross-Cultural Psychotherapy Event (2007)

6. Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments (IHWTE) (est. 2007)

7. "Therapeutic Living With Other People's Children: An oral history of residential therapeutic child care c. 1930-c. 1980" (2010-2011)

1 "Overview" to "Therapeutic Living With Other People's Children": statement of fundamental principles.

8. Solihull Alternative Provision Multi-Academy Trust

1. Dear Ralph, David, Katy...Look what you've done! (April 16-20, 2018)

9. "Archives of Change, Archives for Change", May 2-3, 2019: Residential workshop funded by British Academy/Leverhulme Grant
A parting gift to the Mulberry Bush Organisation.
                  1. Note to accompany "Archives of Change, Archives for Change" (2019)

 

APPENDICES TO PART II

Appendix II.1: "Introductions to a proposed special issue of the Therapeutic Communities journal (2019-2020): "to make the obvious observable in action but not seen"

Appendix II.1/1: Special Issue: Draft Introduction and Outline. August 14, 2019
Appendix II.1/2: A revised draft structure for the special issue, August 17, 2019
Appendix II.1/3: Draft Introduction to a special edition, June 28, 2020: "The magic of a therapeutic community archive"

 

 

PART III
TRANSITION AND CHANGE-OVER: THE MULBERRY BUSH'S PLANNED ENVIRONMENT THERAPY ARCHIVE AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS 

III.1: INTRODUCTION

1. Continuities

2. Discontinuities

1. 1. 1. What's in a name? Renaming and recategorising: the colonial impulse
      2. A Catastrophe
      3. The loss of provenance
      4. A Rupture
      5.  A Clean Break With (Others') Pasts
         1. Craig Fees, Response to the Mulberry Bush report "PETT Website [being taken down]" (27/6/2020)
      6. The question about 'folding'

 

APPENDICES TO PART III: CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES ON THE MB3 CATALOGUES AND DOCUMENTATION

Appendix III/1: Reinden Wood House Therapeutic Community, 1969-1980

Appendix III/2: John Armstrong interviewed by Chris Beedell, ND

Appendix III/3: Desmond and Anna Draper, 2012

Appendix III/4: A Rupture in understanding

Appendix III/4/0: Overview: Homer Lane Society, Homer Lane Trust, Homer Lane Trust Ltd.
     Appendix III/4/1: Homer Lane Trust Archive
     Appendix III/4/2: Homer Lane Society Archive
     Appendix III/4/3: A missing catalogue: Homer Lane Trust Ltd. Archive
     Appendix III/4/4: New Barns School Archive

Appendix III/5: The Planned Environment Therapy Trust

Appendix III/5/1: Planned Environment Therapy Trust Archive
Appendix III/5/2: A missing catalogue: The Panned Environment Therapy Trust Archive and Study Centre Archive
Appendix III/5/3: The Archive and Study Centre Oral History Programme
     Appendix III/5/3/1: TC Voices : The Planned Environment Therapy Trust Oral History Project, 1989-2018
     Appendix III/5/3/2: TC Events Collection : Recordings from conferences and events, 1987-2018
     Appendix III/5/3/3: The Oxford Project Archive
     Appendix III/5/3/4: Society of Archivists Celebrating Memory Transcripts, 1996-1999
Appendix III/5/4: Therapeutic Living With Other People's Children: an oral history of residential therapeutic child care c. 1930-c.1980 (HG-08-16728)

 Appendix III/6: Therapeutic Communities Research Project, 1967-2007

Appendix III/7: The Oxford Project Catalogue: "a strong argument for building archival practice, as a matter of course, around the engagement of those who donate or loan or are represented in the collections"

 

 

PART IV: IS A SUSTAINABLE CENTRE FOR THE HISTORY AND HERITAGE OF THERAPEUTIC ENVIRONMENTS POSSIBLE?

1. 1. If not, Why? What made it impossible?: A challenge to the field

 

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AUTHOR'S WORKING NOTES AND SCRIBBLES (NOT FOOTNOTES)

1. Accuracy
2. One of the problems of working in the midst of the background radiation from traumatic experience
3. David Wills Quote
4. How do you express the future
5. Personal Formation 1: "Ay, tear her tattered ensign down..."
6. Personal Formation 2: "the people with the sense of identity enough to do that, with the confidence of mutual belonging, and identity and belief in the future, became a nation which could carry out a velvet revolution.
7. "What is the value of a more accurate historiography?"
8. Narcissism

 

 

 

RESOURCES
(Reference Pool)

 

RESOURCES 1: Papers relating to the Archive and Study Centre written by Craig Fees

RESOURCES 2: Primary sources