South Western Star, 5 May 1961, page 3
'South Western Whispers', by The Falcon: “Accent Will Be On Loving At This School”
A Balham bricklayer has a two-year scheme to provide a children's home for some 40 maladjusted London children. I learned this week that the home, for children between the ages of seven and 13, is to be established in a converted house costing about £4,000 and situated approximately 50 miles out of London.
But this will not be an ordinary children's home. For the initiator of the project is 24-year-old pacifist Roy Frye, one of ten pacifists living in the Lanercost Community at Manville Road, Balham.
Orphans, mentally backward youngsters, or any boy or girl coming under the general heading of “maladjusted children” will be catered for at the home which is to be conducted to conform with the pacifist ideals upheld at the Lanercost Community.
“There will be no caning for we are opposed to violence." explained bricklayer Roy. “The accent will be on loving the children.”
Basic staff selected
WHEN I visited the Community's five - bedroom house in Manvillle Road this week Roy told me that the basic staff of the future home had already been selected.
They are young pacifists who have previously been acquainted with members of the Community — 26 - year - old Cynthia Cross, John Cross, aged 30, and David Lane (26) — all of whom have had many years’ experience in working with children.
The raising of the necessary money is likely to provide one of the biggest headaches. But all ten Lanercost Community members are helping; each one is contributing to a savings bank fund and in six months' time a £500 target will be reached.
This money will be used as the down-payment on a house some where south of the Thames. The Community will move into this house to cut down on expenditure for rent.
"The house will then be handed over to a trust for the children’s home." Roy went on. "Half of the money raised after we have bought the house will go in paying off the mortgage. The rest will be accumulated until there is enough to buy a country house which can be converted into a children's home.
“We hope that some money will be donated by people who are sympathetic to our cause and it may be possible is get a substantial grant from the L.C.C.” he told me.
The London house may in years to come be turned into a hostel for those leaving the home but unfit to be alone in the world.
The Lanercost Community moved to Balham from Streatham six months ago. The group was formed two years ago but the members have only been living together for a year.
The link
WHY Lanercost? “Our Community is named after the Streatham Road where we began,” said member Ian Dixon. “We are all pacifists. This is the basic link between our members who come from all parts of the country and from all walks of life."
Tric Bevan is a television producer’s assistant; her husband Geoff plans to go into the Methodist ministry; Oliver Marlow is employed on a pacifist newspaper; Ian Dixon describes himself as a “professional pacifist" working for the Committee of 100. Most of the members, aged between 20—30, are vegetarians.
Two weeks ago on the front page of the South Western Star a story told of two youngsters from the Lanercost Community who were risking their lives and possible imprisonment in carrying out pacifist demonstrations at the Polaris H-missile base at Holy Loch, Scotland.
The two demonstrators are 19-year-old Gordon Collins and Terence Chandler, aged 23.
While I was at the Community I met its newest member — one-week-old Shawn, a bouncing 6-1/2lb. baby boy!
