For the first 15 years of my life my parents worked as part of this mobile task force which had started out in America during the war and grew into an international close-knit team. They were often on the move as their tasks took them to different parts of the world. Although I had no blood-siblings the children I grew up with in this team became like my brothers and sisters. I still count these 12 children of my age or thereabouts as my brothers and sisters. They know who they are!
London properties were on sale at premium prices after the war. There were still lots of gaps between the houses as it was only a few years since the war had ended and London was still scarred by bombings. Several houses on Charles Street and Hays Mews were bought, privately or by the Oxford Group (the business entity for MRA) and together they became MRA’s London center. Not all of the original task-force lived on-the-road, like my parents did, many built local teams like the Beldens who made their home at 40 Charles Street. We lived in their Mews at the back, close to Shepherds Market for some years.
After the joint experience of caring for children of the mobile force together in Caux in the late 1940’s, a new attempt was made in London to plan for a school and for holiday events.
School was created, complete with small chairs and tables, in the basement of the Knightsbridge home of Roly, Mary and Margaret Wilson. Dot John, a Fröbel teacher, was recruited to teach us for a few years until the time came to apply to local schools at the age of 6 and 7. I used to walk to school from 40 Charles Street with Hilary and David.
My mother’s health continued to be problematic and she had hospital visits, operations and time away recuperating. This was a continuation of her challenges as a child and growing up. But because of our large extended family I had close friends and usually one of my parents close by. I felt well cared for and happy, loving all the fun times with my friends.
One of the more memorable summers were at house close to the coast at Bexhill where we swam in the sea – until I got severely stung by a Portuguese man of war jellyfish. I had to lie in a dark room for 2 days, bathed in calamine lotion! Another summer we spent at a wonderful old farmhouse in Dedisham. Another at a farmhouse in Liss with Geoff and Mary Lean – a memorable place where we picnicked, explored fields, bluebell woods and rode in hayricks. There was one sticky moment when the adults were shopping and we kids were left in the car a little too long and I remember taking a bite out of Geoff in a fight that ensued! Then there was the place we learnt to ride bikes where we had a summer fete on my 6th birthday.
One summer we lived with the Dow family in Dulwich. They spent their summers on Arran in Scotland. It was so quiet and the road was empty at 5 am when they packed their “woody” and got ready to drive off that they all lay down like sardines on the road – just because they could! They were a fun family to be around and we stayed there with Sue Thornhill and her family. Sue had hayfever and snuffled through the summer in their overgrown garden where we all romped and had a wonderful time.
As a child I loved playing with animals and also had pets of my own. Minnie was a long-suffering little black kitten. I would give it chocolate milk in a doll’s bottle, made from a piece of chocolate dissolved in water! I dressed it up in my doll’s red and white gingham pyjamas, roll it around in my doll’s wicker pram or take it to the park in a zipper bag so that Minnie could feel grass under it’s feet.
I also had a series of yellow canaries, all called Tweety. I had brought my current Tweety with me for a stay with the Dow family. Tweety lived a relatively free life in their large upstairs bathroom. She laid eggs but they never hatched and we used to make scrambled eggs in my dolls frying pan! Tweety loved all the hairbrushes and used the hair she collected to pad out my doll’s colander which we placed up on a curtain rail so she had somewhere to lay her eggs until Tweety came to a sorry end taking a drink in the loo at the wrong moment. The toilet was flushed and Tweety drowned!
One spring we spent some weeks at Aston Bury, a stately home where we all created a dorm under the eaves on the top floor! Minnie was no more and I had brought my latest Tweety with me. This tweety also layed eggs in my little doll-sized colander lined with fabric. She sat and sat but the eggs never hatched so Signe suggested that we take one of the many sparrows’ eggs in a hedgerow and give it to Tweety to sit on. Sure enough it hatched! Lots of dropperfuls of milk later the sparrow had grown so big that we needed to find it a better home and we placed the sparrow back in its own nest. We kept an eye on the nest, afraid that the mother would turf it out, but happily it survived and became the biggest of the baby sparrows.
A favourite pastime at Aston Bury was collecting white snails with huge houses that came home with me to London in a shoebox. I hid the shoebox in a drawer but some days later when I looked in the box the snails had vanished – hopefully taken care of by my mother though I never asked.
When I was five my parents left with a task force to visit Africa. I was to stay in London with Birgit and Auntie Vi and would be sharing homes with my friends. As I waved goodbye to my parents when they left I was chipper though Signe said she dissolved in tears as they drove off to the airport. Right through the journey she wrote illustrated letters telling me about all they did. I proudly showed all the other children in our little school the pen and ink drawings and we all followed their journey in Africa. I still have our correspondence book.
We spent several months with Hannon and Marjorie Foss and their 3 Children in Wimbledon. Hannon was a film maker and on Saturday mornings he would get all us kids into their bed and draw cartoons! They had a baby blue MG convertible and drew brilliant cartoons where the MG and other cars played the starring roles. Somehow the huge blocks that Signe had had made for me in California joined me there! One memory from that time was how I climbed a pile of logs outside their garage. The logs fell down and I cracked a bone in my foot, known as a green-stick fracture. I didn’t get a cast so as I wasn’t allowed to walk on it and I got to spend time sitting in the back of the MG as Hannon’s wife Marjorie carried out her errands!
The Foss Children used to go to church. Other than my baptism I had no memories of church until then. When I was with the Fosses I went to their church and discovered the church community that was a part of the Fosses culture but was new to me. My parents had a deep Christian faith but you could say it was an everyday Christianity. It was more like experiencing church every day – but I was a little jealous of their stamp books. Every time they went to Sunday School they heard a bible story and each week they got a new stamp that illustrated that week’s bible story. This was duly licked and put into a little Sunday School story book that they brought home. I didn’t have one. I clearly remember Palm Sunday when we all got palm fronds and Mothering Sunday as Mother’s day was called in those days – when they handed out daffodils. These were handed to me too and I gave mine to my Auntie Vi.
While my parents were on this mission in Africa, they visited Zimbabwe or Southern Rhodesia as it was called in those days. There they stayed with Arthurs mother, brother and 3 sisters who lived there. While they were away they even considered moving to be near Arthur’s family. When they came back I had grown up a lot and felt shy with them for a while but it soon wore off! They talked to me about it and said how uncertain they were. I remember they suggested that we have a quiet time together to see if we could get more clarity. I remember how clearly I felt that this was not where God wanted us to be and I said so! This confirmed their own thoughts and so we stayed in London where they started applying for me to go to local schools. Thinking back, I am impressed that they trusted that God could show a child what to do, just as clearly as an adult.
That summer I received a Brownie Box camera for my birthday. As a photographer’s daughter I was so proud and started to take pictures and collect my negatives. I still have my first picture. It was of their Nigerian friend Mbu who came to visit. It is called entitled “Mbu in the roses”!
We were invited to come for interviews to different schools, but every time we had an interview, I got sick. Eventually I told my parents, “God doesn’t want me to go to school in London!” and they must have agreed. They investigated correspondence schools and found the Parent National Education Union – PNEU, which provided correspondence courses for children who were enrolled in the school. But as I was not enrolled in the school the first step was to enroll me at the PNEU school in Lancaster Gate. Friends of theirs who were away on business happened to live just around the corner from the school and we moved into their apartment.
You could say that the PNEU school had a broad education for a seven-year old. In my geography class I learnt how the dutch made and transported their red round Edam cheeses. We were taught about the stars, norse gods and greek mythology. We were taught art appreciation and I still have the bound folders of art prints done by the artists that we learnt about. We had exams. At my age we were allowed to dictate our exams. One history question I had was to tell about Good Queen Bess. As I had never heard of Elizabeth I and no grasp of English history, I made up a story about Good Queen Bess that the teachers must have had a good laugh at! The teacher taking dictation never let on either!
The parties that I was invited to were like nothing I had experienced before. My friends lived in huge homes, inside enclosures, where we were served luscious cakes served by servants. One time we were entertained by a wizard. One of my classmates was Miranda Quarry who eventually became one of Peter Sellers’ wives.
The children that played in the nearby park at Lancaster Gate came to the local pond with their beautiful yachts. We didn’t have a yacht, but I wanted to float my boat too, so I built a Kontiki raft with sticks I found in the park, a la Thor Heyerdahl from Norway. I sailed that Kontiki with pride beside all their yachts!
After a term at the PNEU school we left for Caux. For some years Sue, Cathi and I were home schooled together at Caux. My mother was with me all the time in Caux while my father was travelling with MRA, for many years in Africa, particularly the Congo.
While the main task force was active in other parts of the world in the early 1950’s, Signe sometimes experienced that the previously stimulating and scintillating atmosphere in Caux sometimes sunk to another level. Some people resorted to navel gazing, using MRA’s 4 principles of honesty, purity, love and unselfishness as a right to chastise rather than inspire. And although the little old ladies, as we kids used to call them, were no doubt doing a great job maintaining the conference center, they often took us to task. Signe was chastised for coddling me and they suggested that we had a lesbian relationship! To my mind these years represented the organization at its worst.
The amazing free spirit my parents had been inspired by could easily become a controlling cult with a grilling at the hand of a colleague or two who made use of thoughts from their ‘quiet time’. Thoughts that were recorded in their “little black book” could be interpreted as guidance from God but could be felt more like condemnation at the hands of fellow team mates and when you were invited to a meal at one of Caux’s “little round tables” of 4 you could guess that you were in for it!
As an independent thinker my mother would take truth’s to heart and could also let the criticism fall like water from a duck’s back if necessary.
Signe taught us art, Elisabeth sewing, Barbara taught us cooking and Dot John, who had been our teacher in London, joined the team of 3 parents, to teach us what was known as the three R’s: Reading, Riting, Rithmatic! We roamed the mountains and valleys and knew all the small paths up and down the mountain and learnt to know the trees, flowers and birds. Every season was special. We were taught skiing by Bethli and Jacqui, an officer in the Swiss army. We learnt to sing Swiss folk songs in parts and rounds. We picked narcissi and sent them to friends in other parts of the world. It was truly ildyllic for me.
We started out living in the Maria, a large house with many beds where we all had our little apartment or set of rooms. One memory I have of that time was when we got the Asian flu. My fever went up to 105 C and I must have been unconscious because I can remember seeing lots of small stick-men running all over my covers as I lay there in bed! Thankfully I was recovering when the boiler broke and we had to move to the Patinoir – another of the many houses that were part of the Caux conference center, close to the skating rink for which in had its name.
I was wary of playing with the French Children who lived in the Patinoir as I couldn’t understand what they said. Sylvie’s father was the Caux Postmaster and they lived on the floor below us. One day I went out to play and didn’t come back for a long time. When I eventually returned my mother asked me where I’d been. I told her that I’d been playing with Sylvie. When she commented that Sylvie only speaks French I replied “Yes, but we laugh in the same language!” We still do as we became friends for life!
I experienced my mother’s creativity on many levels. On Saturday nights she got out her beautiful Charles Martin guitar and sang all the songs she had grown up with. Many of them were Swedish folk songs and Bellman’s classic Gluntarna that became the underpinning of my Scandinavian background. Others were the beautiful German songs she learnt as a student in Germany. She taught me how to sing alto and soprano and how to sing a round. We would drink a Seven-Up between us and eat some nuts to celebrate our Saturday evening.
I remember when I was about to turn 10. Signe and I were in Caux. Arthur was by now in the US. My friends had been sent moccasins by their parents who were also in America and I badly wanted moccasins too. Signe had planned to get me oil paints for my birthday as I loved to draw and was developing artistically. As my birthday approached, she knew that I wouldn’t be getting moccasins and was worried that my birthday would become a disaster. Then one night I woke up in tears having had ‘a bad dream’. In the dream I had been given a parcel but when I opened it, all that was inside turned to sand. I took this to mean that I would not get moccasins when the dream repeated itself. I was devastated and in floods of tears. After my birthday my mother asked me if I was happy with my birthday, and my response washen my birthday finally came it turned out to be all I expected and more. No tears!
As the task forces returned to Caux after the world tour, other families saw that our mothers had a good thing going and arranged for their children to join us. These children didn’t have either of their parents with them and the experience was sometimes far from idyllic as without their parents, the school turned into more of a typical Swiss boarding school where children were left with carers so that their parents could continue their lives elsewhere – albeit in this case to follow their calling to ‘remake the world’.
During World War II it was common for families to split up for safety and was not strange in Britain where boarding schools were common for children to spend time away from their families. This idea horrified my mother. She had of course grown up in a close-knit family from the north of Norway and hated the idea of leaving me at a strange school with strange people for 3 months at a time!
As my parents had by now spent many years apart, they began to consider the alternatives and found one to be Penrhos College in North Wales, where several of the teachers were in the MRA team. This was important to my parents as they needed to be able to communicate with people who were understanding when they were away with a task force.
We used to read books like Swallow’s and Amazons and the Enid Blyton books and I grew to love the idea of summer camps and boarding school. I don’t honestly know how the idea of boarding school was finally introduced, but I know I was enthusiastic!
My parents applied to the London County Council and got a financial grant for my schooling as the “daughter of religious workers”. This would cover the tuition and they enrolled me at Penrhos. Granny Strong and several of my parents’ business friends in Britain generously supported the extra monthly expenses and the requirement of 6 pairs of grey socks, 6 pairs of white socks, a grey woollen suit for weekends, a school hat, a grey sports blazer and 2 pairs of grey woollen pleated shorts to say nothing of the bedding, towels, shoes, sportswear and a beautiful red dressing gown.
At boarding school I was introduced to a whole new world. I had grown up with a daily spiritual experience based on a practice of listening to my inner voice and the belief that if one listened to God and obeyed, he would guide and provide. Basically straight forward, trustingly simple, and also my personal experience. Honesty and openness, a pure heart, love and unselfishness were the code that I had grown up with.
My best friend truly was Jesus. My experience of Jesus was one of being deeply loved and totally accepted – however naughty I was! I learnt that the key to forgiveness was to be ready to say sorry, change and forgive. A big ask, but I trusted that he would take care of me and I felt deeply loved. I still do. It was a natural friendship. I would kneel down by my bed at night and talk to Jesus – but this was far from natural to the 5 girls who I shared a dorm with at Penrhos! They lined up on their knees in the middle of the room and waved their arms up and down intoning “Allah! Allah!” Praying was apparently strange at a British Methodist girls’ school and I soon stopped doing it by my bed. I never stopped doing it in my heart.
I hadn’t realized how different our lifestyle was till then. Coming as I did from a little village in the Swiss mountains where life focused on the needs of others and change in the world, I struggled to get into sync with the other girls at school.
During the first term we were not allowed to see our parents till half term but three weeks into my first term I was told that my parents were going to visit me. It turned out that they had been given special permission as they were going to America for work and would be away for the whole of the term. This was of course unheard of and didn’t go down well with my roommates.
My parents were going to take part in making a feature film called the Crowning Experience at the MRA center on Mackinac Island. The plan was that they initially and would be away till Christmas. In fact they didn’t come back till the summer. This was a huge challenge for me but I had been brought up to rise to challenges that were in a good cause and I took it in my stride. And because boarding school was in the end my own choice, I wasn’t about to give up however tough it became! But I cried when I told my parents of my experiences being ridiculed and bullied in the dorm. They told my House Mistress before they left and were deeply concerned to leave me in this situation. When another girl in my friend’s 4-bed dorm left school, my House Mistress moved me to this room. We 3 became firm friends. I still cried myself to sleep every night that term but we were all in this boat together. As my parents drove away it was agony for my mother!
During the following months I wrote letters to my parents nearly every day, telling them how things were. Sharing the pain, but also my courage and recognizing their pain. I talked freely to my house mistress and house matron about my experiences too. They commented to the head mistress that they had never known a child who was so comfortable talking about her problems with adults before. I remember the pain of it all well. I am so grateful that openness and honesty was everyday life in our own ‘family’. Although I was physically alone I didn’t carry it alone. But it was a lot for an 11-year old to experience and I longed for Christmas and to be with my parents. I probably didn’t get depressed or despondant because I was not carrying the pain alone.
Letter from Frank Buchman to Children at Caux New Year 1957
Tomorrow is New Years Day. This is a very special year. I shall be 80 years old. A very old man and MRA will be 20 years old, and you will be the ones who will follow on and see this old world change and obey God. I cannot run around the way you can and I have to spend a lot of time in bed, so you will be the ones to carry on.God will tell you what to do and the thing that gives me the greatest joy is to know that you are listening to God and beginning the answer to nations just the way your parents and doing. That will make this the happiest New Year and we will go ahed together.Always your grateful friend Uncle Frank
Part of growing up in a third culture is not knowing “how things are done” when you come to your next port of call. I would observe my surrounding carefully and watch how others did things before actively engaging. But by the time I reached my teens I had sussed the boarding school scene and decided that the only way to survive was to adopt to how things were done there and go with the flow. At least to a large extent. There were three terms at school with a month’s ‘holiday’ at Christmas and Easter and close to two months in the summer. These were spent with my friends in Caux or with family in Norway. I would come to Caux with a strong Liverpuddlian accent and leave with an American twang after spending time with Sue Thornhill, Glenn Close and other American friends.
Changing my accent was one thing but I also swung between the extremes of the MRA existance and that of Penrhos College. On the one hand I lived in an environment that had a focus on the needs of the world. Even as a child I was taught to care for what was happening in other people and other countries. It was basically a sin to think of my own wants and desires.
But this was the age of the Twist, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Twiggy and Mary Quant. Teenagers were no longer small adults but evolved in the early sixties to become an entity with an identity of their own, with their own music and style of clothes. It was an exciting time to become a teen and our school was enticingly close to the Cave, the ‘home’ of the Beatles in Liverpool. As a budding artist and seamtress I soaked it all up and identified fully.
I was also my mother’s daughter and a bit of a rebel at heart! I succeeded in forcing changes to the school curriculum; getting two teachers to leave because of my pranks in class; winning the competition for flipping butter pats up onto the dining room ceiling 5 meters up; missing fire drills because I slept through the alarms; missing classes and dancing the night away whenever possible. Nothing serious and yet far from the life I led on my vacations!
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