Ben's story

A couple of weeks later I found myself in rural Norfolk for an introductory weekend at Red House with a group of others who were for the most part of like mind but included an undercover journalist: more of than anon. Not knowing what to expect means you take things on trust, I guess, and in any event we weren't told much beyond that the organisation ran a number of schools in Denmark as well as the UK. But a number of other things should, with hindsight, have seemed odd. Firstly, as I say, there was the journalist. Naturally, he didn't identify himself - he came for the first evening, asked a number of probing questions and was gone the next morning. The staff said they'd found out he was he was a hack from the Sun interested in some form of smutty story - I suppose they figured (correctly) that as we were pretty much all of a leftish persuasion and would disapprove of that sort of thing - and they'd asked him to leave. I don't, now, believe the bit about the Sun and the journalist's angle but I can well believe the rest of it: the weekend would have been just after the stories in the Guardian which you reproduce on your site. And they did seem unduly nervous about it all. Then there were the warnings about how one shouldn't venture into nearby towns and villages (although 'nearby' is stretching it) - they painted what I now know to be the ordinary Norfolk town of North Walsham as a dangerous, violent and drug-ridden no-go area. And then there was the fact that, with no training or experience, we seemed to get on better with the children at the school than the staff did. I can remember one lad of perhaps 10 who came from a disturbed background who was constantly under very close supervision but still caused mayhem and generally responded very badly. He was, though, perfectly happy doing a bit of gardening with me and one or two of the others.

But as I say, none of this really registered at the time. The weekend ended with an interview with someone who was probably high up in the organisation (she wore expensive clothes and had a laptop - a very rare luxury in 1993) in which I was told that the schools in England weren't really suitable for someone with no experience and that I'd probably get more out of going to Denmark. I was given some general info and told that someone would be in touch. A few days later someone was - from the Bustrup Efterskole asking me to come across in a week's time or so. By now I was getting quite into the idea: I had travelled in Scandinavia before and enjoyed it, and this really seemed like a chance to get away from the choices I didn't really want to face at home. So off I went.

It didn't start very auspiciously. After a 24-hour coach journey I found myself alone one evening in Århus bus station - they hadn't (as promised) come to meet me. Several increasingly desperate phone calls to the school led to them dispatching someone in a landrover in the small hours. Having said that, I guess there's nothing particularly sinister about incompetence. The next day, in any event, everyone was terribly friendly and welcoming - I got a tour of the place, introductions all round and a trip to the local town, and was generally made to feel wanted. Again, though, a number of things didn't seem right. The headteacher - who was otherwise very friendly - warned me not to read the local newspapers (which would have been difficult as I couldn't then read a word of Danish...) and made me sign a piece of paper saying, in effect, that if I broke the bans on alcohol or sexual relationships with students they'd be on to me like a ton of bricks. Now, I couldn't half have done with a beer, but as sleeping with 14-year-olds isn't exactly something I'd have done anyway I was rather offended by the strength of the latter provision.

The doubts were creeping in by that stage, and from that it got worse. I was told I'd have to start speaking only in Danish, but a promise of Danish lessons never materialised and god dag, tak and jeg er waliser don't really give you much of a range of conversation. So I ignored that, which was just as well as I was pitched straight in to teaching English literature to a class of 16- and 17-year-olds. I'd never done any teaching of any kind before, and hadn't studied English literature since O level. Still, I did my best and, I have to say, quite enjoyed that bit.

Relations with the staff, and the general atmosphere, were getting unpleasant, though. For the first time I was told about the wider organisation, its worldwide activities and the need for fundraising - in my case for a trip to India the following Christmas. I had no intention of going to India as I intended to spend Christmas with my family in the UK, and in any event would have felt very uneasy fundraising with no command of the language and not much more idea what I was fundraising for and why. So when I was asked to sell postcards and flowers with the rest of the group in Holstebro I politely refused. That got me the cold shoulder and a stern ticking off from the head teacher: I needed to forget about myself and think about the group, I was told. The day after there was some kind of sports day in Tvind itself - being a reasonable footballer I volunteered for that. But having been told that the bus would leave at 7.30am I rolled up at 7.15ish to see it pulling away without me (I was staying a short distance away from the main school). I thought then, and still do, that they deliberately left me behind: it was obvious both that I wasn't on the bus and that I ran after it. The result was that I spent the whole day alone with no food (they had locked everything away) until I walked a few miles to the nearest village and bought some stuff in a small shop. The next day, I got another b*llocking for letting the group down again, or something like that. For the first time I stood up to the staff, pointing out that they had left without me and what had happened as a result. Instead of a prolonged row, though, they responded by asking me rather sympathetically whether I had read anything critical in the local press. I was a bit taken aback, but said both that I hadn't and couldn't (still no Danish lessons...). I think perhaps they started to worry about me leaving and spilling the beans: their attitude after that was markedly different. It was now quite OK for me not to be involved in the India trip, they were happy to speak English, and one of the staff even started flirting quite openly with me. Even at the time, it was all too obvious, and makes more sense now. They didn't want anyone to leave, even someone (like me) who'd only been there for 10 days or so, and were terrified of any publicity. So I made some excuse about needing to return to the UK to sort out the lease on my flat and was greatly relieved to find myself on a flight back home a few days later. Gatwick Airport has never seemed more inviting...

That wasn't the end of the story. I was determined not to have anything more to do with them, despite having no job in the UK and not much idea of what to do, and thought I could just put it all behind me. A few weeks later, I was therefore surprised to get a phone call from the head teacher. She pressed me about coming back: I said I wasn't. Again, I heard the same mixture of accusation and paranoia as to my reasons; again, I said I had heard nothing about the organisation (true), that I wasn't really cut out for what they wanted (partly true) and that, in any case, I had to stay in the UK as there was a possibility of needing to go to court to sort out my flat (utterly false, and said only because I had had enough of talking to her). After that, I got a few letters (which went in the bin unopened) but no more phone calls.

Looking back on it, my feeling at the time was of an unfocused sense of something not being right, rather than any grand or sinister conspiracy. There were comic elements to that too - like when all the staff turned up in the nearest town to go for a meal. The locals clearly knew who they were: it reminded me of nothing so much as how ordinary Americans reacted to the Amish in the film Witness. The whole episode really has stuck with me: I can't remember much that happened over 8 years ago in anything like the same detail. Moreover, having now found out more about Tvind in general, it all fits into a rather horrible context from which I'm very, very relieved I escaped when I did.

For what it's worth, things turned out OK in the end - 8 years on I have a responsible and well-paid job and all the trappings of middle-class comfort. It took a while, though: it was all a huge jolt to my already-low self-confidence and the following few months passed by in a state of depression and inactivity. Opportunities became threats and meeting new people became painfully difficult. That sounds like I'm making too much out of a brief experience, but I really don't think I am. Being utterly confused by a group of strangers while at the same time being under pressure to become part of it is an unusual and disturbing experience. Even then, I'm aware, though, of how different things could have been.

Something was not quite right....

Ben's story