Oaklands Park
Camphill Correspondent January 1978
OAKLANDS PARK -A NEW CAMPHILL CENTRE
Joan Tallo -The Grange-England
SITUATED NEAR THE GRANGE, Gloucestershire, Oaklands Park was bought by The Camphill Village Trust early in 1977 . There are 150 acres of land, of which about forty are woodland, a lake, drives, houses, outbuildings, with the remaining acreage arable. The Victorian mansion is large and it is planned to divide it into five units, and there are, in addition, two other fair sized houses, a small lodge and a cottage, plus numerous outbuildings some of which are capable of eventual conversion into living units.
From the beginning one aspect of the work at Oaklands Park was very clear-that of horticulture and agriculture. The former was started even before we had taken possession of the estate, and is under the care of Joachim and Ingeborg Grundmann. There is obviously a great need for a farmer so that a start can be made with the agricultural side of the land work as this can only achieve a balance when both horticulture and agriculture are established side by side.
By the end of 1977 there were about twenty people working on the land, living in two households, one in the mansion house and the other at Dawn House across theroad from Oaklands Park. The Land Community is composed ‘just’ of people; some may have lesser or greater handicaps but the aim is not to have a community of co-workers and handicapped men and women, but a community composed of men, women and children.Itis also the aim to establish this community with no aid from the Government or from any other source. The day to day living expenses are, to a large extent, covered by a Consumer/Producer relationship with other organisations and with individual people. Through such an agreement money is paid to the Oak Land Comm-unity for the care of the land and the upkeep of those people who work on it and, in return, those participating in this scheme receive the produce of the land. At the present time there is such an agreement with The Grange, the Sheiling Schools at Ring-wood, and a group of people in Stourbridge including the two Camphill Houses. There are also outright sales of produce through a stall at the Gloucester Retail Market and to a local Health Food Shop, a school and to some private people. Talks are taking place with further groups of people. So far, after nine months, it does seem that such an arrangement could be financially viable, though it does not cover the great problem and equally great expense of the need for initial capital both for stocking and for buying essential equipment for work on the land. It also cannot be expected to cover any of the large sums required for the purchase of the property or for the alterations and upgrading of the buildings.
The second side of the work which has been started at Oaklands Park is a sheltered Workshop Community, for the present an extension of the work at The Grange. Erika and Jurgen Nauk moved from one of the Camphill Houses at Stourbridge to take over this arduous task of establishing a sheltered workshop together with residential accommodation. Owing to the need to rewire the main house the Farmhouse was made available and here the work-shop community has begun to establish itself. There are five handicapped people, two co-workers and two children; and two rooms of the farmhouse have been given over to the small beginnings of a woodwork shop. This community may increase to about twenty people by the beginning of 1978 when a further part of the main house will be ready for occupation -or perhaps one should say, will increase to thirteen but will need at least another co-worker to take over the farmhouse. This can only be a temporary solution as the arrival of a farmer will mean the vacating of the farmhouse by the workshop community, but this should be possible if the work of rewiring the mansion house and altering some of the outbuildings goes ahead as planned. The vacating of the farmhouse will also present the very urgent problem of rehousing the actual workshop and to this end discussions have started with the Employment Service Agency regarding the possibility of building a woodwork shop with the help of a Government Grant. In spite of the economic position of this country the discussions so far have been very positive and plans are being drawn up for the workshop.
A third aspect of the work at Oaklands Park was mentioned at the very beginning but was then allowed to drop; the idea of establishing a training centre for young men and women probably over the age of nineteen years. We have been aware for some time that the training centres at the Camphill and Sheiling Schools and at Coleg Elidyr do gear their approach very much to the schools’ rhythm and, in some cases, to the Waldorf School curriculum ofthe top classes. This work is obviously invaluable, but we have found that it does not train these young men and women ‘towards life itself’. Now that the work on the land and in the workshop begins to be established, the idea of training has again come to the fore and a group of people have been asked to act as a steering committee to go further into the possibilities of such a scheme at Oaklands Park. The committee are: Charlotte Baumert, Birthe Hougaard, Dorette Schwabe, Jurgen Nauk, Joachim Grundmann Mary Canning and Joan Tallo.
During the preliminary discussions which have so far taken place the need to help young men and women to take over their own destiny was a predominant theme. At the existing Camphill training places, particularly at Coleg Elidyr, three definite stages are recognised. The first is the need for a new trainee to find his way into a team and eventually to find himself as an individual ; the second stage isthe learning to work through imitation and througha close relationship between the student and teacher ; and the third stage is the learning to accept responsibility for the work and to be able to work on his own . It is perhaps just this third stage which is not fully covered at the Schools or at Coleg Elidyr and which would be covered by a training scheme at Oaklands.
As yet the ideas are vague and unformed but this one point does remain dominant: the need to give our young handicapped people the opportunity to find themselves, to accept the discipline of work and to be able to cope with the ‘sufferings’ of life.
How all this will be put into practice remains to be seen, but the fact that Oaklands Park will be able to provide training in two productive work situations-on the land and in a workshop-seems to make this centre anideal place to try and establish such a training. There are also the workshops at the Grange, plus the Grange’s established social and cultural life.
Various thoughts have been that various students together with an instructor could train in these working realms, not so much a training towards a definite skill, though this is possible with such specialised realms as horticulture, agriculture and woodwork, but a training towards the acceptance of work and its many disciplines. If this idea could be developed it would mean the establishment of a sort of enclave system, a system first suggested in this country by the Employment Service Agency. It is felt to be full of possibilities especially as it would seem to be the least disruptive method in situations where the work is of necessity fully productive.
Exactly how such a scheme could be financed has not yet been properly discussed, but again there are ideas of including an approach to the Employment Service Agency or Training Service Agency (both sections of the Manpower Services Commission, formerly the Department of Employment.) At the moment training handicapped men and women for periods of a minimum of two years does not come under any scheme of the government, but we feel that the recognition of the needs of handicapped people must be voiced and pressure put on the government for recognition. Whether we have any success remains to be seen, but at least preliminary talks have started.
The proposal that the work at Oaklands Park takes on this threefold nature is felt to be an impor-tant step in the development of the whole of The Camphill Village Trust. To embrace ‘under one roof’, as it were, an economically independent community, a grant-aided workshop community and a fee-paying training community is felt to be a new and right step towards meeting the needs of today. But a great deal of water will still have to run under the bridge before the whole scheme is clearly seen. There remain large practical difficulties such as shortage of money to develop the buildings to their full potential.
The above is but a short description of the hopes we have for Oaklands Park as a whole. There are other hopes, or maybe dreams, of finding new ways of financing such a venture, of starting rural industries related to the land, of a financially viable workshop.