The First Twenty Years of the United World Colleges by David Sutcliffe
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The First Twenty Years of the United World Colleges by David Sutcliffe A personal view from the portcullis of St. Donat's Castle (This account is dedicated to Lola Hahn, whose faith in her brother-in- law's ideas is itself an inspiration) All who come to St. Donat's Castle must retain a vivid memory of their first impressions. My own introduction was in the dark, on an April evening in 1960. After twenty years it has lost nothing of its impact. I was a measurably unimportant but famous swimming pool. The of Atlantic College. immeasurably excited member loud and angry voice of the head of a small party—Admiral gardener, Arthur Evans, from the This fine, romantic castle was Desmond Hoare, his wife Naomi, top terrace, prompted hasty the subject of an anxious their children Judy, Stephanie dressing and retreat. We sought meeting in Brown's Hotel, and Mark, his rather formidable help from the housekeeper, Mrs. London, on Thursday 13 father-in-law, the architect Adrian Davis, with whom I had made October, 1960. The purchase Gilbert Scott, and Dr Kurt Hahn. friends in April. By way of price was £65,000. The original Over a very good supper we response, and in uncharacteristic option to buy had expired in were treated by the castle agent, silence, she held out a recent August but had been extended Mr Roedemer, to 'the last bottle local newspaper article, which several times. However, unless from Randolph Hearst's cellar.' I stated that the sale had been the purchase could be wondered then and wonder still completed with another client. completed the following Monday, how many 'last bottles' had been We withdrew to Llantwit Major to the cause was lost. £45,000 had offered to prospective telephone our office in London been promised, £15,000 purchasers. for guidance. They were as anonymously. There was the surprised and as worried as we remote possibility of a further After the meal we explored. A were, but all was to be well - just. £15,000 from an industrial small hand torch enabled us to sponsor, but no chance grope our way from one light 'Like a sleek grey battleship, whatever of the money by switch to the next. At about ready to slip her moorings for Monday. Desmond Hoare made midnight we found ourselves, action,' was how our first bursar, a formal offer of his naval unknowingly, on the small gallery John Pearson, described St. gratuity of £3,000. Sir Lawrance overlooking the armoury and Donat's Castle. Whatever else, Darvall made a similar offer, as ballroom, later to be the library of it is undeniably a part of its did another serviceman present, Atlantic College. Large marine environment. Most of its Admiral Sir Michael Denny. chandeliers suddenly lit the stonework must have been (Judy Hoare had already offered scene. It was a thrilling moment. carried up from the foreshore of her National Savings Certificates the Bristol Channel. But it was 'out of committee'!). Moved, two My second visit was chastening. not only the bold exterior, defiant or three of the businessmen In July, as members of the great over centuries of the Atlantic present left the room for private new international project which gales from the south-west, but discussion and returned, ready was about to purchase, the also the variety and beauty of its to underwrite the difference. castle, my fiancée, Elisabeth, sheltered aspects, which were to Later events, above all the and I felt entitled to treat make the castle such a strong generosity of M. Antonin Besse, ourselves to a bathe in the influence on the life and purpose a Frenchman and close friend of Kurt Hahn, in donating the castle Switzerland. In October 1918 he It was not surprising that, a few and grounds, made it happily witnessed the unsuccessful months later and following a unnecessary to call upon the struggle by Prince Max, public speech against the service gratuities, but by thus Germany's last imperial National Socialist Party two days narrow a margin, and by such an chancellor, against the armistice before Hitler's nomination as act of faith, did Atlantic College offer. He was an eloquent chancellor, he should have been see the light of day. adviser to the German arrested. A young boy at one of delegation at the Peace Salem's junior schools wrote to Kurt Hahn had long been a man Conference of Versailles, and Hitler: 'Dear Mr. Chancellor. If who travelled hopefully. Born in much of the unhappy history of you carry on like this, National 1886 in Germany, of Jewish Europe in the nineteen twenties Socialism will not make much parents, his university studies and thirties was foreshadowed in progress in this school.' More were frequently interrupted by the memoranda and advice effectively, the British Prime the after-effects of the sunstroke which he urged on his leaders at Minister Ramsay Macdonald he had suffered just before that time. intervened. Hahn was released leaving school. but had to leave shortly His first school, Salem, was afterwards for England. Almost founded in 1920 and became without a pause the work began quickly well known. 1927 saw which was to lead to the the publication of the Memoirs foundation of Gordonstoun, the and Documents of Prince Max, Outward Bound Movement, the in the preparation of which Hahn Duke of Edinburgh's Award had played a decisive part. They Scheme, the unhappily short- contain many of Hahn's own lived Trevelyan Scholarships to political letters, and it cannot be Oxford and Cambridge, and long before, as suggested by finally Atlantic College. Professor Golo Mann, they are published separately, together It was Kurt Hahn's destiny that with other hitherto private his long working life should span papers, and thereby give a fuller, the worst-ever period in Anglo- more independent account of his German relationships and the full remarkable contribution as a story of his behind-the-scenes Kurt Hahn looking atypically benign. young man to internal political contribution to those debate and decision-making relationships has yet to be traced It was the need to escape the within Germany during the First and told. The missionary zeal of heat which took him to his later World War. his own life was reflected in the much beloved Morayshire in missionary zeal of his Scotland during the summer Initially hopeful, with many educational ideas; and it was vacations at Oxford. Caught in others, as the National Socialists natural that all his ventures England in 1914 by the outbreak appeared to offer a means of should have the role of of war, he contrived to return regaining German self-respect, leadership and demonstration. home - he was ever a patriot - and encouraged against early and, unfit for military service, misgivings by his almost A lecture visit in 1956 (fateful became English reader at the unassailable optimism over year in international affairs) to Central Bureau of the German human nature, in which it was the NATO Defence College in Foreign Office. In 1917 he fell natural for him to include even Paris saw the beginnings of into disgrace on account of a Hitler, Hahn faced his own crisis Atlantic College. For here, the report in which he called the publicly in 1932. Hitler had sent British commandant Air Marshal impending declaration of a telegram of congratulation to Sir Lawrance Darvall was intensified U-boat warfare a some Nazi thugs who, at a place inspired by Hahn's analysis of 'decision doomed to disaster.' called Potempa, had trampled a Western society and the state of He was later to be in close touch young communist to death in the young; Hahn in turn was with the adherents of a peace by front of his mother. He sent a challenged by the success of this negotiation, and was sent on message to all former pupils of international military staff college several journeys of diplomatic Salem: Break with Hitler or with in reconciling national exploration to Holland and Salem. differences, often between former enemies, over a six- that it was not simply an month period of work and study 'international Gordonstoun' together 'in the common cause.' that it was not an Outward In general terms it was perhaps Bound School but a small step to envisage a that it believed in and similar enterprise of a non- practised high academic military nature for the young of standards whilst being the Atlantic community. It was, concerned first and foremost however, original, imaginative with human attitudes and farsighted to conceive of that it was a loyal two-year colleges with high expression of Kurt Hahn's academic standards, a ideas but not a slavish one, scholarship entry from all the and that it was open to Atlantic community countries and many other influences as further a field, a common school well. leaving and university entry examination, and a strong Air Marshall Sir Lawrance Darvall, one of Failure on any one of these commitment to active community the three founders of the college. He was the Commandant of the NATO Defence College points alone would in my service; and it was Lawrance in Paris when Kurt Hahn lectured there in judgement have been fatal. The Darvall's great contribution over the mid-19 50’s. His support for Kurt Hahn man who won through on them the next six years, during which never wavered, but he was unhappy about the introduction of coeducation and exerted all was a senior naval officer with he laboured so loyally, and with little influence on the college once it had a son at Gordonstoun, who such firm confidence in the opened.