A CANTERBURY TALE
SIR,—There are some things here that Councillor E. C. F. Brown, Canterbury Conservative Agent, does not understand.
I agree with him when he says that party political broadcasts should employ 'the facilities of our national institutions as visual aids.' To forbid this would be to establish a kind of political censorship, which we do not want in this country. It is for this reason that I did not ask the Education Committee to call off the visit of the film unit.
What Councillor Brown does not understand is that it would be wrong for a Headmaster to order his
staff and boys to be photographed for a party political film. Can't he imagine what a political storm that would arouse? Actually, however, had I been given a week's notice instead of one working day's notice, I could have handled things in such a way as to allow the film unit to get their film. I would have written to all parents and told them that if they or their sons had strong political objections they should let me know, and I would have kept those boys out of the way of the cameras. Most of the boys would have been only too happy to be in front of the TV cameras and were in fact very disappointed when Mr. Christopher Chataway did not come.
As to the effects of the accounts in the national press, slanted and inaccurate though some of them were, I doubt whether many people have gained the impression that the boys are an 'undisciplined rabble.' If anyone really thinks that it is anything but healthy and good-humoured to give vent to melodramatic hisses, followed by roars of laughter, at the announ :e- ment that the film unit was hired by the Conservative Central Office, and to chalk up a.variety of witty slogans like 'Down with Home Rule,' then he should consider the students of Panama.
Keener, though still good-humoured, feelings were, indeed, stirred among the senior boys, particularly the third-year sixth forms, young men of nineteen whose contemporaries are mostly at university and who themselves have stayed on to sit for Oxford and Cambridge and other scholarships. If Councillor Brown wants to know how such young men—four of them Scholars or Exhibitioners-elect of Oxbridge Colleges—would have reacted had I tried to coerce them in a matter of political conscience, he should consult some educationalists or even just consider the matter thoughtfully alone.
If Councillor Brown has been criticised for any part he played in this affair by the Conservative. Central Office or any other group or persons, then I must leap to his defence. In my view he acted rightly. I hope he can now see that others were equally right.
C. H. RIEU
Headmaster Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, Canterbury
Previous page
