Helena Forrest taught music one day a week at Beacon Hill School for about two years. The letter contains a few anecdotes about Kate. The only instruction that BR gave her was: "If you have any trouble with discipline be sure you get the right culprit and throw him, or her out by the scruff of his (or her) neck."

She mentions Dora only indirectly: "I always felt that the school would have been a much happier place had he had more say in the running of it. He had a delightful way with children." Some child or other was always crying.

Helena Forrest was not interviewed before she was taken on at Beacon Hill School as a music teacher. She cannot recollect her salary. She was not told what to teach.

Helena Forrest taught music at Beacon Hill School. She recollects an episode where a pupil, Frank, had climbed to the top of a high tree. BR handled the situation by calling out the teachers and the gardener to see Frank in the tree. BR told him since everyone had seen him up there, there was no need to do it again.

Helena Forrest has no recollections of the difficulties with Jason Harvey at Beacon Hill School.

Forrest thanks Harley for his book.

MacLeod remembers Beacon Hill School fondly. Working there was one of the happiest times of her life. BR "was the kindest man I've ever met, and the only community I've ever lived in where people worked together without jealousy and stupid back-biting, trust, honesty, fair play—all due to the wisdom and kindness of Bertie."

MacLeod relates her own family history. The letter ends just where she is going to write about Beacon Hill School.

MacLeod remembers Boris Uvarov who taught at Beacon Hill School.

After the closing, there is an additional sheet to the letter. "This is Miss Pankhurst as I knew her at B.H.S. She and Richard stayed at Battine House—East Marden—a guest and staff residence for some time." "She stayed one term only I think."

MacLeod writes that BR and Boris Uvarov were like father and son.

MacLeod writes that Dora and Barry lived in Battine House.

MacLeod writes that "Peter Spence had nothing to do with the [Beacon Hill] School, she was engaged to look after John and Kate for the long summer holiday. That one we spent in Majorca—and that is how it started."

MacLeod writes about Boris Uvarov, a teacher at Beacon Hill School.

The enclosed newsclipping from the Manchester Guardian, 14 Feb. 1958, mentions former Beacon Hill teacher, Boris (E.B.) Uvarov. "Mr. E.V. Uvarov is not a Soviet librarian, but one of England's experts on documentation and translation. Until recently he was head of technical information at Courtaulds's."

"It appears that B.R.'s desk and chair have been purchased by McMaster and are in transit now to the Archives."

"Jason [Harvey] was responsible for changing many of Russell's views especially in regard to bullies and the need to have supervision during free time" at Beacon Hill School.

"Russell's library arrived safely here some months ago with his desk, chair and other memorabilia. However, it seems that there were some books in the house which were not part of the original purchase contract with McMaster and which had been either in the other rooms or which had arrived towards the latter part of BR and Edith's life. These were offered to McMaster by Christopher Farley who is the head of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and is now selling up the Russell estate in order to get money for their work. McMaster was not fast enough with a good offer and so Farley sold them to a dealer who is now trying to make a handsome profit." (University Librarian G.R. Hill authorized only a very low offer.)

[The books from BR's London flat went to the European University Institute in Florence. They were still there when S. Turcon visited in June 1986. A list, obtained by Turcon, is available in the Russell Archives with the original inventory of BR's library. Since then, many of them have been "disposed of" according to Veerle Deckymn (email of 6 July 2010 to C. Spadoni).]

"BR had 2 women doctors at Beacon Hill, an elderly one who retired and a delightful young one to succeed her."

Mrs. Gropius is willing to answer questions about her daughter's time at Beacon Hill School. They sent her (Beate Forberg) on the advice of Mr. and Mrs. Jack C. Pritchard.

This letter, asking questions about Beacon Hill School, is not complete.

John Edwards finds the subject of Beacon Hill School "so vast that I don't feel equal to writing objectively enough" about it. He admired the ideals of both BR and Dora Russell.

She does not yet know what questions Harley will ask her.

The note states that Mary Bailey is sending photographs of Joy Corbett. The envelope, however, is empty.

Mary Bailey thinks she went to Beacon Hill School in 1931 or 1932 to teach. "The kind of things retained in my memory are comic."

David Harley thanks Helena Forrest for her memories of teaching at Beacon Hill School. He asks for further information.

Bishop Manning was the Episcopalian Bishop of New York, 1921-46. He opposed the doctrines of Marriage and Morals.

The files contain correspondence and newsclippings. A catalogue was also copied.

Re "The Private Memorandum concerning Ralph Schoenman". "This is my memorandum. I told my wife what I wished her to type and she has typed it. I have read it over to myself twice carefully and she has read it aloud to me once. I entirely endorse it as being mine and what I wished to say."

The note is stapled to a photocopy of the typed memorandum (initialled "R" on every page).

"I am writing to confirm that I wish you to represent me in the matter of Mr. Ralph Schoenman and the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation Ltd." 

BR's enclosure is a letter to Schoenman dated 23 November 1969, record 121177. BR mentions his own letter of 16 July, which is not in the Russell Archives.

This letter to Schoenman was sent care of Louis Spivak and was enclosed by BR at record 121176.

"I confirm all that I said in my letter of 16 July, and should like to make it quite clear that neither my wife nor I wishes his or her name to be associated with your activities and that we give you no authority to use our names in any way."

Mary Bailey writes about teaching at Beacon Hill School, beginning circa 1932. It was a "beautiful place".

Bailey has found a testimonial from BR which she quotes briefly and which states that she started at Beacon Hill School in September 1931. She was still at the Royal College of Art when she was interviewed by both BR and Dora. She lists the staff that were at Beacon Hill and their various jobs as well as the students she can remember. "Whilst I was there, Mr and Mrs Russell were seldom at the school together, so that there was not a great difference after Bertie left." The enclosed sketches are not originals but photocopied sketches of pupils Bertram and Joy.

"Beacon Hill was very friendly, with staff and pupils all considered equal." She recollects two plays that the children produced, although she cannot remember details. "I remember a verse which Bertrand Russell frequently recited, and which was sometimes used when picking 'sides' for games:

'Onery, twoery, tuckaby seven: allaby crackaby, ten or eleven. Pin pan musky dan, twiddleum, twaddleum, twenty-one.'"

Betty Cross used to write for magazines.

She encloses two photographs which are described as:

"The bungalow behind the house, where the art lessons were held when I first went there [Beacon Hill School]. The pigs lived behind the hedge, which is why they looked upon us as friends. The larger photograph I did not take, and cannot remember who did. It is of the interior of a larger hut where the art lessons were later held. At the time of this photograph we had arranged an exhibition of drawings and models made by the children."

Also in the envelope is a third small photograph of a naked child (John or Kate?) with an adult, possibly BR.

"Dora is sensitive." Re Beacon Hill School.

She encloses a box-lid (not present) "as an example of Beacon Hill production."

The setting and scenery were the "most impressive thing" about Beacon Hill School.

The letter is in file 13. It is initialled by the sender, Jack Black, and concerns the unauthorized publication of the "Private Memorandum concerning Ralph Schoenman".

The letter has the enclosure stapled to it. It concerns the unauthorized publication of the "Private Memorandum concerning Ralph Schoenman".

The letter is in file 13. It is headed "Draft Letter" and concerns the unauthorized publication of the "Private Memorandum concerning Ralph Schoenman".

Elsie had a dream about Dora, John and Beacon Hill School.

"I agree with you and have little sympathy with Dora when she grumbles about people like Ronald Clark, but she always did have a chip on her shoulder...."

"You must by now be getting a very peculiar picture of Beacon Hill—as a school—did it fulfil its purpose apart from its traumatic effect on John and Kate?"

"Dora was a great admirer of Neill, I doubt if Bertie was as enthusiastic. He probably admired the man—as everyone did, but the facts of the school would have driven him crazy. Neill was a school-master and put the happiness and stability of the children first—knowledge second. I doubt if Bertie felt happiness was important or possible."

On Beacon Hill School. "I wonder how many teachers there had been since the school started?—I don't suppose many stayed very long—they were attracted by the B. Russell mystique I expect. There must have been quite a big difference between the early beginnings and the later—and after Bertie left."

Dora thanks Elsie Edwards for her letter about The Tamarisk Tree. She outlines some of the problems with the book and that the caption of the Abyssinian play is wrong.

Harley asks if she would send him her memories of Beacon Hill School.

Hubbard taught at Beacon Hill School for one year in 1938. She came from a conservative background and "it was at Beacon Hill that I was first exposed to ideas, politics, people who loved humanity, people of all shades of opinion, people who thought, and thought honestly." "The kids were happy, the kids were free."

Hubbard is critical of thesis writers.

Hubbard's letter displays anger and is very critical of Harley as a thesis writer.

Harley recommends that Hubbard read Schopenhauer, whose friends lacked the courage to tell him the truth about his "sense of humour".

Kielland writes about BR. "I never knew anyone whose company was such a joy!" She goes on to write about Russell's first three wives for whom she feels sorry. BR "meant a great deal to me and I miss him very much."

Kielland first went to Beacon Hill School with a woman journalist friend (see record (121208) who interviewed BR. She sent her sons there afterwards. Her children did well and her memories of the school are positive.

Constance Malleson helped her husband with a translation of a play he wrote in Norwegian.

The journalist that Kielland went to Beacon Hill School with was Madame and/or Hubay-Cebrian.

Kielland's eldest son was Halfdan, whom Kate called Halfdone.

Henderson tells Harley that his or her mother, Mrs. Wynne Henderson, has died. Henderson used to work at Beacon Hill School and Harley had wanted her to write about her time there.

Newman was a visiting teacher of dance at Beacon Hill School. Dora Russell appeared to love other people's children as much as her own. The atmosphere at the school was free and friendly.

"My son-in-law lent me a book recently of letters of BR to just ordinary people who had written to him, mostly working people—fascinating! No condescension—almost friend to friend. Amazing man—his industry—nobody ever appealed to him in vain—who had a just cause."

"I do hope your invitation is still good because I am planning to attend the Bertrand Russell Society's annual meeting."

"I like your description of Russell's life span—'It was a time of drastic change from which the modern world still reels'—an apt description that struck home with me, as my life span is about the same."

Kate stayed with Harley for three days while she went through some of his papers on Beacon Hill School and so that she could see the new acquisitions of McMaster, including BR's desk and chair.

"If you hear about BR's private library being up for sale in England it is nothing to do with McMaster. McMaster has the main library here. However, the Peace Foundation in its efforts to secure money have sold the other books from the house which were not included in the original purchase contract. ... Luckily, there is nothing there of much value but I suspect they will sell because of association value."

Kate writes about her parents at Beacon Hill School:

"I think my father was always most concerned with results; he wanted to produce a certain kind of brave and intelligent person and he thought freedom the best way to do it. When it didn't work, though, he was ready to revert to more traditional methods, such as compelling John to get used to the cold and stormy Atlantic.

My mother, on the other hand, though she also wanted the same kind of people, was more interested in the process. What mattered most to her was freedom of inquiry and behaviour, and she was sure that would produce the required results; no need to keep looking to see if it was working and adjusting methods if it was not."

Dora writes about the Boxer Indemnity Fund, Ronald Clark's biography of BR, her relationship with BR, her son John and his daughters. She feels that Clark "does not give me the credit for having the original idea of Prospects of Industrial Civilization which arose out of our argument in the Red Sea. In many ways I was a disturbing influence for Russell." "What Russell liked about the Chinese was their courtesy, their way of understatement, their wit and humour, their lack of religion, their love of art and beauty." "I think we contributed something to the course of events in China, but very little indeed to socialism in England." She "did not like Clark's book. It is useful for dates and the factual research, but is really without feeling for the issues or people involved." "In no way would I wish to belittle the greatness of Russell. He is still too little understood and too often attacked." However, "quite a number of people, family and others—I am not the only one—need to forget Russell and his influence in order to be able to live our lives at all."

Dora writes about Ronald Clark's biography of BR. "It was written in close contact with Colette, who as I knew, was editing her correspondence with Russell with a view to later publication. I had no knowledge whatever of how Colette kept touch with him, both during our marriage and later when he was married to Peter Spence. She nearly succeeded in breaking up that later marriage.

"All her life she continued to think that Russell should have married her and must have been savagely jealous of and hostile to me. So that Clark made it appear that I was merely made use of to bear a child, which Colette did not want to do." She agreed with John sitting in the House of Lords because it "would help him get over the sense of inferiority to a father who, in fact did not treat him at all well."

"By the way, I don't think Russell had the least idea of how to bring up children."

Dora encloses a list of people connected to Beacon Hill School.

She thinks what Ronald Clark wrote about the school is "near libel".

Dora writes that people keep pestering her for information about her life and Russell's life. She did meet with Sidney Siskin after A.S. Neill intervened. She has not read Siskin's thesis.

She feels too many people are after scandal, like Ronald Clark.

"We were educating for a democracy, of course. Why I now say that one cannot educate on Beacon Hill lines any more is because technology has taken over in our work life and is now moving to take over in education."

Dora would have liked to have seen Sidney Siskin's thesis.

Dora's first book was catalogued in Hampstead Library as by BR.

Telegraph House is now occupied by "some people who make a good living out of the sale of children's toys." Dora writes about Jason Harvey.

"John's daughter is trying to raise enough money to buy the family silver, which, on Edith's death, is being sold for the Russell Foundation."

Dora asks for Harley's paper on Beacon Hill School.

Betty Cross prefers to live in the present; she did write to Dora that Beacon Hill School "was splendid" although she "never liked Bertrand Russell." "The whole idea of a child growing and developing through his or her natural stages, like a plant or a tree, is totally impossible now the television governs everything. Children no longer have a childhood, and even the school is not now the prime source of education."

Dora writes that BR wrote The Prospects of Industrial Civilization but that she wrote the prefaces to the first and second editions. She had the original idea, although "Bertie was able to elaborate it far more than I could have done."

Dora thanks Harley for the information he sent on the cast for "Marriage and Death", a play put on at Beacon Hill School.

Dora rails against the Guardian regarding her as a museum piece and the embargo placed on letters in the Russell Archives (which distorts BR's biography by Clark). She cannot forget the damage done to BR "by the machinations that led to the creation of the Russell Foundation."

She wants Griselda MacLeod's scrapbook back at once.

Dora thanks Harley for the return of Griselda MacLeod's notebook; it should never have been sent to him. All comment on individual children should be destroyed, she declares.

Dora is annoyed with Harley for getting in touch with Betty Cross when he had been told not to do so. She is concerned about privacy and libel. Clement Freud attended the school.

Dora was displeased that K. Blackwell obtained Thinking in Front of Yourself for the Russell Archives. "In spite of all our arguing I wish your thesis well and I do not wish to see Bertie diminished; Lord knows we have not enough like him."

The envelope is addressed to David Harley although the letter is to K. Blackwell with a note "for your information" to Harley, for it is his article on the school in Russell, nos. 35-6 (1979-80) that she criticizes. Dora dispels various myths that have grown up around Beacon Hill School: Kate and Jackie running away, the bonfire, pins in jam, the painting of the tiger, and the naked child and the vicar. She feels Wood's book The Passionate Sceptic was sycophantic and attributed "everything that went wrong to me."