[ 1953 ]
Summerhill School
Leiston, Suffolk
My dear Reich,
370November 13, 1953Many thanks for your valuable birthday gift of 4 volumes. It
is a delight to sit and read all the latest about your work. Aber [But]
those equations are far beyond me, and will always be.
At last the plague has reached me. A few weeks ago an Australian
journalist came to interview me. He seemed to me to be a scholar and
a gentleman, talked as any modem progressive would talk. Like a fool
I talked freely to him off the record. Now a poisonous article appears
in a Sydney Sunday Telegraph, headline: "School where children have a
full sex life," a smear all the way. My lawyers have written demanding
withdrawal on the ground that it can make me lose pupils. What I fear
is that one of our own Sunday papers will print it and then the fat is
in the fire. If I take it to court a clever counsel will ruin my work, for
any judge would be against love for youth, any jury too. If an M.P.
were to ask a question in the House my school would be closed. I am
indeed in a hole. If I stand up as I should do and proclaim bravely
that adolescents have had a love life in S'hill, I lose my work with all
the small children. If I pretend that nothing has taken place I am a
coward and a swindler.
In any case I can't afford to issue a writ against a rich newspaper; I
have not enough money to run my school, and as the paper would
almost certainly win I'd be left with an enormous debt. I am taking the
blackest view in case the article is published here too. And how I wish
my good friend Reich were here to advise me and support me.
My book is going well. Good reviews so far, and the radio book
review in Woman's Hour told all mothers to read it, but of the few
millions who listened I doubt if many will read it.
I go to Scandinavia in January on a lecture tour, mainly to make
some money, for our numbers have dropped from 60 to 42; people
simply haven't the money for private schools today.
Yours, rather frightened and depressed.