Stantonica 3

It was my first day at Yorkshire Bible College.  The college was out in the country.  The bus ran there once every 2 hours.  Having braved the long journey by train and by bus, on a boiling hot day that made the inside of a double decker Skaino Atlantean feel like a sauna, I sat down at the table for the evening meal. 
"What are you here for?" asked a man with tattoos on his face and hands who had a spiky hair style.
"Lots of things.  Building a radio.  Trying to start an internet newspaper.  Attending an unauthorised Christian meeting.  Samizdat."
"The name's John.  I was the singer in a punk rock band.  They told me I should become a worship leader."  He laughed.  "Imagine leading hymns and worship when you'd love to be smashing the windows and you secretly believe that the Kids Need Anarchy."  John sang some alternative words to the tune of a well known hymn.  "This fire is blazing hot, this fire is never, never gonna stop, unquenchable, unstoppable, when you set fire to a shop."
"Matthew Ellis," I said.  "They want me to do my leadership training again."
"I'm Tony," said the man next to John, as he scooped the brussel sprouts out of the bowl that was being passed around and put them on his plate.  "I got five years for causing death by dangerous driving.  There were two of us in cars.  I was doing the sandwich run and my mate was doing the bread run.  We were racing each other.  I overtook him on a side street and knocked the district nurse off her bike.  She died."
"Bible College is a trivial punishment for doing something like that," I said.
"Don't you believe it, mate," said John.  "It's not an easy life.  Across most of the modern world, people grow their own food for a hobby.  We do it to survive.  Look at those lights. They're powered by bio diesel grown on the farm.  We grow the rape seed and we grow the sugar beet to make alcohol."
"If you're a violent criminal they think you're insane," said Tony.  "You go to a mental hospital.  That's where I'd much rather be.  Wouldn't have to work as hard."
"Why do you get the same sentence for killing someone in a road accident as somebody got for insulting Noel Stanton?"
"Insulting Noel Stanton is a serious criminal offence," said Tony, "equivalent to killing somebody in a careless road accident that you caused.  It's not that the punishment for blasphemy is trivial, it's that my punishment is very harsh."
"We have a very low rate of reoffending," said one of the older men.
"Mr. Sussex is one of the tutors," said John.
"In socialist societies we seek to re-educate criminals," said Mr. Sussex.  "Here the men learn right and wrong, from the Bible and Noel Stanton's sermons.  They learn how to be disciplined.  They learn how to work.  Few ever return."
"Few would ever dare," said Tony.
"Who wants to give the word before we eat?" asked an older man in a suit, who I thought was the Prinicpal.
"Noel Stanton taught us the only decent way to live," said Mr. Sussex.
"God is good, the prophet is good, the economy is good," said the men together.  Now we could begin eating.  The food was a small amount of pork from the farm, some great big potatoes that had been boiled in water while still in their jackets, and an enormous portion of vegetables.

 

The next day I was given a job.  I was not able to drive a tractor or a combine harvester because I had never worked as a professional driver of a large vehicle like a bus or a lorry.  I stood in the field with John and another man.  We were digging up root vegetables.
"The thing is, John," said the other man, "you deserve to be here because you're a psychopath."
"My psychologist says I have none of the emotional detachment that is associated with a mass murderer," said John.  The man laughed.
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?  Is that the nicest thing anyone has ever said about you?  You wrote songs about riots and about people being burned to death.  Your time here is deserved.  I wrote love songs.  I wrote beautiful songs about the birds and the squirrels in the trees.  I am a serious song writer but my punishment is the same as yours."  I tried to defuse the situation by saying something funny.
"I know which of you two I would like to lead Sunday worship at my church."  The man shook hands with me.
"The name's Rob, by the way."
"Matthew," I said.  "I built a crystal radio, started an internet newspaper, and belonged to an unauthorised housegroup that wasn't in a house."
"You don't deserve to be here either," said John.  "And I just have a weird sense of humour." 

 

For the next three weeks, we dug.  It was harvest time. We did theology in the evenings.  The prinicipal, with his black tie and black trousers, gave us a lecture one night on the role of women in the church.
"Adam was formed first and then Eve.  Women are happy to be in a subservient role.  Domestic sisters make it possible for a man to come home at half past six, go out again to pick up some people in the minibus, and come back to lead a meeting at seven o' clock."
"Can a woman lead a meeting?" I asked.
"No way.  She must be in submission, as the law says.  Women are meant to sit and listen quietly in church."
"Could a woman lead a meeting that consisted only of other women?"
"No, because a man should lead a group of women.  This is a church where men lead and women follow.  The women are happy in their subservient role."  Mr. Sussex looked directly at me and said,
"The role of a woman in cooking the food and washing the clothes is just as important.  This is a very enabling role.  There is no way that the male church leader could possibly work as hard as he does without the practical support of the domestic sisters.  If he had to make his own sandwiches to take with him on a mission trip, it would only be possible to do half the work that the church does now."
"Could women do half the work and men do the other half?"
"No, no, that wouldn't do," said the principal.  "God has made the human race so that it is naturally divided into two very different sexes.  It is more efficient, and enables a  considerably greater amount of work to be done, if each sex devotes itself to its own particular tasks."
"In that case, do we work too hard?" 

 

The next day Mr. Sussex came to meet me while I was working in the potato field and brought me into the principal's office.
"Have some respect for our Principal," said Mr. Sussex.  "Professor Harold Macnaughton Jones is the author of several books, a pastor and Bible conference speaker."
"Can I ask you a question, Mr. Ellis?" asked the principal.  "Who runs this country?"
"The government.  Westminster."
"No."
"The town council are probably more concerned with day to day administration."
"Wrong again."
"The schools and universities."
"No."
"I don't know."
"Bible colleges run this country, Mr. Ellis.  All the people that you mentioned, school teachers, university professors, politicians, I have had them all in my class.  I tell them what to think and what to do.  Bible Colleges are the real government.  You are here to believe what you are taught.  You committed the crime of Samizdat.  You did so in ignorance.  We are here to cure you of your ignorance.  You must learn to agree with everything we say."
"And if I don't?"  Mr. Sussex looked horrified.
"Matthew," he said, "if we can't re-educate you successfully you will be sent to a coal mine."
"I do well in my exams and my written tests.  That qualifies me, surely?"
"Mr Ellis," said the principal, "it's not like doing your N Levels at school. You don't just have to get a good grade in an exam.  You've actually got to believe what we're teaching you."
"Or at least act like it."  The professor looked at Mr. Sussex crossly.
"Never let me hear you say anything like that to a student again."  He then looked at me.  "Mr. Ellis, there is no way that you could simply act like it.  You have to become a believer.  You share a dormitory with 14 other men.  Do you really believe you have any secrets?"
"And they would tell you if I had any doubts."
"They would tell me, not out of fear, but because they believe in the vision I have for this country.  A vision that I hope you will one day share."

 

The next day we were working in a freezing cold wind, digging up turnips.
"Do they have a girl's Bible College anywhere?" I asked.
"I think they have one in London," said Rob.  "For the most serious cases."
"If a girl committed a crime, she would be sent to do a Home Economics course at night school," said John.
"Is that fair?  We're here, and they just have to go to night school once a week."
"A woman isn't a leader," said John.  "You are here to rediscover the vision that you had for this church.  You have to go back to first principles.  A life of austere poverty.  Sleeping on a hard wooden floor in a sleeping bag, with fourteen other men.  Eating vegetables and meat that your farm has produced."
"And a female offender does not have to know all these things."
"No she doesn't Matthew, because she isn't a leader.  She will be led by you."
"John, you've changed.  You used to be angry.  You used to be against things."
"I have rediscovered my vision.  Read Professor Macnaughton Jones' book, My Vision for a Young Country.  It will cure you of your cynicism."
"Matthew, you expect punishment to be like school," said Rob.  "You stand in front of the whole school at assembly, the headmaster informs everyone of what you've done and the teacher thrashes your knuckles with a leather strap until your knuckles are red.  That's not how it is for an adult.  Adults commit crimes in ignorance.  They need to be re-educated."
"They need to be controlled," I said.
"We call it conformed," said John.

 

This time I wasn't summoned to the principal's office.  The directions to a coal mine in Barnsley had simply been put into an envelope and shoved under my bedroom door.  There was a letter telling me which community house to report to in Barnsley at 8 AM the next morning.  The teachers had also printed out the tickets for the bus and the train.  I packed my suitcase and caught the 6 AM bus to York railway station.  I left my suitcase at the community house and joined the other men in the minibus that went to the coal mine.  We all had hard hats with electric lamps on them.  The lift was a steel cage on a rope.  The descent took an hour.  We must have been going miles underground.  I was wearing a jumper.
"You'll be too hot," said one of the men.  "I would take that off.  We only wear T shirts.  It's warm when you're all that way down.  The mine's 3 miles deep.  The name's Stanley, by the way."
"I'm Matthew.  I came straight here today from the Bible College."
"It's not so bad," said Matthew.  "Don't worry.  The government need a lot of people to drop out of Bible College or they wouldn't be able to mine the coal."  When we got out of the cage, the men lifted metal trestles and positioned them where they would hold up the roof.  We were standing in front of what looked like a black wall of coal.  Some of the men drilled holes in it, with hand drills, and inserted sticks of dynamite.
"Stand clear," said Stanley.  He lit the fuse.  The men all ran.  There was a huge explosion and the pieces of coal fell down like a huge pile of black rocks.  Now an unmanned train came wheeling along the tracks.  We picked up shovels and scooped the coal into the train.

 

At church on Sunday I sat with my friend Mr. Young.
"I didn't get on at Bible College," I said.
"Not everyone does."
"Are you here as a punishment?"
"No.  I'm here voluntarily.  I've retired.  Would you like to come to have Sunday lunch with me in my community house?"  Sunday lunch wasn't anything much.  Mr. Young simply shared some corned beef sandwiches with me in the dining room.  He was more interested in the things he wanted to tell me that he hadn't been able to tell me in church.  "We're a new kind of community," he said.  "If you go upstairs, this house has been divided into flats.  Each flat consists of two main rooms and a bathroom.  They have their own kitchen fittings, they have their own washing machines.  We eat together in here twice a week."
"That sounds wonderful," I said.  "No more earplugs to protect yourself from eachother's snoring, no more getting on eachother's nerves."
"No more living your life to a strict timetable," said Mr. Young.  "Meals, meetings and minibuses.  I believe in domesticating men."
"Is there a spare room for me?" I asked.
"Yes, there is."  Mr. Young led me upstairs to show me my flat.  I returned home to get my suitcase.

 

Three weeks later a policeman stopped me in a supermarket.
"Why do you have so many different things in your basket?" he asked.
"The food order's run out," I said.  Most community houses received a weekly food delivery by van.
"If the food order had run out, you'd come here to buy one bottle of milk or six tins of baked beans if someone was making the dinner.  You're a man.  Shouldn't you have asked one of the sisters to come here while you were preparing a sermon?" 
"Mother Maria is over 80, and she's very ill."  He took another look at the basket. 
"Toilet cleaner.  Deodorant.  One tin of peas.  One packet of biscuits. Mother Maria didn't ask you to buy all of those.  I think you have an illegal private dwelling."  I paid for my shopping and went straight home.  Mr. Young was there, having a cup of coffee in the dining room.
"We've been rumbled," I said.  "A policeman saw me while I was doing the shopping."
"I know," he said.  "The magistrate just sent me an email.  There will be no charges if I move into a standard community house straight away.  He sent me the address."
"I'll come with you."
"No you won't.  You and the other men will be summoned by the magistrate.  The magistrate will decide what will become of you."

 

"A group of people living together in an illegal private dwelling," said the magistrate.  "Obviously, in the last 40 years not many private dwellings have been built.  A community house had been divided up into flats with their own kitchen fittings and washing machines.  Separate lives.  The leader of the group was offered a bed, sharing a room with two other men in a standard community house and decided to take it.  There will be no charges.  I am prepared to show the same leniency to the men who were living with him, except for one, who is a particularly outspoken critic of everything our society stands for.  Matthew Ellis.  You have come to our attention time and time again.  You are always getting into trouble."
"Will you be sending me back to Bible College?"
"No.  Professor Macnaughton Jones has informed us that you are unteachable.  I will be sending you to the uranium mines."  The other men from Mr. Young's house gasped in horror.
"Matthew," said one of them, "people who go to the uranium mines don't come back."