Sloane Rangers Dear Sir
| Date | 01 December 1983 |
| Published date | 01 December 1983 |
| Author | Graham Clark |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058303000423 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
158
give
a
much
clearer
picture
of
client
movement.
This,
in
turn,
could
lead
to
records
becommg
a
real
working
tool
which
would
invoke
a
positive
res-
ponse
from
client,
worker
and
the
orgamsation.
Please
vote
me
on
to
the
next
Working
Party.
T.
WARBURTON
Probation
Officer,
Basingstoke
Rainer
House —
Class
of
’49
Dear
Sir,
Autumn,
1949 -
What
memories.
Firstly
of
fellow
students,
mostly
ex-service
and
still
vaguely
guilty
at
having
survived
the
war,
and
so
earnest,
dedicated
and
determined
to
succeed.
From
our
ranks
came
many
principals
and
chiefs,
some
powerful
in
NAPO
and
later
CPOs
Conference,
lecturers
and
course
leaders,
an
RSDO
and
one
eccentric
who
had
a
Mah
Jong
set
and
eventually
became
a
professor
m
New
Zealand,
by
way
of
a
PhD
research
study
of tattoo
marks
on
Borstal
girls.
Nice
work
if
you
can
get
it
-
but
I
wonder
what
became
of
him?
Then
there
were
the
lecturers.
The
boring
Morrison
(he
of
Clarke
Hall
and)
who
showed
us
that
Probation
had
its
place
in
Law.
Dr.
Dennis
Carroll
with
his
tremor
and
chain
smoking
which
made
us
all
wait
for
the
time
he
would
light
his
chalk
and
write
with
his
cigarette.
For
me,
he
expressed
in
a
single
memorable
sentence
why
probation
officers
had
a
difficult
job:
’You
have
to
love
the
unlovable’.
Then
there
was
Dr.
Willi
Hoffer,
high
up
m
the
ranks
of
the
International
Institute
of
Psycho-analysis,
whose
personal
gift
to
all
mem-
bers
of
the
course
of
Kate
Friedlander’s
’The
Psycho-analytic
Approach
to
Juvenile
Delin-
quency’
set
a
pattern
of
work
for
a
generation.
Most
of
all,
however,
I
remember
Mrs
Amber
Blanco
White
who
lectured
us
on
Ethics.
Her
task
was
to
release
us
from
the
Christian
traditions
of
our
forebears,
the Police
Court
Missionanes
and,
by
grace
of
an
enlightened
Home
Office,
to
be,
if
we
wished,
Unbelievers
-
but
with
Ethics.
This
extraordinary
lady
had
spent
her
youth
among
Fabians
and
for
those
who
shared
the
sausage
and
mash
luncheon
she
told
stones
of George
Bernard
Shaw
and
H.
G.
Wells.
Rainer
House!
Those
were
the
days,
my
fnends.
Before
generic
social
work
expanded
our
vision.
JACK
PORTER
Sheffield
Sloane
Rangers
Dear Sir,
It
was
with
some
sadness
that
I
read
Gerald
Bredenkamp’s
piece
on
the
closure
of
Rainer
House.
I
should
be
surprised
if
you
were
not
inundated
with
letters
on
this
topic.
There
must
be
many
who,
like
me,
have
fond
memories
of the
old
place.
I
have been
out
of the
Probation
Service
for
some
years
now
but
I still
regard
my
training
during
the
spring
and
summer
of
1968
as
one
of
the
most
profound
experiences
of
my
life.
Certainly
the
legends
proliferated
and
improved
with
age
and
slight
adjustments
to
the
facts
-
no
more
than
a
little
poetic
licence!
I
don’t
t
remember
my
tutor
smoking
a
pipe
but
she
may
just
have
taken
the
odd
cigar ...
(Molly,
please
forgive
me,
just
a
little
more
poetic
licence ...)
However,
I
can’t
imagine
anything
really
naughty
going
on
under the eagle
eye
and
discipline
of Miss
Cox,
and
fuelled
by
her
Sunday
salads!
Only
the
Home
Office
could
think
up
the refined
torture
of
placing
impecunious
probation
students
in
the
middle
of
swinging
Chelsea.
However,
an
address
m
Draycott
Place,
SW3
did
give
one
a
certam
social
cache
even
if
it
is
difficult
to
be
a
Sloane
Ranger
on
a
student
grant.
My
course
had
the
usual
wide
mix,
opera
singer,
missionary,
colonial
policeman,
mmer,
mathematician,
sailor,
airman
etc.,
and
it
was
just
this
marvellous
amalgam
which
gave
us
such
a
broad
experience.
I
found
that
all
my
well
established
prejudices
were
given
a
healthy
ainng
and
a
lot
of them
were
rejected.
I
have
suffered
many
courses
over
the
years
but
none
of
them
managed
to
find
that
fine
balance
between
practicality
and
academic
theory
which
was
the
hallmark
of the
old ‘specialised course’ .
We
ought
to
have
a
reunion,
or
a
tie,
or
perhaps
the
memories
are
best
left
undisturbed.
Sloane
Square
m
the
sunshine,
Kings
Road
when
the Beatles
still
had
the
Apple
boutique,
flower
power
ties,
swimming
in
the
Serpentme,
psychiatry
with
Griffith-Edwards
and
warm
ale
in
the
Six
Bells
Rose
Garden;
ah!
’tread
softly
because
you
tread
on
my
dreams’ .
fl
Yours
nostalgically
GRAHAM
CLARK
Durham
Prison
On
Course
Dear
Sir,
I
read
Gerald
Bredenkamp’s
comment
about
the
recently
closed
Rainer
House
Course
(Probation
Journal
Sept
’83)
with
pleasure,
nostalgia
and
a
remembered
feeling
of
warmth.
I
was
lucky
enough
to
tram
at
Ramer
House
between
1978
and
1980,
and
believe
it
deserved
far
better
than
to
be
axed,
since
the
sheer
breadth
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