IAN MUCKLEJOHN WRITES THE HISTORY OF VACATIONAL STUDIES

Vacational Studies is now a well-respected English Language Course for young people; a summer camp; a summer boarding school in England with plenty of sports activities and fun for teenagers and those a little younger.  The age-range is 11-18.

It began life in a small way in the summer of 1970. Ian Mucklejohn was new to teaching and had taken on a part-time job at a private boarding School called Crookham Court, filling in for a teacher who was away having a baby. He was deciding what he wanted to do with his life. It was a decision he ended up never taking. Events overtook him. That summer, he was very friendly with the Head's daughter, Angela. They were the only young people there and they enjoyed each other's company. Her parents were great hosts. Ian Mucklejohn was a regular dinner guest and, although he supposed the other staff in the School did not care much for the favouritism, it certainly never worried him. Robby, the Head, decided that summer to run a small Course for foreign children. It was tiny. The children were a delight, but there were not enough to form teams, so most of the socialising was in the form of croquet on the lawn and trips out. He taught them English. As an English graduate, it was his field and, in those days, TEFL was a specific skill few possessed. It was an enjoyable and successful summer.

The following year, Robby  ran a Course again. This time he decided to employ the services of two agencies. One was German; one Italian. The numbers were greater, but the cosy camaraderie had changed. The Germans stayed with the Germans and the Italians with the Italians. There was no animosity. They were just two groups large enough to be self-contained. Without realising it, Ian Mucklejohn was learning a few lessons that would come in handy.

Half way through the Course, Robby fell in and was taken to hospital by ambulance. It was appendicitis. His last words to Ian before the ambulance doors closed were 'Take over.' There he was, incredibly young, with the sudden responsibility for 60 children and 10 staff, some of whom were twice his age. Disaster did not strike. The Course ran smoothly and everyone had a great time. Off went the children afterwards. Robby also went off. He decided on a change of direction and started a 'crammer' in the Midlands. Ian Mucklejohn thought it would be fun to run the Course at the School again the following summer, but to do it with more than just two nationalities. Two of the other teachers who had been working on the Course and taught in Madrid decided they would like to recruit students there, so they formed a partnership. It was called 'Educational Holidays'. Ian Mucklejohn ran it from the spare bedroom in his home with a portable typewriter and a Roneo duplicator.

In fact few of the students for the 1972 Course came from Madrid. Most of them were from the previous year or from friends of theirs who had heard about what fun it was and some were via Gabbitas-Thring, an educational trust that put parents who enquired about English Courses his way. That summer, the Course was bigger and better. There were 72 students from lots of countries. The following year was even larger. Ian Mucklejohn realised by this time that he did not need his partners. They recruited very few students, did none of the administration and did not keep a professional distance from the staff. The day the 1973 Course finished, he paid a visit to the owner of the School and arranged to rent the School himself in the summer of 1974. As soon as that had been achieved, he wrote to his partners dissolving the partnership.

Not surprisingly, they were far from happy. They had had an easy time, doing little of the work and taking a share of the profits. A Writ followed in which they sought to prevent Ian Mucklejohn from trading on his own and in which they demanded to keep the name of the company. Although he had come up with the idea of Educational Holidays, Ian Mucklejohn saw that it would be easy to keep its thrust by rearranging its wording. So the emphasis changed subtly from the Holiday to the Education. He just changed round the noun and the qualifier. Education became Studies; Holidays became Vacational. Vacational Studies. It was as simple as that! In fact, it was too simple for the Registrar of Company Names as the words were too generic for a Limited Company. he included an International on the end and then put the initials before the words he wanted to use. VSI Vacational Studies (International) Limited was born.

The brochures were printed in November. Two colours folded to fit a DL envelope. He was not allowed to do anything with them until his former partners had agreed a settlement, but in the middle of January 1974 Ian Mucklejohn found himself free. It was like getting a divorce. On the day of his liberation, he posted the brochures. It was late, but not disastrously so. The Course was full within a few months. He loved being his own boss.

In 1974, Ian Mucklejohn had more potential clients than places. People rang him almost apologetically some months before the summer on the off-chance that there might be a place left. It was from the Netherlands that many of the students came. In the days when the disco was a record player and a few singles, the students tended to make their own entertainment. In this, Ian Mucklejohn and his colleagues found the Dutch were remarkably inventive. They made things happen. They were always exciting and sometimes outrageous. A midnight pillow flight, led to a boy being rendered unconscious. A call to his mother resulted in an interesting reaction. He had said he would expel him if he pillow fought again. His mother was a judge. 'I am not speaking 'ex-cathedra'', she said, 'but I don't think you can do that. If he were fighting with a knife, then, yes, you could consider that his behaviour would render you incapable of performing the contract we have with you, but not with a pillow.' She was absolutely right. The staff knew that a pillow-fight could get out-of-hand and this one had. They knew they had to make the boy understand that there would be a dramatic consequence if he again tested Vacational Studies’ limits. Viewed strictly contractually, they could not take the action they wished. They would have to change the contract. Thus, the 'Notes for Parents' and 'Notes for Students' were born. Vacational Studies specified their standards, invited parents to consider these and, if they wished them to take responsibility for their child, they had to sign away some of their rights to object. The ploy worked well and the 'Notes' have often been invoked to correct behaviour which could be seen as merely irritating, but in the middle of the night with staff asleep in a building full of youngsters has the potential for disaster. In that pre-'Notes' case, for want of any better solution, Ian Mucklejohn removed everyone's pillow. The result was a pillow strike. There was a minstrels' gallery around the dorms at Crookham Court. The students sat down in front of their dorms and refused to go to bed until they had their pillows back. It was one of the first tests of his authority. He sent the staff to bed and took control. He closed the dorm doors on those few who were sleeping inside and stayed up until the early hours. Adrenalin kept him going longer than most of the youngsters. At 2 o'clock he told those who wished that they could go back to bed. By 3 o'clock, all of them had taken up his offer. The pillows were returned a few days later. He was dog tired for a week, but he had made his point.

Back in those days Ian Mucklejohn was young - and looked younger. He knew what he was doing - eventually - but it was not easy to get parents to take him seriously. From his literature and letters, they had all taken him for older. Some could not conceal their disappointment when they met him. Vacational Studies had a Dutch boy whose parents stayed locally for a while while he settled in. After a week, they visited him. 'How's he doing.' 'Fine.' 'Any problems?' 'Not now that he's less competitive than he was. It was a problem when he used to get angry if he didn't win something, but now he doesn't bother and just joins in the games for the fun.' 'But he's good at most sports. What about his headaches?' He was beginning to get the picture. Here was this boy with pushy parents desperately trying to please them. 'No headaches,' was his response. 'He reacts well to not having pressure on him.' They departed, puzzled, but accepted that their son was happy and making friends. A few days later he was caught shoplifting. His parents returned, decidedly displeased. 'So what about your deep psychology now?' He didn't have a leg to stand on. 'Why was no one with him in the shop, supervising his purchases?' 'Making sure he didn't steal anything? Surely you don't do that at home.' His mother had to agree. Ian Mucklejohn could see no correlation between the removal of the desire to win and the dishonesty. His father, stung by the shame he felt his son had brought on him, saw it differently. Here was this trendy young educator telling the boy it was OK to lose. It was a short step to saying it was OK to lower one's standards; that low standards were acceptable; that having low moral standards was perfectly all right. The successful and ambitious son he had brought had been turned into something quite the opposite by me. 'You have made my son a criminal,' were his final words. Ian is sure he believes it to this day.

Right from the beginning, the students used the honorific prefix to him – Mr Mucklejohn. Ian Mucklejohn found it easier to have this distance. It was respectful and it was useful. It was also quite possibly limiting, but it became the norm and he could not imagine anything else. At least, it worked. The Courses ran remarkably smoothly, even in the early years when he was learning as much as anyone else. Some major lessons were to come.

Encouraged by the success of the 1974 Course at Crookham, Ian Mucklejohn thought it might be an idea to have a second school. He knew it would necessitate having someone in to run one of the schools, but no business succeeds by standing still. He negotiated for Cheam as this was the closest school to Crookham. As it turned out, this was essential. 1975 saw two Courses. He put someone in to run Crookham. Naively, he looked for an older person as he thought this would confer respect. Ian Mucklejohn’s choice was a man in his fifties who had run language schools before. He had not organised children before, however. He was called 'PPDP' - pink and purple dirty pullover. He never changed out of it. Its stink was rancid and one could follow his trail, animal-like, around the School. The appointment was an utter disaster. The store of goodwill towards the organisation was evaporating by the hour. He had to go. Ian ended up running two schools, commuting the seven minutes between them several times a day. Thereafter he knew he had to look for boarding school housemasters. He was learning fast.

Also in 1977, Crookham was sold by its owner. The new owner was a multi-millionaire in his 60s who was, it was assumed, simply mad. The School tottered on for some years under his ownership as most of the parents of the boys there thought the teachers would have left if he had been as incompetent as he appeared. Many of the teachers were very concerned to keep their jobs. By 1981, it was clear that Ian Mucklejohn could no longer continue VacStuds Courses there. The man started up his own business by copying the text of Ian’s brochure and promoting his own Courses. Ian had to look for a new home for the Crookham Course and found it at The Mary Hare Grammar School for the Deaf. The Mary Hare had never rented before. During the holidays, the staff there - most of whom lived on the premises - had a wonderful time. Their meals continued to be prepared by the School kitchen and they had exclusive use of all the facilities - the pool, the tennis courts, everything, all to themselves. The 1982 Mary Hare Course was fine from Vacational Studies and Ian Mucklejohn’s point-of-view. The School was ideal. VacStuds was hated by the School staff, however. Ian Mucklejohn realised they would do all they could to get them out, so he made sure the School was left tidy at the end by going round with the cleaners and cleaning it himself. As expected, the staff protested to the Governors that having Vacational Studies Course there had been the equivalent of a mini nuclear explosion in the Manor House. A list of breakages and damages was presented which he knew were invented. 'They smashed a lavatory seat' proved on inspection to be a seat that had come off one hinge. The staff had over-egged the pudding. The Chairman of the Governors came to visit Ian. He did not believe that any organisation could be so appalling and remain in business. He convinced the Governors that the staff should live in the real world, that the School should be self-financing during the summer and that the rental to Vacational Studies should continue. The Chairman, Steve Norris, became a junior Transport Minister during the Conservative Government. He is owed a huge debt of gratitude.

The 1982 Course at Crookham Court did not happen. They had no customers. Some years later Ian realised why many of the staff did not leave the employ of this very odd proprietor. They were as depraved as he was. The School became the subject of a BBC TV exposé in 1989 which led to the arrest of the proprietor and the arrest of several of the teachers for horrendous child abuse. All were subsequently jailed for up to 10 years. Crookham had to close as a School. The owner returned to the building when he was released from prison and he lived there until he died, aged 91, in November 2007.  Another teacher was jailed for four years in 2012.

As Crookham Court receded into history, the EFL market boomed.  The exchange rate was favourable and most of the world was on our side in the Falklands War.  In the early '80s, Ian Mucklejohn thought of a fourth school and approached the Headmaster of Hawtreys - a very prestigious boarding prep school in the wilds of Savernake Forest owned by Lord Cardigan.  His ancestor was of 'Charge of the Light Brigade' fame.  Gerald Watts and his gorgeous wife, Barbara, showed Ian round. They both bubbled with charisma and one could see why, with personalities such as these, the School had a waiting list until the end of the twentieth century.

The School itself was beautifully set and had splendid grounds.  The inside was sumptuous, but decidedly faded.  Just how decrepit it was Vacational Studies would soon discover.  A visit to Hawtreys needed to be planned.  It took nearly three quarters of an hour to get there and it wasn't a question of popping back to the office for a forgotten paper.  When you were there, you were there for the day.  On one of the days, it rained.  Niagara Falls cascaded down the walls of one of the dorms.  It was evacuated and the children were re-homed in other rooms.  The building was made of sandstone and was visibly crumbling.  The plaster was bubbling inside and the fascia flaking without.  It was all facade and no substance.  Yet parents were spending huge sums on sending their children there.  Unbelievable.  Vacational Studies met several of the teaching staff and realised what they did to while away the cold evenings when the wind whipped down the long and isolated drive and rattled the windows.  It was 'Straw Dogs' territory.  Not a building in which to be alone.  During the summers of tenancy when rainfall was a rarity, Hawtreys was a beautiful place.  In 1986, however, we had our first incident in which a parent did not share our views about the work with do.  He was from Bavaria and enrolled his daughter and a friend.  The girls arrived on a morning flight from Munich.  The staff failed to meet them.  The staff searched the airport, contacted the authorities there and the police were alerted.  The parents were phoned.  'Had they boarded the flight?'  They had.  At four o'clock, just as the last bus from Heathrow was about to depart, the girls arrived.  They had decided to go to London by underground and go shopping.  They had heard what time the last bus would leave and decided to catch it.  The staff were at once relieved and angry.  Ian Mucklejohn decided that the girls should not be allowed on the first trip without staff supervision.  This was partly a sanction, but also because the organisation did not know what it was dealing with.  'We want to go to the 'willage'' was the response.  There was, of course, no 'willage', or even a village.  Hawtreys was in the middle of a forest.  These two 16 year-old girls were clearly unprepared for the Course that was in store for them.  They had no sporting interests, or even any sports clothes.  They did not want to join in the organised programme, nor meet any of the other children.  They just wanted to go to the non-existent 'willage'.  Rebuffed, they phoned home.  Within 24 hours, their parents arrived.  A silver Mercedes, travel-stained from its trans-European jaunt, sat outside Hawtreys.  Inside the parents were moving from room to room, flash camera at the ready.  Into the dorms they went, boys or girls changing did not deter them.  Their daughters had told them what a terrible place it was and they were acquiring evidence.  In the three-quarters of an hour it took Ian Mucklejohn to drive there, they had been through the whole school and were ready to leave with their children.  After this event, Ian Mucklejohn studied the brochure text carefully each year and adopted the idea of writing to each child before arrival, stressing how the Course worked.  He also wrote to the German Embassy protesting about the behaviour of one of its nationals in entering girls' bedrooms unannounced and taking photographs.  They were not heard from again.

'Unrealisable Expectations' in the 'News' part of the brochure was the result of this adventure.  Nevertheless, the School was in disrepair.  In 1987, Lord Cardigan decided that Hawtreys should not be rented out.  Vacational Studies had to find a new home and decided on Lord Wandsworth College near Basingstoke.  It was a large campus and comprised mostly single rooms.  The School was keen on large numbers and Vacational Studies had 120 that summer.  With so many of each nationality, there were several self-sufficient communities and the mixing was not as elsewhere.  In some ways the mixing was most decidedly different at Lord Wandsworth College as the School staff lived on a housing estate on the campus.  Their children saw ours as interesting company for the summer.  In just a few days, the staff were treated to the sight of one of the Wandsworth boys entwined round the neck of one of the Vacational Studies girls.  A protest to the Bursar and the Head achieved no result.  They would not tell the staff that our students were out-of-bounds.  The Course Manager that year was Brian Holden, a former Cheam master and a Course Manager of some years with VacStuds.  At the end of the Course, he presented Ian Mucklejohn with a chocolate cake that he had persuaded the local bakery to produce.  On it in icing sugar were the words 'LWC - VSI - 1987-1987 - RIP'.  Vacational Studies never returned.  Hawtreys was offered to us again in 1988, but it became clear as we occupied the School office that summer that the writing was on the wall for that school.  Within a few years after the Watts departed, the waiting list dwindled to nothing.  Hawtreys ill-advisedly opened its doors to a TV company doing a documentary on boarding schools which showed inter alia a child weeping his heart out in a dormitory.  Within a couple of years, the School closed.  In the early '90s Vacational Studies left.  A national newspaper wrote that its pupils were bought by Cheam for £500 a time and for a few years, indeed, Cheam became Cheam-Hawtreys.  Many an exercise book could be seen with the 'Hawtreys' scratched out.  After the last Hawtreys boy left, Cheam reverted to Cheam.  For Vacational Studies, it had never changed.

Ian Mucklejohn had looked at Douai School in the '80s.  It was right next-door to Elstree School and the monastic community that owned and ran Douai Abbey and the School were friendly.  At that time, it was a forlorn place and made Hawtreys appear pristine.  A new Bursar and Head at Douai changed the place out of recognition and Vacational Studies ran its first Course there in 1990.  The School had already agreed to rent itself to a film company and agreed with Ian Mucklejohn that as their period of occupancy coincided with that of Vacational Studies, they should share the fees.  The film being made was 'Three Men and a Little Lady'.  Ian Mucklejohn was introduced to its star, Tom Selleck, who was a frequent visitor to the VacStuds staff room, shook hands with everyone and wanted to make friends with some of the very attractive students.  At that time another dark-haired and moustached American actor had just ended a year-long stretch in Reading Gaol.  The 'Happy to see that you're working again after your spell at Her Majesty's Pleasure' was hastily changed to a plain 'Hello.'  Steve Guttenberg was a background figure whom few met.  Fiona Shaw, the most brilliant actress of the time, played the Headmistress.  Of all the famous people whose hand Ian Mucklejohn has shaken, from the Duke of Edinburgh through Prince Albert of Monaco downwards, this was the greatest thrill.  The students loved having big name Hollywood stars in their midst and wondered what film would be made there in 1991.  None was.  The Course at Douai ran for ten years until the School went bankrupt, suddenly and dramatically, in 1999.  Vacational Studies dealt with the liquidators and not the monastic community.  The monks were invited to the final Dinner of Vacational Studies Douai 1999 which was the last dinner ever in the School Refectory.  The monks taught the children to sing the School Song in Latin.  The song had been sung at Douai for nearly one hundred years since it started there in the early twentieth century.  It was sung for the very last time then and is preserved on the 'VacStuds Douai 1999 All Over Again' video.  Even until the summer of 2003 the School existed as a time-warp, frozen in 1999.  The dorm lists and class lists from the Summer of 1999 remained blu-tacked on the walls and doors as did the Course programme and other notices.  The School awaited redevelopment into luxury flats until 2004 when planning permission was granted.  Ian Mucklejohn's personal connection with the community at Douai continues.  Although not Catholic, his mother's and his father's funeral services were held at Douai Abbey and St Mary's Church respectively and Father Peter arranged for their burial at Chieveley Churchyard where his own parents are buried. 

After the dramatic events of September 11 2001 and its effects on global travel, Ian Mucklejohn decided to offer only two schools, Mary Hare and Cheam.  In 2010 Cheam decided it was too wealthy to need the income from  a summer rental.  In a letter in January from someone he had never met, Ian Mucklejohn was told that the 2010 Course at Cheam would be Vacational Studies last one there.  Mary Hare were delighted and opened up the entire campus to Vacational Studies. Ian Mucklejohn decided that the four former schools would become Houses at Mary Hare - Cheam, Hawtreys, Douai-Elstree and Mary Hare.  The Chairman of the Elstree governors let it be known that he would not let the name Elstree be used.  Ian Mucklejohn has now registered it as a trade name.  He wanted to tell the Chairman that he was happy for Elstree to carry on using it, but the Chairman would not meet him.  He has no idea that the name Elstree is registered to Vacational Studies.

Between 1972 and 2003, the old Federation of English Language Organisations (FELCO) of which H.T.W. Mucklejohn had been Treasurer was amalgamated with the Association of Recognised English Language Services (ARELS).  All ARELS members were Inspected and 'Recognised by the British Council'.  In the late '90s, this was changed to 'Accredited by the British Council'.  Also in the 1990s what H.T.W, (better known as 'John') Mucklejohn had been fighting for since the early '70s came about - the exemption of EFL schools from VAT.  In the 1970s H.M. Customs and Excise had insisted that residential EFL schools were to be treated in the same way as hotels and that VAT should be levied on all aspects of their work.  This was replaced in the 1980s by a complicated TOMS scheme in which only the profit margin on certain aspects of the work was subject to VAT.  In the late 1990s, it was accepted that the main reason for the Course was educational and that all the other aspects - the accommodation, catering and sporting/social programmes - were adjuncts to this end.  Vacational Studies suddenly no longer had to levy VAT on its clients. 

After 35 years, it was agreed that Vacational Studies and its logo could, in fact, become a registered trade mark.

40 years after its inception, Vacational Studies remains one of the longest established and best respected English Language Courses for young people. Several of its students are the children of children of the 1970s and 1980s.

2013 is a different world from 1972.  It is a less innocent time - an age of fear and suspicion.  The rolling news media hype up fears of terror and plague and parents are less keen to give their children freedom.  Nevertheless, Vacational Studies continues and will do so.  Ian's sons, Piers, Ian and Lars, now join in with the Course and make their own international friends as their father has done for all these years.

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