30 March 2025
Caldecott Community had connections with organisations with interests of some similarity. Some children had been at the Mulberry Bush (Desmond Draper had taught at the school). Some Caldecott children transferred to Gordonstoun school. Leila Rendel was also on the board of the British version of Pestalozzi which in 1959 opened a children's village on an estate at Sedlescombe, not far from Hastings. In 1962 Mike Clover knew that he would not be successor as head of Caldecott, so he arranged to become the Deputy Warden at Pestalozzi in Sussex. Before taking up that post, he took some of us camping there at Whitsun, to help clear land with machetes etc - older Paddocks boys such as CR and first year junior-senior boys based in the West Wing (our large playroom then was structurally in the adjacent main part of Hatch but we could not use the direct door from there).
Mike Clover and his wife Rosemary took up residence at Pestalozzi, plus five Caldecott children from the Paddocks. He fell out with the Warden and so left around Christmas. CR left, MR, YR and KH came back to Caldecott. RS remained at Pestalozzi until 1965, later being in the RAF for many years and was awarded MBE.
From 1959 to 1962 intake at Pestalozzi was partly from UK but especially from camps in Germany including also displaced persons of various other origins such as Poles and Latvians. Mostly education was at local schools so most children had to pick up English. The 1963 intake was displaced Tibetans. Later intake were Thai, Arabs, Indians and Nepalese.
In early years with good staff the atmosphere was of an extended family, feelings which have endured. William Eiduks and Leonard Clarke were children there in the early years. They have recently produced a book of their experiences with contributions from 13 others. It has a foreword from Craig Fees, former chief archivist at PETT where Willi and Len met some ex-Caldecotts. The book is The Village that Once was Our World.