1986 got off to a huge start for me. I started my computer software company, Xi Software Ltd, which was to be my business life for the next 28 years.
I started off working with Matthew Hart, but sadly that came to nothing and he left to form his own company in about September, not before we had seriously agreed about what was to be the major events of the summer.
Finances for the school
The church and school had been told by the Council that they must vacate the premises at Bourne Valley by the end of July 1986 and were given a letter to circulate to the parents at the beginning of June, however I don't believe this was done.
As the months wore on, Alan Vincent became more and more shrill about raising money for the school.
Both Matthew and I were increasingly convinced that there was no way the school would remain in the hands of the church, but any dissent was squashed.
There was one particular meeting, perhaps round about April or May 1986, held at Bourne Valley, where people were invited to share their thoughts about the school and a number of people actually stood up and shared their thoughts that the church was "taking its eye off the ball" focusing so intently on the school. One lady read out a passage from a book by Loren Cunningham, founder of YWAM, in which he described how the initial ship they planned to buy was taken from him after someone had presented a vision of them sailing off in the ship but leaving Christ weeping on the quayside. Others expressed similar sentiments.
However it was absolutely stunning to me how totally Alan Vincent ignored all that. After people had said their pieces he announced a system of "pledges" to raise money for the school premises. The idea of the pledges was that forms were given out to all the church members and they would be encouraged to "pledge" a huge sum of money for them to contribute to buy the school building.
It was astounding how many people signed up to the "pledges" and signed for enormous sums of money. I pledged nothing, totally convinced that the school would be lost. Everyone who asked me about it, although not many, I persuaded not to sign anything. I remember a young lady I gave a lift to back from church saying how she'd been thinking of buying a car but wondered whether she ought to be giving money instead. I spent a considerable time persuading her (successfully as it happened) to get a car instead.
Almost immediately the "pledges" were called in - some people had to sell their houses and move into rented accommodation to raise the money they had committed to.
The Council sent out a letter to the paents at the beginning of June making clear that they would have to vacate the premises. However I don't believe that they ever received it. Here is a copy of the letter.
Crunch time
Relentlessly the end of Joly approached. Alan Vincent went away for a couple of weeks in mid-July and the other leaders of the churches set about organising a programme to dismantle the school setup from the Bourne Valley site. It was decided to move the school equipment to Garston Church temporarily. However this wasn't nearly big enough and people had to give over their garages.
However when Alan Vincent returned he immediately brought the process to a halt. He had put round the telephone chain to contact all church members a message saying "The elders have come to faith that God will give them the school. Everyone is to stop moving out the equipment".
When I received this message I absolutely refused to pass it on. I sat and wrote to Alan Vincent that this was illegal and I wished to disassociate myself from it. I compared it to the temptation of Christ to "put God to the test".
The school remained occupied until the Council got a court order to remove the school and the church from the premises. The events were featured in the local papers and any goodwill the church and school had in the local area was destroyed overnight.
The school building and land was rapidly sold by the Council to a developer at a price about 10 times what the church had imagined in its wildest dreams it would go for. As for the people who had made "pledges" and had them called in, in some cases selling houses and so forth, the money collected was never returned. Sometime later, I learnt that the tax authorities caught up with the way in which the school had been financed and the church narrowly escaped prosecution.
The school struggled on in inadequate premises in Garston and other places, however many parents had to move their children to state schools. They found that all the best places were taken and the Council were most unsympathic to the former pupils of the school after the problems they had had.
Eventually the school was abandoned but became the basis of the King's School, Harpenden, which exists to this day, although it has now nothing to do with that church setup and does not use the ACE system.
Some of the teachers and classroom attendants tried to get jobs in state schools, but Steve Dennett gave them poor references so they were unable to get those jobs.
Altogether it was a major fiasco. At least the children were spared the tender mercies of the ACE system thereafter.