Raleigh International: An elegy

 

Both the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were among thousands of young people who took part in Raleigh International expeditions during their teens. This photo from 2012 shows the royal couple visiting Danum Valley in Borneo, where RI was a project partner with the Sabah Foundation. Image credit: www.raleighinternational.org  

It’s been great to see East Budleigh’s Sir Walter Raleigh pub re-launched as a community venture.

But not such great news to read of the collapse last month of another institution named after the village’s most famous historic figure. Many people were shocked to learn that Raleigh International Trust would cease operating from 19 May 2022.  

 

Colonel John Blashford-Snell OBE.  Image credit: www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Raleigh International had its origins in the Scientific Exploration Society, founded in 1969 by Colonel John Blashford-Snell, who ten years later established Operation Drake. This developed into Operation Raleigh, later to become Raleigh International, a London-based educational initiative for young people which gave thousands of young people ‘life-changing’ opportunities to take part in international sustainable development programmes.

 

John Blashford-Snell’s book Operation Raleigh: The Start of an Adventure was published in 1987

More than 55,000 people aged 17 to 25 from over 100 countries worked abroad on ten-week health, education and construction projects in some of the poorest communities in countries including India, Nepal and Nicaragua. Blashford-Snell was Director General until he retired from the post in 1991.

For those involved in its foundation East Budleigh’s great adventurer was one of the inspirations of Operation Raleigh.

 

Margaret Thatcher with President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office, 1988. Image credit: Wikipedia

‘The enormous enthusiasm that we have seen today for Operation Raleigh proves, if proof were needed, that the spirit of Sir Walter Raleigh lives on,’ proclaimed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a speech at London’s Intercontinental Hotel on 25 January 1984. ‘Young people today still search for challenge and commitment. Curious about their world, about its past and its present; concerned about the future and eager to shape it.’

The organisation was named to commemorate Sir Walter’s first colonizing expedition to America and was launched by Prince Charles in 1984 to mark the event’s 400^th anniversary.  It was heralded at the time as a worthy and ambitious scheme which would enable some 4,000 young men and women from varied backgrounds and cultures - including 1,500 Americans – to participate in exotic adventures.

‘Outward Bound’, a watercolour by the British artist David Bell showing the Sir Walter Raleigh. The original is in Prince Charles’ collection

Two renovated ships – the Sir Walter Raleigh and the Zebu - carried volunteers and staff to take part in expeditions around the world.  

  

In 1988 the Sir Walter Raleigh was renamed as the Sir Tristan. Here is the ship with its new name, photographed at Albert Dock, London in 1988. Curiously it still bears the Operation Raleigh logo. Later it was renamed as the Trinity Explorer and in 1991 the Marine Explorer. The ship had started life in 1965 as the Hamburg.  Image credit: www.shipsnostalgia.com

Some of the many who have benefited from RI projects have been inspired by the story of East Budleigh’s great adventurer and Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite courtier. On the RI website I read how Charles Sanford and his team of 13 cyclists, at 5.00 am on Saturday 30 May 2015, ‘mounted their bikes in the village of Budleigh Salterton [sic] in Devon, the birthplace of Sir Walter Raleigh. 320 kilometres later, they arrived at the great explorer’s resting place, St Margaret’s Church in Westminster’. They raised £28,000 in total towards the building of an Early Childhood Development Centre in Tanzania. If you're interested, I can send you a copy of the team's impressive report. 

The collapse of Raleigh International was, as the Trust acknowledged, a devastating blow to its volunteers and supporters. Stories of frustrated teenagers and students who had spent months raising funds for trips to help poor communities in countries including Nepal and Costa Rica filled the media.

Stephen Toope, photographed at McGill University’s Law Convocation Ceremony, 1 June, 2017. Image credit: Lysanne Larose; Wikipedia

In fact the idea of students enjoying a gap year between school and university has been questioned for some years. ‘Is gap-year volunteering a luxury for the rich?’ asked a BBC article headline in 2016.  

‘Gap-year volunteering is more about young privileged people and “poverty tourism” than about actually helping underprivileged communities in a poor village in Africa, Asia or Latin America,’ claimed Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia.    

And this year, in the month in which the liquidation of Raleigh International was announced, Cambridge University’s vice-chancellor Stephen Toope was reported as taking a swipe at projects abroad which were ‘virtue signalling for the middle classes’.  

It has been widely recognised that students applying for university places had used such projects to embellish their personal statement, leaving less fortunate students at a disadvantage. 

To quote Stephen Toope: ‘Imagine you’re a student living in a council flat with a single mother, you have to look after two children when your mother’s off on a second job. Well, that’s every bit as important, maybe more so in terms of resilience and fortitude, than going off and building a school in Guatemala.’  

Budleigh Salterton Venture Art Club’s version of Millais’ celebrated painting ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’, completed in March 2015 and on display in Fairlynch Museum, Budleigh Salterton

For the Victorians, keen to establish outposts and colonise the farthest reaches of the British Empire, Sir Walter Raleigh was viewed as a hero. Famously set on Budleigh beach, the 1870 painting entitled ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’ by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Sir John Everett Millais, must have encouraged thousands of boys and young men to go out and conquer new territories.  

Cllr Tom Wright, Mayor of Budleigh Salterton, admires the original version of ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’ by Millais - on loan from Tate Britain - at the opening of Fairlynch Museum’s Raleigh 400 exhibition on 28 May 2018.

But in the modern age colonist has been increasingly seen as a dirty word, implicitly involving the destruction of indigenous culture. Some would say that second-home owners are equally guilty.

Performers of ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’ – a re-enactment of the Millais painting – including volunteers from Fairlynch Museum and two local children, photographed on Budleigh beach by Rob Coombe on 30 May 2018

Back in 2018 when I was involved at a project at Fairlynch Museum to mark the 400^th anniversary of the death of Sir Walter Raleigh I was struck by the fact that there was no mention of him on the Raleigh International website.

I never received a reply to my email asking whether RI would be similarly marking the anniversary. ‘I’m not sure of the reasoning,’ I was told by the organisation’s media spokesperson when I phoned to ask why it had been named after Raleigh.  

Ah well, all good things come to an end, they say.

But guess what! I’d like to think that Raleigh International may have a successor waiting in the wings. Why not Conant International? I’d love to know what you think, especially if you are a descendant of Roger Conant or live in East Budleigh.

Contact me if you’d like to know more.