Knight and day
Thanks to a police sergeant's initiative, youth in a small English town have changed their behaviour in startling ways
BY OLGA CRAIG
In Spilsby, England, a town of 3,000, an amazing change has come over to loutish and raucous teenagers who once gathered at the bus shelter in the town centre to drink lager and swear at passers-by.
Today, the same youths who made residents wary of venturing out after dark are more likely to be found playing lawn bowling against the pensioners they once abused, scrubbing graffiti off walls, cleaning up road signs, collecting litter and cutting down trees to create parkland.
The town is transformed too. Anti-social behaviour and crime rates have been halved, the streets are clean and the inhabitants have an air of jaunty selfconfidence. The shops now bustle with the daily banter of a close-knit community that takes a pride in the market town.
The man who has made the difference is Spilsby's police sergeant, Gary Brown, who, with a lot of help and a very vivid vision of how old-fashioned virtue can change a community, has given back the town's self-respect.
Sergeant Brown is tipped to win Policeman of the Year in a nationwide contest and last week he came second in the Criminal Justice Award 2005 category for Outstanding Contribution to Tackling Youth Crime.
His innovative scheme to transform Spilsby began when he formed the Knight School, a course for six- to eight-year-olds that instils a chivalrous code of courtesy, respect and pride in the youngsters. So far, more than 130 children have "passed out" from Knight School and Sgt. Brown has set up a whole host of local projects that have enticed teenagers off the street and into community work.
He has had a skate park built and the new year will see the opening of the town's own Centre for Excellence, which will house a cinema and a whole range of activities for residents, from crime prevention classes to debating forums on local issues and tea dances for pensioners.
"Everything has been based around the whole idea of returning to the concept of a medieval society - one in which people rely less on their local authorities and more on themselves and their neighbours to turn around their town," Sgt. Brown explains as he settles back in his knight's throne in the new centre.
"Instilling a sense of personal pride, of mannerly and compassionate behaviour and of respect for oneself and for others in a child in its formative years is, I believe, the way to becoming happier and more responsible as they enter young adulthood. If it saves one child from a life of crime then it has been worth it."
Funding for Sgt. Brown's projects, 30 in all, has come from a variety of sources, including local firms, the town council, police, the Countryside Agency and the Rotary Club.
His Knight School certainly worked for Jack Murray, 9, one of Sgt. Brown's first pupils to receive his "knighthood." It taught me to appreciate what others do and to take their needs into consideration," Jack says thoughtfully. "Before I was a knight I just didn't think I acted badly. Now I do."
Under Sgt. Brown's watchful eye, his latest batch of knights, all dressed in medieval costumes, recite the school's motto. "We knights of the Knight School pledge that we will treat everybody with courtesy and respect," the children chorus, clutching their toy swords and shields. Each has been given a knight's name and, if they pass the course, will receive their knighthood at a special ceremony and banquet in the town.
What, Sgt. Brown asks them, is courtesy? Sophie Ellis, 9, hopping from foot to foot in excitement, puts up her hand and says: "I know, I know. It's when I give up my seat to an elderly person on the bus," she says. "Or when I carry someone's heavy shopping," says Alex Kelly, 8.
As the children troop back to the primary school, Pam Powell, the head teacher, greets Sgt. Brown with a warm handshake. "The Knight School has worked wonders for many of my pupils," she says. "It has given many of them confidence and turned the slightly disruptive ones into responsible members of the school."
As Sgt. Brown acknowledges, it will be a decade before he sees the fruits of his work with the under-10s. So far he has seen an enormous decrease in teenage petty crime in the town.
While working as a bobby in a nearby town, Sgt. Brown discovered he could use his interest in medieval history to capture the attention of young people and harness their energies in giving something back to their communities.
When he was first stationed in Spilsby he realized instantly it was the ideal location for his Knight School and Project Toupai - an anagram of utopia and a useful umbrella term for all the schemes.
Now five neighbouring towns plan to adopt his schemes. He has travelled to the United States to lecture on them and both London and Manchester have made inquiries about setting up Knight Schools. "Call it a nutty policeman's vivid imagination," he laughs, "Or maybe I'm just the Mary Whitehouse of my generation."
The Daily Telegraph (NATIONAL POST, Monday, November 14, 2005).
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