TEACHING 1983
It’s 1983, I am 35. I put a lonely hearts advertisement in ‘Eye Love’ in Private Eye – ‘Wise Owl seeks Pussy Cat’, which I thought a rather clever encapsulation of me and my wants in an amusing reference requiring some intelligence (actually I was going to make it ‘Wise Owl seeks Pussy’ but thought that would be not so clever, and put girls off). I can’t claim originality for this – my flatmate Maureen Corr answered an advertisement ‘The pea-
Amongst the replies was one from an Angela Teacher, an unusual name I thought. We met in a Kensington wine bar, probably Jimmy’s in Church Street. She was quite attractive though a bit intense, and a computer programmer (in the days of computers being as big as rooms; FORTRAN; tele-
A guru called KEVIN – ridiculous!
They were the finance arm – all their computer programming income was sent back to the commune in Wales. They were all geniuses and members of MENSA. She didn’t fancy any of the men in the house (surprise, surprise), and so was looking outside the ‘family’ (I was surprised this was allowed). Then she started revealing she had rather extreme right wing views – unintelligent people to be euthanised, breeding to be selective, rule by a super intelligent elite, no religion only Utilitarianism; none of this wishy washy ‘democracy’. Well as far as I was concerned that was it, I was intelligent but not THAT intelligent and I wouldn’t go anywhere near THAT far, so – goodbye.
However ‘Kevin of the Teachers’ rang a bell. I went through my collection of alternative ephemera and found it -
Apparently this was a self sufficient commune based in an isolated farm ‘Carreg’, Sling, near Bangor, Wales, founded in 1972 by ‘Kevin The Teacher’ and Michelle Bland. Kevin, a genius international chess master, had invented a rational system for dealing with life ‘Choice Mathematics’. He believed the very worst people to bring up children were their parents, who destroyed them with ‘Smotherlove’. In the commune children were separated from their parents, weren’t allowed to see them, and brought up by ‘Choice Mathematics’. Wives had to divorce their husbands and members took a vow of poverty. Communal decisions were made, not by democracy, but by ‘consensus’ within an elite group who were more fitted to make decisions than the rest, including Kevin and his partner Michelle. I got the impression that this ‘consensus’ always turned out to be what Kevin said. There was an outpost in Ealing of computer programmers who financed the operation. Kevin and less than 15 members moved to ‘Bleddington Grounds Farmhouse’, Oxfordshire in 1989. This all sounded pretty bizarre, and I was pretty glad I had escaped from Angela.
Then in 1993 the inevitable happened – 18 year old Rebecca Helen N Teacher, and her step-
As the Independent has it:
‘The Teachers’ apparently no longer exists. A search of Companies House records reveals a dissolved company ‘Beckley Court Residents Association Ltd’ in Beckley near Oxford; with directors Patrick Joseph Sean O’Byrne born 1958 and Michelle Anne Bland born 1950 and an active company ‘Tetrium Ltd’ in Oxford with secretary Patrick Joseph Sean O’Byrne born 1958 residing in France and a director Matthew Benedict Augustine O’Byrne born 1965. Patrick’s landline locates to SE France around Chambéry, Annecy, and Aix-
A search if the Interweb brings up an article in Issue 80 2018 of ‘Horizon’ magazine of the Institute of Outdoor Learning by a ‘Kevin O’Byrne’ (@kevob on X, Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-
Are we to expect more revelations? Apparently no one was ever prosecuted. If Rebecca Helen N Teacher (who doesn’t appear to have got married), or any of the other children, happens to read this, please get in touch. I wonder what they all are doing now?
The court was told that he believed incest should no longer be a crime because the 'genetic difficulties' that it might cause could be avoided through contraception and that children were beaten, whipped, locked up for days without food and made to look after the animals at The Teachers' remote farmhouse commune. Miss Teacher was born into the sect and the court was told that she was beaten and sexually abused until her mother and Mr Webb left the group when she was aged 11. She was one of at least 12 children fathered by Mr O'Byrne with six women. She said yesterday: 'I did this not just for myself but for the other children.' Mr O'Byrne did not give evidence. His absence was described by Judge Clive Tayler as being like 'Hamlet without the Prince'. [Matthew O’Byrne, one of Kevin’s sons, said Kevin had hay-
About the Author Kevin O’Byrne is a primary school teacher with 21 years of experience, 17 in International Education. Having previously taught in the UK and Czech Republic he is currently teaching at the International School of Geneva, Switzerland, with responsibility for PYP Physical Education and Outdoor Learning. This role involves running ski programmes for 350 students each year. He is currently completing an MA in Outdoor Learning at Worcester University. He can be contacted at kevin.obyrne@ecolint.ch
POSTSCRIPT
Isn’t the Internet wonderful! With the death of Kevin O’Byrne on 25th September 2025 in Dax France a lot of extra information has become available, though none actually gives his full name or mentions the revelations of the blackmail trial. It is though ‘The Teachers’ commune never existed.
It did seem unlikely that a narcissist libertarian genius would remain quiet, and he re-
There is a tribute page set up by his wife ‘Minkie’ (Michelle Bland?) headed ‘Kevin of the Teachers’ which rather gives the game away as you can then Google that to find the trial, see https://www.espace-