My children are home educated, and usually spend one day a week at Camp Mohawk, in the wilds of Berkshire, just
outside Wargrave.  We’ve been coming to Camp Mohawk with varying degrees of regularity for about four years I think. 

We drive off down the A40 to the ancient A4 which runs between Maidenhead and Reading, turning off through Wargrave to
the twisty single-lane roads where one has to pull into a verge or (if you’re not careful) a ditch to let other vehicles pass by, amidst fields of crops contained by neat hedges and the odd fence.  Eventually one reaches Crazies Hill and a dirt track laced with flinty gravel leads up the hill past a working farmyard which doubles as a business centre, to the woods and Camp Mohawk.

It is a beautiful place.  Surrounded by deciduous trees which dwarf the wooden buildings, there are primroses and bluebells in the woods at the moment, some trees are shrouded in a light spring veil of leaves, and others are still quite bare except for some sticky buds.  A small wild rabbit hops out from a woodpile to graze on the new grass and skitters away again when I approach.  Above the camp if you carry on up the hill, is an ancient clearing encircled by beech trees, where your footsteps crackle with the ancient layers of discarded beech nut cases underfoot.  Here is it possible to believe that you have been transported back to pre-Roman times, often the only sounds being the occasional crack from the trees, and the echoing  voices of children, or the cry of the red kites wheeling overhead. 

Camp Mohawk was originally organised in a barely believable way…. It was intended as a holiday place for autistic children, run by the scouts, and townie scouts from the East end of London came to the camp and looked after autistic children, some of them pretty young, doing all the work, cooking, cleaning, required.  Some of the autistic children who still attend camp as teenagers, visited the camp when it was run by scouts. 

Unfortunately,the leader and founder of the Camp was prosecuted and jailed for child abuse, which must have been very distressing for both the volunteers and families attending the camp.  It seems pretty amazing in these days, when even adults are not supposed to go into the kitchen unless they have a hygiene certificate, that unqualified scouts from Beckton might be put in total charge of autistic children, some of them little more than babies. 

For a while it looked bleak for the centre, but fortunately Ian Cotton, who had been working as a volunteer at the centre for a year while doing research for a book about it, believed that there was something about Camp Mohawk that worked magic for autistic children.  He believed in the place so much that he agreed to take over as director in order to keep it open.

Ian was Director of the centre when we first started going there.  The centre was used by autistic children and their families in the evenings after school and at weekends, but it was empty during the week during the day (outside the holidays), and so a home education group had started to use it both in the summer and in the winter.  My children loved it.  It provided real freedom, a place where they could take off into the woods and build shelters or play games. 

During the summer, usually the parents sit in the sunshine on the outdoor chairs and tables which are scattered over the grassy area, close to the buildings, a cluster of low level wooden huts which make up the administrative heart of the centre, and the children have the run of the woods, and the football field, and adventure playground, overlooking the Berkshire countryside all around, as far as the eye can see.

The freedom that the place offers for children is quite unusual in these days, even for home educated children.  The dangers of the roads and the huge increase in the number of cars on our crowded island mean that younger children simply can’t be allowed to roam the streets, even if parents aren’t worried about the dangers of abduction etc.  Camp Mohawk offers a safe place where children can be free to go off on their own and enough space to make them feel that freedom.

The home education group has gradually expanded its use of the centre to encompass classes over the winter months, when Camp Mohawk as a centre for children on the autistic spectrum is usually closed. They also use it during the months from Easter to September, when it has traditionally been open.  Twice a year, at Easter and in the October half-term, the home education group open the doors to the other groups who use the centre and some strangers too, and run Teen Challenge.  This consists of four days running around the woods, playing football, chatting, hanging out around the centre, with some organised sessions of activities, and drop-in arts activities too. 

Last week, there was a base of home educated children, a group of Crossroads teenagers who come to every teen challenge, some of the autistic teenagers who attend camp normally and a smattering of schoolchildren who usually are related to or friendly with children in the other groups.  They were able to choose to participate in group activities like shelter building and survival skills, football training, rock climbing, orienteering and laser quest, or to hang out around camp, listening to music, talking, playing basketball or playing computer games. 

While there wasn’t a lot of crossover between groups - the teenagers mostly stayed in the groups of friends they knew best - the groups came together for some of the more popular activities, and collaborated together in a very natural way.  I was dreading the weather - we had heavy snowfall on Sunday at home, and more sleet and snow predicted, but we were very lucky - it was mostly cold but sunny.

I spent a lot of time running drop-in art activities in the art room, and had cunningly brought a heater from home to keep me warm.  On the first day, which was bitterly cold, it provided refuge for those who were too cold to continue outside… groups came and decorated boxes, made hangings for a peace tree, and started bracelets.

It’s hard to explain how wonderful it is to see such a diverse group of teenagers in one place.  In general we have always found Camp Mohawk to be a tolerant and accepting place, but this is a poor way to describe how very positive it is, how free and how welcoming. The freedom to participate or to watch, to choose to do what everyone else was doing, or to find something other, is something that traditional approaches barely allow for autistic children, and they might be expected to dislike it.  They don’t appear to however, and there was barely a ripple of discontent over the course of the four days from anyone.

The Camp has a core of staff and volunteers, who are around and about for those who need them.  One of the volunteers,
Huxley, came and showed a couple of reluctant boys how to convert a washing line peg into a useful clip for the fridge.  After a few words of encouragement they enthusiastically converted one into a penguin and the other into a savage wolf.

The final day included laser quest among the woods, a fancy dress competition and disco, with an open fire offering an
alternative for those who like to retain some useful hearing.  My children all agreed that the final day was "awesome" and all of them enjoyed it.

The centre is always short of money and welcomes donations, which can be sent care of Luke Janssen at Camp Mohawk,
Crazies Hill, Wargrave, Berkshire, RG10 8PU