Dear Jack (and everyone),

It is time I summoned courage to seize the nettle, as they say.  I will do so with all the love and 
care I can while embodying alongside my aspiration to live these values, conscience to truth tell.

When I recall how we worked together for a period of some ten years as next door colleagues and 
friends I still experience the warm glow of our shared passionate commitment to support a growth 
of educational knowledge.  I value the creative and loving space you offered me and many others 
as we struggled to define our identities - to understand what drives us and how we might improve 
our practice by living our values more fully.  I recall meeting an exceedingly, yet justfiably, angry 
Jack in 1994 who thrust a copy of The Growth of Educational Knowledge in my hands as I passed 
by your room having been warned never to open your emails or speak to you except with caution!  
... You had been bullied and excluded for many years from the prevailing community and suffered 
the indignity of seeing your PhD failed on two occasions.  You had been dismissed as a lecturer 
but thanks to a lawyer and colleagues who believed in you, you won the right to retain your post.

My practice in educational research mentoring has evolved in part from your influence not least to 
stand up for what I know to be right, even if it means standing alone.  Where your own ideas have 
influenced mine I have given you due credit in my writing and in discussion of research mentoring. 

You and I became friends when my father died - the warmth and support you offered me are still 
deeply appreciated.  You hugged and listened as I struggled to some to terms with memories of 
my father dying in my arms and as I coped with the five occasions in the ensuing year when I was 
called to the nursing home where my mother lived when I was told she would not live till next day.
You and I travelled to Japan together, we co-presented at conferences and co-wrote publications.
When I prepared a thesis as a staff candidate we met on two occasions to discuss what I'd written.  
On the first you said you felt I needed to delay my viva but on the second you said my thesis was 
ready for examination. You congratulated me for having made such progress since we'd last met.

On that basis I am able to wholeheartedly endorse your claim to be enhancing the flow of both 
love at work and conviviality. However, I cannot in the light of your recent communication with me 
endorse that you are currently enhancing the flow of both love at work and conviviality and nor 
can I since I left the University of Bath to work at a neighbouring institution, Bath Spa University.

Where you offered me a reference you refused it when my new employer requested it.  Where you 
had once endorsed the quality of my thesis on your second reading you were now publicly stating 
you had never believed it was ready for examination.  You presented a paper at BERA in 2004 and 
later posted that paper to Educationline and on your own website stating that I 'drove you' from 
your office over a two year period.  You had to withdraw to use your own laptop from your home.  
The truth is very different.  I was so ill with Meniere's I was absent from Bath University for almost 
a year of the two you claim I drove you out and I had lent you my laptop when yours broke down.

Since I left Bath University mutual friends have tried all in their power to heal the rift between us. 
You have excluded me from the research community that you convene and even two years after I 
left Bath University when I invited you to coorganise a seminar with me for our BERA Sig you, your 
eventual response was cold and exclusive and so No, I cannot endorse your claims to conviviality.

I can imagine that this email will upset some of the people on this list and I apologise if it does so.  
My aim is to speak truth to power, to respond as honestly and as lovingly as I can because, Jack, I 
believe you genuinely want to be held to account and deserve more than a gratuitous endearment. 

I was raised as a Christian and though I can no longer hand on heart say I hold true to belief in the  
the whole of the Christmas nativity story I value this time of year as a representation of having the  
courage to face up to problems in preparation for a growth of life, a fresh start, a new beginning. 
For me, the Christmas story is about people struggling against the odds to give their offspring the 
very best start in life they can.  Jack, we have an opportunity to make a fresh start too. Shall we? 

With love at this very special time of year,

Sarah