David:
Thank you for this thoughtful and well deserved email.
I have to bring to your attention though that Brian Dempsey is alive and well, currently residing in Zutphen, the Netherlands.
He ran the Emilie Hoeve in the Hague, the Netherlands after attending Phoenix House London and was my mentor when I was a resident there from 1973 thru 1976.
Since then we have stayed in close contact and I just informed him of his death, of which he was not aware but remarked none-the-less that ‘The rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated’.
I copied him in this email and am certain he would love to hear from those he knew so long ago…
Kind regards
Hotse Langeraar
From: Therapeutic Communities [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Warren-Holland
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 9:39 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [EFTC] A Memorial to some Therapeutic Community Pioneers
On attending the 13th European Federation Conference in Oxford in 2011, I was privileged to meet again some of the early staff involved in setting up the early ‘Concept’ Therapeutic Communities in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies.
As we shared experiences it became apparent that there were a small number of graduate staff who had made a significant contribution to the growth and development of TC’s, but had died quite young. We felt that they should be remembered in some way.
The graduates from UK and Ireland are listed below, there may be others. I e-mailed Rowdy off list and he said he would be happy to add a collective one to the EFTC memorial page for the staff mentioned.
He said that there may be additional names suggested from other members of the EFTC discussion list, these could be then be added to the EFTC memorial
page from anyone who knew them.
John McCabe - Graduate of Phoenix House NY
Brain Donellan - Graduate of the Ley Community
Phoenix House London
Brian Delaney & Jackie Ballard - Involved in the setting up of Coolmine Therapeutic Community, Ireland.
Brian Dempsey - Involved in the setting up of Emiliehoeve Therapeutic Community in the Hague.
Susan Grandfield- worked on staff at both Phoenix House London, and the Cranston Project
