My association with Tania Berlow.

You know it’s a bad sign when somebody starts putting up your old emails on the Internet... The person who has done this, goes on to say:

‘Are you refusing to take my name out of this equation because you're now labouring under the misapprehension that I repeated something you said to me 9 months ago’

Step forward, Tania Berlow of Somerset. Now it has never been a secret that I have had dealings in the past with Tania Berlow. However, Jacquie Cox has drawn attention to this recently and now Tania herself has started to publish my old emails. I know the home educating world only too well and I can see where this is leading. I recollect vividly the stories which were being circulated a few years ago that Graham Badman was related to me or a colleague or something. If I don’t act quickly now, then by next week I dare say people will be saying that Tania Berlow is my sister or wife! Before we go any further, here is the email which I sent to Tania last year, sympathising for some trouble she was having:

‘I was sorry to read about your having trouble with the police and social workers. I doubt that any father would pull a stroke of this sort, however acrimonious the divorce. I think that you are on the way to becoming even more disliked in some circles than me! It just shows how fickle home educators can be. Yesterday you were the darling of the anti-Badman crusade and today a traitor; It reminds me of the Wheel of Fortune in tarot. I hope that you are not letting this get you down too much. I was myself a little taken aback at some of the attacks which I have received over the last year or so, but these days I just find them amusing. I am sure that this will come to you to. I do not agree with you on some major points, but I have no doubt that you mean well. Good luck with everything. I am happy to ring and chat some time, but I rather suspect that you are too busy for this at the moment. Simon '‘

Now I can’t se anything objectionable about that, but Tania says that:

‘I reprint it to show others that you have no compunction in making an association to CW and myself and implying that I lack judgement, would 'fall' for someone like CW and that somehow I have sympathy with the NWO ideology’

Does anybody else put that construction upon this? The fact is, I had some contact with Tania last year, because she emailed me and asked me to telephone her. I did so and am able to report that she is every bit as verbose in her private capacity as she is when making written submissions to select committees and so on. I don’t remember that we discussed much of importance; a lot of it was personal stuff. At one point she asked me to publicise in this blog some company which was providing distance learning for home educated children, but that is the only thing I recall clearly. We also exchanged a few emails, which will also no doubt soon be surfacing.

The root of Tania’s annoyance seems to be that she thinks that I was suggesting in a recent post that she had had dealings with Christopher Warren. If I gave that impression, it was unintentional. I meant to convey that some home educators like her, Alison Sauer and Kelly Green were more likely to be taken in by rogues of that sort if they represented themselves as home educators. When she says that she had no knowledge of this man before March this year, I have no reason to doubt her word. She also desires me to say that she has no sympathy with or leanings towards New World Order theories, but there I am in a somewhat tricky position. I formed quite a different view during our telephone conversations, although I might have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

It is to be hoped that this clears up any confusion, but knowing the British home education scene, I am inclined to doubt it. I am just waiting for the Simon Webb/Tania Berlow conspiracy theories to start!