My name is Ed Bentham, the person slandered in the above emails. I have given the best part of forty years to providing low cost opportunities to tens of thousands of young people enabling them to gain extraordinary experience volunteering abroad on projects all over the world. I have done this on a purely voluntary basis alongside my teaching work.
The four people above were never on an AWF volunteer project but, rather, on a newly formed Marine Habitat Survey programme designed to give students with an interest in marine conservation/ biology a low cost access to quality dive training and experience. As part of the programme they were able to join the whale and dolphin research programme for the four weeks (£500 inclusive accommodation and food), undertake professional dive courses and dives (£750) and contribute to the cost of ongoing research into threatened habitats (£250 of an annual bill of several thousands of pounds). Each, for their own individual issues did not take up the amazing opportunities presented to them- two spoilt brats, one individual practically social dysfunctional and the fourth in need of serious psychological support, although reading through her mother’s various rantings it is not hard to see where her problems come from.
They have not a moral let alone legal leg to stand upon between them and have each been advised to further their claims through the small claims court- a simple and cheap way to affect legal redress. They have decided instead to mount a vicious and co-ordinated campaign of slander and abuse presumably to try and embarrass the Foundation into reimbursing them. We will not kotow to this kind of low, disgraceful behaviour- no matter what the cost.
When I left school at the end of the 60’s, I had in mind like so many working class kids a job in a factory or perhaps a shop. As it was I ended up in an accounting firm, book-keeping- I could add up columns of pounds, shillings and pence in rows of three just by glancing down the page BUT I was so bored. I still have nightmares of the second hand of the office clock ticking down excruciatingly slowly to 5.00pm. The then Labour government gave me and millions of other working class kids free university education – I was paid to go down to London and came top in everything that I did. It changed my life and that of my children and it changed our country. What is happening now in higher education is a tragedy.
They were heady times- student riots in Paris, anti (Vietnam) war and CND protests, young people chained to the railings outside of the South African embassy demanding the release of some bloke called Nelson Mandella; the music of Joan Baez, Edwin Star, Johnny Cash and Bob Dillon- listen to Dillon’s ‘Blowing in the Wind’ after watching Mississippi Burning – young white kids being brutally murdered for daring to stand shoulder to shoulder with black people marching for their freedom- understand the meaning of the words and feel the passion of the times.
The AWF offers low cost volunteering opportunities because I feel a debt to the country that gave me such an amazing opportunity all those years ago. Does the above slander affect my cause? No! there are always one or two imbeciles every year who whinge and complain, it’s the way of the world. If you are reading this then you have a choice- either go to the dark side and get sucked into the mire or come into the light. The AWF offers low cost opportunities to give of yourselves for the common good on great projects all over the world; the dive programme alluded to by the above is simply fabulous- in conception, design and delivery. If you want further information please contact me on [Removed]