by Fleur Beale
After Faith and Alan’s departure, Neville was able to almost totally isolate his community from the outside world. All his followers now lived on site in the purpose-built accommodation blocks in a community in which Neville’s word was law and he the absolute ruler.
Phil dealt with his father’s rule by keeping his head down to achieve his goal of being the hardest worker. He was the one who ran the dishwasher at community meals; he got up early to help hand-milk the 15 cows; he looked for opportunities to help anyone in need. When he heard that the doctor who served the community lived in an old house with a ramshackle kitchen, he gathered up a couple of the boys and the three of them rebuilt and refitted the kitchen at no cost to the doctor.
He went back to the community’s high school to act as a role model for some of the teenage boys who were restless and struggling under Neville’s rule. He was the bad guy made good, the one they could look up to. He soon discovered that getting up early to milk had an unexpected bonus. Sandra Benjamin was often rostered on cheese-making duty so that when he carried the buckets of milk to the dairy he was able to snatch a few forbidden minutes to chat to her.
Neville was still evangelising at this stage and would send vanloads of the young people into Christchurch to witness to their faith in Cathedral Square. Neville controlled the seating in the vans, lining everyone up and assigning them places. Phil soon worked out how to get his own way about who to sit with. He’d lurk out of sight, and as soon as he saw Sandy Benjamin or Erica, another girl he liked, about to board a van he’d rush up. ‘Here I am, Dad.’ Neville would tell him to get in.
On the 45-minute drive into Christchurch, Phil would pretend to go to sleep and Sandy would take his head and lean it against her shoulder. He had to work hard to keep the smile off his face, but he also knew that she was a motherly girl who regarded him as a kid.
He loved witnessing to the public. He was the reprobate made good and he was going to bring enlightenment to the world, telling everyone how Jesus had turned his life around. He was charged up and full of adrenalin for the mighty task before him. Often he got heckled. One day he answered back, shouting out to a man, ‘And you’re just like your father, the devil!’
The man flattened him with a punch that broke his nose. Phil went home that night feeling heroic. He’d taken a punch for Jesus; he was a martyr who had spilt his blood for the cause.
It wasn’t the only time he broke his nose. He loved Sundays because of the afternoon soccer games. He was the most competitive player. A friendly match where the outcome didn’t matter wasn’t his style. He went into each game determined to win. He got into arguments over his play and had to show up at many men’s meetings where his aggressive competitiveness was deplored. It’s only a game, they told him. He didn’t care, just as he didn’t care about his injuries. The game where his nose ended up squashed sideways across his face was a highlight because the community asked Sandy to take him to the hospital in Christchurch to get it fixed. He felt no pain at all during the journey.
He got involved with every aspect of community life, dreaming up new ideas and making them happen. He and his older brother Mark decided to put on a special dinner for the married couples. The meal was elaborate, as were the decorations which included a model plane they built as the centrepiece of the dining hall.
Neville had broken him and Phil’s response was to remake himself in his father’s image. He was so successful that after only a year he was considered the perfect son. Neville spoke of him to others with pride, and began to give him increasing responsibility. The prodigal had returned.
Soon after his eighteenth birthday in 1980, Sandy Benjamin filled Phil’s thoughts and dreams more than ever, but the rules prohibited young people spending time alone together until Neville gave them permission to do so, although Phil became adept at finding opportunities. The young couple were virgins and their naïvely innocent courtship led to a problem for Phil in that his testicles became tight and sore. He went to his father to talk to him about Sandy and to ask if Neville would give him permission to court her. Neville questioned him: Why did he think Sandy was the woman he wanted to marry and how long had he thought so? He asked Phil how he felt about the prospect of marriage, which gave Phil the opportunity to mutter that his testicles were sore and he was worried about it.
Neville was reassuring, telling him that it wasn’t unusual and wouldn’t be a problem once he was married. He asked Phil to show him. Phil complied, but was utterly shocked when his father masturbated him.
In hindsight he can see what should have happened: ‘He should have told me to do it myself. I’ve got two hands and it wasn’t as if I didn’t know how. I think he did it to some of my brothers, too, but they won’t talk about it, or they can’t. I knew I should have stopped it, but part of me was thinking, This is my dad, my leader. Instead, I shut it out – pretended it hadn’t happened.’
He knew there was no excuse for what his father did, but he also knew that the price of objecting was the withdrawal of his father’s love and of losing Sandy as well, because his father would never give permission to one who challenged him. And how could Phil object? This was the man everyone looked up to, the one God spoke through. The only thing to do was to shut out what Neville had done to him and keep quiet about it.
Two weeks after the incident, Phil asked his dad if he could marry Sandy. Neville consented to talk to Sandy on Phil’s behalf, and after doing so gave his son permission to ask her, even though he’d refused to let another son marry her. Phil believes now that his father gave him permission because he knew Phil couldn’t be contained and suspected he’d run away again if he refused to give his consent. Phil had always been the son who got into the most trouble and received the most beatings. Neville knew exactly how far he could push him.
Phil was 18 and a half and Sandy was 21. She refused him, telling both Neville and her own father, ‘He’s got to grow up yet.’ But she also told Phil to ask her again in six months. He couldn’t wait that long, asking her again in four months. They were married according to the law in New Zealand in 1981 a few days after Phil’s nineteenth birthday. Currently in the community, couples do not marry under the law, but are married by the church in the sight of God. They make a public pledge to each other, then go to a specially prepared room to consummate the union. This done, they come out to celebrate with the community which now considers them to be a married couple.
The newly weds were given a single room in one of the dormitories to begin their life together. Phil’s determination to be the hardest worker, and the best community member, didn’t diminish with his marriage. Sandy loved the energy he created and was proud of his involvement in community life. She also worked hard, getting up early to work in the dairy and volunteering to do extra duties wherever she saw the need. As a couple they were esteemed for their diligence and generosity.
Phil became the woodwork teacher at the school, working with boys who were often just as restless as he had been. He became their mentor and their role model, organising them into an after-school work group, making wooden toys to sell and ploughing the money back into the school. Neville was pleased on two counts: firstly, Phil was solving the problem of how to keep the boys in line, and secondly, he was generating much-needed cash for the school.
Waterbeds had just come onto the market and when Phil heard about this new type of bed he examined one in detail. He saw that they would be easy to make and would bring in more money than the toys had been making. The first few sold quickly, and the whole enterprise just took off. Within six months it grew from a school project into the community business. Neville would say, ‘Can you take this any further, Phil?’ So Phil did, and had everyone in the community working for him. His father would come to him and ask, ‘How many beds do we need to get out today, Phil?’
Phil was the apple of his father’s eye. It was a turning point for him; at last he was in control of something and it gave him a freedom he’d never had. Neville saw the abil
ity in him and played on it, but even that didn’t detract from Phil’s sense of independence over at least one area of his life.
Neville controlled everything else, including Phil’s marriage. Some months after the wedding he invited the young couple to share a nice meal with him and Gloria in their room in the farmhouse. Phil and Sandy had heard from other young couples what such an invitation meant: Neville would undress the wife while the husband had to lie on the bed with Gloria. The only comfort was in knowing that he didn’t actually have intercourse with the young woman. Phil and Sandy couldn’t refuse: Neville was the father and the leader, which put huge psychological pressure on them to obey his commands. Phil felt utterly powerless to protect his young wife: ‘Your father undresses your wife. What woman could handle that? I’m lying there and I just want to get up and walk out. My dad well and truly violated my wife – he robbed her of her dignity way back then. He had his hands all over her body; he owned her. I just wanted it to be over. I’d ask myself, is this a nightmare? Please just let it be over.’
Each time the invitation came, they would try to think of excuses but knew they had no choice. Phil would kill himself inside because that was the only way he could deal with it: don’t think, don’t feel any emotion, just endure till it finishes. It was a reprise of the masturbation incident and Phil dealt with it in the same manner, by shutting it away and not thinking about it. He didn’t know what Sandy thought about it because the couple never discussed it. They would just glance at each other, a signal to say, let’s get out of here as soon as possible. Such incidents occurred eight or ten times, then stopped, perhaps because Sandy’s body changed as a result of child-bearing, or because Phil got so busy that he was never around. Gradually, he and Sandy had slipped out of his father’s inner circle.
Such violations were part of Neville’s campaign to make young couples less uptight about sex, but for Phil, there was no justification for them. As far as he was concerned, it was rape of the mind. Others who have left say that Neville breaks down the marriage relationship; he usurps the husband’s role. It appears that for Neville it was something of a crusade to make sex a natural part of life rather than have it hidden and furtive. Apparently he set himself up as the authority on sexual fulfilment and saw it as his duty to bring sexual enlightenment to his followers. He believed that sexuality should be discussed openly and freely, and was nothing to be ashamed of.
Looking back now, Phil can see the damage his father inflicted. ‘That’s why it’s about me and Dad – more than most people will realise. If that hadn’t happened to Sandy, she’d still be with me today. It broke her spirit. Dad took the husband’s role out of my hands. He got off on that and then had sex with Mum. She had to be there the whole time. He used my life as a tool – maybe he was struggling sexually. I’m sure he watched porn. Sometimes the door to the TV room would be shut and locked.’
Neville had always been a powerful figure, but in Phil’s early childhood, he had been a model of propriety in terms of personal modesty. The children never saw either of their parents naked, even to the extent of Gloria always turning away when she was breastfeeding. Things changed radically; Neville justified what he was doing sexually and came to believe that it was right. It was cumulative, starting with couples coming to him with their problems. If doctors advised on sex problems, then Neville felt he had the right to do the same because he was the spiritual leader. He didn’t actively encourage couples to come to him with sexual problems but gradually his ‘counselling’ got more extreme as it appeared he convinced himself that each step he took was right.
It evolved over a year to the stage where he’d get couples into the big room; they’d put blankets on the floor and each couple had to make love. There were objections and he’d back off, but he’d slowly convince himself and those around him that it was the right thing to do. At some point Neville’s possibly genuine desire to help couples struggling with their sexual relationship tipped over to become an exercise in self-gratification that went unchallenged by those who could have intervened.
The conflict between his demands for absolute modesty of dress, and the immodesty of his behaviour, didn’t seem to occur to him. The teenage girls were ‘invited’ to join Neville and some of the men in the spa pool, with everybody naked and a pornographic movie projected onto the wall. It was an invitation the girls dreaded. Again, those closest to Neville who could have stopped it chose not to.
Her husband’s sexual activities must have seared Gloria to her soul. But Neville had married her when she was 16 and, in Phil’s words, turned her into a baby factory. Her husband claimed to have taught her everything she knew and her only fault in the eyes of her children was that she never stood up to him. One of her grandchildren remembers her as a very quiet person who always looked sad. She was a figurehead with no power, who sat beside her husband every mealtime and nodded mutely when he’d turn to her saying, ‘Isn’t that so, Gloria?’
The sexualised environment Neville created was a major factor in causing people to leave, and outside the community Faith was picking up the pieces of lives broken by Neville. She believes her father has to be held accountable for his actions, as do those elders who, if they’d held their ground, would have had the power to stop him but chose instead to support his activities.
Judah Benjamin, Sandy’s father, left in 1983 with his 18-year-old daughter Yvette. In a documentary made shortly before his death, he speaks from his hospital room of Neville being a devil incarnate. Judah freely admits to joining in the spa pool sessions, and to participating in the occasions when couples went to the big room and made love under their blankets. Pornography was available to any of the men who wanted it. Judah can’t believe, looking back, that he was part of all that. Although he still believed in the values of modesty and Christian respect for others, he got to the point where he accepted as normal the sexual activities of the community, although he drew the line at watching porn. He doesn’t explain what finally led him to walk away with nothing, leaving behind his wife, three other children, and his grandchildren. It could have been in order to support Yvette whose own suffering at Neville’s hands had been harrowing.
Her husband’s determined departure broke Naomi’s heart. She wasn’t aware at the time of the severe abuse Yvette had suffered because her daughter had been forbidden by Neville to speak of it. She did know that when Judah left, she wouldn’t be allowed to see him or speak to him again. Those were the rules. It was a choice between staying and remaining part of her family still in the community, or leaving and losing them forever. She would stay.
Faith and Alan had left because they couldn’t change what was happening, and to stay would have been to condone it. Faith was horrified by the way the young ones leaving the community spoke about sex. Their talk was frank and extremely crude, making them targets for trouble if they got in with the wrong crowd.
Phil didn’t see leaving as an option, so he dealt with it all by immersing himself in work. The dinners he and his brother Mark put on gradually evolved, with the productions that were part of the dining experience becoming more and more elaborate. Phil masterminded and produced each event. For him, these concerts became the happiest times of his early years. He loved the whole experience, which was a great release from the monotonous daily life of the community. Those working on the productions were allowed to take a week off to concentrate on them, and Phil would work till two in the morning, going over every detail, coordinating everything, training his helpers, and making sure the whole thing would be perfect.
He involved Sandy in every concert, putting her right in the front for the singing and pushing her into the limelight. She thrived on the excitement and the opportunity to bring pleasure to others through the performance. Bringing happiness to others was much more important to her than being noticed. The selflessness of her personality was very attractive to Phil.
The hierarchy sanctioned the concerts, even allowing Phil to buy make-up and fabric for costumes. He dev
eloped a costume room in a community where the women always wore long blue dresses and the men blue shirts and black trousers. For the younger members, this was the only chance they would ever have to dress up, to be someone different.
But every show led to run-ins with Neville. Phil remembers one incident vividly: ‘I was production manager, did the lighting, controlled the shots. Dad’s sitting there watching a rehearsal, up the front: “Turn the lights up. It’s too dark.”
‘Nothing happened. I’m like, I’m running this show.
‘He walks up the back. “I said turn the lights up. It’s too dark.”
‘I said, “Dad, it’s a production.”
‘He goes, “I said, turn the lights up.”
‘Next minute there were four or five of the men there: “Come out the back.”
‘So I walked back and turned all the lights up full and said, “There you are.”
‘I was over it. I was creating the mood and all he wanted to do was control it. For me, I lived it – I was involved in it. But for him it was just, “Can’t see.”’
Phil felt true to himself while he was working on the productions. This was who he was, what he loved doing. It was the excitement of leading a team, of having things always happening, and of learning to manage it all.
CHAPTER FOUR: JUGGLING FAMILY AND BUSINESS
Believing in something is an act of will, and the things you believe will determine the way you act.
LIFE IN COMMON: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE GLORIAVALE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY P. 4
(the community’s pamphlet for visitors)
Neville might have allowed Phil limited freedom over the productions, but in all other aspects of life his control was tightening. He now required parents to give their children religiously appropriate names, or those that expressed virtues, values, or that would inspire them. Phil and Sandy’s first child was born in February 1982 when Phil was just 19, and he felt the potency of having fathered a son. He adored the baby and named him Israel, not, as Neville thought, because of the biblical reference, but for a cartoon character he’d liked when he was living in Australia. Sandy had begun to fulfil her destiny as the mother of future community members and her baby received all the loving motherliness of her character. Each in their own way, she and Phil loved being parents. For Sandy, a child was the greatest gift God could bestow on her, while Phil didn’t credit God so much as he took pride in his own fatherhood.
