Nate, too, remembers the trips to the tunnels: “We’d have egg and paint wars through the tunnels. “At every red light or stop sign we’d swap cars – we’d all run, jump, and swap seats. ![]() ![]() Renee, who was a teenager at Centrepoint at the time, remembers Benji piling a bunch of kids in a couple of cars and taking them to the Devonport tunnels. “Going into the bush, building huts – all the children gathered around him and he was kind of charismatic in that sense.” “He was just absolutely brilliant playing with the children,” says Leslie. It could be intense, especially for the adults, and so, when Benji arrived and proved an immediate hit with the kids, many of the parents were pleased. Happier times: The Centrepoint magazine asked tough questions – What About the Children? – even if it didn’t always have the answers.įamilies, couples and individuals were among those who flocked to Centrepoint, many drawn by the group therapy it offered, as well as its atmosphere of sexual freedom. Which is perhaps why, until now, they’ve never been reported. And the way the community handled the situation says a lot about its attitudes and morality.Īfter a quick flurry of reaction, it was almost as if the events around Benji had never happened. To be clear, Benji was not taken away and killed.īut his time – and removal – from Centrepoint was certainly dramatic. “I honestly thought they’d taken him away and killed him.” “When they got rid of him, I was so happy – I was so goddamn happy,” says Nate, who was a child at Centrepoint in the 1980s. His eviction from the community was a big deal. That’s not his real name, by the way – in The Commune, Stuff’s new 12-part documentary podcast about Centrepoint, we changed it for legal reasons.īut just about everyone who was at Centrepoint during a particular moment in the late 1980s knows him, or knows about him. Which is one of the unusual things about the tale of Benji. ![]() Espite everything that happened at the notorious Centrepoint commune – all the crimes and personal feuds and fights – few people, it seems, got kicked out of the place.
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