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Tim Guest’s mother spoke of how she had believed that the community would be a better parent than she could be. But according to Tim, he felt he spent his ‘whole life on tiptoes, looking for my mother in a darkening crowd’.

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Occasionally, I trawl a website set up for those who lived at Medina. It is not up to date. My father’s entry fails to say that he died 10 years ago of alcoholism. But there are blurred photos of the kids who lived there, and many of them I remember. I study these pictures and the rushed, misspelt notes beside their faces. On the first page, I am shocked to read: She died in 1997, after a long battle with drugs. I scroll down: He died of AIDS in London in 1994. I scroll down: Unknown. Unknown. Unknown.

There was a Facebook page dedicated to a young woman who had attempted to reverse her sterilisation, done at Pune, aged just 19. Years later, she’d fallen in love and wanted to have a baby. She was 33, the same age I was when I saw the posting and had my first child. It is a much more straightforward procedure for a man to reverse a vasectomy than for a woman to reverse sterilisation. The young woman had died.

I have since had conversations with some of those who were raised at Medina, and there is a quiet mention of abuse that took place at the commune school, by one of the teachers; but there is also suspicion at my questions, a shake of the head at further enquiries, and a reminder of my position on the peripheries. This is not my story to tell. I have walked away with a sense that many of these children were not all right; the lucky few, perhaps, had parents in high standing in the community, which was often equated with money; this acted as their protection. I’m also aware that it isn’t easy to reject such a profound and intensely felt part of your life, particularly not when it’s all that you know.

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Bepler said she found the Rajneesh scene "creepy."

"There were lots of open sexual experiences and lots of chaos," she said. "Boundaries were crossed."

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I wonder if anything was ever set up to support children / young people in coming out once it all got shut down?

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I think if Sheela had not been so offensive, and we hadn’t invaded and taken over the town of Antelope, it could’ve been more successful at least in the context of having less outside pressure. But like I said, the land is not supposed to be used as a town.