4. BERMONDSEY — MY FIRST JOB
Immediately after the end of term in June 1928 I went to Liverpool to stay a few days with the Coopers and to preach at the Sunday School Anniversary at St John's. Mr Cooper had advertised me as B.A., an act of faith! Results were to be out on the Saturday and I had asked Duke-Baker to send me a wire. All that morning I waited and in the end did not get the telegram till we returned from a parish picnic in the evening. It read: "Hearty congratulations two two." Even a lower second was not too bad for such an indifferent scholar, and I was grateful. On the Sunday I preached morning, afternoon and evening, and again in the open air. It was more than a youth should have been asked to do, and I know the evening sermon was not well prepared. I left Liverpool that night and after a tiresome journey arrived in Cambridge for the degree breakfast. The President of Queens', Dr Fitzpatrick, was Vice-Chancellor, and it was pleasant to be admitted a Bachelor of Arts by him [, some weeks before my twenty-first birthday. so becoming what my father described as a 'babe B.A.']. I suppose I went back to Tiverton next day, but a few items of furniture went by lorry to Bermondsey where I was to live at the Cambridge University Mission for the next year. [On the general lines of the University 'Settlement', it had been started by 'Pa' Salmon on very definite evangelical and evangelistic principles The boys' club, and on a smaller scale the girls' club, had become a witness to the power of the gospel in that rather drab part of South-east London Successive generations of C.I.C.C.U. men had found an inspiration in serving there, or in visiting for a few days in the vacation.]
I had originally intended to go on to Ridley Hall, and the Principal encouraged me to spend a year doing something else before going. Some time in my third year at Queen's I got the idea of going to St John's, Highbury instead, and applied and was accepted. I still wanted to go to Bermondsey for a year and this was agreed. I had been down to the C.U.M. on a number of occasions, the first time for a weekend with Ted Yorke at a time when there was no Head of the Mission and men went down in twos to help out. I well remember the cold, damp, foggy weekend when I caught a horrid cold. On a later visit, when C.R.L. Beecher had been appointed Head, I mentioned casually that if I got a teaching job for a year in London I would like to live at the C.U.M. He there and then proposed that I go and work there full time at a salary of £100 a year! ['If we offer you a job here, will you come?'] It seemed a great opportunity and after careful thought I accepted, to start in September. [I have never regretted it. I was young and inexperienced, and needed to earn something towards my further training, and Beecher was able to offer me £100 per annum plus my keep.]
In preparation it seemed good to go to the senior camp [at Brightstone] in the Isle of Wight, at the end of July. I could not stay on for Junior Camp as I was booked to run the C.S.S.M. at Filey [John Menzies having by this time gone to Cairo to serve with the Nile Mission Press]. Senior Camp was not an easy introduction to the work, as some of the lads were quite adult working men, and some were a bit hardened through constant spiritual pressure in the C.U.M. There were of course some fine Christians among them. The officers were nearly all Cambridge men and there was quite a good spirit between them and the Bermondsey boys, though nowadays it might be regarded as a bit paternalistic. I think Keith de Berry was with us that year and he had a cine camera which was quite a novelty. He may still have a film of me bowling at a cricket match against the village. [I was never much of a player, but somehow managed to intimidate the batsmen] I took five wickets with my wily slows, [but less diffident batsmen would have hit nearly every ball for six!] and on another occasion was delighted to bowl out Beecher who fancied himself as a batsman! I think Frank West, now Bishop of Taunton, was also with us that year.
While at camp I heard from Mrs Robbins, who was to come to Filey as House Mother, that for some emergency reason she could not come. I stayed back from the camp outing to consider what to do, but all was well as Mrs Robbins found for us a Miss Bishop who, though young for the position, was a mature person and well able to look after us. I stayed at the Robbins on the way to Filey and was entrusted with the engagement ring for Susan Robbins who was leading the girls' work. I suppose it had been to the jewellers for attention and her fiancee was anxious for her to get it safely. Susan had quite a strong party of lady workers, about 6 or 7, and there must have been about 10 men. Laurie Sheath was the only one who was older than I and I relied on him a good deal. [It was a great help to have the Coopers there again, and I printed his name on the programme as Chaplain to add a little dignity!]
[Filey was a good place for a C.S.S.M., with great stretches of sand making it a children's paradise. We had good numbers at the services and good results in boys and girls joining the Scripture Union. While addresses were undoubtedly evangelistic. I do not think undue pressure was brought to bear on the children. I believe in the reality of child conversion, but as a result of the working of the Holy Spirit, not of emotional appeals.]
We had a splendid house in The Crescent and the mission went well, though without a great many professions of conversion. At any rate there was no hothouse atmosphere, which was a good thing. Cullingford's Camp had moved from Filey to North Wales, and the Crusaders had come to the Primrose Valley site. We saw little of them, but there was a girls' camp in a school at Primrose Valley, run by Miss Birney, and they came to all the beach services.
Maurice Garner shared a room with Laurie Sheath and me. It was early in the mission that he spotted Zillah Wheeler, an officer at the camp, and fell madly in love. Poor Maurice was in torment thinking that he should have been thinking of higher things during the mission! [The old jibe that C.S.S.M. stood for 'Come Singles Soon Married' was not in my experience very often true, though it was to be expected that occasionally friendships would blossom]. Some of the workers had been with me the year before in the junior workers' house party [(The missionary emphasis was quite strong)]: Raymond Joyce who [later] went [out with the C.I.M. to what was then Chinese Turkestan] , Central Asia, Eric Blanchettt and others. [Another, Walter Barr Johnston, went as a medical missionary to Burma.]
At the Reports Meeting at the Central Hall in London in September I was one of those to report [, and I had to speak about Filey]. It was the first time I had spoken to a crowd of over 2,000. After Filey I joined my parents for the end of their holiday at Eastbourne and saw a little of the C.S.S.M. there. It was bigger than Filey, but seemed to lack something. On the Sundays at Eastbourne I went to hear S.M. Warren at Holy Trinity. Truly there were giants in those days.
I took up residence at the C.U.M. a few days before it reopened about mid-September. My work was to be assistant to Beecher [in the general work of the club], and to run the junior section of the club as 'scoutmaster'. [I put this word in inverted commas because] we had a very good troop of scouts, but were quite independent of the Baden Powell movement. By what right we were called scouts I do not know. We had all the same things: patrol leaders and seconds, tenderfoot tests, badges, the lot, but we had a scout aim instead of a scout law. The first aim was 'To find the path to the Saviour' and the second was 'To show others the path.' [Any boy joining the club under 14 went straight into the scouts and was encouraged to save up for a uniform. Boys over 14 could stay on in the scouts if they were needed as Patrol Leaders or Seconds.] We wore light grey shorts and shirts, and pale blue scarves. We had a good band, both flutes and bugles.
The whole object was unashamedly evangelistic, [and it paid spiritual dividends] My assistant scoutmaster was Solly Adamsbaum, a magnificent Hebrew Christian whose father kept a tailor's shop across the road. [Solly had been truly converted as a lad, and had lived down the persecution which this brought at home.] He was a born leader and I wish he had been given bigger opportunities in Jewish work since. My ten patrol leaders were all converted lads and most of them took their turn speaking at prayers which invariably terminated the evening. The Sunday afternoon class was a great occasion.
It was a proud day for me when I took the entire troop to the Albert Hall for the Jubilee of the Scripture Union. [We went part of the way by underground, and gave the boys tea at an A.B.C.] As we marched up Queen's Gate with the band in full swing the police held up the traffic for us. Coming away from the meeting we struck up 'Onward Christian Soldiers', and were delighted to get honourable mention in the C.S.S.M. magazine. I used to play the flute in the band sometimes. They were very simple instruments without many keys, and the occasional accidentals were made by covering half the hole. For church parade on Sundays we always played only hymns.
When the junior part of the club was finished, about seven o'clock, the seniors came in. The biggest attraction for all sections and ages was indoor football in the "top hall," a not very large area with narrow goal posts each end and windows covered with stout wire guards. There was also table tennis, billiards, and a room for quiet games. Senior prayers were at 9.30 and by the time everyone had gone it was often 10. It was a strenuous life, doing odd jobs in the morning, visiting in the afternoons, and club from 5 - 10.
So successful was the uncompromising evangelistic approach that a good many of the lads were committed Christians and met in smaller groups for Bible study. My group was called the New Bereans and numbered about ten. We studied St John's Gospel, Ezra, and I Corinthians during the year. Graham Scroggie and Campbell Morgan were my guides in preparation. On Wednesday evening we had what was called the Wednesday Meeting, a devotional or missionary meeting for which we combined with the Girls' Club. We mustered 50 or 60, and had some good meetings with fine speakers.
Saturday was always busy. I superintended junior football in Southwark Park in the morning. In the afternoon I played in goal for the 2nd XI. This entailed a journey to the splendid sports ground we had at Eltham, or an even longer journey to an "away" match. Once we played on Blackheath in ghastly weather and I felt sure I should catch pneumonia, but I didn't. Another day we went to Wormwood Scrubs where there were so many pitches over a vast area that we never found our opponents! Saturday night the club opened as usual and by the end of the day I was ready for bed. Some of the seniors would go out on Saturday evenings and hold and open air meeting in the market at Spa Road. I should say there were at least twenty who would give a brief talk when called upon.
Sunday was also a full day. At first we went to Bermondsey Parish Church for 8 and 11, but when a lot of the boys (and girls) left to go to the Baptist Church we conceived the idea of holding a C of E service at the Mission to try and unite everyone. It did not have this effect, and I now consider it was a great mistake. The Rector thought so from the first! Sunday afternoon there were the Bible Classes. We used to have about 50 or 60 at the Scouts, and a good number at the Seniors. They were great times of gospel preaching. Some of the scouts stayed to tea each week, by patrols I think. Then we went to church, and after that there was a lantern service in the winter or an open air meeting in the summer. It was my job to arrange the lantern services, ordering and fetching the slides each week from a Methodist shop at Ludgate Circus, and arranging the speakers. We often had the top hall packed, and people stayed behind to receive help.
Beecher and I were the only full time workers, with Miss Gill and Miss Crowe running the smaller Girls' Club in another street. But there were several men who lived at the Mission and helped in their spare time. Such were Gurney, a medical whom I had known at Queens', and Raymond Joyce who was getting business experience before training for work with the C.I.M. He eventually landed up at Uruntsi in the Gobi Desert. We often had Cambridge men staying for longer or shorter times. They also came as officers to the camps. Easter Camp in Epping Forest was by invitation, limited to boys who were truly Christians. There was lots of fun, but the meetings were quite solid teaching. There was usually one Cambridge man to each tent, though some of the Bermondsey fellows were every bit as advanced spiritually as any of the C.I.C.C.U. men. I think of Bill Parsons who later became a Baptist minister of outstanding quality. Whitsun Camp, at Riddlesdown [near Purley] in Surrey, was for the scouts, and the P.L.s were tent officers. In my year we had Tony Kimpton as speaker, and the following year, when I also attended, Captain Mc Cormack. I remember Tony having a talk with Charlie Cope, then about 13, and later to become a trusted leader at St John's, Blackheath.
Summer Camp was [a fortnight] in the Isle of Wight again, and I was there for the whole month, returning in the middle to organise the travel arrangements for the Scouts. [Not many of the boys would have any family holiday. The combination of fresh air and good food did wonders physically, as the opportunities in Camp Prayers and Quiet Times in the tents did spiritually.] At that camp a boy named Bob Jones came to Christ and about thirty years later [I had a letter from a lay reader in the Church in Wales who had seen my name in a church paper. He wanted to know if I was the same Martin Parsons who had led him to Christ at the scout camp in 1929. I had forgotten the incident.]
Beecher was a t both camps, too. He never quite got on the wavelength with the boys, and was sometimes a trial to the residents, too. I think he was disappointed in the work, and eventually left with some ill feeling. In subsequent ministry in parishes he did not seem to fit in well. Some people seem to be like that and it is hard to understand. At the time I got on quite well with him, but I see now that it was not a terribly happy relationship.
On my day off, which I think was Tuesday, I used to go down to Sidcup to play golf. I joined the club as a five-day member for £4. But I seldom had anyone to play with and it was rather miserable going round alone. Sometimes I would play with Beecher. I had had some lessons when I was about 14, but ought really to have taken some more. Occasionally on a Tuesday evening I would visit friends, or go to a concert. I really needed someone to take a pastoral interest in me, and certainly Beecher did not do that. But I am thankful for my year at C.U.M. and my link with it afterwards. After my year, Arnold Lea of Emma went down. He became Field Director of O.M.F. Then followed Oliver Allison, later to become Bishop in the Sudan. And Wilfred Mumford lived at the Club while a medical student, becoming closely associated with it for a lifetime while he worked sacrificially for the people of Bermondsey. Those were good days. Spiritually a great power in the work was Miss Gill. When she retired she returned to Ireland, and I was able to see her several times before she died. She had a deep and simple faith in the Lord Jesus, who was just a very real and living Person to her, in life and in death.
[It is good to know that the work of C.U.M. goes on. In new buildings, the boys' and girls' clubs now close together, and in a very different Bermondsey, there is still a bright witness to the power of the gospel.
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