3. THREE YEARS AT CAMBRIDGE
Nowadays it is regarded as a great distinction to get to Oxford or Cambridge, and I know that I should never have got in under present conditions. In my time it was enough to pass the 'Little-go, and for one's parents to be able to afford the fees, which meant finding about £200 a year. In my case this was partly met by a legacy of £400 from a Miss Fitch, a parishioner of St John's, Tunbridge Wells. She was not very rich, as far as I know, but had this desire to help educate her vicar's son. I am sure she prayed for me too. My father was also helped a little by Mr Fremlin, so I do not think my three years at Cambridge were a drain on the family finances. [I am grateful to my father for choosing Queens' which I think he did partly because it had a reputation for economical living.]
[Only scholars lived in college for the full three years,] and My digs were at 25, Marlowe Road, near Grantchester Meadows and the University Bathing Sheds. My landlady, Mrs. Johnston was very good to me. The rooms, the front room both upstairs and downstairs, were £10 per term, and she charged me the exact cost of the breakfast dish, plus five shillings a term for cooking. Bread, butter, milk, tea, and coal, were supplied as 'commons' by the College, and also coal. I had the front room both downstairs and up, so she and her husband and two children must have been somewhat cramped. There was no bathroom—I used to bath in college—and the lavatory was outside the back door. For lunch I usually had bread and cheese and a glass of water, but on Sundays Mrs Johnston gave me a share of their dinner, for which she charged 2/-. I often had people to tea, for which I bought the cakes myself, and there was a four course dinner in hall every night. ]My regime was about average for Queens' men then, I think.]
Marlowe Road was a good ten minutes' walk from the College, and a bicycle was almost essential. I say "almost" because there were one or two men who managed without one. I am always grateful to my father for choosing Queens'. He did so at the suggestion of a Mr Rooker whom he had known as Rector of Sevenoaks, and who was them Rector of St Botolph's, Cambridge, a Queens' living.
As a fresher I had to go up for the weekend before full term began, [and this gave an opportunity for settling in before term began.] and on that first Sunday morning I went to St Botolph's. I remember the Psalm contained the words, "I will not fear what man can do unto me," and it strengthened my determination to be a courageous witness. Among other freshers at Queens' were Norman James, who became a medical missionary in Rwanda, Norman Miller who in his fourth year was President of the C.I.C.C.U., [and was to be ordained. In both cases the Crusader badge was the introduction.] Frank Casson, a quiet but very sincere Christian, who has served faithfully in a number of parishes, and George Cook who became a doctor. [All these were men who, like myself, came up from school as convinced Christians and threw in their lot with the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (universally known as the C.I.C.C.U.).] On that first Sunday I had tea with John Menzies of Corpus, who introduced me to Cecil Cullingford. I also met in the street Wilfred Robbins, a fresher at Peterhouse, whom I had met at Kandersteg and again at O.T.C. camp. He came to coffee in my digs and before we parted we prayed together, thus cementing a lifelong friendship. Wilfred came out to Warsaw to be my best man, and I regard him as one of the most consistent Christians I know. [Later I was to get to know senior Christian men in Queens', notably E. B. Bull who became a C.M.S. missionary in Africa, and L. F. E. Wilkinson (Wilkie to all his friends), whose zeal for Christ and friendly outgoing personality made him a great influence in the College. His early death when he was Principal of Oak Hill College was a very great loss to the Church on earth .]
During that first weekend there were people to see, [including the Senior Tutor, the Dean, and] especially my supervisor, Robin Laffan. He was the College Chaplain, and an anglo-catholic. He disliked Protestants, but we were quite good friends, and he wrote one of my testimonials for the Bishop of London, [and this is what he wrote (the Bishop broke all rules of confidentiality and read it out to me on two separate occasions): 'We mutually deplore each other's theological outlook, but we are good friends, and fortunately the Church of England is broad enough to contain us both'. The Bishop was highly amused. But the sequel is interesting.] Not long after that he went over to Rome, where I think he really belonged, along with his Balliol contemporary Ronald Knox. As he was married there was no question of his being re-ordained in the Roman Church.
I wrote an essay a week for Laffan for three years, [mainly on English Constitutional History] for two of those years sharing the supervision with Basil Snell, who finished up as an Archdeacon somewhere. Laffan lectured rather drily on Mediaeval Europe. More entertaining were Dr Clapham's [brilliant] lectures on Economic History of England, which he delivered to a packed lecture theatre, and Perrett's on the English Constitution after 1485 which he gave in St Catherine's dining hall. From him I learned that 'political liberty is the residuary legatee of ecclesiastical animosities'. Lectures took up only nine hours each week. Work for the weekly essay was fairly concentrated, but I deeply regret that I did not work harder at general reading. Somehow I lacked the stimulus, and I spent an awful lot of time doing other things. [I have all my life been a slow reader.]
Music was one of my activities, both the chapel choir and informal singing with Philip Duke-Baker, the Organ Scholar. I occasionally sang at concerts in the Bernard Room, and at the end of my time at Queens' I sang a couple of groups of songs at the May Concert, which were quite a hit. I realise now that I ought to have had singing lessons at some stage, and that not to do so was neglecting a gift I had been given. [But we had glorious fun, and I was brought in touch with men outside the limits of my C.I.C.C.U. friends.] I did very little in the way of sport, apart from swimming. I got into the final of the Freshers' 100 yards, and later became secretary, and then captain, of the Queens' Swimming Club. We played a little Water Polo. I joined a hockey club called the Dodos, but I ought to have played in College hockey, and thus have had a wider variety of friends. Tennis in the summer was fun, and canoeing on the river, but my main form of exercise was walking. With good friends from various colleges I spent many happy hours by the river, either on the towpath [to watch the eights] or on Grantchester Meadows [to Byron's Pool. In my first summer term all activities were interrupted by the General Strike. We were encouraged to volunteer, and I got into Gang 84, but the strike was over before we were called.
My main absorbtion was undoubtedly the C.I.C.C.U. There were very few days on which I did not go to the Daily Prayer Meeting in the Henry Martyn Hall. This was from 1.05-1.25, and consisted of a hymn, a passage of Scripture, and prayer, for which we knelt on the floor. (The Protestant crouch was not in fashion in those days!) One of the members took the meeting, and I often played for the hymn. Attendances varied from 20 to 50 or more. There were also prayer meetings in the College, sometimes every day. This was certainly the case in my first year when we met in the rooms of L.F.E. Wilkinson, and in my last year when we gathered in my rooms in the gate tower. Wilkie was the outstanding Christian leader in Queens' during my time. His death in his mid-fifties, when he was Principal of Oak Hill, was a great loss to the Church. [Among those attending were some whose names became famous: Oliver Alison, Bishop in the Sudan, and Joost de Blank, Archbishop of Cape Town. These were times of warm fellowship and earnest prayer, as well as lots of high spirits and good fun.]
The two big events of the week, both on Sunday, were the Bible Reading and the Sermon. The Bible Reading was in the Henry Martyn Hall at 12.30 (later changed to 12.15). The time was a bit short for a real Bible Study, and they tended to be devotional addresses, usually on a "Keswick" type theme. The same visiting speaker gave the Bible Reading and the [ C.I.C.C.U.] Sermon [in Holy Trinity Church at 8.30.] which was evangelistic. The Freshers' Sermon in 1925 was by Harold Earnshaw Smith, and as a result of an appeal at the end many stood up to signify decision for Christ. I doubt if there was adequate follow up, but some of the results did remain. Earnshaw Smith (nicknamed "Annie") was chaplain of Caius, and was a great power in Cambridge. When he left to become vicar of Christ Church, Brixton, his place was taken by Howard Sheldon who later was one of my predecessors at St John's, Blackheath.
C.I.C.C.U speakers tended to be Church of England clergymen, and not particularly academic ones at that I remember that following Annie Smith was had a Mr Ayerst from Holy Trinity, Hull, Bevan from St George's, Yarmouth, and S.M. Warren from Holy Trinity, Eastbourne. The membership was interdenominational, but Church of England predominated. The six-member Executive Committee, after a false start with a President who resigned after half a term, consisted of Hugh Gough, to become Archbishop of Sydney, [who remained so for two years—the first to do so, it was said, since Howard Mown (later Archbishop of Sydney)] Alan Gray who was ordained and worked with C.M.S. McCarthy who was ordained and became Master of Balliol, J.B. Tupman who was originally C. of E. but became a Baptist Pastor, L.F.E. Wilkinson, and Morton, a medical whom I scarcely knew and of whose affiliation I am ignorant. In Queens' we were nearly all C. of E., and attended Chapel pretty consistently. The Executive was the all-powerful body, and was self-perpetuating [and I accepted this without question]. However, in my first term some of the General Committee, led I think by Raymond Scantlebury, did succeed in getting a change of President. Even at a young age there could be discerned differences of outlook between the more and the less cerebral. I am thankful that in Queens' we were united [, largely through the influence of 'Wilkie'].
The Christmas vacation gave me my introduction to the new home at Tiverton. St. George's was one of three parishes in a small country town which also had every kind of nonconformist chapel you could think of. St George's was far and away the liveliest and my father's preaching helped to increase the congregations and enlarge the missionary interest. All the same, everything was on a small scale when compared with Tunbridge Wells. I sang in the choir, sometimes read lessons[, and helped in open air services]. But my chief activities were not in the actual church building. There were two almshouses, in both of which there were services on Sunday and Wednesday afternoons, and I often took these when I was at home. Then there were various Sunday evening services [in churches and halls] around Tiverton, which were taken by laymen. One was St Thomas near Halberton, where one wore robes and took a Prayer Book service. At Lurley there was a semi-liturgical service printed on a card, and at Seven Crosses there was a simple non-liturgical service. These all gave me great experience in preparing and giving addresses. ]I received no help in this, and the talks tended to be 'simple gospel' rather than 'Bible exposition' .] My best friend in Tiverton was Reggie Heat who was at Ridely, and was ordained to the curacy of Walcot in 1926. He was less definite as an evangelical than I was, but he became much more so after he came up against the real problems of people in a parish. Years later I took a mission for him in Woking and he was thoroughly behind me. I greatly lamented his early death, and was proud to succeed him as a Simeon Trustee. Apart from him my Tiverton friends were just people I played tennis or badminton with.
I cannot be certain whether it was in the Christmas or Easter vac that I returned to Tunbridge Wells to take part in a Crusader campaign. In addition to Philip Ashby, who lived there, there was Stanley Russell, who has since been a medical missionary in Burma, and whose son, Paul, is with S.A.M.S.; John Menzies, John Vincent Smith (both of Corpus) and a man named Dawkes whom I have completely lost sight of. Mr Oliver led. I stayed in my old house, St John's Vicarage, and the Bewes family were all very kind. I recall the Campaign specially for the wonderful times of prayer we had together.
In the Lent Term of 1926 there was to be a Mission to the University. The official Church of England missioner was William Temple, [then Bishop of Manchester] and the Free Churchman was Cyril Norwood [of the City Temple]. The C.I.C.C.U. agreed to come in if they could have their own missioner, and Dr. Stuart Holden, [vicar of St. Paul's, Portman Square, chairman of the Keswick Convention, and much else] was the choice. For some reason he was unable to come, and as [the well-known North of Ireland evangelist,] W. P. Nicholson was in Cambridge for some preparatory meetings for the C.I.C.C.U., he was asked to stay on and take the Mission. It was a strange choice, and while his obvious sincerity carried conviction, and some men were converted, in did not help the image of the C.I.C.C.U. in the University. Still the intensity of prayer during those days helped to raise the spiritual temperature, though the tendency for C.I.C.C.U. men to imitate Nicholson's language ]eminently suited to the Ulster ship workers among whom he had worked with marked success] was not to be applauded.
I managed to get Dick Murdoch to come along and hear him, and Gilbert Harding, [who later became famous as a broadcaster] whom I knew well in those days, also came. He did indeed join the C.I.C.C.U. for a time, and went [that summer] to [the Cambridge camp at] Keswick, but he eventually found his way into the Roman Catholic fold. [When I later met him, after he had become famous, his parting words were: 'I will remember you at High Mass on Sunday, and you think of me at your evening Communion'. In those days Holy Communion in the evening was still regarded as an evangelical party label. How different it is today!] As I went every night to hear Nicholson, I never heard William Temple at Great St Mary's, though I did hear him at the united opening meeting on the Saturday at the Guild Hall [when all three missioners had an innings. It was a historic occasion as a future Archbishop of Canterbury was in the chair, Michael Ramsey, then President of the Union]. I guess that Nicholson had more in common with Temple than either of them had with Norwood. [To my youthful judgement the latter seemed to have no gospel message, whereas Temple's word was simple and challenging. Nicholson was content to give his testimony.]
[Yet who is to say that the C.I.C.C.U. mission was not worthwhile? I am reminded that one who was converted that week was my old friend Ted Yorke.]
The Summer Term of 1926 was marred by the General Strike. We were encouraged to volunteer and I eventually got into Gang 84, but we were not called. I understood little of what the strike was about. Apart from that interruption there was work, tennis, swimming and boating, and the "Mays", i.e. preliminary exams, at the end. I managed to get through so could proceed to the Tripos. C.I.C.C.U. activities went on, but instead of Sunday evening sermons there were open air services in the Market Square. To stand in the ring, let alone to speak or give a testimony, required quite a lot of courage. I volunteered to go with a party to Shelford that year, but at other times I supported the Market Square meeting, and sometimes sang a solo. I also remember speaking at Christ's Pieces.
At home for the Long Vacation, I joined the local swimming club and got a few games of water polo. In fact my first appearance for Tiverton was as a substitute goal keeper when the proper keeper failed to turn up. I was lucky with some saves and got special mention in the local paper! I also had no difficulty in winning the men's diving competition and got a nice biscuit barrel as a prize. Reg Heath and I went off on a four day cycling tour of Dartmoor, staying at Mortonhampstead, Princetown and Teignmouth. I had a fair amount of speaking to do, and managed to get some open air meetings going, with the support of the Brethren. There was a Brethren tent mission conducted by Luther Rees, and I went along regularly. I was also getting ready for the V.P.S. Camp at Filey.
This was really a bit of a mistake. I had been invited by John Menzies to take part as a worker at the Filey C.S.S.M. Then I suddenly got a letter from John telling me that he had put me down as quartermaster in the camp, which was being run by Cecil Cullingford at Primrose Valley, two miles or so from Filey. But, he said, there will be no duties as the cook will do it all. If I had ever had experience of a big camp I should have known different. The cook turned out to be a London City Missionary who knew very little about cooking, and there was a boy to assist him. Without any preparation or experience I had to take responsibility. The coal strike was still on and supplies were very short. Whereas at well run camps the Quartermaster has no other duties, I was in charge of a tent of boys and was expected to take a leading part in the spiritual side of the camp, and to speak at C.S.S.M. sometimes as well. To make things worse, Cecil Cullingford got ill and spent half the camp in bed at the C.S.S.M. house. The situation was saved by the Adjutant, Max Gray, [a medical student who eventually went to China as a missionary] who worked like a Trojan to keep things going.
I was just nineteen at the time, and ought never to have been given such responsibility. Moreover the spiritual atmosphere of the camp was too intense to be healthy. One of our visiting speakers was Dr A.E. Richardson of the Church Army [(a Keswick man, no less)]. He gave a talk on the Second Coming and practically said that the Lord would come in 1927. If a supposedly mature Christian leader talked like that, what hope was there that we younger men would be balanced? I hope that there were no harmful results, and there may have been some good ones. Among the officers were Harry Ellison, the now famous Old Testament scholar, and his brother who did years of missionary service in China. A junior officer was Joost de Blank who became Archbishop of Cape Town, and among the boys were Cyril Tucker, to become Bishop of Argentina, and his twin brother who died young, and Gerald Knight who has done much good work in the ministry. But many mistakes were made, and I still think of my share of them with a degree of horror.
For my second year at Cambridge I remained in my digs in Marlowe Road. It was during this year that I changed my Sunday activity from Castle End Sunday School, led by E.B. Bull, to the Victoria Cinema service [in Market Square]. To this we fished gangs of young people in from the Market Square, and we had some grand services, especially when Annie Smith led or spoke. Another whose addresses were effective was E.J.H. Nash, so well known as "Bash". For some time I was the official pianist, thumping out the hymns from the orchestra pit. Sometimes we had a short open air service before we started inside at 7 p.m. All this meant that I did not get to chapel in the evenings, [for which I was sorry. On the whole the C.I.C.C.U. men in Queens' supported the chapel very well, and when the morning service was Holy Communion conducted by the President, Dr. Fitzpatrick, the congregation might be almost entirely made up of C.I.C.C.U. members There was usually a sermon in the morning, unlike today when Christian undergraduates tend to go to church in the morning and to College chapel in the evening. Another Sunday activity I got involved in was a children's class at a school in Chesterton, attended largely by children of University dons. Wilfred Robbins and I ran this together assisted by Joost de Blank and Neil Heighton of King's.] Sunday was really too full, with as many as six or seven engagements and not enough time for quiet rest. My interest in music continued, and History that year included Modern Europe and English Constitution before 1485. Of course the first year's work had to be kept fresh in the mind as well.
[All this activity, plus the regular C.I.C.C.U. meetings, both central and in College, took up time which might have been spent in academic study. In the event it was perhaps not surprising that in Part I of the history tripos I only succeeded in getting a third class. That I succeeded in going up a class in Part II may have been due to the fact that I chose a 'special period' which interested me intensely, 'The Renaissance in England' .The lecturer was the Dean of King's, Eric Milner-White, who later became Dean of York, and he fascinated me. It added interest that the central figure, Erasmus, was a Queens' man.]
I can remember a very pleasant Easter Camp in a school at Bexhill. Cecil Cullingford was Commandant and the catering was in the hands of two women missionary students. One of the officers was Dick Perfect, for whom I had a very high regard. His integrity of purpose and high standards seemed to put us all to shame. His subsequent service in Africa and in two difficult parishes testified to the kind of man he was and when he died it was natural to speak of a life burnt out for God. With all his stern self-discipline there was also a gentleness. It was said at his funeral that he was neither a social nor an ecclesiastical climber. Joost de Blank was also there, and several others who had been at Filey. It was a novelty to me to be away from home for Good Friday and Easter, and I remember especially a Good Friday service addressed by Dr Ivor Balfour who had been in Jerusalem with C.M.J.
In the summer of 1927 I was at Filey again, but with the C.S.S.M., not the Camp. Wilfred Robbins took over as Quartermaster, and Camp and Mission were run quite separately, as they should be. In addition to the C.S.S.M. workers' house, there was a house next door with a party of about ten boys to help in the donkey work, and I was put in charge of this. We had lads from St Lawrence, Wellington, Dulwich and Framlingham, Dean Close, I remember. John Menzies led the mission but left a good deal of the conducting of the services to me as he could not sing in tune. Laurie Sheath was a worker, and always gave fine talks. Several Christian families supported the mission well, including the Duncans, the Carrs, the Whitteridges and, much younger, [the Rev. and Mrs. G. W. Cooper and their three children, Kenneth, Martin, and Irene.] Mr. Cooper asked me to. On the strength of that month, Mr Cooper asked me to pick a team to take a mission in his parish, [St. John-the-Divine, Fairfield,] Liverpool, the following Easter.
In my third year I did the second part of the History Tripos. I had only got a third in Part I, but I was interested in the prospect of a special period, and also I was not very keen on doing Theology, which in those days was a bit deadening. At the meetings of the Ryle Society run by the Dean of Queens', I was introduced to the rather negative and liberal side of things, and decided to postpone Theology till later. At the same time the Ryle Society did help to settle my thoughts about such subjects as Infant Baptism. In History II I read Ancient History (a mistake for anyone not brought up in the Classics), International Law, and a special period The Renaissance in England. This introduced me to Milner White, then Dean of King's, whose lectures were fascinating. I became quite enthusiastic about Erasmus, and wrote a paper [for Laffan] to show that he was the keystone of the Renaissance arch, linking the Continent with England, and the secular with the religious aspects of the movement. [It went down well with the little group in which I read it.] Laffan was quite pleased with it.
That paper should have been written in the Christmas vac, but misfortune intervened. During a short children's mission in Tiverton, which J.B. Tupman (Tuppy) and I were taking, I became ill. What started as a chill soon turned into jaundice, and no sooner was I over the worst of that than I got some other infection. It was an altogether miserable vac. The following vac, however, provided a memorable experience: the mission at St John the Divine, Fairfield, Liverpool, which Mr Cooper had asked me to lead.. I collected a strong team, Laurie Sheath in his third year at St John's, Highbury, [an excellent preacher,] John Carpenter and Dick Perfect, both graduates of Emmanuel who were then at Ridley Hall, and Maurice Garner, a fresher from Emma who lived in the parish. For the women and girls side, there were Susan Robbins, [Wilfred's sister,] and two Honor Duncan, and two girls from the parish who were training for B.C.M.S. in Burmah. We held children's meetings in the early part of the evenings, and adult meetings later. For me it was a big undertaking as I was not yet 21, but of course it was a help to have Mr Cooper's advice and encouragement. His three children, Kenneth, Martin and Irene, were all under eleven I think. The men on the team all saw service overseas [within the next ten years]: John [Carpenter] in China, Dick [Perfect] and Maurice [Garner] in Africa, Laurie [Sheath] in India. and I myself in Poland.
I enjoyed my last year in Cambridge and my rooms in the gate tower were a rallying point for my friends. Among those who came up to Queens' that year were Wilfred Mumford, Bertie Head and Joost de Blanc, and they often came to coffee late on Sunday nights, and to daily prayer meetings during the week. Joost joined with Wilfred Robbins and myself in running a Sunday afternoon Bible Class at a little school in Chesterton. The children were mostly from dons' families and the Class had been started by Cecil Cullingford at the request of the Headmistress, a Roman Catholic. During my last year there was a mission by Graham Scroggie, who gave some fine addresses, but I do not think it was very well prepared for or followed up.
The summer term was delightful, with swimming, tennis and boating. An Ascension Day we had the History Society picnic up the river to Granchester, with delicious salmon rolls prepared by the kitchens. I was in a punt with Laffan and Gilbert Harding. The same night we had the History Society dinner, at which I sang. At the end of term I gave a dinner in my rooms for a few friends: C.R.A. linton of Tonbridge, who came up for the weekend, Bertie Head, Norman Miller, Brian Morris of Emma (now retired H.M. of Monkton Junior) and either Joost de Blank or Wilf Mumford, I can't remember which. Dinner was served from the kitchens, at a cost of 5/- per head, and I intended it as an advance celebration of my twenty-first birthday. We wore dinner jackets, and all went to the May Week Concert, at which I was singing. Linton came with me to the Open Air in Market Square at which Eric Abbott of S.C.M. spoke. It was a controversial evening, and Basil Atkinson smelled heresy, but Eric's talk was really very good and Linton was impressed by it. Kenneth Hooker was the leader of the meeting. He was C.I.C.C.U. President that year.
The C.I.C.C.U. had meant an immense amount to me, and I left Cambridge grateful for its influence and deeply aware that my contribution had been small indeed. The only office I had held was as secretary of the Cambridge Volunteer Union which consisted of about 40 C.I.C.C.U. men who had pledged themselves to missionary service overseas. Wilkie [L. F. E. Wilkinson] was missionary secretary of the C.I.C.C.U. and therefore president of the C.V.U., and I simply assisted him in arranging meetings and circulating magazines. By no means all the members eventually went overseas, but there were some outstanding names among those who did. [ Those who felt a definite call to overseas work were linked up in the Cambridge Volunteer Union. There was also the Student Volunteer Missionary Union which had originally adopted the slogan, 'the Evangelization of the World in this Generation', but it had become a broader movement, as had the Student Christian Movement with which it was linked, and most C.I.C.C.U. volunteers belonged to the C.V.U.] I had joined the C.V.U. at the end of my first term, after a series of missionary meetings in the Guild Hall, at one of which Tyndale Biscoe spoke. The final address, on the Sunday, was by Stuart McNain of E.U.S.A., and seemed to me to present a challenge which had to be answered.
[There were study circles of various parts of the world—Africa, China, India, etc.] At that time I had no specific interest in the Jews, but later I went to a study circle led by Wilkie on Romans 9, 10, and 1 1, and began to think about the subject. [Thus began my interest in Jews as a priority, and my commitment, at least in prayer, to the Church's Ministry among the Jews. Seven years were to elapse before I went overseas, but the seed was sown in that study circle.] I joined the Palestinians, the young men's branch of C.M.J. which Wilkie had pioneered, and became a regular user of the prayer cycle. As yet my missionary giving was confined to 2/6 a week in the C.I.C.C.U. box in support of Dr. Joe Church in Rwanda. His young brother, Howard, was my contemporary and a good friend. I think the missionary secretary in my last year was Norman Miller, who became President the following year. He thus succeeded Ken Hooker and was succeeded in 1929 by Hugh Evan Hopkins and in 1930 by Norman Anderson, whose Vice President was Donald Coggan. A collection of biographies of C.I.C.C.U/ Presidents would make interesting reading. Other of the Executive in my final year were Norman James, Jim Walkey, Tim Brooke, and Arnold Lee. Arnold and Leslie Lyall, both of Emma, have been pillars of the C.I.M./O.M.F.
We were not a large body of men (the women's colleges had their own separate organisation, the C.W.I.C.C.U.). But the contribution made by some members to the life of the Church has been considerable. Missionary overseas bishops like Jim Brazier and Oliver Allison come to mind, and of course of Falkner Allison, Bishop of Chelmsford and then of Winchester. (Roger and Gordon Allison were both after my time.) Others who went overseas, and with whom I overlapped at one end or the other were Cecil Bewes, Theo Benson, Max Warren, Cecil Thorne, Leonard Hickin, E.B. Bull, Douglas Sargent, to name but a few [great missionary names]. [Others who became household names in the Church were J. B. Phillips and O. K. de Berry.]
Mine was roughly the generation of the C.I.C.C.U. Jubilee which took place in 1927. At a lunch in John's Hall Stuart Holden presided, and speeches were made by Walkey (Chaplain in Chief of the R.A.F.), Ted Hayward (Headmaster of Monkton Combe and formerly a C.M.S. missionary) and Martyn Watney, a missionary doctor, as well as Mitchell Carruthers, the founder of the C.I.C.C.U. who seemed a very old man. Few senior members of the University accepted the invitation, but Laffan was there, and sat next to Watney, with whom he had been at Eton. T.R. Glover, the Public Orator, was there too, and on the spur of the moment was asked to speak, which he did well. At the Jubilee Bible Reading Barrett Kerry was the speaker, and Godfrey Buxton took part in a meeting at Holy Trinity.
A group of about fifty of us who matriculated in 1925 and 1926 formed the Cambridge Missionary Group to keep in touch with each other. Our letters were published as a magazine twice a year and it was a great inspiration to see what people were doing. Roger de Pemberton ran it at first, then Wilfred Robbins, and finally, Norman Millar. Sad to say the War put an end to it and the last number came out at the end of 1939. The years which followed were more successful and have held reunions from time to time as well as keeping up the letter writing. If I should get to the C.I.C.C.U. Centenary in 1977 perhaps I shall meet some of the old gang. [I have not been able to keep in touch with old friends as I should have liked. But I treasure the memory of those I have named, and many others beside. We were up for the C.I.C.C.U. Jubilee in 1927, and some of us met up again at the Centenary in 1977. Our pilgrimage had taken us by such different paths. But the sense of belonging together was very real. It is still Pilgrimage in Partnership.]
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