JUNE 2020 e h t TMONRTHLY PUBELICATIONA OF THE SPRESBYTEURIAN CHRURCH OF Y WALES The Centre Of His Will Is Our Only Safety For ten weeks the public has been taking part in an act of and replaced by a similar annual event. Hopefully the vital communal appreciation for the NHS at 8pm on Thursday contribution of hospital staff and care home workers will evenings. Now the initiator of the idea, Dutch national, not be forgotten once the Covid-19 crisis ends, and that Annemarie Plas who lives in south London has suggested Government and the public will ensure that key workers that the weekly Clap for Our Carers should be concluded, and carers are recognised appropriately. A few weeks ago, Jimmy Cowley, a resident of the small hamlet of Burry Green, Gower had the wonderful idea to create a ‘thank-you’ tribute to those working in the NHS. He moved the now familiar icon into the green that faces Bethesda Presbyterian Church of Wales. As Eleanor Jenkins, Secretary of the two-hundred year old Burry Green Chapel, and Editor of the Burry Green Magazine observed, ‘you can’t make the message out when you drive past – it only becomes clear when seen from above.’ It reminded her (strangely!) of Corrie ten Boom, the brave Dutch lady and her sister Betsie who hid Jewish people during the war and were imprisoned by the Nazis. Triumphantly, she flipped the kitchen and ran down to join was a jagged piece of metal, ten After the war during Corrie’s cloth over and revealed an her. She was making tea. She inches long. presentations to audiences, she extravagantly embroidered brought it into the dining room “Betsie! ” I raced down the would often hold up the back crown – symbolising our crown where we had covered the stairs with the shrapnel shard in side of a blue cloth of of eternal life. The crown was windows with heavy black paper my hand. We went back to the embroidery with hundreds of beautifully stitched with threads and set out the best cups. dining room and stared at it in tangled threads hanging down of many colours but also gold, Somewhere in the night there the light while Betsie bandaged from it. Many wondered if she silver, and pearls. “[In our lives] was an explosion; the dishes in my hand. was holding up the wrong side we see the wrong side, but God the cupboard rattled. “On your pillow,” she kept by mistake. sees His side all the time. For an hour we sipped our tea saying. “Betsie, if I hadn’t heard As she held up the messy One day we shall see the and talked, until the sound of you in the kitchen—” side of the embroidery, she embroidery from His side and planes died away and the sky But Betsie put a finger on my would ask, “Does God always thank Him for every answered was silent. I said goodnight to mouth. “Don’t say it, Corrie! grant us what we ask for in and unanswered prayer.” Betsie at the door to Tante There are no ‘ ifs ’ in God ’s world. prayers? Not always. Corrie had learned these Jans’s rooms and groped my And no places that are safer Sometimes He says, ‘ No. ’ That truths from experiences like way up the dark stairs to my than other places. The centre of is because God knows what we this . own. The fiery light was gone His will is our only safety. Oh do not know. Look at this piece One night I tossed for an hour from the sky. I felt for my bed: Corrie, let us pray that we may of embroidery. The wrong side while dogfights (war planes) there was the pillow. Then in the always know it! is chaos. But look at the raged overhead, streaking my darkness my hand closed over beautiful picture on the other patch of sky with fire. At last I something hard. Sharp too! I felt [An excerpt from The Hiding side – the right side.” heard Betsie stirring in the blood trickle along a finger. It Place ] athe Japanese weighing only a few stone, little more than a Not the Sunday Sermon skeleton. Slowly, his health by Dr Mike Ward of ill-health however, which I became the best-known school returned (barring the malaria). discovered was recurring in the world. But it was Searle’s For many years, he worked for a Back to Captain (or is that malaria. He too had fought in drawings that were the real Scottish drinks company and Colonel?) Tom Moore. It feels a Burma with the 14th Army – until impetus behind the legend. was one of those responsible bit like walking around the world he was captured by the Where had such darkness in for the idea of selling wine in 3- – no matter where you are, if Japanese. Like many in Slim’s these drawings come from? litre boxes, for which I am you go far enough, you always Forgotten Army, he never talked From Burma and from Changi eternally grateful. He loved to come back to the spot with about it. Jail, Singapore, that’s where. talk about wine. But he would Captain Tom Moore on it. Until that is, we held one of For Ronald Searle, like Callum, never talk about Japan or the those Bible studies at an Elders’ spent much of his time during Japanese people. As his Meeting that only a young and the Second World War as a minister, we had several deep recklessly over-enthusiastic prisoner of the Japanese. conversations about minister would attempt. As the Incarcerated in various camps forgiveness. I am not afraid to topic of our gospels study was and forced to work on building admit it: faced with Callum, I something to do with salvation (I the notorious Siam-Burma was out of my depth. Callum cringe when I recall it), the railway, Searle became had the same black haunted subject inevitably turned to exhausted, half-starved, and look in his eyes as the girl in my Christ’s crucifixion. Callum was close to death. Somehow, he Searle drawing. Who am I to noticeably quiet and just found the energy to draw. It talk about forgiveness? I have listened as we prattled on, each probably kept him alive. He was not come back from Burma. trying to “out-grace ” the other in Biblical knowledge and smugness. But then he suddenly interrupted: “I think I’m the only person here who has And why not? He is The Man To actually seen a man being Lift Our Spirits. Amidst all the crucified.” Stunned silence. VE Day Anniversary celebra - Follow that, minister! I will leave tions, he was interviewed by it to your imagination to flesh out Michael Ball (his co-singer in what had happened to a friend “You’ll Never Walk Alone” in of Callum’s in the prison camp. case you have just returned “Whereof we cannot speak, we from Mars and have not heard must be silent.” it). Michael Ball made sure he Just before lockdown, I had his good side facing the managed to acquire a small pen Kohima War Memorial camera, making me wonder and ink drawing for my art who the interview was about, collection from one of my known by his captors to be an At the Kohima War Cemetery him or the Captain? “Where favourite London art dealers. artist, but he kept his work as and Memorial in India which were you on VE Day?” he (Yes, I know, they pay ministers private as possible in easy-to- commemorates those who gave asked. “I had just come back too much.) It was a head-and- swallow tiny sketchbooks. In their lives in the Burma from Burma.” It was a shoulders portrait of a young girl August 1945 Searle returned to Campaign and contains the throwaway line, not picked up by the late Ronald Searle. I England with a few of his graves of many who were not as by Michael who smiled for the have always admired Searle’s drawings, which he immediately lucky as Captain Tom or Callum, camera and waited for the cue work. As a teenager, I read the worked up for publication. Out of there is a cherry tree. The to sing which thankfully never perennial Molesworth books hell, an artist had been born. original tree had been used by came. (who in our class did not agree My newly-acquired Searle the Japanese as target practice, “I had just come back from with Down with Skool: A Guide drawing of a young girl (still but after the war a branch was Burma.” Let’s pause. Do you to School Life for Tiny Pupils languishing in the Mayfair art rescued from which this tree has know what that means? No, me and Their Parents ?) and was gallery until lockdown ends and grown and blossomed. And on neither. Not really . We never introduced to the unmistakable I can collect it) is not a St the tree a plaque: “For your will. We did not fight the drawings of Ronald Searle’ s Trinian’s Girl (they do not pay tomorrow, we gave our today.” th Japanese in the Far East. In a Nigel Molesworth. And of ministers that much, sadly). But The 75 anniversary of VE Day separate documentary last course, there was St Trinian ’s it has that characteristic Searle is over. Will we forget those who week, the Captain was asked in (“Hands up the girl who burnt hallmark you see in all his were still fighting 75 years ago greater length about his down the East Wing last drawings: the pitch-black in the Far East? And can we experience with “The Forgotten night?”).