700119
SUNDAY 18th JANUARY 1970
The Fast Lady
It is 11.10pm on Sunday evening. I spent last evening reading and studying and we came home about 10.00pm for an early night in bed. This morning I spent four hours just dealing with yesterday morning’s correspondence. There was quite a lot, and close on £170 in offerings, the best we have had for some time. The Vanns sent £50 . God bless them. I am certain they do not see all that we believe and stand for, yet they have faith in us as the servants of God. There were some wonderful letters including testimonies of healing, one being Mr. D. Kyle’s whose leg was healed when I had laid hands upon him at Southampton on 25th June.
Instead of returning to the office after lunch I brought al the letters home with us. I cleaned the fire out and we took Kim for a walk, then we watched The Fast Lady on T.V. at 3.15pm, the very amusing British comedy which we enjoyed so much on holiday last year when it was shown in the grounds of the hotel at Ca’n Picafort. What a splendid little film it was, with Leslie Phillips, Julie Christie, Stanley Baxter and James Robertson Justice. It was made in 1962, the sort of film our now-ailing British film industry does, or did, so well. Ann and Geoff [Price] came midway through, with Sandra and Debbie. I had not seen them for well over a year, Ann for much longer, in fact.
I almost forgot to record that after lunch I rang Dr. Rutherford and discussed with him the events of the last two weeks. Almost straight away he said “Spiritualism”. This would explain everything. I had earlier spoken over the ’phone to my mother. From what was said I could only conclude that Raymond was a pathological liar who really believes some of the lies he appears to have told. No wonder he would feel “spiritually suffocated” in our presence, since every time we prayed together we claimed the power and protection of the Precious Blood of Jesus. Apparently, my parents spent an hour and a half with Raymond and Lynn at Miss Harrison’s, either last night or the night before.
I had a bath at 5.30pm and we went to Clarice & Noel’s this evening. Their central heating is now installed but not connected to the gas supply. We had television on, but there was nothing of any interest, even though it was in colour.
MONDAY 19th JANUARY 1970
Colour Television
Colour TV – curious that I should mention that as there was a letter this (Monday) morning to ask whether we had one! It was from Eva Stewart who says that someone there at Billericay is saying we have one [which we don’t].
I got up at 5.00am to pray, felt spiritually barren, but was blessed in using Psalms 40 – 44. There was a heavy mail in the office which took all three of us until after 11.00am to open, etc. There was more than £370 including £100 from Mrs. M.E. Livingstone whose Guest House has prospered so marvellously since she read The Divine Key to Financial Prosperity and started to put it into practice.
I rang John Graveley to confirm that the proof he sent of Glastonbury Abbey reconstructed was alright, also Mrs. Buxton [at Reliance Printing Works] about printing of the book which can not now take place for two weeks. Miss M.I. Smith called at about 12.45pm to tell me the latest news of her move from Colgreave Avenue. It is not likely to be for some months yet, so far as we could tell from the ’phone call Jean put through to Bush House.
After lunch I took Kim out, then went in the car to Spicer’s on Tyseley Industrial Estate to pick up 10,000 envelopes. Freda came with me and then back to the office to help stamp and rubber-stamp envelopes while I wrote and perforated a letter, afterwards writing up the accounts. Janet caught sight of Raymond and Lynn Green walking along the Parade.
It is 7.40pm now. I have been looking at a splendid Sabbath chart sent me by Ian Harris which I should like to frame for the office wall.
TUESDAY 20th JANUARY
7.35pm. I spent last evening [Monday] drafting a stock letter based on Joel 2:17 to go out in reply to all requesting the new book, and had intended to be up at 5.00am to perforate it at the office. I woke at 4.15am but then went to sleep again until 6.45am. I did this once before, a few weeks ago, on the 6th of the month, and got up to read my Proverbs for the day, 6:9-11!
Freda came with me to the office to help with the correspondence. There was quite a lot, including a letter from Celia Matthews who was miraculously healed when I prayed for her at Billericay last month, and close on £200 in offerings. I perforated the new letter and Jean spent the day answering scores of letters, except for her driving lesson at 10.00am. I sent $10.00 to Gerald L.K. Smith whose latest newsletter came this morning to the house. When I came away from the office, close on 6.30pm, there was still a big pile of letters I had not even had time to look at. Thank God for these good friends who respond so faithfully to our appeals.
We are at Freda’s mother’s this evening. I have brought with me Shirley Gladwell’s latest work, transcripts of Paul at Athens [published under the title The Secret of Life which I preached at Hull on 3rd June 1967], and The Seed of the Serpent, our Bible Study of 11th April 1969. Shirley has also sent me a most interesting article, photocopied, entitled “Ancient Legends connected with the Arms of Colchester”.
WEDNESDAY 21st JANUARY
Inland Revenue
It is 10.30pm and I am sitting in pyjamas and dressing-gown, having got wet taking Kim for his walk. It has been raining for some hours. We went to my parents’ this evening. Clarice and Rebecca were there as Noel is in Cardiff tonight, and I took them home in the car with Julia too.
There was a fairly large mail again this morning but we had managed to acknowledge every gift and request for the new book by the end of the afternoon. Kathleen Davis rang this morning to ask whether I would speak at the Central Hall next week, her second Anti- Sex Education in Schools programme. I declined as I feel this is not the time for me to speak out on the subject, although I have amassed a huge amount of evidence which suggests that this is the beginning of a campaign to pervert our young people by academic pornography. Mrs. Davis mentioned that her son Ronald, whom I led to the Lord in my Sunday School class about 13 years ago, is 21 tomorrow, and bringing home his young lady to meet his mother for the first time.
Dr. Adam Rutherford rang soon after with a friendly enquiry as to how things were going for us. Later Freda came on the line to tell me we had received a letter from Uncle Owen and Auntie Iris [Owen & Iris Ellis in Canada] with news, information I should say, of Freda’s ancestors, also birth certificates of her paternal grandparents. There was also a form from the Inland Revenue to be filled in concerning the house, which is being re-assessed for rating purposes. We spoke over the ’phone to Maurice Pratt [of Hardeman, Smith & Power] about it. Not for the first time I thought how comforting it was to have someone speak for us before the authorities, and how blessed it is to have Someone to speak in our behalf before the Greatest Authority in the Universe, for, “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1-2).
Jean left at 5.00pm and I went for a haircut. This evening I watched a TV film of a fight between Cassius Clay and Rocky Marciano, both in their day undefeated World Heavyweight Champions. This was a computerised fight adjudged to have been won by Marciano by a 13th Round k.o. I would have backed Clay. Marciano was killed in an air crash shortly after this fight was staged.
THURSDAY 22nd JANUARY
Ron and Reg Kray
Last thing last night I watched a programme on jump-jets, the R.A.F.’s VTOL Aircraft, but great as is my interest in aviation I kept dropping off to sleep, and I missed the alarm this morning. Freda came with me to the office. We got through a splendid day’s work and I am now writing this at 5.55pm. Jean had another driving lesson, her third this week, and seems to be getting on well. Mr. Goddard [who taught me to drive] has been asking her a lot of questions about the work and went off with a copy of Britain’s Royal Throne today.
It has been bright and sunny nearly all day and I am just hoping that the sky will remain sufficiently clear after sunset for us to see the new comet, discovered by three Japanese astronomers, low down in the South-West in the vicinity of Pegasus. It has been seen for some weeks in the southern hemisphere and is now diminishing in brightness as it moves rapidly away from the sun. The appearance of these unusual visitors in the sky was always thought to presage some great event, I believe. I seem to recall reading that a comet appeared at the time of Julius Caesar’s abortive invasion of Britain in July 54BC, and that Halley’s Comet, due again in 1986, was seen in 1066, the year of the Norman invasion.
I forgot to mention yesterday that the Welfare Officer at Walton Jail, Liverpool, rang me up for the second time recently. I have a pass at the gate to enable me to visit Pat Coley who seems to have been much helped by our letters and books. He comes out next month. On Monday I heard from 058110 Ronald Kray, at H.M. Prison, Old Elvet, Durham, enclosing a belated Christmas card from “Ron and Reg.” Of course, Reg is elsewhere.
How can I visit all the unfortunate people who need our help? Colin Kendall is another, at present in a Mental Institution at Canterbury, terribly tormented by an evil spirit. I pray that the Lord shall somehow enable us to do more. May we discern his leading at every point so that we speak, think and move even as Jesus would, John 1:12, Romans 8:14.
Later. We were unable to see the comet; there was too much cloud and too much light haze over Stratford Road. Dr. Rutherford rang about 8.10pm concerning the item on Pyramidology to be published in Man, Myth and Magic, about which I wrote him yesterday. On TV News we saw the arrival, 6½ hours late, of the first scheduled PanAm Boeing 747 flight from New York.
FRIDAY 23rd JANUARY
Tragic Victims of Crime
This is being hurriedly written at the close of a very busy day in the office. It is 5.20pm and Janet has just gone home to have tea with us, as we go to Sheila’s this evening for the Bible Study, our second time there. Mrs. Townsend will not be with us as she has a bad cough, nor Freda’s mother as she is being taken by Barbara to see Uncle Les [Seccombe]. He has had heart trouble recently and had difficulty in getting his breath, so has been ordered to rest.
I wrote a new stock letter last night, the GIV letter, based on Psalm 22:27-28 which I pray may be as much a blessing to others as it has been to me recently.
Helene van Woelderen and Willem Koppejan wrote, expressing their delight that the book [How the Gospel Came to Britain], so much of which was written at Zebulon Hove last year, is at last being printed. They asked if they might reprint it in Dutch, to which I readily acceded.
Mrs. G.E.E. Latter, who was writing in such great distress last Autumn when things had been stolen from her house, sent me a letter in which was enclosed the report of the trial of the man arrested for the crime. His name is Gene Clancy. He had had 41 previous convictions and at 68 years of age has served 30 years in jail, his sentences actually totalling 69 years. He said he would now go straight and so was put on probation. But poor Mrs. Latter still hasn’t got her things back. They were of sentimental value mainly, having been left her by her first husband.
Miss G.D. Emery, who is blind, wrote a most tragic and distressing letter which we have not fully deciphered yet but which seems to say that she left her dog on one side of the road and someone stabbed it to death.
A Mr. Cox has written. His wife has been stone-deaf for about 16 years, totally blind for [space] years, and has since lost her sense of smell. If the Lord will show me what is involved in the case I believe she will be healed. What tragedies we have to deal with every day.
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TUESDAY 28th APRIL 1970
9.00pm.. The sun was shining brightly and the Vale of Avalon was wreathed in steaming mist when we got up this morning. As every morning, when we were here before, I walked down the hill and into the town to buy the morning paper, The Daily Express, taking Kim with me and enjoying to the full the fresh air and the sunshine and the sight of lovely Chalice Hill rising up from Chilkwell Street. I bought four picture postcards in Smiths (at least one of them printed in Spain!) and two of them we later posted to Freda’s mother and my parents. The post had arrived before I came down. There was Miracle Magazine, my A.A. membership card, and various other items including Candour, which contained Phil Burbidge’s article, which I corrected and typed for him on 26th March. Janet sent me the accounts and prayer-requests.
Immediately after breakfast we drove via Wells to Bath, where we were expected at Cedric Chivers Ltd. Mr Wills was away in London. Mr Colin Coles, whom we now know quite well, received us, and we were able to discuss together at length the binding of the 500 books we had brought with us. Mr Coles confirmed that Mr Taylor had made bad mistakes and done a shoddy job of the book and pointed out that some blocks had been laid too high in the form, while some of the art inserts had also been incorrectly trimmed. This will make it very difficult for Chivers’, but Mr R.S. Wall, the company chairman, whom we had not met before, said that he would personally supervise the binding of the first six books so as to ascertain whether a satisfactory job can yet be made of them. We also discussed the possibility of all our future books being printed by the Redwood Press at Trowbridge, which seems to be closely associated with Chivers’. Cedric Chivers always gives us the impression of being a happy company to work for. There is always a most pleasant atmosphere there, and the personnel are extremely helpful.. Mr Wills, the sales manager, Mr Wall and Mr Coles are most friendly. It is a pleasure to do business with them.
We left Chivers’ at about 11.30am and had a leisurely drive back to Glastonbury, enjoying the wonderful sunshine and glorious countryside. We parked the car in the usual car park (behind the parish church), did a little shopping, and Freda bought fish and chips, which we brought back for our lunch, and a fruit-pie too. Very nice.
After lunch, I walked up Wearyall with Kim. Then we left him at home while we went to Chalice Well, where we watched a tiny wren running mouse-like between the plants in the garden, often disappearing under the leaves. I wanted to speak to Mr Simmonds, but he was busy mowint the lawns, so I did not want to disturb him. Instead we climbed the Tor, an invigorating exercise which left us breathless by the time we had scaled its 521-feet summit. It was two years since we had been up there. It was a fairly clear day, and we had a good view despite the fact that the sky had now clouded over.
Our last call of the day was at Miss Sloane’s, where had tea and biscuits and enjoyed three hours of fellowship together. There was much she had to tell us. She has a burden for Glastonbury, and not for the first time today we wondered whether the Lord will have us establish the work here. We spoke of many mutual friends and helpers in the work, and I have suggested that when next we come, God willing, we should have the Taunton folk join us for an evening of fellowship with us.
After tea, I washed up and, as it was by then 8.30pm, I took Kim for his evening walk along the bottom road (Tor View Avenue). I forgot to mention that at lunch-time we heard Sir Cyril Black on the radio, and what he had to say, and what is reported of him in today’s Express, is exactly what we have been saying in our books, and what he and I have discussed in some of the recent letters we have exchanged. Sir Cyril is the new President of the 210,000-strong Baptist Union. The influence of the work spreads far and wide and high, and becomes increasingly evident. Christian nationalism is God’s answer to our national dilemma and, inasmuch as the heart of our Christian heritage is rooted in this town, it may be that Glastonbury has a significant role to play in the awakening of our people. The hippies and all manner of weird occultists come here in their droves because the sense that God’s new order of things will emanate from here.
= = =
THURSDAY 7th MAY 1970
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
11.20pm. After the brief heat-wave the weather was much cooler today with thunderstorms and occasional heavy rain this afternoon. We had a quiet day in the office. Jean typed more of Mr. Waddington’s article, Janet cut stencils and I tidied up the literature we have on display in the store-room. During the last two days I have been endeavouring to make room for the many new books I have had recently and have collected a small box of books I no longer want.
This evening we have been to the Scala to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peter Hall’s production with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company including Judy Dench, Derek Godfrey, Diana Rigg, Barbara Jefford.
The film was of special interest to us as it was filmed quite locally at Compton Verney in 1968, and we have been waiting all this time to see it. We enjoyed the film very much. It had its defects – occasionally the camera was out of focus or moved very jerkily, and there were errors in the continuity – but it was very well worth seeing. Some of the cast seemed to be clad in little more than grease-paint and an occasional leaf. I could not help wondering how they kept warm in our cold Warwickshire climate and damp woods. Diana Rigg, whom we used to enjoy seeing in The Avengers on ITV and whom we saw in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service recently, was at the Alexandra Theatre last week in Abelard and Heloise in which she appears in the nude. Which reminds me that when we were at Glastonbury last week I was sent a petition for which I was being asked to collect signatures for the young couple playing in a Worthing production of Romeo and Juliet to put some clothes on.
The Municipal Elections have been held throughout the country today and the first results have been coming through whilst I have been writing these notes. The results have been very much what I have been predicting for months now. Labour is showing a net gain of 132 seats and the Conservatives a net loss of 86. There is a swing to Labour of about 9%. Latest results (12.20am Friday): Labour 259 gains, Conservatives 116 losses.
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SATURDAY 23rd MAY
None lost but two locked out!
11.10pm. Last night’s Bible Study was at our house. We were to have continued our studies in Genesis, but Joe and Mrs. Townsend got into a slight disagreement on who would be lost in the coming age. Joe said none, and Mrs. Townsend argued that God would destroy the finally impenitent. So we discussed How Many Will God Save? [B.S. 186 22/5/70].
Mum and Joe took Mrs. Ridout home. We locked ourselves out and had to call in at my parents’ to borrow their key to our house.
We went to the office this morning to open the letters and found that none had been delivered. Freda rang the Postmen’s Office and they said that as it was
Saturday and our postlady was away they had decided not to deliver it. Yet it contained First Class letters which would not have reached us until Tuesday, Monday being Bank Holiday. The letters were eventually sent out with the parcel post and it was 11.30am before we got it. By the time we had opened the letters the morning had gone.
After lunch I washed up then we went for our Sabbath walk to Elmdon Park. Last time we were there people were tobogganing and skiing Afterwards we called in at Julia and Malcolm’s to let them have the projector, colour slides and screen and to pick up the TV set which we were borrowing to take with us to Glastonbury After tea with Mum and Joe we came home we came home early as I had to be in the office by 8.00pm when a West Indian lady, Mrs. Nelson, was supposed to be coming for prayer. She did not come however. A letter from her this morning indicated that she was expecting me to go and see her at her sister’s home at Erdington where Mrs. Nelson was coming today, and that if she happened not to have arrived I could call in any time next week.
I spent the evening perforating the new stock letter I had written during the day, the “TT” letter based on Psalm 33:12 with which will be sent out the Time & Tide item in which I am suggested Minister in a new Government. I also wrote up the accounts and dealt with all the letters ready for Jean to answer on Monday (she is coming in specially). There was a letter from Canon Norman Power, Vicar of Ladywood, who has for many years written in the Birmingham Mail on Saturday nights. He has read The Plot Against The Throne and wrote sympathetically (though not of our “extreme right-wing emphasis”), and said he would show it to Prince Philip.
Tomorrow we go to Glastonbury. There is much to be done in the office before then and we must be up at 5.00am.
SUNDAY 24th MAY
Abelard and Heloise
9.55pm. Here we are at Glastonbury. We left home at exactly 9.15am and arrived here at 2.00pm, having come our usual way. We drove down in bright sunshine and it was really hot by the time we arrived. I spent two or three hours in the office before breakfast. There was a letter to be answered, books to be mailed out, the Rotaprint to clean (there was not time on Thursday evening), books to trim and literature to be packed into the car. With basket, and everything we should need for our stay here, we had a full 500 books for binding and approximately 60 other volumes, together with Kim and his load.
It was a hot afternoon. After unloading the car we sat out on the terrace with a cup of tea and cake, and a pile of last week’s Daily Expresses and Daily Telegraph colour magazines left by the outgoing Martlews. They had left a nice letter wishing us a happy time, and there was one too from Helene telling us we could stay for an extra week or two if we so desired as the person who was to follow us has a broken ankle.
But we felt strangely homesick a little later on. We walked to Chalice Well to fill our flasks with water, and found the grounds filled with groups of hippies. All were dressed in strange attire, someone was playing weird music on a record player. And the whole effect was depressing despite the sunshine and the bird song and the running water. Freda said it was exactly the same atmosphere as when we visited Ro in the Mental Hospital before she committed suicide. I felt sorry for these young people who have “dropped out” of society to protest against a world gone mad. This way of life is a religion to them; they pray and meditate, take “trips” on L.S.D., and they gravitate to Glastonbury so as to feel its “vibrations”, without the slightest idea of what life is all about. This is not, after all, an irreligious age. How we long for that day when the Word of the Lord shall sound forth throughout the land and these shall know the Truth that sets men free. Paul told the Athenians, “Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you” (Acts 17:23). Yesterday morning (Sabbath), while praying at the office, I was given great liberty to pray for and lay hold of the promise of a national awakening.
For the moment though, we were glad to leave the hippies and return to the house. By now we were tired. Freda went to sleep on the bed in the sun- lounge and I dozed off in the sitting room. I had earlier set up the portable TV set we brought with us and at 7.00pm we switched on Stars on Sunday which featured Diana Rigg and Keith Michell in Abelard and Heloise which had its première at the Alexandra Theatre during the week we were here last time. Peter Abelard was a teacher in France more than 800 years ago, and Heloise his pupil. Theirs was a tragic love story. He became a monk and she a nun. They died in 1142 and 1164, and in 1814 the French Government moved their remains and mingled their dust, erecting a plinth inscribed with the words “Abelard and Heloise – Forever One”. We found this pretty depressing too.
While having tea we watched Paul Temple and later went for a walk round the block. Whilst I have been writing this we have been watching A Step in Time, a history of the social dance.
I omitted to mention yesterday that one of the crows came to the office twice, each time bringing dry bread which he soaked thoroughly whilst paddling in the water, then taking it off to the nest . We shall miss them when we get back.
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SATURDAY 20th JUNE 1970
Wellesley Tudor Pole
11.00pm. I have been writing for the past 45 minutes, and space and time preclude my detailing the so many wonderful blessings which the Lord sp freely lavishes upon us day by day. Today has been our 11th Wedding Anniversary. My dear wife gave me a bottle of Scrumpy Cider, and Janet delighted us with a bottle of Cyprus Sherry. There was a card from my parents but no letter from Jean, nor any mail re-directed from Russell Road, and no word from Mum and Joe/ We went down to the sorting office before breakfast and were told that a sack of mail from Birmingham was missing. We spent the morning in Bible Study etc., and sat on the terrace for an hour. I was reading the Emphatic Diaglott.
After lunch and having taken Kim out, we walked to Chalice Well. Miss Sloan was there and opened up the well for us. Later we went into Little St. Michael and up to the Upper Room to see the Cup which Mr. Tudor Pole discovered in the most extraordinary circumstances in 1907. He had a strong impression that something of great interest was to be found at Glastonbury. Visualising the place he became mentally aware of a light over a certain spot at Beckery. Unable to go himself, he sent his sister and two friends to dig at the spot and they uncovered a saucer-shaped vessel. They were so awe-struck on handling it that they buried it again but Tudor Pole asked for it to be brought to him. He took it to a clairvoyant who, without actually seeing the vessel, psychometrized it and described the Last Supper.
The story was told to one Leslie Moore who was strongly impressed that papers were in existence which would describe the cup. This man had a “vision”, though wide awake at the time, in which he saw the Church of San Sophia at Constantinople at the time of its fall into Turkish hands. A priest entered a secret catacomb by way of a stone set in a pillar. He took out from a kind of tabernacle the cup in question, and a roll of parchment. This latter he left behind, but the Cup he took with him. Tudor Pole went to Constantinople to investigate. The stone in the pillar was identified, but excavations were at that time (and presumably ever since) impossible. However, Mr. Moore psychometrized the Cup. He saw three men walking along a road; one of them was the Lord Jesus. Veiled women ordered servants to give them a drink. They did so, using three flat cups filled from a pitcher. The servants returned the cups but the woman who had ordered refreshment to be given the men, gave instructions for the Cup from which One had drunk to be returned to Him.
That, briefly, is the story of the Cup. I never dreamed I would ever handle it. When I opened a wooden shell-shaped box this afternoon, and unwrapped the Cup, I found something so exquisitely beautiful and so unlike anything I have ever seen before as to be almost beyond my power to describe. The Cup is saucer-shaped, about 6 inches across, made of a glass-like substance with about 23 eight-petalled flowers painted on both surfaces and roughly corresponding with each other, and little pieces of silver actually inside the glass. In the amber light of the Upper Room the flower petals appeared to be black and the centres green, but the cup is predominantly blue. The experts are unable to agree about the Cup; some believe it to be Chaldean in origin.
SUNDAY 21st JUNE
Edward Heath
10.00pm. We spent last evening in Bible Study etc. and also went to the Lake Village where we had a lovely walk. This morning we went to Street to buy the Sunday Times. After Freda had put the dinner in the oven we went down to the Abbey grounds where we sat for an hour. Janet and I were checking the Index for Britain in Prophecy which we continued during the afternoon. At 7.00pm I listened to Mr. Heath interviewed in “Subject for Sunday” and saw Brazil beat Italy 4-1 in the World Cup Final.
Last week’s “Poll of the Polls” in the Sunday Times indicated a clear-cut win for Labour in the Election. The chances of its being wrong were said to be 100,000 to 1 against. But wrong it was, and the newspapers are endeavouring to explain how all the polls could be so greatly in error. I would personally attribute it to Mr. Wilson’s colossal conceit. I am sure his cock-sure manner on TV contrasted unfavourably with the earnest sincerity of Mr. Heath whom he seriously underrated. His asking whether it was ever known for a party to lose an election to another whose leader was less than half as popular, was not the kind of thing to endear Mr. Wilson to any uncommitted voter. I don’t think Mr. Wilson ever imagined for one moment that he would lose. Another factor was Mr. Wedgwood-Benn’s intemperate language (“Belsen”, “Dachau”) in regard to Mr. Powell. Then there were the adverse trade figures. I also feel that the Opinion Polls were so unanimous that Labour would win by a large margin that many of its supporters did not bother to vote. Well, Mr. Heath is Prime Minister, and I recall that in a letter to him in July 1966, I gave him 1 Samuel 2:30, “For them that honour Me I will honour”.
MONDAY 28th DECEMBER
The Beatles
7.52pm. With Boxing Day falling on Saturday, most people seem to have had today as an extra holiday. Jean came in to help in the office as Janet came in on the Sunday before Christmas. There was very little correspondence: one person had sent a large boxed Christmas card which 7/-d to buy and 9d postage. I could not help thinking how much better it would have been had they sent the money instead. It has been a bleak Christmas indeed for offerings. After we had answered the letters we stuck change-of-address labels in the Judgment on Britain books while listening to Vaughan Williams’ 5th Symphony and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. We finished for the day at 1.00pm when Jean went home.
After lunch I suggested we go for a walk to Elmdon Park, and we took with us Graham, Colin and Alan Purdue from next door, and their cousin Mark. They took their sledges, but with a thaw having set in there was insufficient snow for successful tobogganing. The children enjoyed themselves on the chute and Kim had a good walk. How I long for children of our own. Last night I took Mam and Dad to Warren Pearl to see Albert Blakeman, and while there Mam asked if we would get another dog after Kim had gone. When I said it was not a dog we wanted but six children, I saw Dad’s eyes fill with tears and he said how nice it would be. It made me realise what a great disappointment it is to him, too, that we have no children.
We returned home before 4.00pm in order to watch the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night on BBC TV, the sound track of which I recorded. The film , the Beatles’ first, had its première on 6th July 1964 when Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon saw it. We enjoyed the film. It had some genuinely funny moments and made an interesting document of a social phenomenon of the decade. Six years later the Beatles are unrecognisable, their long shaggy hour and grim faces betraying the ravages of drugs, sex and dissolute living, and as a group they have ceased to exist. John Lennon sent his M.B.E. back to the Queen.
This evening we have again watched television, the comedy series Not in Front of the Children and Mr. Digby Darling and, at the moment, a tribute to Jack Benny on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his first TV show. Bob Hope is appearing and also Frank Sinatra.
TUESDAY 29th DECEMBER
Short-wave tape-recorder
7.35pm. We had a quiet day in the office. Dad and Janet came in and most of the day was spent in sticking in change-of-address labels. I left the girls listening to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio during the lunch hour, and after it had finished we heard again Vaughan Williams’ 5th Symphony which we like very much.
A curious thing happened after the tape had finished. The machine was still switched on but not playing, when it suddenly twice began to speak. The same thing happened one morning recently just after I had switched on. This afternoon it spoke a few words of what seemed to be a police message clearly ending with the word “Roger”, so I can only conclude that the tape-recorder is somehow acting as a short-wave radio receiver. I only hope it hasn’t been working as a short-wave transmitter on the quiet!
Janet gave me a Van Heusen shirt for Christmas but was returning it this evening for one with a smaller neck size. My parents gave me a gift token and handkerchiefs, and I had cuff-links shaped like Rugby footballs from Clarice and Noel. . From Julia and Malcolm I had a green bow-tie and a pair of socks, and from Mum and Joe two pairs of pants and vests.
After the girls had gone I did some preparation for this week’s Bible Study which I am continuing this evening.
WEDNESDAY 30th DECEMBER
Brain teasers
10.02pm. We had another quiet day in the office; the after-Christmas lull affects us very much and we received only a very few shillings. Mr. Shaw called at 10.00am and brought us a lovely Swiss calendar. We had remembered and prayed for him over Christmas. He went to his daughter’s. Mr. Shaw came in as I was discoursing on numerics, magic squares and church architecture etc., and he gave us three brain-teasers to think about:
(i.) Given an eight-pointed triangle [octagon?], how to place seven coins on those points without travelling twice along the same line. (ii) How to transport three white men and three cannibals across a river in a boat carrying two persons in such a way that no white man is ever left alone with more than one cannibal. (iii) Three Chinese sentenced to death are told that the first to identify the colour of the disc affixed to his own forehead will be reprieved. There are two black and three white discs, the three latter discs being affixed to the foreheads of the three men. There is no communication between the men and none can see his own disc. How did one of the men deduce, correctly, that he too bore a white disc?
After lunch I went into the dark room at 1112A to photocopy Bligh Bond’s layout of Glastonbury Abbey, and Jean came with me and had a copy for her own use. Freda called for me at 4.00pm and we went to Solihull to buy groceries at Sainsbury’s. I have spent the whole of this evening preparing the Bible Study.
I am being extraordinarily tempted at this time. Paradoxically I seem to be going through a period of extraordinary illumination so that sometimes, in a flash, I seem to perceive the entire order and system behind the Universe. Great vistas of revelation seem to open up before me and I seem momentarily to apprehend something of “the deep things of God” … “things … kept secret from the foundation of the world” (1 Corinthians 2:10, Matthew 13:35). But I am sorely tried. The temptation I wrote about on 21st October has returned with all its old virulence.
THURSDAY 31st DECEMBER 1970
Power cuts
8.18pm. I took the car to the office this morning, having several items to carry and to fill up with petrol, then walked back to the newsagents’ to buy today’s Times with its Review of 1970. The post was late as it has been all the week – I think our postlady has left – and there were very few letters, fewer than two dozen probably.
We were all cold in the office. Since the power-cuts of three weeks ago the central heating has not been functioning properly; the time-switch cuts out the fans at about 10.00am but when switched on again they stay on all day, consequently the storage heaters are cold. The electric fire which Dad repaired kept on fusing when we had it on today and filled the office with a nauseous smell.
Before lunch I put a Librafilm jacket on Webster’s Third International Dictionary. It is the biggest volume in my library and difficult to find a place for. In the U.S.A. it comes complete with its own trolley to facilitate removal from one room to another.
I filled up with petrol and was fortunate to be able to pay only 6/9d per gallon as the price has just gone up 2d., the third increase in six months. A gallon of petrol which cost 4/2d when I first began driving in 1964 will thus cost 6/11d. The Government takes 4/6d per gallon in tax, and the garage receives less than 9d per gallon profit. In addition the road tax is £25, there is 33 1/3% purchase tax on motor-cars, and we have so many vehicles on the road that there is now only 30 yards of road for every car.
During the afternoon I cut out some press-cuttings and helped Jean to stick in the change of address labels. We listened again to Vaughan Williams’ Fifth Symphony which we both of us like very much. It reminds me of an Icelandic saga: I did not know that the composer dedicated it to Sibelius.
After the girls had gone home I spent an hour browsing through the pages of this Diary and filling in the odd blank space. Not many remain. The passing of the year I neither welcome nor regret, nor shall I attempt to evaluate its significance. But the Lord has been good to us. All of us have been spared for another year and we have had two additions to the family. Julia married Malcolm Hugh Ferguson on Sunday 26th April and Freda’s widowed mother, Sarah Mabel Powley (née Smith), married Joseph Jesson (father of Ronald Jesson who is married to Ann Vickery) on Sunday 17th May.