Cyril:
We are an ordinary Yorkshire couple. We have been married 43 years and we still enjoy life! I started work as an engineer on the construction staff of the power station in Rotherham in Yorkshire. I was very self-important but soon was dissatisfied with life. I was brought up in a Christian home, I sang in the church choir, taught in the Sunday school and all that sort of thing but I was dissatisfied and wanted something deeper.
At work of course I didn’t let them know what sort of a man I was on Sundays and I went for popularity and success. The man I worked with was a better engineer than I was. He was my senior and I hated his guts so I did all I could to pull him down.
Vera:
I came from a respectable working class family from Sheffield. My father was a builder’s foreman and we lived in a solid Victorian three-storey terraced house attached to the builder’s yard. There were horses, the builder’s cart and all the supplies at the back. We were Methodists and my father was a choir master. He had a fine trained voice. My mother came from a family of cabinet makers. My grandfather had a sound business but when he died it fell to pieces through mismanagement and a doubtful business associate.
I was a sickly child and, as such, I am sure I was spoiled and had become very self-centred and opinionated with a bad temper and a passion for amateur dramatics and operatics. At the time I met the Oxford Group, I was an invoice and order clerk in a very good firm and was taking a large Bible class of teenagers for whom I had no answer to their many problems. In 1932 a team of young men and women came up from Oxford to conduct a campaign for the OG in our famous Cutlers’ Hall in Sheffield. I thought I would like to go and see if they had any answers for my young people. I went in a flaming temper because my current boyfriend rang me up at teatime and told me to make my own way down as he was having tea with some of the Oxford Group people and was having a marvellous time. I was furious. I went and I marched straight past him as he waited at the entrance and sat down at the far side of the hall.
The first girl who spoke told of how she had been able to conquer her uncontrollable temper and she was so like me that I was convinced my boyfriend had told her I was coming and what I was like. Well, one by one these people got up and talked about all the things that were troubling me and how God had answered them. I couldn’t wait to find out their secret. I talked for hours with one girl afterwards and I told her all that was on my mind. I learnt about the 4 standards she aimed to live by - absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness and love - and how instead of just praying she listened for God’s voice to speak to her.
That night I asked God to take me and remake me if he could. I had told her I could not possibly wake up any earlier because I caught a 7.30 bus each morning, but to my surprise the next morning I was up at 5.15 ready to get lovely thoughts. What I got was the thought to apologise to my brother to whom I hadn’t spoken for 2 years, though he lived in the same house. This had divided our family because father usually took my side and mother stood up for my brother. The other thought was to tell the girl I worked with that I had lied to her.
Well, I did these things and began to learn the truth of the fact that if you want to make anyone different the place to start with is yourself. On the Sunday I asked one of the Oxford girls to come with me to the Bible class. I told them I wasn’t going to give a talk. I said, ‘I have been teaching you, but I have been a hypocrite.’ And I told them what I had found. Afterwards a boy and a girl with the most compelling problems came up to me and said ‘We are in an awful mess. Can we talk about it?’
We were put into action very quickly in those days. That Sunday evening there was a large meeting of 2,000 in a large Methodist hall in the centre of the town. My new-found friends said they thought I should speak. ‘Well, what could I possibly say?’ I asked in a panic. ‘Well just tell them what has happened to you in the last 4 days,’ they said. I did just that and again I find myself besieged by a couple of girls wanting to know more.
After that weekend a dozen or so of us who had made a decision to let God have our lives, used to meet and plan for our part of Yorkshire. We actually did this throughout the whole war, in the blackout, and many of them are still my team-mates.
Cyril:
Of course, we didn’t know one another at the time Vera is talking about, but I happened to meet some of these people at the same weekend. Four of them spoke at a Sunday afternoon meeting in the church that I used to go to. Now they talked about moral standards being absolute. I was an engineer. The world ‘absolute’ meant something to me. We have to use absolute standards all the time in engineering. A foot is an absolute measurement. If you are making calculations on energy you have to have absolute temperature, absolute pressure. If you don’t the outcome is a mess.
I began to wonder if the mess that I and my friends lived wasn’t due to the fact that we were using relative standards instead of absolute standards. Then they mentioned that God could guide people. Well, that began to give me hope. I thought, ‘Well I will give this a trial, quietly on my own.’ I walked out of the church with that intention. I almost bumped in to one of the men who had been talking, so I said, ‘Well thank you very much for a most inspiring afternoon,’ and he looked at me and said, ‘Can I help you?’ This so took me off my guard that I said, ‘Yes, perhaps you can.’ What made me say it, I still don’t know, but we went and had a talk.
He didn’t ask me about myself. He started to tell me what he was like and how God had helped him. Before long I was telling him things about myself I had never told to anybody before. Then he said, ‘Can you come to a meeting tonight?’ Well, I said ‘A lot of our choir are on holiday and I really can’t absent myself on a Sunday night.’ He looked me in the eye and said, ‘How much good are you doing the choir till you get right yourself?’ I said, ‘All right, what time is the meeting?’ And I went.
I remember standing up in that meeting and saying that I was going to let God run my life. Then I talked with this young man that I had met before, quite late into the night, thinking through what this really would mean. Then I just got on my knees with him and I told God that, from that point on, he should run my life for the rest of my life. I remember we talked so late into the night that I had missed the last bus home and had a four-mile walk. But I did get home in time to get honest with my parents and it made a difference to our relationship from that point on.
Early the next morning I thought I would get up and try this idea of listening to God. I sat down expecting luminous thoughts in biblical language. I had decided to write everything down. Imagine my surprise when the first thought that came was, ‘Pay mother that money’. Now I had been withholding money from mother purposely. The next thought that came was ‘Get honest about Jimmy’s bicycle that you damaged.’ I realised that God was clearing the decks for action.
I had always hated the man that I worked with, my senior, and a much better engineer than I was. I saw that I would have to put things straight with him. I did this as soon as I got back to work and then I realised I would have to do the same thing with my boss. That was even harder but it began to build new relationships and a new trust among us. It also strengthened my decision.
Along with other duties that I had as an engineer, I acted as clerk of works on one or two contracts. I had decided to go the easy way and close my eyes to a good deal of the substandard work that was being put in. I didn’t like the fights that came if you started to condemn work. However, I saw that wouldn’t fit with this idea that I had got of the Oxford Group, and I remember thinking, ‘I will need more strength than I have got to condemn work when it is wrong.’ I asked God for it and I well remember the first time I saw a piece of substandard concrete work and told the foreman of the contractors to pull it out. All hell broke loose but he pulled it out. It was the last piece of substandard work that went on in that contract. We finished up on very good terms with the contractor and he went off proud of the work that he had been doing.
One thing that happened when I gave my life to God was that the girl I had been going with steadily gave me the push. At that point, I decided that I would have no more such relationships until God showed me who I was to marry. It seems to me that these days a lot of marriages get on the rocks. So much so that people live together without getting married and separate easily. When God joins people together it is different. Now God did show me the girl I was to marry but just because he had shown me she didn’t just drop into my hands like a ripe apple. No, she turned me down flat the first time I asked her. However, we both thought the thing through again and six months later we were engaged.
Vera:
As Cyril said, I turned him down flat. I would like to tell you what he looked like: he had a somewhat exaggerated crew-cut; you know a thing that stood up rather like a brush. One of my friends said, ‘Why ever did you turn down Cyril?’ I said ‘What? Marry Cyril Beall? Why, you could turn him upside down and use him as a yard broom.’ ome months later when I had really thought it through, I knew that this was the man God wanted me to marry and so now we have been married 43 years in September.
We went to a new town where I knew nobody but we were convinced that God had put us there for a purpose and we asked him where to start. We lived in rather a nice new housing estate where there were many young couples. The war soon came upon us and our thought was that we needed to make our home a centre of calm and sanity. So many of the husbands were called up and the wives were insecure. We worked out a scheme whereby the men on the road who were left took turns to watch all night for incendiary bombs. This gave the others a good night’s sleep. We had this in operation long before the national fire-watching scheme was introduced. After the war we were pronounced the best fire-watching area in the town.
At this time, we had a small party in our home to try to help our neighbours find the panic-proof experience of listening to God. One lady told me that she had prayed I would come over and see her because she was so worried about her son. He was training to be an air force pilot and had got into all the wrong company. She was worried, anxious and over-protective. She asked me if I could do anything. I said I was afraid I couldn’t do anything, but one thing I knew, that if she became different her son would. She really changed. She gave her son into God’s hands and realised that he loved him much better than she did.
He came home the next week on leave. One night, walking in the blackout, he ran into a bush and got a thorn in the cornea of his eye. He had to go to hospital. He sadly lost his eye and his chance of becoming a pilot - his greatest ambition. But his surgeon was a godly man and he came home without an eye, but with a solid faith.
I also learnt at this time that it is important to obey the thoughts you get when you get them. I was decorating the staircase one morning when I had the clear thought to go over and see my neighbour. I thought, ‘Well I’ll finish this little bit and get cleaned up and then go over,’ because I am a messy painter and I was covered with paint spots. But the thought was insistent. ‘Go now’. So, I ran across just as I was. I found my neighbour in floods of tears, in utter despair, so much so that she was contemplating taking her own life. I sat and listened to her for a very long time. The main problem seemed to be that although she had been married for over a year, her husband would not consider having a child and had become very cold towards her. She did not know how to talk to him. She was longing to have a family. When she became quieter I suggested we listen and see if God could give us any light. We both had certain ideas which she put into operation.
Not long afterwards it was her turn to run over and see me and tell me she was pregnant. They had a lovely son which united them both. About 20 years later, when I was at the other side of the world, she turned up at one of our films showing in a local cinema. She got hold of one of the girls selling books and asked if she knew where I was. She said ‘She helped us find the answer when our marriage was on the rocks. Tell her that John is a fine young man and a source of constant joy to us both.’
We had good relations with our neighbours but at one point everything began to go wrong. When I walked down the road everyone quickly went into their homes. I was being sent to Coventry. I couldn’t think what I had done. I asked God if there was anything I could do. He said, ‘Make friends with the biggest gossip on the road.’ ‘Oh no’, I thought, ‘not that!’ I knew her. She was a large woman with a penetrating voice and I was heartily afraid of her. Besides, she wasn’t speaking to me. However, I bided my time and I found out that she was coming out of hospital, having had an operation. I prepared a nice tray with my best china and I took her a dinner. I knocked at the door with my knees trembling and this wasn’t made any better when having answered the ‘Come in’ she said to me, ‘What? You!’ I left her with the dinner, came out, straightened her kitchen a bit and came home. To my astonishment it wasn’t long before everyone was speaking to me again. I found out that she had spread a rumour about us, that we were in league with the Nazis because I wasn’t working when all other childless women were, and my husband was not in the forces. After I took the dinner she thought, ‘Well there must be some good in her.’ So, she took the trouble to find out the truth which was that I had TB and was not allowed to work, and that my husband had twice been called up but sent back because his job was more important. To her credit, she corrected her rumour. We became the best of friends, and incidentally, I had discovered that the secret of turning enemies into friends was to go the extra mile and put my 1% right.
Cyril:
It was fairly clear to us in these early days of the war that the country needed people of the sort of faith that made them reliable and panic-proof. A new Mayor was elected shortly after the war started and I phoned his secretary to try to get an appointment with him. I didn’t know at the time that the secretary was ideologically opposed to us in MRA and he refused the appointment. However, we were both very certain that God wanted us to see this Mayor so we found his address and went to see him at his home.
He was surprised to see us, but he did let us in. We started to tell him what Moral Re-Armament was all about. We had with us a statement that had been drawn up by some of the trades union and labour leaders and he read this with real interest. He asked us questions. Then he told us about the things that had happened in his youth and boyhood that had made him bitter against the church. But, he said, ‘this isn’t religion you are talking about. This is Christianity. For Christianity like that I will put both hands up.’ Then he looked at the statement again and he said, ‘I think that many of my friends in the Labour group on the council would like to put their signatures to this. May I take it and show it to them?’ Well, he took it and he got about half of the council to sign.
That Mayor became a great supporter of MRA and during his year of office he actually issued a letter in the paper calling for the spirit of MRA to be ... Later he publicly appealed for the spirit of MRA during his year of office. And before long 20 of the 40 members of the council were supporting our work.
God teaches you things all the time. I remember around this time going to Tirley Garth, the training centre which had been loaned to us for the war. The work there was done by volunteers. It still is. I was asked if I would help to repair the drive. Well now I got busy. The drive wasn’t macadamed in those days and I thought to myself it was rather good of an up-and-coming engineer to give his time to doing that sort of work. The result was that I made a thoroughly bad job of it. Without mentioning me by name, the quality of the work - or the lack of quality - was mentioned the next morning when we met together. I felt like walking out. But I knew that if I did everyone would know who had done the bad work, so I didn’t walk out. However, from that God showed me that he didn’t expect condescending amateurs. What he needed were people who took everything seriously and that when I was repairing a road I was a road mender and he expected me to be a good road mender. That lesson has stuck with me right through my life.
Vera:
About this time my health began to be in a very bad state and it was obvious things were going very wrong. They were going wrong in our marriage too. I was disappointed in Cyril really. He wasn’t quite what I thought he was and I began to let my thoughts wander in another direction. At this point I went to Tirley Garth, the wartime headquarters of MRA, for a month to help run it. It was there I saw how far things were going and I asked my husband to come for a weekend. Here we were able to say everything to each other and start a new life together. I also went to see a consultant and found that the TB was so bad that I never could have had children. Then started what in the end was ten years of almost continuous sickness. But it was one of the richest times that I have ever experienced. I learnt the truth of the old Elizabethan saying, ‘Let come what will come, God’s will is welcome.’ I also found that God gave me adequate health to do what he told me to do but not necessarily all the things I wanted to do. We experienced miracles and teamwork with the doctors.
It was also about this time that I was travelling from Sheffield to Leeds. As I stood on the platform, I said to God, ‘If you have anything for me to do, please put me in the right carriage.’ I got in with two ladies and I was reading The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis. One of the ladies said, ‘Do you like that book?’ I said, ‘Yes I think it is very interesting. Do you know it?’ She said, ‘Yes, but I didn’t like it. It troubled my conscience too much.’ I asked her if she had read our latest book which was Innocent Men by Peter Howard. ‘Well, it is funny you should say that’ she replied, ‘because I am going to Leeds to discuss it with my friend. I don’t often go anywhere; I have a very bad heart.’
Well later I went into the corridor to stretch my legs a bit and when I came back I could sense that they had been talking about me. One of them said, ‘Excuse me, but do you happen to be Maggie Taylor?’ ‘Well, no’ I said, ‘I am not, but I am her niece.’ She wasn’t very much older than me and I am reputed to be very like her. ‘Oh dear,’ they said, ‘you did give us a turn because we heard that she was dead.’
Well, these ladies were very fascinated by all they learnt through MRA because I kept in touch with them. Later on, I found myself in the same village as one of them and she was distinctly cold to me. I asked her what on earth was the matter. She told me she had something to tell me which she ought to have told me in the train but she had been afraid of losing my friendship. She said, ‘I am the daughter of the man who ruined your family.’ Now I had been brought up with a bitterness against this family whom I had never met. I was told that I was never to associate with them in any circumstances whatsoever. All my ideas had to change in that moment and I was able to say, ‘Well, isn’t it wonderful Marjorie, what the older generation could not forgive, our generation can.’ Marjorie died shortly afterwards, her heart worn out by doing two jobs, trying to pay off her father’s debt and I lost a trusted friend. I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn’t obeyed that thought to get into that particular carriage.
Cyril:
Right after the war, Frank Buchman brought a team of people over from America with an industrial play called The Forgotten Factor. Some of us had been working with the miners of South Yorkshire. The coal industry was in a bad state at that time and we were trying to bring a new spirit. The miners heard of this play and thought it might help. They asked me if I would take some of them down to meet Frank Buchman and invite the play up to their area. I did just that and I shall never forget the way Frank received them. He gave them a most magnificent tea, served in a way that was fit for royalty and they loved it. Very soon Frank and the miners were chaffing each other as though they had been friends all their lives.
They asked him to bring the play and he said he would but he gave them much less time to prepare than they thought was necessary. However, they went off and, by the time he and the play arrived, one of the miners’ halls had had a new stage put in it and everything was ready. There was a communist element that tried to prevent the play going on but they didn’t stand a chance. The miners were determined. Their hall was crowded night after night to see the play and people even brought boxes and stood on the outside of the building looking through the windows.
The effect of that was amazing. Because production began to rise. Sometime later, I was asked to do a photo story about this and I went to interview one mine manager. Now he had been known as the Pocket Battleship. He wasn’t very big but he had got colossal firepower. I said to him, ‘What brought this difference in the coal mines?’ He said, ‘The Forgotten Factor made me change my way of life at home and in the pit. I started to treat men as men and not as check numbers and I stopped bullying. It made a great difference and men began to work.’ I thought ‘that’s the manager’s point of view, now let’s see what the men’s point of view is.’ I went to see the trades union agent. I asked him the same question. He said, ‘Oh, the manager changed. He began to treat us like men. But mind you, I want you to know that we have done a bit of changing too and we give a day’s work for a day’s wage now.’
All this happened whilst Vera was ill in bed but here again God took a hand. One Saturday afternoon there was a very important meeting to be held in Leeds and both Vera and I felt certain that I should go. I didn’t want to go and leave her alone but I did. I left her a cold meal ready and asked a neighbour to go in and get her some tea. Whilst I was there one of my friends asked how she was and I told him. A man standing near turned to me and said, ‘What is the trouble with your wife?’ I said ‘Tuberculosis’. He said, ‘So that’s why I came. In my time of listening to God this morning I had the distinct thought to come to Leeds to this meeting and I live in Wolverhampton. Can I come as a consultant?’ He came and set in motion the train of events that ultimately led to Vera’s recovery. That is a separate story in itself but I tremble to think what would have happened if I had not obeyed that thought to go to Leeds.
It was some time after this that God began to make it clear to us that he wanted us to go and work fulltime with MRA. Now you don’t give up a secure job with good prospects and a pension at the end of it very easily. We talked it over with our friends but decided it was the right thing so we offered our services. Many years before I had studied photography very seriously and really on a professional level. Now the time had come to use that training because I was able to put this skill to use for MRA.
Not long after we had moved to London, Vera became ill again, very seriously ill and the doctors advised me to move into the centre of London so that I could be on call for the hospital where Vera was. I remember as I was in the train praying desperately that Vera would be made better and the thought came to me, ‘God wants perfect health for her. Whether that is on earth or in heaven is not your business. Perfect love means that you want the best for the other person.’ I accepted that and got peace of mind and strangely enough, although Vera was barely conscious and knew nothing of this, she was at peace too. It was many days before the thought came to pray for recovery but, when that thought did come, I knew it was going happen and several days later she did take a turn for the better.
Before she was on her feet again I was asked to go to our headquarters in Switzerland to take part in a play. I had never taken part in a play before and it seemed a daft idea to me, but if God had put that thought into somebody’s mind, then it was right and I would give it a try. Before that season was out I was in 5 plays as well as doing many other things. But then came the shock:- one day Frank Buchman sent for the cast of the plays and invited us all to go with him to America. I said to him that Vera was still quite sick and I didn’t think I could go. He said, ‘Let’s see what God says.’ We were quiet. The thought came to me very clearly, ‘You underestimate Vera’s capacity for sacrifice for the sake of the new world.’ I told him that. He just nodded his head and said, ‘That’s it. That’s it. But you must have two or three weeks with her before you go.’ I was able to do that and we had a glorious three weeks.
Vera:
I got Cyril’s letter by express at 9 o’clock that night. I was staying in a home which was being sold in 6 weeks. I had someone still looking after me as I was very weak and couldn’t look after myself. We had very little money but the clear thought I had was ‘He that would come after me must take up his cross day by day and follow me, for whoever wants to preserve his own life shall lose it and whoever loses his own life for my sake shall find it.’ And I was able to wire ‘Joyfully send you on’.
Two days before I had to leave that home, I had a call from a retired nurse who said, ‘Will you come and spend Christmas with me?’ Actually, in the end she looked after me for eight months.
Cyril:
I had no money to go to America but I was quite sure God wanted me to go so I went ahead with preparations. One day I got a message to ask me if I would look after the party that was going on the boat - there were 40 of them - and I was asked to go to the Cunard offices. That seemed a sensible thing to do so I went. When I got there I was rather surprised and somewhat annoyed to be told what I was supposed to do because I don’t like being told what to do. I must have shown this on my face because the agent said to me, ‘You do understand that this carries a free round trip ticket with it, don’t you?’ God has his ways of providing for you.
When we got to America there was real trouble in the airlines. In the National Airlines pilots were flying small planes around with streamers behind them saying ‘Don’t fly National’. Relations were at an all-time low. We were asked to take our plays to the airline bases and perform them. We were in Miami for quite a long time. As well as this we gave ideological training sessions to the men at 8.00 in the morning before they went on duty. The result was quite startling. The pilots took to the idea of MRA very quickly and very soon the problems were solved.
Then they went to Dr Buchman and asked him for further ideological training. He said, ‘I believe there is a strike on the bus line. Go and solve that.’ They did and that was how they got their ideological training.
At the end of six months, I thought it was time I came back. I saw Frank Buchman and told him. He said, ‘Fine if that is what you feel.’ Well, two days later I was completely sure I had made the wrong decision. Meantime I had written to Vera telling her to expect me. I wrote another letter to her apologising for building up her hopes and then I went with the rest of the crowd off to the West Coast. When I got there two letters were waiting for me. The first one said that she looked forward to seeing me but, she added, ‘are you sure your work in America is finished? I believe God has more for you to do there.’ I opened the second letter and it said, ‘I am glad to hear you are staying. We can be closer together when we are 6,000 miles apart if we are both following God’s guidance than we can under the same roof if we are not.’ A few months later Frank invited Vera to go over to California and winter there for her health’s sake.
Vera:
No sooner had I got to California than Cyril had to go off to the other side of America. I felt very lost, a bit abandoned and rather homesick. Some of my friends pointed out that I hadn’t really given my heart and mind to America, which was true. I thought, ‘Well you promised God you would be part of this programme of the remaking of the world. You don’t necessarily go back to the place you came from so however long you are here, give your whole heart to America.’ I didn’t realise that this was going to be for 14 years!
Cyril:
We had a building in Los Angeles, a very beautiful building, used for our headquarters but it was in a very bad state of repair. I was asked if I would take on the job of putting it into shape, which I did. I was very grateful for the training I had had earlier on in engineering. We had a big swimming pool there which was not being used at all and the idea came to turn that into a theatre which I was able to do. The fact that I had given up my job in England and was working in America for nothing was a point that counted quite a lot with the contractors that worked for us. It was a lever in helping them to make us gifts and to do jobs at a very low rate.
Around this time, certain European statesmen who had been convinced of MRA felt it would be a good thing to take a force of people around the world to different countries and introduce the heads of state to this idea. Peter Howard wrote a special play for this called The Vanishing Island. This play was produced in America and I was asked to join the cast. It was a tremendous experience to go round the world with a group of statesmen like this and with a play like that. It meant leaving my wife behind again because, although she was much better than she had been before, she was certainly not fit for that sort of a journey. It was a memorable time and took us across the Equator and across the Arctic Circle.
I shall never forget the time in the Philippines - the PM of Japan who had met the cast after the play had sent along with us two of his leading Parliamentarians. At the end of the play in the Philippines they came onto the stage. There was a tremendous hush in the audience because the Japanese were just not wanted around there. These Japanese said, ‘Our PM has asked us to come and speak to you and say that we want to settle the question of reparations quickly.’ There was silence. ‘But further he has asked us to say that we are sorry for the things we did to you during the war but that, on the basis of MRA, you, we and all Asia can unite to build a new world.’ There was a stunned silence and then the most colossal applause I think I have ever heard. It is one of the things in life I think I shall never forget. It does show what honest apology can do between nations.
We went on into Europe, and in Norway I received a cable asking me to go back to America to take on work on a new centre that was being constructed in the mid-west, work in my own line. I went back and it was mid-winter. In two weeks’ time the place where we were working, which was an island at the junction of the Great Lakes, would be frozen in. Imagine my consternation when I found that they had sent for me because they thought I was an electrical engineer, whereas I was a mechanical engineer although I had worked in the electrical industry. The engineer in charge and I talked it over and decided to ask God what to do. The conviction came to me to take it on, although my knowledge of electricity was minimal. Two or three days later a letter came from a Canadian firm of contractors who said, ‘We would like to make a gift to MRA and we would like to send you one of our top electrical foremen for six months and he will remain on our payroll.’
He and I worked together and did the first section of the job. I needn’t tell you that I learned an awful lot from him, enough to be able to carry on and do the electrical work for the rest of the project.
A very interesting side-issue came from the building of this centre. In North Michigan, building work used to stop in the winter. Men could not work from November until the following May because of the intense cold. Now we needed our buildings for the summer so we had to work through the winter and we had to evolve ways of building. The chief problem was concreting, but we did find ways of doing it. The contractors of North Michigan came across to see how we did it and within two or three years building work was going on right through the winter. Winter unemployment in that industry was cured.
God’s timing is very important in building work of this nature. We had the need of further accommodation and our thought was to put up a building that would hold 500 people. Now to do this between September and May seemed impossible but the clear conviction came to us that we must do it. We set to work and at the end of May we were putting the furniture into the rooms of that building. We didn’t know, when we had the thought to do that building, that Frank Buchman had invited over 100 of the leadership of the main youth association of Japan to come to us for training. It seemed that Moscow had invited their leadership but Frank Buchman knew Moscow had no answer but that MRA had. They came to us and, when they landed on the island, there were furnished rooms for them to live in. They arrived on 31st May. We had worked all night getting furniture up into the rooms and beds were being made up for them as they walked in at the door. The importance of all this was that Moscow had said that the day the Red Flag flew over the headquarters of the Seinandan (Japanese youth movement) would be the day that Japan began to fall into Moscow’s hands. At the next election of officers for the Seinandan, which I may say trains the leadership of Japan, the MRA-trained men were elected and to this day the Red Flag has never flown over the Seinandan headquarters.
Frank Buchman always expected more of a man than that man expected of himself. I remember one day going to him to tell him about a meeting that some of our employed staff on the island were having in their village. I think was patronising in the way I said it and I certainly did not see the significance of this thing at all. Well Frank did and he fairly blazed at me. ‘You’ve no faith,’ he said. ‘Go and talk to so and so, he will put you right.’ I fairly crawled away but I did talk to this man and saw where I needed to change. I felt really in the doghouse. The next day Frank sent a message to say that I would speak at the main morning meeting in great power. I did and I found myself leading the afternoon session!
Vera:
We were host and hostess of many homes in America, both large and small. I shall never forget Dr Buchman’s 80th birthday when statesmen from all over the world came to honour him. It started at 7.30 in the morning and went on till midnight. There was the Abbot of Wat Mahadat Buddhist monastery in Thailand who had brought a lovely brass gong which he sounded through the building to gather us. There was Chief Walking Buffalo of the Stoney Indians with a delegation of Red Indians. There was the Tolon Na from Ghana. There were Japanese and Chinese, children and octogenarians, all gathered to honour him, a most unforgettable day.
Whenever you lived around Frank Buchman it was always unexpected and exciting and there were always new people to care for. I learned to have perfect standards in housekeeping and as Dr Buchman used to say, ‘every meal a picture’, not as an end in itself or to be houseproud, but to create an atmosphere in which absolute standards could be understood.
One day in California a young couple came to our headquarters who were in a mess and badly wanted help. He had 13 speed tickets and was on probation for armed robbery. They had had a generous amount of money given to them for their wedding and decided to buy a yacht and live on it in Catalina Harbour and write books. They hadn’t reckoned with one or two facts. One was that neither of them could sail a yacht and two, that they could not write books, and three, that they were easily seasick. They sold the yacht and bought a car and an expensive house. Then they had to sell that a buy a one-room chalet. They bought a new Jaguar on hire purchase which they couldn’t afford to run. They were all for MRA but didn’t understand what it was all about. A few of us sat around with them and put it to them that either they had to take MRA seriously or quit it, because it was not something you could play around with. We all listened together to the inner voice. Hal had three points. One, that he should hand in his car. Two, that he should get a job and three, he should be honest with his wife. At this Jane blew her top - not because he had to be honest with her but because she had not come first on his list. It is an interesting side-line on how women think.
Cyril went with him to return the car and was grateful to find an honest dealer who returned his money. He got a job as a truck driver. Jane returned to teaching to raise enough money for Hal to return to college. They budgeted their money to repay their debts and it left them about $1.60 a day to live on, which meant mainly baked beans. They paid their debts in one year and had a congratulatory note from the telephone company. They decided to let God run their lives which they stuck to through very hard days. Week after week we would meet with them and plan the next steps. I learnt a great lesson with Jane. At one point I felt she had had as much as she could possibly stand and I tried to soften the blow. Jane said firmly, ‘Vera, you must not do it. You are taking me away from the cross and if I don’t stay there I am sunk.’ Boy, I learnt a lesson that day which I have never forgotten.
Several years later we got very disturbed about Cyril’s mother in England. She was 85 and had been fed negative gossip about us and our work by several left-wing churchmen. We had the thought to get her over to see us. At that point I had a small legacy and was able to send her a return ticket. She gallantly came, all on her own, the first time she had flown. We had a wonderful time. Without our telling her, she told us that the gossip she had been fed was evil and that she couldn’t wait to get back and deal with it. I asked her what she thought of one of the men and she said, ‘What do I think of him? I would like to put him in a hot bath, I’d like to scrub him from top to toe, I’d like to cut his hair and scrub his fingernails and black his boots. That’s what I think about him.’ She thought it would be nice to see her two brothers and sisters but did not realise that they were on the other side of the United States. It was almost as far as she had already come and we had no money to take her. Meantime, she had made some costly decisions in her own life. She had always thought more of Cyril than she had of her daughter. The next morning when she came downstairs she said, ‘I am a very wicked woman. I have put my son first and I feel I should write to Constance, though I don’t expect a reply.’ Of course, a forgiving reply came back immediately to mother’s humble letter.
Each night we used to sit around the kitchen table and pray for money, so that we could go and see her family. Eventually, through many small and some large sources, we had enough money and we set off. She saw her sister who was dying of cancer, whom she had not seen for 43 years. She saw her brother whom she had not seen for 56 years, and another brother whom she had not seen for 38 years. The money was just enough. At one point we had been given $10 and told to spend it on a steak dinner but we had had the thought that we should spend it on no luxuries, so we didn’t have the steak dinner. When we got back to our home, having done a 4,000 mile trip, we had just $3 in our pockets. They had marvellous reunions and later the brother at the age of 90 took his first trip to England for 62 years, all on his own, to see his sister before she died.
Cyril’s mother had the gift of saying things at the right time, unlike me who so often puts my foot in it. One day she went straight up to see Chief Walking Buffalo and said, ‘May I shake the hand of a real American?’ Chief Walking Buffalo was quite overcome. They were the same age and thereafter you could see them together having long chats. I asked her why she had said that. ‘Well, he is a real American, isn’t he? After all these white people who came here, they came here afterwards didn’t they?’ quite surprised that I couldn’t see the point. She had many things which she remembered about that time and we were interested in her comments.
When she got home she received a new lease of life. She asked a few neighbours in to hear about her trip and so many came that she had to move into the church hall. She bought a new carpet when she officially presented one of MRA’s books to the Lord Mayor of Sheffield and later it was my privilege to nurse her for the last 3 years of her life. She died at the age of 94.
Cyril:
During the latter part of our time in America I had been very fearful that I wouldn’t get back before mother died, and I didn’t know quite what to do. But if you leave things in God’s hands he always works it out. One day I got a letter from Peter Howard asking me to come over to Britain to take on a building project. That meant I was at least within a reasonable distance of mother and was able to see how she was getting on. Her health was beginning to fail so I wrote to Vera suggesting she might come over and join me.
Vera:
It was obvious to me when I got back to Britain that mother needed a great deal of care, more than I could give her at a distance. I had the thought that we should take a rented furnished house. We had only £60 in the bank but it didn’t seem to me that mother was going to last very long and I thought that would at least provide us with a month’s accommodation. My friends realised this position and, one by one, they began to take responsibility for us. At no time while we had that house could we count on a sure income of more than £9 and we had to pay £14 each week. Cyril was again on the road with one of the plays, so each weekend I knelt down and prayed for the extra £5 and it always came. We had the house for two years and left free of debt. I nursed mother for 2 years and eventually she died. I am glad to say that we had no debts at the end of the time.
Throughout these years we have lived entirely on faith and prayer. We have had no great benefactor, no capital to draw on and no regular income. We have learnt that where God guides he provides, often in minute detail. We have recently set up a little flat - our first for 30 years - Cyril was 69 and I was 67. We had next to nothing to furnish it with. One of our first necessities we felt was something to sleep on. We decided to go that day to purchase some beds. In the morning post was a letter from a friend saying ‘We are so glad you are coming to live in our town. Here is a cheque towards buying a good bed.’
A little later we felt we really needed a telephone and ordered one in faith that we would have the money. A few days later a cheque came from a very old friend which covered its installation and the first quarter’s rental. Many years earlier we had given all our china and glass to a couple who were setting up a home. The wife came on the phone and said, ‘I have packed up your china and I am sending it back to you.’ I said to her, ‘But is there anything left and don’t you need it?’ She replied that she had recently received all her mother in law’s china and really now had too much. Every single thing was there and the only things that had been broken were two tureen lids which had been carefully repaired. I found such stewardship quite moving. In a very short time, our home was furnished. Such is the richness and bounty of God’s provision. He is absolutely reliable in every respect. Now we have come full circle and we are again pioneering a new town and making new friends. We are just about half a mile from the vicarage in which Cyril had guidance to ask me to marry him. I do not think there is any such thing as retirement. In God’s plan there is always plenty to do.
Cyril:
Shortly after mother’s death we were invited to live at Tirley Garth. I was able to take on the building of some chalets which were being put up to increase the conference accommodation. We also made it our aim to get to know the people living nearby. to make friends with them and let them know what happened at Tirley Garth. This has been our object then and still is. We find that the way to work in a situation like this is always to take part in what the people around are doing, rather than expecting them to take part in what we are doing. They always come round to that sooner or later.
Quite shortly after that I was asked to go to India, to the partly-finished centre at Panchgani. The invitation asked me to go and train men to make perfect standards part of their permanent life equipment. A real challenge. I found that the Indian workers responded and they did good work. I remember on one occasion we were doing some garden walls and the bricklayer was having great difficulty over a certain curve. I found I had made a mistake in giving him his instructions. I turned to an Indian friend and said, ‘How do I say “sorry - my mistake”?’ He told me. I don’t know what my Hindi sounded like to the bricklayer but he sat down and roared with laughter. In no time flat the wall was down and together we laid the curve. I found the way to get on with the Indians and had a marvellous time out there.
Another thing that happened was that we had a joiner. This man used to drink and when he got drunk he was a real menace. After one very bad outbreak I sent for him. He came expecting to get a thoroughly good telling-off, but God had told me to treat the thing with a light hand, so as he walked in I just said, ‘Oh Tony lad, what are we going to do with you?’ He showed his surprise. Then he sat down and told me his whole story and finished up by apologising to the man who was sitting in the room, whom he had threatened. Then he told how he had threatened several more men, so I said, ‘What are you going to do about that?’ He said, ‘I must go and put it right with them.’ I said, ‘Well Tony you will need strength greater than yours to do that, won’t you.’ He said ‘Yes’. I said, ‘Shall we ask for it?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ So, we knelt down and prayed. He prayed that God would give him strength to put this right and would give him strength to live up to the standards and principles of MRA and to stop drinking. He went straight off and put things right. He stopped drinking.
At home I have a very beautiful teak wall bracket which he made and gave me on my birthday with a card that said, ‘Wishing you many more years of life in which you can help other rascals like me to find a new way of life’.
With special thanks to Ginny Wigan for her transcription, and Lyria Normington for her editing and correction.
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