Long Ago and Far Away

For a number of Sundays in 1942, I was taken to the Presbyterian Church in the middle of Aberdeen, Scotland, for my first religious experience. My clearest memories of those visits were what I saw rather than what I heard.

St. Nicholas, Aberdeen, is two churches, one on either side of a more ancient aisle on which has been erected a single lofty steeple. The older West Church was built with gated pews arranged around four sides of a square. Individual families rented their pews.

“Our pew” was on the south side of the gallery, directly across from the pulpit, to which the minister ascended by a short spiral staircase. Sitting at my Aunt’s side, the floor was well below my feet, and the prayers and sermons of the elderly gentleman across the hollow square were away over my head. The die was cast, though. I was going to get a Doctor of Divinity degree and march into the church and climb that spiral staircase! But then, I was five years old.

It was not to be. A couple of years later my father sent me to Mission Sunday School with a neighbor’s family. My second religious experience was learning about Moses heading for the Promised Land. Meanwhile at primary school in Aberdeen, we were being taught that Moses saw the sun set in a blaze of fire behind a desert bush!

When I was nine, my parents were divorced. A year later my stepmother decided that the Mission was “beneath” us, so I was sent to the local Church of Scotland Sunday School which was a good deal closer and a lot more orthodox. This was my third religious experience. There, too, Moses journeyed with the children of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land. My fourth religious experience was yet a long way off.

In 1945, or thereabouts, after a very successful campaign in Aberdeen¹, a small but active ecclesia was formed in the city. Bro. Harry Whittaker was involved and, true to type, Harry agreed to stay on and give guidance to the nascent meeting after the campaign ended. The Whittaker family moved into the tenement across the road from my home. Sis. Phyllis Whittaker was asked to pack everything and come north. And she did, with son, Timothy, and her mother, Sis. Maud Roper, in tow.

Sis. Roper kept an eye on her neighbors from an upstairs window, and after four years of observation decided that I was material for Christadelphian scholarship. “I want that boy in Sunday school,” she told the family. Harry was not impressed. Timothy was dubious. However, after the infamous British 11+ exams were concluded, Timothy and I became school classmates. An invitation to CYC soon followed. This type of evening was a completely novel way of getting out of the house after school and making new acquaintances. Going to Sunday school was an automatic follow-up to CYC. After all, what was one more Sunday school!

I soon found out. Sunday school was at 3 PM on Sundays, in rented premises in downtown Aberdeen. Individual classes sat around tables with their respec­tive teachers. Sis Ida Jagger²became my Sunday school teacher. Sis. Jagger was an experienced professional and soon had me integrated with her other Sunday school scholars. It was made very clear that Sunday school was a Bible class. For three years a second-hand Revised Version Bible was my only textbook. For those years it was enough.

The essentials to me were the people I met and the friends I made. Sunday school brought us together. New Year’s gatherings, leaflet distribution, and the hospitality of the ecclesial members kept us together.

“Auntie” Ida provided the first principles, and “Uncle” Harry brought them to life. Often, after Sunday school, Timothy would invite me back for supper on the understanding that I attend the evening lecture with the family. It also meant that I didn’t have to go home for supper. I had found another family.

At the beginning of 1954, I went to the New Year’s gathering in Edinburgh for what would be the last time for quite a while. I was about to begin a four-year ap­prenticeship, and I expected to spend it on the high seas — a modern, legal way to “run away to sea”. After a talk by one of the young brethren at the gathering, another attendee — David Mills, soon to become a brother in Christ — approached Harry Whittaker. Harry promptly rose from his seat and left, saying as he passed me, “You know what David wants, don’t you?”

There was a challenge here! Apply for baptism. Who, me? WHY?

During David’s interview, everything seemed to fall into place. I asked David if he’d mind having a double baptism on Sunday morning. He hauled me over to talk with Harry, who had conducted the interview. Harry all but fell off the end of the couch he was sharing with Bro George Mc Haffie³My real-life twin brother died when he was two weeks old. He was replaced by a spiritual twin brother that day in Edinburgh, long ago and far away⁴.

To this day, I do not believe that the conditions under which I joined the family of God could have happened any other way. David’s decision decided me!

With baptism came a commitment that soon taught me the kind of family I had been adopted into. Six months later I sailed out of Avonmouth on a voyage that would take me round the world at ten miles per hour! Starting with that first year at sea, I vis­ited Christadelphians in Canada, the United States, Australia, and South Africa. No matter where the journey took me, I found with this family I would never be alone.

1. On Sunday, July 29, 1945, thirty-five campaigners met to break bread and begin a five-week effort that led to the formation of the Aberdeen Ecclesia. See The Christadelphian, Volume 82, 1945, pages 118 and 125.
2. Ida Jagger was one of several brothers and sisters that moved to Aberdeen and supported the new ecclesia there. When she fell asleep in Christ, in 1971, Sis. Ida was fondly remembered “for her work with the young people for many years.” See The Christadelphian, Volume 108, 1971, p.515.
3. George McHaffie was Recording Brother of the host Edinburgh Ecclesia at the time of Bro. Ron’s baptism in January,1954.
4. There was a third baptism that weekend as well: Bro. Timothy Whittaker. Bro. Ron and Bro. Timothy were products of the Aberdeen Sunday School. Bro. David Mills was from the Dundee Ecclesia.