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Worship puzzled me as well as impressed me. It was always based on the Book of Common Prayer, and a great deal of it seemed boring. It was the sermon we looked forward to, and following the service those young people who wanted to would go to the curate’s house for coffee and a discussion of the sermon. As time went on, however, I began to appreciate the framework of worship. Because of my growing love for the beauty of language, I came to find the Prayer Book evocative and wonderfully inspiring, and it took root in me. There are times even now when I wonder if the Church took a wrong turn in developing modern liturgies from the 1960s onward. We have certainly lost ‘common prayer’. In my youth, every parish church was bound together by the 1662 Prayer Book, even though it was expressed in many different ways. Sadly, today ‘uncommon prayer’ is closer to the truth, and many evangelical churches have departed from authorised forms altogether.
My intellectual development continued when the Harris twins began to interest me in music. Until then my musical education had been limited to what I heard on radio, which was largely the popular music of the time. I was, and continue to be, a fan of big bands and jazz. Ted Heath and his orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Kenton and his band were among my favourites. One day John Harris said to me, ‘George, do you fancy coming round to our house on Saturday afternoon to listen to music?’ I readily accepted, expecting that we would be listening to jazz. Not a bit of it. I found myself listening entranced to classical music for three hours. This became a regular feature of my weekends, listening to great music, which like literature and philosophy took root in me – Elgar, Beethoven, Chopin, Bach, Mozart and other great composers. Ironically for a developing evangelical, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius had a major impact on my emotional and theological development. It remains to this day one of the finest pieces of music I have ever heard. Through the influence of John and David Harris, music became an essential element of my growing faith. In time I was able to say with Siegfried Sassoon:
From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart,
The substance of my dreams took fire.
You built cathedrals in my heart,
And lit my pinnacled desire.
You were the ardour and the bright
Procession of my thoughts toward prayer.
You were the wrath of storm, the light
On distant citadels aflame.
As my thinking progressed, so did my journey into the Christian faith. I bought my first Bible, and read it avidly. At the same time I was reading Christian writers such as Leslie Weatherhead, the great Methodist teacher. Pit-Pat, recognising my thirst for reading, lent me books on prayer and spirituality, on faith and doubt, on doctrine and dogma. The focus of my interest was the person of Jesus Christ. His claims, and the claims that the Church made about Him, were so remarkable that I was forced to ask: Is it true that He is the hinge of history, that decisive omega point, by which all faith is assessed? The point came when I passed from a vague belief in God to a firm and joyful conviction that Jesus is the Son of God, Saviour of the World and, what seemed more important at the time – my saviour and Lord. There was no blinding Damascus experience, rather a quiet certainty that many of my questions had been answered, and my Christian life had begun.
I told Pit-Pat, and he was thrilled, although his response unnerved me: ‘I want you to read John 1.1, and memorise it to the end. Come back next week and recite it to me. Now, next Sunday, after the evening service we are going to have an open-air service in the banjo directly opposite your house. I want you to give your testimony.’
The first request was easy, but the thought of giving a testimony, a familiar practice in evangelical circles, terrified me. Because the ‘banjo’ (a familiar pattern on council estates, with houses arranged in the shape of a banjo around a small green) was opposite my house, all our neighbours would be able to see me standing on a soapbox, and would hear me speak. The implications were horrifying. My parents would be ashamed. But Pit-Pat would not hear of me backing down. ‘You have committed yourself to Christ. Now nail your colours to the mast!’
The following Sunday evening after the service, about thirty of us were there on the green, and a simple service began with a few hymns, a speaker and my ‘testimony’. I doubt if it lasted more than two minutes, but it was enough to satisfy Pit-Pat. In his opinion George Carey, at the age of nearly seventeen, had declared himself a believer.
Looking back fifty years, I have no doubt in describing it as a real conversion experience which changed the pathway of my life. It was forged from reading, from worship, fellowship and prayer. But it was only a beginning. Other great moments of discovery were to follow, and one can only call such youthful moments of conversion authentic in the light of what develops from them.
Great joy was to follow as other members of our family followed Bob and myself on this journey of faith. Our sisters Ruby and Val attended a church camp, and returned with a story of a commitment to Christ. And then our parents quite unexpectedly followed. I will never forget the moment Mum and Dad committed themselves to Christ. They had watched their children’s spiritual development with curiosity mixed with joy and, no doubt, alarm. That they did not know what was going on was evident, but they were pleased with the difference faith made to our lives.
Youth for Christ rallies were held regularly in Dagenham at that time, and we had invited Mum and Dad along to one particular meeting. The preacher invited all those who wanted to follow Jesus Christ to come to the front. To my amazement our parents walked hand-in-hand up the aisle. For both of them it was a ‘coming home’. They had been brought up as Christians, and had gone to church as youngsters. My father’s life, especially, had been irradiated with the spiritual through the influence of his blind grandfather. Now both of our wonderful parents were convinced Christians.
Dennis, eighteen months younger than me, was in the meantime going out with Jean, his future wife, and missed the spiritual revolution going on in the family. Although sad that this was not to be his story too, he was never made to feel excluded in any way. Indeed, I always felt very close to him, and knew that the Christian faith was also real to him, although expressed in a different way.
The impact of my father’s dramatic conversion revealed itself a few weeks later. Dad said early one Sunday morning, ‘I’m not going to church today, because I’ve got to put something right.’ He explained that when he was fourteen he had worked for a Christian man named Mr Zeal in Forest Gate, and had stolen some money. ‘But he must be dead by now!’ said Mother, amazed by Dad’s insistence that he had to at least try to make amends.
Later that day, Dad returned from his journey with a glad and triumphant smile on his face. He had gone to the nonconformist church where Mr Zeal worshipped and had been informed that Mr Zeal was still alive, but was not very well. Dad went round to his former employer’s house, reintroduced himself and confessed that he had taken a small amount of money. Mr Zeal looked at him with complete amazement and joy. ‘You know, Carey,’ he finally said, ‘I knew you had taken the money, and I have been praying for you ever since.’ What a shot in the arm for my father’s faith that was, and what a lot it taught us all about the power of prayer.
Even as a youngster I could tell what that commitment to Christ did for my mother and father. It changed them both, and gave them a great thirst to know more not only about the Christian faith, but about how to apply that knowledge to life around them. The limited education my father had received made it impossible for him to do anything other than lowly jobs, and soon after his conversion he became a porter at Rush Green Hospital in Romford, where he made a deep impact on the lives of many patients through his Christian goodness and kind words.
As for me, my learning too continued. My work at the London Electricity Board did not tax me, and I was eager to move on. The opportunity came when, not long before my eighteenth birthday, I received a letter informing me that I was due for my National Service call-up. I was delighted. It was time for me to move from my secure home, and I was ready to go.
3 Signals
‘Why couldn’t Quirrell touch me?’
‘Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand it is love … love as powerful as your mother’s leaves its own mark. Not a visible sign … but to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.’
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
WITH A YOUTHFUL IMAGINATION fired by Mr Kennedy’s stories of the Royal Navy, and fed by my experience in the Sea Cadets, my preference was to do my National Service in the navy. Unfortunately, the Royal Navy did not accept conscripts at that time, so it had to be the Royal Air Force. As it turned out I was not to be disappointed in the slightest. For a young man eager to explore life and widen his horizons, the Air Force suited me down to the ground.
First came a week of ‘kitting out’ at RAF Cardington, where hundreds of dazed and subdued eighteen-year-olds gathered to be allocated to billets, receive severe haircuts and don the blue uniform of the youngest service. Pit-Pat’s final advice to me the previous day seemed particularly daunting: ‘George, you must disclose that you are a Christian right from the start. Don’t be ashamed of your faith. When lights go out, kneel by your bed and say your prayers.’ This had seemed easy enough to agree to when in church, but I confess that as I surveyed the crowded billet on my first evening, with the good-natured banter of high-spirited young men all around me, my resolve wavered. Nevertheless, taking a deep breath, I knelt and spent several minutes in prayer.
The reaction was interesting. First there was a quietening-down of voices as everyone realised I was praying and, unusually courteously, gave me space for prayer. The second reaction – clearly predicted by Pit-Pat – was that it marked me out as someone who took his faith seriously. The following day at least six young men in the billet took me aside and declared that they were practising Christians. By the end of the second day we were told of a SASRA (Soldiers and Sailors Scripture Readers’ Association) Bible-study meeting that evening. SASRA was particularly favoured by nonconformist and evangelical Christians, and throughout my National Service I found it a wonderful source of fellowship and support.
I never found that my practice of public praying, which I kept going for a great deal of my time in the Air Force, limited or negatively affected my relationships with other servicemen. To be sure, there were often jokes when I knelt down to pray. There were several times when things were thrown at me, and once my left boot was stolen while I was on my knees – just minutes before an inspection. Somehow I managed to keep to attention with one boot on and one off as the officer advanced through the billet.
Years later, in fact just a few weeks before I retired, I was touched to receive a letter from a Mr Michael Moran, who wrote to my secretary at Lambeth Palace:
Dear Sir,
Are you able to tell me whether George Carey spent the early years of his National Service at the basic training camp at RAF Cardington? When I was there at that time I was deeply impressed (and this has remained with me ever since) by the devotion and courage of an eighteen-year-old named George who knelt to pray at the side of his barrack-room bed. At no time in the following two years did I see anyone else show such evidence of his faith.
I was rather uncomfortable to receive such praise, because I did not kneel down to impress people by my courage, or to be the odd man out. In fact, I shrank from doing so. I did it simply because I felt Pit-Pat was absolutely right: if prayer is important, and if one is in a communal setting with no private place to pray, one ought not to be ashamed or embarrassed to be known as someone who loves God and worships Him. Later in life I would put the issue as a question to others: ‘Muslims aren’t ashamed to pray publicly, so why should Christians feel embarrassed? If it is a good way of praying when one is alone, why should we be ashamed of acknowledging a relationship with God when we are with others?’
The relative calm of the kitting-out week was followed by eight weeks’ hard square-bashing at West Kirby, near Liverpool. To this day, while I am left with many questions about the psychology behind the tyrannising and brutal attitude of the Platoon Leaders and Sergeants, there can be little dispute that it is a highly efficient way of moulding young men into effective members of a military unit. For eight weeks we were terrorised by screaming NCOs who told us in unambiguous terms that we were the lowest forms of life ever to appear on earth: ‘You are a turd of unspeakable putrefaction’, ‘a cretin with an IQ lower than a tadpole’, ‘You are the scum of the earth! What are you? Repeat it after me: the scum of the earth’, ‘You are hopeless, hopeless, hopeless.’
The verbal ingenuity of some descriptions was rehearsed in the billet long into the evening, as we sympathised with victims or rejoiced at the misfortune of a rival platoon. There were times when I too became the object of the Squad Corporal’s wrath. ‘Carey, you little bleeder!’ he screamed into my face, his saliva making my eyes water, ‘I am about to tear your ****ing left arm off and intend to beat your ****ing ’ead in with the bloody end, until your brains – if you have any – are scattered far and wide.’ Imagine my disappointment when I discovered later that this threat was far from original, and was in fact a tried and trusty favourite of that particular NCO.
I was able to gauge attitudes to the Church from the viewpoint of the ordinary conscript. The vast majority of my ‘mates’ had no contact with institutional religion. Although most of them, deep down, had faith, few of them had the ability to convert it into anything of relevance. They were not, on the whole, helped by the Chaplains, who held officer rank and talked down to the conscripted men. We all had to go to compulsory religious classes, and I can only say that from a Christian point of view these were something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The talks were usually moralistic, and the most embarrassing were about sex, a subject on which the Chaplains were definitely out of touch with the earthy culture of working-class people. I remember asking myself: ‘Why are they so shy about talking about the subject where they are expert? About the existence of God, about spirituality and prayer, about Jesus Christ and His way?’
Even more frustrating to me was the fact that I never saw a Chaplain visiting the men, either in the mess or in the billets. Far more effective was the ordinary ‘bloke’ from SASRA, who at least had the courage to meet the men where they were. Church parades were no different. The hymns were sung indifferently, and the sermons went over the heads of all. I was often embarrassed by the effete way services were conducted, and felt that overall they did more harm than good to the Church.
Although I was glad when the square-bashing was over, I have to admit that it taught me a lot about myself and how to cope when pushed to one’s limit. At the end of the eight weeks I was posted to RAF Compton Bassett in Wiltshire to train as a Wireless Operator. If I was not able to be a Wireless Officer in the Royal Navy, well, being a Wireless Operator in the Royal Air Force seemed an interesting challenge. And so it turned out to be. The training took twenty weeks, and included elementary electronics as well as having Morse code so drummed into us that by the end of it most of us were able to send and receive Morse at over twenty words a minute. As VHF was still in its infancy even in the RAF at that time Morse code was a reliable and efficient form of communication, though of course very slow.
At Compton Bassett we were able to participate in many activities, ranging from sport to hobbies of all kinds. Discipline continued to be very strict, but we were now finding that the ordered life enabled work and leisure to function smoothly. I played a lot of football, and enjoyed running as well. At weekends evening worship at Calne Parish Church was certainly far more authentic than the formal and compulsory church parades.
At the end of the training, everyone waited with impatience for their postings. I was astonished to be selected for the post of Wireless Operator on an air-sea rescue MTB (motor torpedo boat) operating out of Newquay in Devon. It seemed that at last my dreams would be fulfilled. If not the Royal Navy, at least I would be at sea with the RAF. But it was not to be. Two days before taking up my posting I was told to report to the CO’s office, where I was given completely different instructions – to go home on leave immediately, and to report to Stansted airport the following Sunday evening for an unknown destination.
I was among twenty or so extremely puzzled airmen on a York aircraft which left Stansted that September Sunday evening in 1955. To the question I put to the Sergeant on duty I received the friendly rejoinder, ‘You’ll know soon enough where you are when you land, laddie.’
Sure enough, I did. The following morning I found myself in Egypt, and the same day I started work as a Wireless Operator (WOP) at RAF Fayid – a huge RAF camp alongside part of the Suez Canal known as the ‘Bitter Lakes’. With a large group of other WOPs work began in earnest, handling signals from Britain and the many RAF bases in the Middle East. In my leisure time I enjoyed exploring beyond the base and discovered many things about Egypt, its culture and life. I settled down to church life on the base, and made many friends.
After three months at RAF Fayid I was sent to RAF Shaibah – a posting which was greeted by howls of sympathy by my colleagues. Shaibah was a tiny base about fifteen miles from Basra, at the top of the Persian Gulf. It is very hot most of the year, and the temperature rarely falls below 120 degrees in the shade in summer. With just 120 airmen to service the squadron of Sabre jets and cover the region I was told that it was a deadly appointment, and that I was to be pitied.
On the way to Shaibah a bizarre incident took place that was to make me chuckle often in later life. The journey began with a flight to Habbaniyah, a large RAF camp close to Baghdad, from where I was to make my way by train to Basra. I boarded the plane and was shown to my seat by the WOP, who told me, ‘Carey, your lunch is on your seat. Make yourself at home,’ before disappearing into the cockpit alongside the pilot. There were no other passengers, but I noticed that there was another lunchbag on the seat alongside mine. Surely this was for me too, I concluded. It was, I admit, naïve of me to suppose that the RAF would offer me two lunches and without hesitation I scoffed both of them. To my surprise the plane landed in the Transjordan, and as we taxied towards the concourse the terrible truth dawned on me – we were about to pick up another passenger, and I had eaten his lunch.
The passenger in question was an elderly clergyman, who was greeted with deference by the crew and shown to his seat alongside mine. We had a brief chat, and the plane took off. The moment came when he reached for his lunchbox, and I had to stammer out an apology for having eaten his lunch. He made light of it, and we relaxed into a pleasant conversation in which he showed great interest in my welfare and future. On landing at Habbaniyah I was impressed to see a red carpet laid out to welcome somebody – I knew it was not for me. The top brass were all there alongside the CO. The elderly clergyman paused to say goodbye to me, then turned to the steps to be greeted by the CO and whisked away.
‘Who was that?’ I asked the WOP.
‘Oh, that’s Archbishop McInnes, Archbishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East,’ came the reply.
Sadly, I never had an opportunity to apologise again to Archbishop George McInnes for having eaten his lunch that day; but at least I was later able to tell his son, Canon David McInnes, of the incident. David had followed his father into the Church, and completed a very distinguished ministry as Rector of St Aldate’s, Oxford. He was sure that his father would have been delighted and thoroughly amused that the culprit was a future Archbishop of Canterbury.
Despite the warnings of my colleagues at Fayid, Shaibah was to prove a wonderful posting for me. I was one of eight WOPs who had a special role as High Frequency Direction Finding Radio Operators (known as HF/DF Operators). So primitive and sensitive was this means of communication that it required the erection of special radio huts three miles from the camp, out in the desert. On each side of the hut stood four large aerials which received signals from transport planes, and which provided an accurate beam by which a plane could determine its position and find its way to us.
Operators were on duty in these isolated huts for eight hours at a time, and for many months we worked around the clock. The duty was often boring, very hot and lonely. There were however times when the importance of our work was driven home. On one occasion several Secret Service personnel called on me to help trace the position of a Russian radio network which was proving to be a nuisance to the RAF. Another time, a two-engine transport plane from Aden to Bahrain was in serious trouble, with one engine on fire and the other causing problems. To this day I recall the SOS ringing through my headphones, and the signal telling me that the plane needed help urgently as it was about to crash. All the training I had received was focused at that very moment on giving the crew directions on how to find their way to Shaibah, then alerting the main camp and the emergency services that a crippled plane was in need of help. As a member of the air-ground rescue team I would be required to switch instantly to new responsibilities if the plane crashed in the desert. Fortunately I was able to help nurse the plane to the base, where it made an emergency landing and all was well.
It was a lonely job most of the time, but I loved it. It gave me time to read and reflect. When things were quiet and no planes were within a two-hundred-mile radius it was safe to walk a short way from the hut and explore the desert. The idea that the desert was void of life, I discovered, is quite erroneous. There were always fragile, tiny yet beautiful flowers that one could find, and the place teemed with insects, snakes and scorpions. As for human contact, I often met passing Bedouin tribespeople: sometimes shy, giggling young girls hidden behind their flowing black robes, herding their black goats; sometimes their more confident brothers and fathers. They were always friendly, even though we could only communicate through signs and through my limited Arabic, which caused great merriment. In exchange for water, which I had in abundance, I would often receive figs, dates and other fruits. Their simple, uncomplicated lives seemed attractive and natural. It was always a joy to meet them, and for a few moments share a common humanity in a hostile terrain.
I do recall though one terrifying time when I wandered a little too far, and could not find my little signals hut in the expanse of desert. The realisation that I was totally lost, without water, and that my replacement would not arrive at the hut for six hours panicked me greatly. I tried to take my bearings from the puffs of smoke coming from the distant oilwells in Kuwait, but to no avail. I walked carefully north, hoping to find some clue that might orient me. Then, with relief, I heard the sound of singing, and into view came some of my Bedouin friends. They were shocked to see me so exhausted, and after a drink of water I was taken back to the hut. Perhaps only forty minutes had passed, but it made me aware of how fragile life is, and how the desert can never be taken lightly.