The changing world (8) 1967

Started the year with IVF conference in Swanwick then to Sheffield visiting a girl, Elizabeth. I remember little except we went to a concert which included Stravisnski's Firebird. We were seated behind the orchestra. The percussion woke me up when the egg broke I think.
   January also heard Bill Lees, ex OMF on Independence at the London Missionary Volunteer Fellowship. He would later lecture at All Nations. John Rosser of Irish Treks spoke at Bedford College. I twice went on these evangelistic ventures to the republic. Oliver Barclay, general secretary of IVF spoke at Prof Fairbairn's on The Christian View of Sex. I would cycle to Enfield for this. Mrs Fairbairn's buffet was a great attraction too. As well as the CU he would have his overseas doctoral students to the meeting. Te prof's invite was one they should not refuse. Alex Mother spoke at LIFCU. After Easter there was another Swanwick conference. As the same time a theological students conference was being addressed by Schaeffer. My friend John and I were alone in a lounge when a crowd of theology students walked in with FAS. He immediately said the room was take they would go elsewhere. John said that impressed him more than all I had told him about Schaeller's teaching.
  In June I was at a CU house party at Mabledon near Tonbridge with Herbert Carson. What I remember was the library full of leather bound puritan volumes. Finals taken.
  In July I went to Belfast from Liverpool on Irish Treks. The shock landing at Belfast was to see police with guns. Never seen that before. Most of the team were from the north. One lad reckoned a garden with orange lilies in the south betokened protestants. We were basically offering to distribute scriptures. We were warned not to criticised the Roman church even if people we met did as they would not welcome criticism from the English. We were based in Sligo.
   August I got my degree results. 2.!. Prof was sorry I turned down the Ph.D opportunity. I now say I am Ph.D declined to any who boast of their degrees. So at 21 I was a qualified pharmacist on paying the entry fees. I had already passed the legal exam.
    In September I was interviewed at SUM Sidcup. and examined by their Harley Street doctor. I took Katy out for the first time, Merchant of Venice at the Aldwych.
   October I started at All Nations. We had two Nigerians, both senior pastors. Yakuby Yako was an accomplished evangelist with New Life for All which saw much church growth. He worked with Wilf Bellamy of SUM who sadly went astray after he left Nigeria for an American pastorate. Yakubu would always evangelise. While travelling he would ask fellow passengers if they were saved. His compatriot Panya Paba was leader in the missionary arm of his church, Evangelical Churches of West Africa, the product of Sudan Interior Mission work.
   I was doing the London University Diploma in Theology course. Included were history of Israel, Ezra and Nehemiah, philosophy of religion, Islam and college subjects like pastoral epistles and systematic theology. Ron Warne was bursar and taught philosophy. Of one of my essays he remarked,
   'A good Van Tillian perspective but there are others.' Ron Davis did systematics and Greek. He attended Welwyn Evangelical. I was given permission to worship there Sundays and he gave me a lift. Ian Tait ministered and taught homiletics a ANCC. Davis Morris taught Ezekiel. Other lecturers were Captain Godfrey Buxton MC of the family that had built Easneye the ANMC house. He was very godly but a hopeless expositor. Arthur Bennett, author of, Valley of Vision lectured but not to  me. He was a local vicar, reported as saying he knew one Isaiah in the pulpit but perhaps three in the examination hall. Such theologial schizophrenia I found abhorrent.
   Saturdays I could get to see Katy. Peter Clark, farmer and car owner would give me a lift. Her father was somewhat gruff and not then a believer. Katy soon left the Methodists for Welwyn Evangelical. Just before Peter picked me up Saturday late, I would watch match of the day, the only football on TV apart from the cup final.
   I note coffee at 6d a cup, dinner for two, 15/8 = 78p. In November Katy agreed she too was called to Nigeria. So  I proposed after this. I popped the question in the British Museum Assyrian room and she said yes.
   In December I attended the Westminster conference. It was my introduction to my hero Kuyper, not that I recognised his genius then. The Doctor was not impressed it seemed by a Christian politician, journalist, theologian church reformer and university founder. Too much the old Welsh pietist.  Home for Christmas.