A DIPLOMATIC LIFE John Harrison

                                 A DIPLOMATIC LIFE

John Harrison

Softback £11.50 & £3.00   P & P   UK 

How to order  

 By Post: Mail to Lynn Davidson, The Memoir Club, 34 Lynwood Way, South Shields, Tyne & Wear, NE34 8DB cheque payable to Lynn Davidson.
Cheque payable to Lynn Davidson

By Email memoirclub@msn.com

By bank transfer: Lynn Davidson, Barclays, 20 83 69    83948145

John Harrison was born into a diplomatic family. His father and maternal grandfather were both diplomats. He therefore developed a taste for foreign travel at an early age. Adventurous journeys to visit his parents in Brazil and Iran provide a forerunner to his subsequent career.
He carved out his own route across the world with postings to Burma, Laos, Ethiopia, Turkey, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Pakistan and finally as High Commissioner in Mauritius. All these assignments were interspersed with important jobs in London in both the Cabinet Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

He was witness to a number of military coups and their aftermath. Political drama was never far away and living conditions were often difficult. Amusing and untoward incidents abounded, as did opportunities to meet people from different cultures and travel to exotic and rarely visited parts of the world. Personal and family life are woven inextricably into his various professional roles, including the huge support received from his wife Jenny.
Since retirement in 1997, he has lived in Hampshire enjoying gardening, golf, more travel and family life.

INTRODUCTION

When my three children all got married within the next few years, and then grandchildren started coming along, I began to realise that none of them had much idea about my early life apart from snippets picked up in random family conversations. The children had no choice but to blend into the slightly unusual way of life my wife, Jenny, and I were leading. Being largely overseas meant that they did not have the firm roots that other UK-based families had.

The same had applied to me, having been born into a diplomatic family. We seemed to be regularly packing up and on the move. Not that I minded too much. I enjoyed the travel opportunities and I was fortunate to have the fallback of a welcoming wider family based mainly in Sussex.

Our four grandchildren were born within five years of each other. When they were young I had great fun reading and telling them bedtime stories. I invented a little pink pig that had strayed into our garden and had various meetings and adventures with the likes of Peter Rabbit (we had a vegetable area), Squirrel Nutkin and the Gruffalo with his mouse (who all lived in our small piece of woodland). I was always being asked for more, but I was running out of ideas and they were getting older.

It then occurred to me that I had actually myself had some quite exotic real-life adventures around the world, which might in due course be of interest to them. So I started writing up some of my early life experiences, mainly travels, but without really thinking at the time that this could develop into a full scale memoir. I had periodically kept a diary, and indeed quite a detailed one of travels to interesting places. I then began to join the dots; boarding schools, university life, holiday periods with kind relatives, joining the Foreign Office and first posts overseas. There seemed to be plenty of material from Burma, Ethiopia and Turkey worth writing about, not to mention what happened thereafter.

There would be a long road ahead requiring some detailed research and memory racking. But with more leisure time and long winter evenings it seemed feasible. So I persevered and dug deeper into my official life. Lockdown from coronavirus in early 2020 helped to increase the momentum. I received encouragement from friends and former colleagues, particularly Sir Jeremy Thomas, my ambassador in Luxembourg, and Sir Nicholas Barrington, my boss in both London and Pakistan.

Fortunately my mother had kept and returned to me most of the letters I had written home from overseas as well as Jenny’s very full newsletters. Between them they contained first-hand accounts of, and comments on, activities, events, visits and so on. They also provided valuable source information on names of places and people plus dates which might otherwise have become a little hazy. It took time sorting out the ephemeral from the more substantive items, which often then had to be related to the wider local context. But it was absorbing work, and a far cry from the original bedside or family stories.

Special thanks go to my wife, Jenny, who has been such a support since we first met at a UN Conference in Geneva in 1966. She has had to put up with periods of hardship and difficulty, both in England and overseas but, as will be apparent, we have shared many good times as well. She has helpfully remembered for me some of the stories and incidents I have described and, where necessary, corrected points of detail.

I would also like to thank my brothers Bruce and Michael, and also my cousin Bina Arbuthnott, for letting me describe some of the adventures we had together, particularly in the early part of my life. I am grateful too to friends and former colleagues who have encouraged me to tread this path.

More special thanks of course go to my three children James, Carolyn and Sarah who have shared the trials as well as some of the high spots of this long-running saga since they arrived on the scene. I have written this partly for them and their respective spouses Doreen, Dominic and David.

Nor do I wish to forget my parents who started me on this journey into diplomatic life and supported me along the way. I was never going to match the distinguished career of my father, Sir Geoffrey Harrison. A pity he did not put pen to paper in his retirement apart from a few lectures. But I may have derived some inspiration for this book from my mother who, in her nineties, published some memoirs called On the Fringe under the name of Katherine Harrison describing her experiences living in the realms of Hitler and Stalin.

REVIEW

Warmest congratulations on your book, which I have bought, read and much admired. Good cover picture, clear print and full of information .... and so concise. I would recommend it to anyone who might be interested.                   Sir Nicholas Barrington

Really enjoyed reading your memoirs .... the places visited, the people met
 
I couldn’t put it down. So well written
 
Really enjoyed your book. You write so well and fluidly. Some amazing travels
 
Greatly enjoyed reading your book .... gives helpful insights into the life of a diplomat
 
Most interesting .... a life lived to the full and often at full tilt
 
I was instantly hooked. Especially enjoyed reading about all your adventures
 
A good read

 

SEEKING AN HONOURED PLACE IN THE WORLD

A memoir of a Japanese diplomat,  1945-97

Masamichi  Hanabusa

HOW TO ORDER

£15.00 & P & P UK £3.00

 Bank transfer contact Lynn Davidson at memoirclub@msn.com or Telephone: 07552086888

By Post: Lynn Davidson, The Memoir Club, 34 Lynwood Way, South Shields. NE34 8DB

Cheques payable to Lynn Davidson

Paypal send to memoirclub@msn.com

This memoir is the first ever written by a senior Japanese professional diplomat in English. The author candidly and clearly describes what he did and thought during his forty years of diplomatic life from 1958-97. During this time, Saigon fell, a Cold War was fought and ended with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Japan became the top aid donor and entered into bitter economic rivalry with the USA.

 The book allows readers to have an insight into the Japanese mentality and working methods and consists of two parts. The first deals with the author’s fascinating diplomatic and family life. The latter part is an epilogue, based on his historic viewpoint and his own diplomatic experiences. He  proposes a long-term future path for Japan to pursue, between the hegemonic USA and emerging China. His ideal of a non-aligned, independent Japan with its limited but effective war deterring military capacity is worthy of serious attention for the students of Asia‘s future.

 For the reason of both insight into Japan and the uniqueness of the author‘s views, this book is recommended for the students of Japanese diplomacy.

 Author

Hanabusa Masamichi was born in Tokyo in 1933. After graduating from Keio University, he joined the Japanese foreign service in 1958. For forty years he served various posts both at home and abroad. As Japan recovered from the destruction of the last war and grew fast into a major economic power, Hanabusa witnessed the enormous changes in Japan’s position in the world and the world itself.

Throughout these turbulent years the author endeavoured to find an honoured place for defeated Japan in the world society true to the ideal enshrined in Japan’s post-war Peace Constitution. Much of his efforts in the service focused on the economic development of the developing world and the presentation of Japan’s true figure to the world. Reflecting the unique vicissitudes of his motherland in these years, Hanabusa encountered a variety of situations rarely experienced by diplomats.

 After retirement in 1997, he promoted various non-profit activities such as the English-Speaking Union of Japan, Japan-Italy Association, Giuseppe Verdi Association of Japan, etc. At the publishing of this memoir he was eighty-eight.eighty-eight in a

REVIEW

Japanese diplomats very seldom publish their memoirs. In this sense, this book is a rarity. It is hoped that such efforts would heighten transparency of Japanese diplomacy. 

M. Nishikawa, visiting senior editor on the website of the Mainichi newspaper

Garn Yem by Haydn Watson

 GARN YEM

HAYDN WATSON

Price £9.99 & £3.00 P & P

To ORDER:

Available from Lynn Davidson, The Memoir Club, 34 Lynwood Way,                                        South Shields, NE34 8DB

Please make cheques payable to Lynn Davidson

Or email memoirclub@msn.com

Mobile 07552086888

The tales of nine young men and their escapades across the North East in the 70s.

AUTHOR

I was brought up in South Shields. I lived in Simonside and attended Simonside Junior School. I then attended Westoe Boys and gained certificates including Northern Counties in Geography and CSE Grades in maths, English and English literature, history and technology. My first 20 years in employment was as an Engineer in Fabrication and Welding. In 1991, I gained a B.Ed. in Design & Technology and began teaching in Seaton Delaval. I moved onto schools as Head of Department in Sunderland and Ashington. I then took up lecturing posts at New College Durham, Gateshead College and Newcastle College. I retired from teaching in 2020.

As a child, I was an avid reader and that has continued to this day. I was spellbound by books such as Kidnapped, Treasure Island, War Of The Worlds, Robinson Crusoe, Tom Sawyer, The Old Man And The Sea, To Kill A Mockingbird and Kon Tiki.

In 2012, I began writing short stories and in 2020 I started writing my first book A Life Navigated. This story was based on true events and follows the life of a man who faced many challenges in his life. My second book Garn Yem, is about my life as a teenager in South Shields. My third book What Have We Done? is a story of the Holocaust. I have created a fictional Jewish family in Czechoslovakia who are caught up in the Shoah. I have also written a follow up to Garn Yem, which will be published next year.

I have five children and eleven grandchildren. My interests include music; I play guitar and I am a singer with the Jarrow Choral Society.

INTRODUCTION

We all look back on our formative years as young people with memories of laughter, love, sadness, desire, aspiration and friendship. If we could somehow turn the clock back and in doing so, change some elements of our past; would we be any better for it? Life throws things at us and we make decisions that will have a huge bearing on our future.

This book is a short history of a group of young men embarking on their odyssey as teenagers. The narrative is set in the early 1970s, in and around South Shields. I have used fictional characters to portray individuals and I have created settings and locales to embellish the storyline. There are some true events portrayed within the book and I have changed names and places to avoid any contradictions.

The narrative conjures up a picture of young people grasping life with both hands. It is about friendship; and with that affinity, comes sadness, humour, love and tragedy. This was the 70s, a brave new world of free-thinking young people. I was grateful to be one of the nine young men who challenged the norm and lived their lives with a smile on their face. I hope you can identify with the characters in this book and how they handle the experiences they encounter.

Finally, I do hope you enjoy Garn Yem and in order to maintain a sense of progression within the book; I would encourage you to read the individual short stories in chronological order beginning with Piles and Piccolos and ending with Laughter is the Best Medicine.

I make no apologies for the content of the book; this was a period in time when political correctness was a vision for the future. Any aspects of this narrative that appear to be factually incorrect, then that is my error and mine alone. I dedicate this book to friendship and I hope in reading it, you reflect upon your own friend's past and present.

REVIEWS

So, I have started reading your book and have laughed out loud three times and I have only read the first story.  Catherine.

It`s a great book. Thoroughly enjoyed it.   Freda Carney.

A laugh a minute, great read.  Ben Simpson.

A trip back in time, very funny and the characters are so realistic. Tom Walker.

I was reading Garn Yem in my local pub. I had to put it down because I was laughing out loud. A great read. Bob Green, South Shields.

It`s an excellent read. The author has produced a wonderful reminder of what friendship is all about. The characters portrayed are expertly defined and the stories take you back in time. Frank Rice, Hetton le Hole.

It brings back many happy memories of my youth in the northeast. Margaret Harris, Scotland.

Bought this fantastic book and what a great read. It takes you back to the 70s, good banter with many local places and faces coming back to life. Amazing work. Shirley Walker, South Shields.

Brave tales beautifully told. John Atkinson

I was reading Garn Yem in my local pub. I had to put it down. Because I was laughing out loud, great humour. Bob Green, South Shields.

It’s a great read, he has produced a wonderful reminder of what friendship is all about. Frank Rice, Hetton le Hole.

It brings back many happy memories of my youth in the north east. a brilliant and funny book. Margaret Wilson, Aberdeen.

I bought this fantastic book and what a great read, it takes you back to the seventies. Good banter and local places and faces come back to life. amazing work. Shirley Walker, South Shields.

What a read, loads of laughs and memories of great times. It is a well written book that looks back on the events and situations that were a big part of that era. Tom Simpson, Whitburn.

A great book, could not put it down. David Benham, South Shields.

Phil Wright - Unchartered Territory - someone has switched the light on

 

                                                            HOW TO ORDER

SOFTBACK PRICE £14.50  & UK P & P £2.50

By Post: Lynn Davidson, The Memoir Club, 34 Lynwood Way, South Shields. NE34 8DB

Cheques payable to Lynn Davidson

Telephone:   07552086888 

Email: memoirclub@msn.com

Experience is not a commodity that you can pay for upfront. It is rather like taking out a life insurance policy and then listening to friends, colleagues and peers for advice to acquire the skills necessary to build a successful life.

It can all be achieved when somebody switches on the lights and you then have clear vision to make those important decisions.

INTRODUCTION

You have the job and then are told you should work your way out of it in four years.

The book reflects a life’s passage from the unknown to the real world and beyond. It is about finding one’s feet in life, and eventually taking the plunge and making a career in an ever-changing corporate world, and then, finally, giving something back. In 2013 Tony Turnbull had this to say:

Phil has played a major part in assisting the Sustainable Development Partnership through his input and considerable skills. He has been the mainstay in becoming involved in working with community groups and has been instrumental and influential in making North Tyneside a better place to live.

Tony Turnbull, Sustainable Development Officer at North Tyneside Council

 

Family and work had to be truly juggled at times, you may be in a similar situation at some stage. How will you cope? There is a great deal of well-trodden experience in our Uncharted Territory, it literally went on for mile after mile.

The experiences on life’s journey provided a variety of unplanned circumstances which had an equal variety of unplanned outcomes. Life can be like that for many of us.

Your ambitions can be achieved if you want it. Some of what did happen may help you during your life and career. You will only know that when you have read the story.

We enjoyed our journey and we hope you enjoy yours. 

REVIEW

Getting to travel to such exotic places, experiencing first hand their cultures.  I think you were born at the right time to have those many overseas ventures in the business world.  

You saw places before they became commercialized in the tourist industry. Your descriptions of places, people …and the food: brought the book alive.  

How lucky your wife Eileen was too willing to go wherever you were sent, which meant you could enjoy the adventures together.

Well done documenting your memoirs Phil. I’m sure there are more stories to come.                                                                                                                                        Fi Nicolson                                                                                                                                         

Oh your book, I am just loving reading it, SOOO interesting. What a lovely time you and Eileen had, travelling and living in so many countries, and the interesting people you met. The retired gentleman in India, and for a large gin and tonic, he would talk to you about all the past history, these sort of people are a joy to meet. And not forgetting all the cows Phil.

Throughout all your journeys, Eileen was always there for you, through the highs and lows, and when you would say to her, what should we do? She always said, let's go for it. So many happy times you spent together Phil,  and did amazing things, so good memories for you.                                                                                                                                Joyce Jordan

I have been reading your book again! What a life you have led!! It is certainly interesting and exciting to see you in the business world, on an international stage, with all the political and commercial ramifications. Fitting all in with Eileen, Andrew, and networking too. I am sure many readers would find it most enjoyable and very informative. Such a base for all the deals and businesses of today.   Helen Moran

This book gave an insight into the many intricacies of the business world, There were also fascinating glimpses of the social and family life at the time,
 
A well-written book, eminently readable.   Margaret Davidson  

A very interesting read which started with your love of cricket and continued with the explanation of your journey through your business life in many different countries. Some of which we have also visited and indeed get a mention in your book. We always enjoyed yours and Eileen's company and meeting Andrew in Dubai.

We did not realise that you had travelled so extensively in the Far East, or for that matter your American connections. I am sure you both enjoyed finding our about the different cultures of the Far East and to a varying extent America.

Before retiring, returning to the UK and starting your own Consultancy must have been quite a challenge, and continuing on to do charitable work.

Again I would like to say we enjoyed your book and hope more folk have the opportunity to read your fascinating journey.  Brian and Sheila 

Unchartered territory. What a great title!

I found this book enjoyable and informative. A fascinating journey through a life well lived across the globe and back.

The challenge of being in the right place at the right time against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, in the business world.

Yet what goes around, comes around, and so our hero ultimately finds himself…back home in Tyneside.

Another door is shown to open up. It’s no good, Phil, you’ll never turn the light out.

Your final chapters point to pastures new. So, what comes next? Surely a sequel simmers on the stove?

Will you expand on further calls to arms? Move seamlessly from pressurised environments to life in the Voluntary Sector and beyond?

Stands the church clock at ten to three.

Will there be cats to herd?

We wait and see!    Wendy Bradley

Like the late Lord MacLaurin’s memoir, Unchartered Territory combines lessons learned on the cricket pitch and the boardroom and is a seamless memoir.  

The opening chapters describe a common theme in business biographies: School leads to sport to training and to a career. So far, so formulaic. What is remarkable is the trajectory Phil’s career took. While pitching and delivering on different continents is commonplace in most senior commercial leaders now, it was not in the early seventies, doubly so for one who had not developed through a graduate training programme.  

As at the crease, Phil’s sense of timing in business seems to have been impeccable. To be based at the heart of the much missed ‘common market’ as it came to life and then to move to Dubai during the time it was developing into the commercial ‘bridgehead’ to the Middle East (and not the playground of footballers) shows a keen nose for an opportunity.  

I enjoyed particularly the ‘view from the boundary’, his prowess in the middle order and determination not to give his wicket away. There is that delightful whiff of linseed oil and cut grass which inspires good cricket writing. The same determination infuses the tales from the boardroom during the latter part of the book. 

I finished Unchartered Territory shortly after reading the late ‘Lord Ted’ Dexter’s memoir. However briefly their sports careers met, to be able to recount sharing the field with a Cambridge and Sussex great must have been a great memory among great memories! 

Finishing the book I recalled an interview with the late President Mandela, who described a telephone call with then Prime Minister John Major; “we spoke briefly of sanctions and of investment, but the majority of our speeches were about cricket”.  

Once again, Phil may be on to something!   Richard Beveridge

Don’t put your washing out on a Sunday. Finally someone else had been told the same as I.

Mobile phones – no one had them in the 1970s.  Computers were so large, they filled a room.

This is a fascinating tale of an international career during a fast-changing world.  Add into the mix a cricketer who played with past masters and ends it with a missing engineer.

The result is a jolly good read. Mary Hamlyn

                                                        

 

Paul McNulty - Growing Up West - A Memoir

 

HOW TO ORDER THIS BOOK

SOFTBACK PRICE £14.50 &  P & P £3.50 or Euros €19 & P &  P  €5

By Post: Lynn Davidson, The Memoir Club, 34 Lynwood Way, South Shields. NE34 8DB

Cheques payable to Lynn Davidson

Telephone:   07552086888 

Email: memoirclub@msn.com

 

AUTHOR

Paul B McNulty is an Emeritus Professor of  Biosystems Engineering at University College Dublin. After retirement, he applied his professional experience to writing historical novels and stage plays, influenced by the wild splendour of the West of Ireland. He is now developing a brief on climate change as it impacts on a fragile Mother Earth. Paul lives in Dublin with his wife, Treasa Ní Chonaola. They have three children, Dara, Nora and Meabh, and three grandchildren, Lily, Niam and Dara Óg.

INTRODUCTION

Paul Bernard McNulty was born on March 22, 1940 at the Mall House, Tuam, Co Galway to Kathleen Mary McHugh of The Central Hotel, Tuam, Co Galway and Thomas Bernard McNulty of 15 Warrington Place, Dublin 2. Having lived for four years in nearby Mountbellew, my family moved to Carlow where my father worked as a subagent in the Bank of Ireland. We returned west to Castlebar in 1948, following my father’s promotion as agent. I grew up over the next nine years in the capital town of County Mayo. These two western periods generated a love for the west of Ireland which I have retained to the present.

After nine years in Castlebar, and now aged seventeen, I spent the next four wasted years in the Bank of Ireland. Then, I broke my father’s heart by leaving the bank and taking an engineering degree at University College Dublin, 1961-65. Intellectual liberation followed through this academic programme, bolstered by a one year experience of the Irish food industry in Mallow and Fermoy. Travelling west to the USA, I completed six wonderful years of postgraduate study at The Ohio State University, Columbus and at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, supplemented by involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement as well as the struggle for civil rights in Northern Ireland.

Having returned home in 1972, I then enjoyed a successful thirty-three year career in agricultural and biosystems engineering at University College Dublin having been appointed to the chair of agricultural engineering in 1979. My experience was enriched by the birth of a son and two daughters and an active interest in Irish politics and sport.

My marriage to the love of my life, Treasa Ní Chonaola of Lettermullen, Co Galway, serves to emphasize my affection for the west of Ireland. I now visit her home patch ever since her parents gifted us a plot on which we have built a holiday home. Nothing pleases me more than to escape from the metropolis and the keyboard, and spend a weekend cutting grass. If I’m lucky, the magical call of the cuckoo will accompany my work in the garden. I am proud that our three children, Dara, Nora and Meabh have been exposed to this tradition as have our grandchildren who together with future family members may cherish this western experience.

                                       Accolades for Growing Up West

… a most impressive piece of work …  Patricia O’Reilly (Irish writer and teacher of creative writing), Sept 26, 2019.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The time came and I have curled up and read this - it's a wonderful record of an idyllic childhood. Patricia O’Reilly May 5, 2020.

 Your work will be there to be cherished and embraced for the coming generations …Mary Farrell (retired teacher), Galway, March 22, 2020.             

 … looks really great … photos are … awesome and nostalgic. Nice work, Paul.  Mehreen Ahmad (Australian writer), Sept 27, 2019.                      

Congratulations Paul … Bob Harley, former schoolboy friend at Newbridge College, US barrister, Sept 29, 2019.

 … looks very interesting … I am excited to read it in more detail.    Christina Stahl, Dietrich W. Botstiber Foundation, Media, PA 19063, great-granddaughter of Hugo Botstiber, Vienna Konzerthaus Society, Oct 5, 2019.                            

 … will look your memoir over especially the section on MIT,   Jesse Schwartz, Living Tree Community Foods, Berkley, CA 94709, Sept 26, 2019.                                                    

                                              

                                              OTHER WORKS BY PAUL B MCNULTY 

Historical novels with Club Lighthouse CLP,

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada:

 

Spellbound by Sibella (2013)

The Abduction of Anne O’Donel (2014)

A Story of the Bodkin Murders (2015)

 

Books with CreateSpace Independent Publishing

Platform and Kindle Direct Publishing:

 

Genealogy of the Anglo-Norman Lynches who settled in Galway (2013)

A Rebel Romance – novella (2014)

Letters to the Editor: Food & Food-Related Issues – non-fiction (2016)

1798: A Rebel Romance – stage play (2016)

Spellbound by Sibella – stage play (2017)

A Girl Called May – memoir (2018)

An Irish Jesuit in Australia – memoir (2019)

Dave Baines - FLOOD HAZARD - A CAVERS WORST NIGHTMARE

 

Dave Baines is an experienced outdoor activities instructor who has been caving for forty years. During that time he has visited several caves in flood and was once rescued. Here he recounts that story and of others being trapped, flooded and having near misses in water filled caves.

 Included are the reasons and principles of how and why caves flood.

 Dave asks the question, can this risk be evaluated? Here is the conclusion of a lifetime study and a comprehensive answer to that question.

 The book is beautifully illustrated with eighty-six colour photographs, several maps and diagrams. This is an essential buy for anyone interested in caving and who wants to protect their life.

HOW TO ORDER

SOFTBACK PRICE £12.50 & P & P UK £3.50

By Post: Dave Baines 6 Millcliff, Buxton SK17 6QP.

Cheques payable to David Baines

Email:   davebaines40@gmail.com

REVIEW

Brian Wilson Lost Certainties & Arcadia i ii iii

Copies are available from Lynn Davidson memoirclub@msn.com  mob 0755 2086888

Lost Certainties is a sequel to A Faith Unfaithful, Brian Wilson’s previous collection of broadcasts, sermons and addresses. In this new publication, through the medium of essays and letters to friends, he seeks to give an account of the evolution of his own faith and explores the dilemma, which he shares with many modern Christians, of how to reconcile a rational and educated modern mind with the largely mythological faith still propagated by the traditional Church. He makes no claim to having the answers. But he firmly believes that if those who are sympathetic to the Christian faith can bring themselves to recognise those elements of faith which modern scientific knowledge and biblical scholarship have rendered untenable to the modern mind, it will help them to rediscover the true value of teaching of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, who was transformed by centuries of theological argument into the Christ of Faith. Religion, he argues, is not just an intellectual construct; but without a solid rational basis, it is as a house built upon sand.

With two archbishops, a bishop, and a monsignor in his immediate ancestry, he has found it as difficult to abandon the faith of his fathers as it is to accept the traditional teaching of the Church in the face of what we now know of Biblical scholarship, the early years of Christianity within the Roman Empire, and what modern science has tell us about creation, and the evolution of our species. We are not fallen angels, he argues, but risen apes. He has found many friends and colleagues, both in his own teaching profession and further afield, who have had similar problems of belief. This book contains a selection of his essays and letters written for them.    

Brian Wilson is classical scholar of Christ’s College, Cambridge, for whom theology has been a lifelong interest. He taught in several leading independent schools, (Radley College, King’s Canterbury, and Eastbourne College), before becoming Headmaster of Campbell College, Belfast during a challenging period of educational and civil disturbance. He has been a guest speaker for Swan Hellenic on Mediterranean cruises, an A Level examiner in Latin and Ancient History, the co-author of several ancient history source books, a religious broadcaster, and served for a time on the joint Central Religious Advisory Committee of the BBC/ITV.  The evolution of his increasingly radical view of the faith of his church will disturb traditionalists, but may encourage those of a more progressive disposition, who like him still wrestle with their faith.       

REVIEW by Roger Harington

Do you think the Bible is literally the Word of God? Do you think Jesus is literally the Son of God? Do you think that this is what Christians should believe? And must they also believe in the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection? Brian Wilson says no. He says these beliefs are a product of their time. They’re the kind of thing people said 2000 years ago when various other heroes could be called sons of God and Roman emperors could be called divine. Of course at that time people used that kind of language to illustrate the importance of Jesus. But it’s no longer the language that we should use. It no longer makes sense. And the Doctrine of the Trinity? Well what do you expect if the Church allies itself with power and allows an Emperor to call the tune? Consensus became more important than truth.


And Mr. Wilson argues that this has continued to be the case. That the Church has failed, again and again, to allow new understanding of the world and human experience to have any effect on its teaching. Or at least on what it allows the laity to be taught. One of his main complaints is that the clergy are often aware that the Bible is not the Word of God, that Jesus is not divine etc etc but dare not rock the ecclesiastical boat by sharing their knowledge with the laity. Result? A church that has refused to grow up.


This book is a very enjoyable collection of lectures, articles and letters covering similar themes. It is very clearly written...with various entertaining asides...and this reader finds the case the author puts completely persuasive. Mr. Wilson frequently admits to not being a Theologian. But as a teacher of Latin, Greek and Ancient History he has considerable knowledge of the period when Christianity began.


But if it’s true that the Church has not grown up what can be done about it? Jesus remains for Mr. Wilson as someone to follow and be inspired by. But he thinks the Church should be disestablished. Teaching must improve. Completely new ways of expressing the faith need to be found. The Eucharist should be there for those who value it but it shouldn’t be the central act of worship as it demands membership/Confirmation before you can fully participate. We shouldn’t be so hung up on doctrine. Right living is more important than right believing.


These and other ideas may well be attractive to many. But they clearly will offend many others. They are not ideas that a Church of England is going to acclaim as central to its existence any time soon. So the question for Mr. Wilson and those who agree with him is this: why stay in the C of E? If you try and get the C of E to follow what you say will you for ever be battering your head against an extremely solid dogmatic wall? Do you want to do that? Or would you be better off starting something new?