SPIRIT OF ENGLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 86, 8 October 1940, Page 6

SPIRIT OF ENGLAND

A REVELATION

DETERMINED TO FIGHT

"A wonderful revelation of England shaken out of her lethargy of selfsatisfaction," was how the Rev. Lionel B. Fletcher, formerly of Auckland, described in an interview his experiences of life in London up till five weeks ago, when he left for New Zealand. "Britain has taken up a fighting attitude," he said. "There is no running away, and the more bombs they get the more determined they are to fight. That is where the Germans are missing the bus. They don't understand the British."

As an example of the prevailing spirit of Britain, Mr. Fletcher quoted the case of the oldest lady attending a church he was looking after at St. Leonards-on-Sea, on the south coast.

The authorities were encouraging the evacuation of such elderly people, but when he hinted about it to her she replied with some vigour: "Evacuate? They can carry me out feet first, but that's the only way they will." She was 94 -years old. "It makes you proud to be a Britisher," added Mr. Fletcher.

In the fortnight he spent in London before he left, Mr. Fletcher said they were getting about three air-raid warnings a day and sometimes two or three at night. One night he heard a whistling bomb fall in the vicinity of his place of residence in north London, and he later discovered that it had blown out the windows and doors of the house of a Congregational minister friend of his. ,

Mr. Fletcher said that during one of^ the alarm periods he and his wife did what the authorities advised people not to do: they looked out of the window and saw scores of searchlights and some planes, whether German or British they did not know, dodging about in the light.

One of the most wonderful sights in London was provided by the balloon barrage, said Mr. Fletcher. From his window he could count 56 balloons in the sky, and he described - them as looking like "a ring of big bulls." At first he thought they were stupid-look-ing things, but later, like everybody else, he derived much comfort from their presence. He had heard of people who were sent away from London wanting to return, solely because they felt that the balloon barrage in the capital made it safer for them than a place without such protection. .

Another wonderful thing in London, said Mr. Fletcher, was the speed with which bomb craters in streets were repaired. "Sometimes,'' he said, "a bomb would make a, crater 8 or 9 feet deep in the middle of a street. That might be about 10 o'clock at night. At 8 o'clock next morning you could hardly tell where the bomb had fallen, for the crater was quickly filled in and sealed." ALWAYS ON THE MOVE. Since Mr; Fletcher left Auckland, where he was minister of the Beresford Street Congregational Church, in 1932, he has been connected with the World Evangelisation Movement, with headquarters in London, but he has been constantly on the move throughout the Empire. He had made three visits, each of seven months, to South Africa, spent a winter in ' Scotland, visited Ireland fou* or five times, paid a short visit to New Zealand in 1937, and also been through the United States and Canada. The outbreak of war last year stopped his work of addressing big meetings in England, as the authorities did not like large crowds being discharged into the streets during the black-out. For eight months he. took the temporary oversight of the Congregational Church at St. Leonards-on-Sea. Three years ago he had promised to visit Australia in 1941, and this fact, together jvith the approach of winter again and the impossibility of holding large night meetings, the increase in the bombing attacks, and news from Auckland that his successor, the Rev A. C. Nelson, was seriously ill, determined him to come to New Zealand. He intends to lend a hand in Auckland until Mr. Nelson is better, and then go on to Australia.