War Cry 15 April 2023

WAR CRY

Making their own way home

Couple have to take control in plane drama

‘I wanted to offer vulnerable women a safe place’

What is The Salvation Army?

The Salvation Army is a Christian church and registered charity seeking to share the good news of Jesus and nurture committed followers of him. We also serve people without discrimination, care for creation and seek justice and reconciliation. We offer practical support and services in more than 700 centres throughout the UK. Go to salvationarmy.org.uk/find-a-church to find your nearest centre.

What is the War Cry?

The Salvation Army first published a newspaper called the War Cry in London in December 1879, and we have continued to appear every week since then. Our name refers to our battle for people’s hearts and souls as we promote the positive impact of the Christian faith and The Salvation Army’s fight for greater social justice.

WAR CRY

Editor: Andrew Stone, Major

Deputy Editor: Philip Halcrow

Production Editor: Ivan Radford

Assistant Editor: Sarah Olowofoyeku

Staff Writer: Emily Bright

Staff Writer: Claire Brine

Editorial Assistant: Linda McTurk

Graphic Designer: Rodney Kingston

Graphic Designer: Mark Knight

Email: warcry@salvationarmy.org.uk

The Salvation Army United Kingdom and Ireland Territory 101 Newington Causeway London

SE1 6BN

Tel: 0845 634 0101

Subscriptions: 01933 445445 (option 1, option 1) or email: subscriptions@satcol.org

Founder: William Booth

General: Brian Peddle

Territorial Commander: Commissioner Anthony Cotterill

Editor-in-Chief: Major Julian Watchorn

SEVENTY years ago this week the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, was published. As we report in this week’s War Cry, in the seven decades since, 007 has been operating with a licence to thrill his fans. Millions of people around the world have found Ian Fleming’s stories of espionage and adventure the perfect escape from their day-to-day lives.

However, the reality of some people’s lives is such that not even a gripping all-action tale could give much relief. This week we speak to two people who have spent years helping those who are experiencing challenging circumstances.

Val Jeal worked with some of society’s most vulnerable people – sex workers and those experiencing homelessness. Emma Heath supports people living with addiction.

Both women have established their own charities to carry out the work and both women are inspired by their Christian faith.

‘God changed my heart,’ Val tells us, before adding that she saw those she helped as ‘people who needed to be loved’.

For Emma, God’s intervention was even more marked, as it freed her from her own battles with addiction while she was taking part in a six-week recovery programme.

‘I remember walking into the main room,’ she says. ‘I saw the word “God” in there. It made me think how I had been brought up knowing about Christianity but that I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus any more.’

Over time Emma went back to that relationship with Jesus, and now she is helping people who are dealing with similar addiction challenges to those she experienced herself. She is convinced that it is her faith that enables her to give such support.

‘I’m absolutely in awe of the things God is doing through me,’ she tells us. ‘Every day I’m grateful. God has never let me down.’

INFO INFO

picture: COURTESY OF PRIME VIDEO/BORIS MARTIN

SKY’S THE LIMIT

Family must show faith to avoid a flight disaster in true drama

AN annual barbecue cook-off is a highlight of the unremarkable life of churchgoer Doug White (Dennis Quaid) and his family. But events take a dramatic turn in On a Wing and a Prayer, which is streaming on Prime Video.

Doug is already questioning his faith after a family tragedy by the time he, his wife Terri (Heather Graham) and their daughters Maggie (Jessi Case) and Bailey (Abigail Rhyne) board a private jet to fly from Florida to their home in Louisiana.

Then, just minutes into the flight, the pilot suffers a fatal heart attack. Doug is forced to take control of the plane –despite having no experience in flying such an aircraft – and try to bring it down safely at a landing strip.

As they fly into a storm, the family’s lives hang in the balance. With his co-pilot Terri at his side, Doug relies on air traffic control for step-by-step guidance. Survival will require nothing short of a miracle. And, as one person who comes to their aid says: ‘Sometimes you’ve got to trust in things you can’t see.’

Flying blind, the family will have to

depend on their Christian faith more than ever before for the strength to see them through.

Jessi, who plays older daughter Maggie, says of the true story behind the film: ‘I am just so impressed by the resilience of this family. Doug and Terri … held it together because their faith was unshakeable. When you have something to hold on to and believe in, it helps break the mindset that this dark moment is never ending.’

That is certainly the case for Christians around the world, who turn to their belief in God in times of crisis. Their faith provides them with a confidence and hope for the future.

One Bible writer describes faith as ‘confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see’ (Hebrews 11:1 New International Version)

and then goes on to give examples of how faith has seen people through seemingly impossible circumstances.

It wasn’t the people’s own strength that enabled them to overcome their trials – it was their relationship with God that equipped them. And God still works powerfully in people’s lives today.

If we ask him for help, we will never have to experience life’s crises alone.

It can be tempting to operate on autopilot, just trying to get through the next day, week or month. But it’s always worth pausing to explore faith – it can alter our course for the better.

Their lives hang in the balance

Doug (Dennis Quaid) boards a plane with his family – but (below) is forced to land it himself when the pilot dies

Film feature by Emily Bright

In with the old

Claire Brine gives her take on a story catching the attention of War Cry reporters

IF I want to read a heart-warming story, I find that it’s often best to avoid the news. But a BBC website report about a 100-year-old man who was awarded a British Empire Medal in honour of his work as a primary school reading volunteer made me smile.

The article explained that Second World War veteran Peter Davies began helping children to read six years ago, after his wife’s death left him feeling ‘lost’.

‘Life became pointless in some ways,’ he said. But when Peter began volunteering at the Dean Valley Community Primary School in Macclesfield, he considered his new role a privilege.

‘The school is the centre of my world these days,’ he said. ‘I think if you associate with young people, you tend to stay young.’

As I admired Peter’s efforts, I happened to catch yet another BBC story about an inspirational pensioner – an 85-year-old grandmother from Altrincham who runs 10k twice a week.

According to the broadcast on Radio Manchester, Barbara Thackray took up running eight years ago to raise money for charity, and has been chosen as one of the faces of a new Adidas advert alongside athletes such as footballer Mo Salah.

While out for a run with reporter Jade Taylorson, Barbara explained her approach.

‘The aim is to keep running,’ she said. ‘The temptation is to start too fast, but my advice would be start very gently… If you start too fast, you’re likely to give up.’

What wise words! What inspiring people! I admire the courage of Peter and Barbara to try something new in later life and their determination to keep going with it year after year. I love how age presented no barriers to their setting a goal and pursuing it. Perhaps more of us could – should – adopt a similar attitude.

It can be easy to think that we are who we are and we do what we do and it’s too late to be anything different. But it’s not.

It’s never too late to change our heart, our attitude, our language or our behaviour. If we start gently today, there’s no telling what tomorrow might hold.

Charity warns of poverty ‘devastation’

UP to half of UK adults went without heat at some point this winter – with over six million people going without heat on a daily basis – according to polling data released by Christians Against Poverty (CAP).

The YouGov poll also showed that about a third of households have had to skip meals, including 40 per cent of households with children.

CAP is asking policymakers, energy providers, utilities companies and financial services to offer increased funding for free debt help and budgeting courses.

One manager of a CAP debt centre, Leanne Rivett, said: ‘I provide free debt help and, for the last year, I’ve been brought to tears witnessing the devastation that poverty has on our clients, seeing parents struggling to feed their children and meeting people who are having suicidal thoughts, depressed and alone.

‘I have found that debt is usually a symptom of a much wider situation and, because CAP provides face-to-face support to people in their own homes, we can identify and face the deeper needs in our community and tackle poverty in a way that will really last.’

nLAMBETH Palace Library is hosting a free exhibition to celebrate the King’s coronation.

Artefacts include the coronation charter of Henry I from the 11th century, the Bible on which Elizabeth II swore her coronation oath and a letter from George VI thanking Archbishop Lang for the part he played in his coronation ceremony.

A Declaration of Our Hopes for the Future: Coronations from the Middle Ages to the Present Day runs until 13 July.

Age presented no barriers to setting a goal

WAR CRYWnRLD

Star finds Church ‘good for mental health’

SALLY PHILLIPS told Radio Times that, since becoming a Christian in her 20s, she has experienced ‘lots of doubt in faith, and faith in doubt’.

Talking to journalist Libby Purves, the television and film actress – known for her comedic roles in Miranda, Smack the Pony and the Bridget Jones films – described her faith as ‘baby-level Christianity’ and said she had found that ‘the Church does all the things we know are good for our mental health: quiet, singing together, socialising afterwards, having a structure, doing good, feeling good because you have a purpose’.

Faith gives TikToker his identity

ROLLING Stone magazine has featured three TikTokers whose faith has been a part of their surrealist content.

Grant Beene, Frankie Lagana and Jericho Mencke, who between them have more than five million followers on the social media platform, create content that commenters have put in the ‘fever dream’ genre.

Aside from making videos together, the twentysomethings also share a Christian faith.

Frankie told Rolling Stone that he downloaded the TikTok app because, after praying about what to do next, God guided him to it. Jericho believes that, although his videos have millions of views, his faith helps him stay grounded.

He said: ‘Not putting my identity in videos but like, finding my identity and Jesus – that’s something that’s super important to me.’

Over the Easter weekend, Sally spoke to Britain’s first black female bishop, the Right Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth about faith on My Life at Easter with Sally Phillips, which is now available on BBC iPlayer.

Biblical roots for park development

A SONG in the Bible is set to be the theme of a public park in Liverpool.

Home to dog-walkers as well as woodland creatures, Bright Park will undergo developments with the help of designer Sarah Eberle to reflect the message of Psalm 23, which talks about God caring for people. The project is inspired by Sarah’s Psalm 23 Garden,

which was exhibited at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2021 and was sponsored by Bible Society.

Sarah said that the park would ‘build a relationship between local people and their landscape’.

The six-acre park is overseen by arts and community centre and charity Liverpool Lighthouse, which, during the first year of Covid, responded to the community’s request to have the park opened up to the public for people’s wellbeing. Its chairman, Dr Tani Omideyi, expressed his hope that, as the park is developed, people will feel whole when they visit. He said Psalm 23 is ‘like an embrace’.

Alfie-Jean Levene, a trustee of Liverpool Lighthouse, said: ‘I hope that people are able to connect with the psalm, to know that they are not alone, that there is a God that cares for them and brings them peace.’

BBC/BIG CIRCUS MEDIA

Dr Tani Omideyi and Sarah Eberle

Change of hear t leads to help on the streets

VAL JEAL recalls her experiences of supporting some of society’s most vulnerable people

Interview by Sarah Olowofoyeku

‘WHEN I was 44 years old I was aware that something was missing,’ says Val Jeal. ‘I tried different things. I looked at Buddhism and various kinds of meditation, but I knew they were not for me, so I started going to churches.’

One Sunday in 1985 Val was invited to a Salvation Army church in St Paul’s, an inner-city area of Bristol.

‘The people there had something that I wanted,’ she says. ‘One week, the person leading the service invited those in the congregation to know Jesus personally. I sat in my seat and asked Jesus into my life, and it was the most incredible experience I’ve ever had, before or since. I felt an overwhelming sense of warmth, joy, beauty and light.’

After this encounter Val’s life took a completely different turn. She tells her

story in her book Broken by Love, which started out as memories she had written up to tell her granddaughter ‘what Grandma had been up to’.

‘God changed my heart,’ Val explains. ‘It was a gradual process. But instead of walking past and stepping over people who were completely out of their minds because of their drug and alcohol abuse just so I could get to church, I began to take their faces home with me. I didn’t know them, but I was no longer afraid of them and I prayed for them. I saw them as people who needed to be loved.

‘Six years later I felt God was telling me to work in St Paul’s. The church decided I could start a new project, working with the homeless. It was called the Candle Project. After 25 years of working as a

Val Jeal

secretary at Bristol University, I resigned to become a community manager.’

Val was inexperienced, but she had a heart for vulnerable people. So when a lack of awareness about the new project initially meant that no one from the neighbourhood turned up to it, she took herself to them.

‘I spent the first year walking the streets every morning,’ she says. ‘I got to know the locals, the homeless people, the shopkeepers and even the drug dealers. After a few months some of the homeless men started turning up for a cup of tea, so I started making tea, coffee and toast, and it grew from there into a really big project.’

There came a point, however, five years in when Val realised that she had been working in her own strength, rather than relying on God to help her.

‘I was exhausted by the work and my heart was breaking,’ she admits. ‘I wondered where God was in all the suffering. I lost my way and I couldn’t pray. Once you start going in your own strength, it’s the end.’

Val took a sabbatical of three months

I wondered where God was

from the project.

After reading about Edwina Gateley, an Englishwoman who had felt God tell her to travel to the States to work with sex workers in Chicago, Val contacted her.

‘I asked if I could work in the safe house Edwina had set up,’ Val says. ‘She said to come, so I went to Chicago in the winter of 1996. It was after a week of working there that, with no one else to go to –no husband, no friend, no one to prop me up – God in his mercy and grace met me. I asked for his forgiveness, and he put me back together again.’

She also found the answer to her question of where God was.

‘He showed me that he had been there all along,’ she says. ‘I saw Jesus in the people I was helping, and they told me to go back and work with the girls in my city.’

On her return to Bristol, Val did just that.

‘I resigned from the Candle Project and started going out with a rucksack on my back, a flask of hot chocolate and chocolate bars so I could offer the women something. I felt that this was what God was leading me to do.’

After talking with the sex workers, Val

learnt that they wanted a women-only space, so she set up a project, One25, named after the number of the building in which it was housed. Later, she obtained a van so that she could meet the women where they were.

‘I wanted to offer the women the opportunity to have a safe space, where they might be able to consider that they had choices in their lives, a space where we could sit down and talk about their needs,’ she says.

‘It was a privilege to have the trust of women who had no reason to trust anyone. Best job I’ve ever had, if you can call it a job.’

While Val has since retired, the One25 project continues today, with about

40 members of staff and the van outreach at the core of its work supporting marginalised women in Bristol. Over her years of working, Val says she has learnt that God is full of surprises.

‘He chooses the most unlikely people for the task,’ she says. ‘But if he calls you, he equips you. In my own strength, I’m not up to it, but in God’s strength, all things are possible.’

l Broken by Love is published by Authentic Media

It was a privilege to have their trust

Val with the One25 project’s first outreach van, a safe space for women to talk while they were out on the streets

‘I was physically dependent on alcohol’

In her 20s, EMMA HEATH felt her alcohol consumption spiral out of control. Now her addiction charity Star equips churches and organisations to provide recovery support. She describes what transformed her life

Interview by Emily Bright

‘I’M a spontaneous character,’ says Emma Heath. ‘After I left university I worked for a while as a recruitment consultant, but before long I went on holiday to Turkey, and I ended up running a nightclub out there for three years.’

But there was a darker reality at play.

‘I was living the party life, and there was alcohol every day,’ she says. ‘Before I knew it, I was physically dependent on it. I didn’t realise this until I came back on a flight to the UK one time, and it was delayed. I hadn’t any alcohol in my system and I started getting physical withdrawal symptoms. That was horrendous. I was in a really dark place when I finally got back.’

For Emma, drinking alcohol had long been a way to fit in. While her mum gave her and her brother ‘everything we could wish for’, including an introduction to the Christian faith, she admits that when she was growing up, she felt ‘different’ from other people and was bullied at school.

‘I longed so much to fit in with the in-crowd,’ she remembers.

At the age of 11, Emma started turning to coping mechanisms that were ultimately harmful for her.

‘I thought I was controlling food,’ she says. ‘But it ended up that food was controlling me. I went through the whole spectrum of food disorders, from anorexia to bulimia to overeating to exercise.’

Two years later she had her first taste of alcohol when she was with school friends.

‘Alcohol was the thing that I latched on to,’ she says. ‘And I used to drink to fit in. But I would end up doing things that weren’t in my nature. My alcohol dependency grew. Around the age of 17, everything was dictated by when I was drinking.’

When she left school, she had her pick of a number of courses at Cardiff University. One of those on offer was hospitality management. Looking back, Emma sees how her addiction had the

deciding vote.

‘My tutor said the clinching words: “There’s wine tasting on a Friday.” Based on that, I signed up straightaway to a four-year degree. But I didn’t know I had a problem, and that the wine tasting was the thing that drew me in.’

As she studied for her degree, she managed to keep up appearances. But behind the scenes, she was continually abusing alcohol.

‘My dependency really escalated when I went to university – it was a drinking culture,’ she says. ‘I had different circles of friends for different elements of my drinking. I didn’t see it at the time, but now I look back and see how the pattern had crept in.’

However, 15 years ago, after friends began telling her that she had a problem, Emma, who was consuming up to two litres of vodka a day, was able to see for herself that she was addicted to drink.

‘I was seeing it physically, emotionally,

I wanted to end my life

Emma Heath

spiritually,’ she says. ‘I reached out. My mum was a pharmacist at the time, and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society helped to fund me to go to a rehab centre.

‘I was taken into a six-week programme in a 12-step rehab centre in Wiltshire. I remember walking into the main room and they had those 12 steps written down on the wall. I saw the word “God” in there. It made me think how I had been brought up knowing about Christianity but that I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus any more. Not that he’d left me, but I had turned my back on him.’

Gradually, as her withdrawal symptoms subsided, she explored a relationship with God.

‘I had moments of wondering: “God, why am I feeling like this?” There were many times I wanted to end my life. Then I started saying: “Where are you?” And

he showed himself to me because I was open to him again.’

As Emma continued on the programme, she spent time thinking about God and understanding more of his nature and character as a loving heavenly Father. This, coupled with the 12-step programme, helped her to recognise the areas of life where her own actions had led to her addiction and where it was a result of the actions of others – and for the latter situations, Emma started the process of forgiving the people who had hurt her.

She says: ‘As I adopted

Turn to page 10 f

With her mum Lizi

Emma 15 years ago, in what she describes as her ‘dark days’ of addiction

From page 9

disciplines of forgiveness, grace, kindness and love, I began to see the Father’s love and to understand who he is to me. Recovery was an opportunity to recreate myself in the image that God has for me.’

Emma adds that her relationship with God has played a central role in her recovery. ‘I couldn’t be without my faith. It has been there through my recovery journey, and it’s what keeps me strong enough to be able to resist the temptation to drink,’ she says.

another girl in the block of flats performed CPR on her.

I last drank alcohol 10 years ago

However, her recovery hasn’t always been straightforward.

‘I got sober 15 years ago, but then I ended up drinking again,’ she recalls. ‘When I last drank alcohol just over 10 years ago, I was in an absolute mess and reached out for help. Thankfully, good people came alongside me and helped me.’

Within six weeks of her second period of sobriety beginning, Emma’s life was turned upside down.

‘My mum and I had just come back to my place after I had taken her on holiday to Iceland. Suddenly, she had a cardiac arrest in front of me. She collapsed on the floor in my bedroom, and myself and

‘After eight minutes, the paramedics got to my flat and took over. All I could do was stand back, seeing the person that I most loved dying. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before – the sounds, the smells and the air leaving the body, the rasping noise. There is a big part in addiction where we say that we’re powerless. Those moments with the paramedics and my mum were the epitome of powerlessness in my life.’

Emma turned to her faith for strength. She started praying.

‘I said: “God, give me the courage to get through.” And a peace fell in that room.

‘I could see another person in the room with us, which freaked me out at first, but then the peace that surrounded me was beautiful. I know that Jesus was there with us that day.’

Emma was told by the paramedics

that, after shocking her mother’s heart many times, there was nothing more they could do. Despite the certainty of the paramedics, Emma didn’t believe that they should stop their efforts.

‘I believe that God works through us,’ she says. ‘He gives us the ability to cope in the most unusual situations. I looked at one of the paramedics and I said: “Please can you try one more time?” He shocked my mum’s heart, and it started again. I know that Jesus was there and that he was looking out for us. My mum was rushed to intensive care, but she’s alive to tell the story now.’

After her mum’s cardiac arrest, Emma started attending a church that had recently opened near to where she lived. One day, she heard a guest speaker talk about a Christian recovery course. The talk would alter the course of her life.

‘The penny dropped,’ she says. ‘I was keeping my recovery and my faith separate. In that moment, hearing the two could come together was like a hole starting to fill up.’

She decided to run a Christian recovery course herself, with the help of another woman.

‘It was like opening the floodgates,’ Emma says. ‘The hunger for Christ-centred recovery was like I’d never known. We had about 1,500 people take part during the seven years that we ran it. We also mobilised other churches to run the course, including The Salvation Army.’

Through this work, Emma realised that there was a need for support on a national level, and she thought about ways in which churches could be better equipped

Emma’s intervention saved her mum’s life after she went into cardiac arrest

Emma speaking at

to help people with addiction problems. She put together a comprehensive document on how this could be done, but she wasn’t certain how to move her ideas forward.

‘I prayed about it, and I kept this document in my bag for weeks and weeks,’ she says. ‘Then someone said they wanted to support me financially. Without them knowing it, the money that they donated was the exact amount needed to help get my charity registered and create the brand and website.’

Emma created Star, or Steps To Active Recovery, which trains and equips churches and organisations to provide

services and support to people with addictions and compulsive behaviours. Star has also created a free 12-week online recovery course to support people with any addictive habit or behaviour, which is loosely based on the 12-step programme that Emma participated in. The course is run by people who have recovered from an addiction themselves.

Emma says that anyone can fall prey to addiction.

‘Between 80 and 90 per cent of people have a habit – it could be as full-blown as an addiction, it could just be another destructive habit. But if they were free of it, they’d be happier. We need to break

the stigma around addiction so that people can access help and are able to talk about it.’

Emma is enthusiastic about her plans for the future, and it’s clear that it is her faith that drives her on.

‘I’m absolutely in awe of the things God is doing through me and through Star,’ she says. ‘Every day I’m grateful. God has never let me down.’

l For more information visit starrecovery.org

the Causeway Coast Vineyard Women’s Illuminate Conference in 2021

THE War Cry invites readers to send in requests for prayer, including the first names of individuals and details of their circumstances, for publication. Send your Prayerlink requests to warcry@salvationarmy.org.uk or to War Cry, 101 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BN. Mark your correspondence ‘Confidential’.

Wisdom in the words

Lydia Houghton explores song lyrics that have a note of truth about them

A change for the better

REGARDLESS of whether you’re a Harry Styles fan or not, chances are you’ve heard his dulcet tones playing on a radio, in a coffee shop or in the supermarket as you hunt for that extra-value pack of Shreddies.

There is no set formula to becoming a Christian, but many people have found saying this prayer to be a helpful first step to a relationship with God

Lord Jesus Christ, I am truly sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life. Please forgive me. I now turn from everything that I know is wrong.

Thank you that you died on the cross for me so that I could be forgiven and set free.

Thank you that you offer me forgiveness and the gift of your Holy Spirit. Please come into my life by your Holy Spirit to be with me for ever.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

Amen

He obviously has many admirers. It’s quite an achievement that, 10 months after the release of his album Harry’s House, the title can still be found in the Top 20 of the albums chart.

Styles’s song ‘As It Was’ became a viral hit on TikTok, with users sharing images and videos from past and present to emphasise the ways in which they have changed throughout their lives. For many listeners, it became an anthem for growth and breakthrough.

Jesus accepts people as they are

One line that is repeated throughout the track is: ‘You know it’s not the same as it was.’

That’s something nearly everyone can relate to –change has been a constant experience of people through the centuries. Thousands of years ago, a Bible writer reflected on the change that following Jesus can make in a person’s life. ‘If anyone is in Christ,’ he wrote, ‘the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here’ (2 Corinthians 5:17 New International Version).

Christians believe that when they decide to follow Jesus, he accepts them as they are, regardless of their past, and he goes one step further – he makes them new creations. It means they undergo a change, which leads to their being able to say: ‘I’m not the same as I was.’

In the Christian faith, being made new means that a believer is no longer condemned by God for their mistakes, because Jesus paid the price for them when he died and rose to life again. Their perspective changes, because knowing God means they see the world with newfound hope and joy.

If you ask a Christian what changed in their life when they chose to follow Christ, they may reel off a list of things that are unrecognisably different about themselves. And they will be happy about those differences, because when God is involved, change is certainly a good thing.

BIRTHDAY BOND

QUICK QUIZ

1 2 3 4 5 6

What is the capital city of Nigeria?

In the Harry Potter novels, who is the headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?

According to the proverb, what fruit eaten daily keeps the doctor away?

In human biology, the term ‘renal’ refers to which organs?

Which jazz trumpeter made the classic album Kind of Blue?

In which sport do athletes refer to ‘catching a crab’?

How did the story begin for 007?

HE’S 007. He has been on Her Majesty’s secret service. He has had a licence to kill. And Bond – James Bond – turned 70 years old on Thursday (13 April).

It was back in 1953 that author Ian Fleming published his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, about a British secret agent with a mission to take down a Russian spy by winning a game of poker. Ahead of the book’s publication, Fleming had told a friend that he wanted to pen a spy story ‘to end all spy stories’. But it was only the beginning. Bond, with his fast cars, slick gadgets and ability to dodge a bullet, proved a huge hit with readers, swiftly becoming a literary and cinematic icon.

Despite it being in 007’s nature always to live life on the edge, Fleming felt that it was important for his protagonist to have an understated name. His inspiration came from another book, entitled Birds of the West Indies, written by an ornithologist called James Bond.

Fleming chose an understated name

‘I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened,’ Fleming told The New Yorker in 1962. He added that he settled on ‘James Bond’ because it was ‘the dullest name I ever heard’.

It’s an interesting story. But it’s also interesting how people’s assumptions can be challenged – and how a name once deemed unremarkable is today associated with some of the most action-packed books and films of the past century.

Looking beyond the world of fiction to consider the real world around us, it’s worth remembering that assumptions never tell the complete story. People are not always who we might think they are. It’s easy to make snap judgements about individuals because of their names, where they live or the jobs they do.

We shouldn’t. No one is more important than anyone else. No one is perfect. But everyone is loved by God and is offered his forgiveness for their mistakes. That’s according to Jesus, a man whose name has become associated with God’s life-changing love, because he was a living example of it.

Whatever our assumptions about Jesus may be today, his is a true story worth knowing. When we read it, and allow our life to be transformed by his love, we are in for a thrilling adventure.

Feature by Claire Brine

Author Ian Fleming

PUZZLES

Quick CROSSWORD

HONEYC O M B

and diagonally on the grid to find these words associated with beginnings

Stuffed red peppers

INGREDIENTS

225g feta cheese, cubed

225g mozzarella cheese, drained and diced

55ml olive oil

Small bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Salt and freshly ground pepper

4 large red peppers, halved

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5. Toss together the cheeses in a mixing bowl with 2tbsp oil, the parsley and some salt and pepper.

Spoon the cheese mixture into the pepper halves, then arrange them on a roasting tray and drizzle with the remaining oil. Roast for 25-30 minutes, until the peppers are tender and starting to colour.

Remove from the oven and leave to stand briefly before serving.

Rhubarb crumble

INGREDIENTS

750g rhubarb, cut into chunks

230g caster sugar

55ml cold water

110g unsalted butter, cold and cubed

150g plain flour

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/ Gas Mark 4.

Combine the rhubarb, 120g sugar and water in a large saucepan and simmer over a moderate heat until softened. Remove from the heat and set aside.

To make the topping, pulse together the butter, remaining

G o d i s l o v e