Turning points 3)

I remember friends promising to pray that I might find what I should do when I finished in June and somehow I heard that the London HQ of Baptists in Britain was looking to make an experimental appointment.  At that point there were around 30 Baptist student groups (societies) in different universities and they wondered if they could appoint a recent graduate full-time to liaise with all these groups, to help link Baptist chaplains and to raise the profile of student work in the denomination.  One of the immediate tasks (August, September) was to oversee the student commendation scheme when churches sent in names of students leaving them for different universities, to sort them into lists mailed to the relevant chaplains. The job was financially experimental too. It was assumed that any recent student would live at home or with relatives and all they would need would be money for traveling to work and food.  A kind of upgraded pocket money.

Feeling unreal about the whole prospect, I was interviewed and appointed.  The General Secretary of the Baptist Union said I had to be introduced to the Assembly Meetings at Westminster Chapel in April. Travelling by train I suddenly had a massive nosebleed which continued too long and left me feeling unable to move any facial muscles  Hundreds had gathered in the multiple galleries of this great London church and I found myself in the large pulpit area for the whole session. I felt acute panic that the nosebleed could erupt at any point.   When the moment came for me to be introduced to the President with kind words, a handshake and applause my exposure was total and my composure automaton-like. ' A sober nervous young man' would be the verdict!

I discovered some relatives of ours in the East End in Plaistow who allowed me to sleep on an air bed in the living room after everyone went to bed.  London was bewildering as I began journeying on the Tube to Holborn.  Everything was strange.  I shared Room 32 at the top of the HQ building with two (much) older men who led the Stewardship Dept.  I was given a typewriter but no secretarial help.  I began this weird new existence in July totally unaware what a turning point I was encountering.