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3 Signals

‘Why couldn’t Quirrell touch me?’

‘Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand it is love … love as powerful as your mother’s leaves its own mark. Not a visible sign … but to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.’

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

WITH A YOUTHFUL IMAGINATION fired by Mr Kennedy’s stories of the Royal Navy, and fed by my experience in the Sea Cadets, my preference was to do my National Service in the navy. Unfortunately, the Royal Navy did not accept conscripts at that time, so it had to be the Royal Air Force. As it turned out I was not to be disappointed in the slightest. For a young man eager to explore life and widen his horizons, the Air Force suited me down to the ground.

First came a week of ‘kitting out’ at RAF Cardington, where hundreds of dazed and subdued eighteen-year-olds gathered to be allocated to billets, receive severe haircuts and don the blue uniform of the youngest service. Pit-Pat’s final advice to me the previous day seemed particularly daunting: ‘George, you must disclose that you are a Christian right from the start. Don’t be ashamed of your faith. When lights go out, kneel by your bed and say your prayers.’ This had seemed easy enough to agree to when in church, but I confess that as I surveyed the crowded billet on my first evening, with the good-natured banter of high-spirited young men all around me, my resolve wavered. Nevertheless, taking a deep breath, I knelt and spent several minutes in prayer.

The reaction was interesting. First there was a quietening-down of voices as everyone realised I was praying and, unusually courteously, gave me space for prayer. The second reaction – clearly predicted by Pit-Pat – was that it marked me out as someone who took his faith seriously. The following day at least six young men in the billet took me aside and declared that they were practising Christians. By the end of the second day we were told of a SASRA (Soldiers and Sailors Scripture Readers’ Association) Bible-study meeting that evening. SASRA was particularly favoured by nonconformist and evangelical Christians, and throughout my National Service I found it a wonderful source of fellowship and support.

I never found that my practice of public praying, which I kept going for a great deal of my time in the Air Force, limited or negatively affected my relationships with other servicemen. To be sure, there were often jokes when I knelt down to pray. There were several times when things were thrown at me, and once my left boot was stolen while I was on my knees – just minutes before an inspection. Somehow I managed to keep to attention with one boot on and one off as the officer advanced through the billet.

Years later, in fact just a few weeks before I retired, I was touched to receive a letter from a Mr Michael Moran, who wrote to my secretary at Lambeth Palace:

Dear Sir,

Are you able to tell me whether George Carey spent the early years of his National Service at the basic training camp at RAF Cardington? When I was there at that time I was deeply impressed (and this has remained with me ever since) by the devotion and courage of an eighteen-year-old named George who knelt to pray at the side of his barrack-room bed. At no time in the following two years did I see anyone else show such evidence of his faith.

I was rather uncomfortable to receive such praise, because I did not kneel down to impress people by my courage, or to be the odd man out. In fact, I shrank from doing so. I did it simply because I felt Pit-Pat was absolutely right: if prayer is important, and if one is in a communal setting with no private place to pray, one ought not to be ashamed or embarrassed to be known as someone who loves God and worships Him. Later in life I would put the issue as a question to others: ‘Muslims aren’t ashamed to pray publicly, so why should Christians feel embarrassed? If it is a good way of praying when one is alone, why should we be ashamed of acknowledging a relationship with God when we are with others?’

The relative calm of the kitting-out week was followed by eight weeks’ hard square-bashing at West Kirby, near Liverpool. To this day, while I am left with many questions about the psychology behind the tyrannising and brutal attitude of the Platoon Leaders and Sergeants, there can be little dispute that it is a highly efficient way of moulding young men into effective members of a military unit. For eight weeks we were terrorised by screaming NCOs who told us in unambiguous terms that we were the lowest forms of life ever to appear on earth: ‘You are a turd of unspeakable putrefaction’, ‘a cretin with an IQ lower than a tadpole’, ‘You are the scum of the earth! What are you? Repeat it after me: the scum of the earth’, ‘You are hopeless, hopeless, hopeless.’

The verbal ingenuity of some descriptions was rehearsed in the billet long into the evening, as we sympathised with victims or rejoiced at the misfortune of a rival platoon. There were times when I too became the object of the Squad Corporal’s wrath. ‘Carey, you little bleeder!’ he screamed into my face, his saliva making my eyes water, ‘I am about to tear your ****ing left arm off and intend to beat your ****ing ’ead in with the bloody end, until your brains – if you have any – are scattered far and wide.’ Imagine my disappointment when I discovered later that this threat was far from original, and was in fact a tried and trusty favourite of that particular NCO.

I was able to gauge attitudes to the Church from the viewpoint of the ordinary conscript. The vast majority of my ‘mates’ had no contact with institutional religion. Although most of them, deep down, had faith, few of them had the ability to convert it into anything of relevance. They were not, on the whole, helped by the Chaplains, who held officer rank and talked down to the conscripted men. We all had to go to compulsory religious classes, and I can only say that from a Christian point of view these were something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The talks were usually moralistic, and the most embarrassing were about sex, a subject on which the Chaplains were definitely out of touch with the earthy culture of working-class people. I remember asking myself: ‘Why are they so shy about talking about the subject where they are expert? About the existence of God, about spirituality and prayer, about Jesus Christ and His way?’

Even more frustrating to me was the fact that I never saw a Chaplain visiting the men, either in the mess or in the billets. Far more effective was the ordinary ‘bloke’ from SASRA, who at least had the courage to meet the men where they were. Church parades were no different. The hymns were sung indifferently, and the sermons went over the heads of all. I was often embarrassed by the effete way services were conducted, and felt that overall they did more harm than good to the Church.

Although I was glad when the square-bashing was over, I have to admit that it taught me a lot about myself and how to cope when pushed to one’s limit. At the end of the eight weeks I was posted to RAF Compton Bassett in Wiltshire to train as a Wireless Operator. If I was not able to be a Wireless Officer in the Royal Navy, well, being a Wireless Operator in the Royal Air Force seemed an interesting challenge. And so it turned out to be. The training took twenty weeks, and included elementary electronics as well as having Morse code so drummed into us that by the end of it most of us were able to send and receive Morse at over twenty words a minute. As VHF was still in its infancy even in the RAF at that time Morse code was a reliable and efficient form of communication, though of course very slow.

At Compton Bassett we were able to participate in many activities, ranging from sport to hobbies of all kinds. Discipline continued to be very strict, but we were now finding that the ordered life enabled work and leisure to function smoothly. I played a lot of football, and enjoyed running as well. At weekends evening worship at Calne Parish Church was certainly far more authentic than the formal and compulsory church parades.

At the end of the training, everyone waited with impatience for their postings. I was astonished to be selected for the post of Wireless Operator on an air-sea rescue MTB (motor torpedo boat) operating out of Newquay in Devon. It seemed that at last my dreams would be fulfilled. If not the Royal Navy, at least I would be at sea with the RAF. But it was not to be. Two days before taking up my posting I was told to report to the CO’s office, where I was given completely different instructions – to go home on leave immediately, and to report to Stansted airport the following Sunday evening for an unknown destination.

I was among twenty or so extremely puzzled airmen on a York aircraft which left Stansted that September Sunday evening in 1955. To the question I put to the Sergeant on duty I received the friendly rejoinder, ‘You’ll know soon enough where you are when you land, laddie.’

Sure enough, I did. The following morning I found myself in Egypt, and the same day I started work as a Wireless Operator (WOP) at RAF Fayid – a huge RAF camp alongside part of the Suez Canal known as the ‘Bitter Lakes’. With a large group of other WOPs work began in earnest, handling signals from Britain and the many RAF bases in the Middle East. In my leisure time I enjoyed exploring beyond the base and discovered many things about Egypt, its culture and life. I settled down to church life on the base, and made many friends.

After three months at RAF Fayid I was sent to RAF Shaibah – a posting which was greeted by howls of sympathy by my colleagues. Shaibah was a tiny base about fifteen miles from Basra, at the top of the Persian Gulf. It is very hot most of the year, and the temperature rarely falls below 120 degrees in the shade in summer. With just 120 airmen to service the squadron of Sabre jets and cover the region I was told that it was a deadly appointment, and that I was to be pitied.

On the way to Shaibah a bizarre incident took place that was to make me chuckle often in later life. The journey began with a flight to Habbaniyah, a large RAF camp close to Baghdad, from where I was to make my way by train to Basra. I boarded the plane and was shown to my seat by the WOP, who told me, ‘Carey, your lunch is on your seat. Make yourself at home,’ before disappearing into the cockpit alongside the pilot. There were no other passengers, but I noticed that there was another lunchbag on the seat alongside mine. Surely this was for me too, I concluded. It was, I admit, naïve of me to suppose that the RAF would offer me two lunches and without hesitation I scoffed both of them. To my surprise the plane landed in the Transjordan, and as we taxied towards the concourse the terrible truth dawned on me – we were about to pick up another passenger, and I had eaten his lunch.

The passenger in question was an elderly clergyman, who was greeted with deference by the crew and shown to his seat alongside mine. We had a brief chat, and the plane took off. The moment came when he reached for his lunchbox, and I had to stammer out an apology for having eaten his lunch. He made light of it, and we relaxed into a pleasant conversation in which he showed great interest in my welfare and future. On landing at Habbaniyah I was impressed to see a red carpet laid out to welcome somebody – I knew it was not for me. The top brass were all there alongside the CO. The elderly clergyman paused to say goodbye to me, then turned to the steps to be greeted by the CO and whisked away.

‘Who was that?’ I asked the WOP.

‘Oh, that’s Archbishop McInnes, Archbishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East,’ came the reply.

Sadly, I never had an opportunity to apologise again to Archbishop George McInnes for having eaten his lunch that day; but at least I was later able to tell his son, Canon David McInnes, of the incident. David had followed his father into the Church, and completed a very distinguished ministry as Rector of St Aldate’s, Oxford. He was sure that his father would have been delighted and thoroughly amused that the culprit was a future Archbishop of Canterbury.

Despite the warnings of my colleagues at Fayid, Shaibah was to prove a wonderful posting for me. I was one of eight WOPs who had a special role as High Frequency Direction Finding Radio Operators (known as HF/DF Operators). So primitive and sensitive was this means of communication that it required the erection of special radio huts three miles from the camp, out in the desert. On each side of the hut stood four large aerials which received signals from transport planes, and which provided an accurate beam by which a plane could determine its position and find its way to us.

Operators were on duty in these isolated huts for eight hours at a time, and for many months we worked around the clock. The duty was often boring, very hot and lonely. There were however times when the importance of our work was driven home. On one occasion several Secret Service personnel called on me to help trace the position of a Russian radio network which was proving to be a nuisance to the RAF. Another time, a two-engine transport plane from Aden to Bahrain was in serious trouble, with one engine on fire and the other causing problems. To this day I recall the SOS ringing through my headphones, and the signal telling me that the plane needed help urgently as it was about to crash. All the training I had received was focused at that very moment on giving the crew directions on how to find their way to Shaibah, then alerting the main camp and the emergency services that a crippled plane was in need of help. As a member of the air-ground rescue team I would be required to switch instantly to new responsibilities if the plane crashed in the desert. Fortunately I was able to help nurse the plane to the base, where it made an emergency landing and all was well.

It was a lonely job most of the time, but I loved it. It gave me time to read and reflect. When things were quiet and no planes were within a two-hundred-mile radius it was safe to walk a short way from the hut and explore the desert. The idea that the desert was void of life, I discovered, is quite erroneous. There were always fragile, tiny yet beautiful flowers that one could find, and the place teemed with insects, snakes and scorpions. As for human contact, I often met passing Bedouin tribespeople: sometimes shy, giggling young girls hidden behind their flowing black robes, herding their black goats; sometimes their more confident brothers and fathers. They were always friendly, even though we could only communicate through signs and through my limited Arabic, which caused great merriment. In exchange for water, which I had in abundance, I would often receive figs, dates and other fruits. Their simple, uncomplicated lives seemed attractive and natural. It was always a joy to meet them, and for a few moments share a common humanity in a hostile terrain.

I do recall though one terrifying time when I wandered a little too far, and could not find my little signals hut in the expanse of desert. The realisation that I was totally lost, without water, and that my replacement would not arrive at the hut for six hours panicked me greatly. I tried to take my bearings from the puffs of smoke coming from the distant oilwells in Kuwait, but to no avail. I walked carefully north, hoping to find some clue that might orient me. Then, with relief, I heard the sound of singing, and into view came some of my Bedouin friends. They were shocked to see me so exhausted, and after a drink of water I was taken back to the hut. Perhaps only forty minutes had passed, but it made me aware of how fragile life is, and how the desert can never be taken lightly.

In our leisure time there was opportunity to explore the surrounding region, including the teeming city of Basra, a forty-minute car ride away. Every Sunday evening dozens of us would go to worship at St Peter’s Church, where there was a hospitable expatriate congregation. I confess that I can scarcely recall the services at all, and the only thing I remember is the vicar’s fascination for the card game Racing Demon, that was played every Sunday evening following choral evensong. But the worship was excellent, and almost without realising it I was nurtured and sustained by it.

Several of us went on a number of trips to the ancient Assyrian site of Ur of the Chaldees, home to Nebuchadnezzar. Time had reduced this great archaeological site to pathetic heaps of stone, but its grandeur and imposing scale was undiminished.

It was the living, vibrant Iraq that intrigued me, however, and I went out of my way to find out more about the life of its people. I made some enquiries at the Education Centre on the base, and enrolled in a class to learn Arabic. In this way I encountered Islam as a living faith. I was the only pupil in the class, and I took advantage of such personal tuition. My teacher was an intelligent middle-aged Iraqi named Iz’ik, who took great delight in teaching me the rudiments of a graceful language. In addition to the language, he introduced me to his faith. Through his eyes I gained a sympathy towards and an interest in Islam that has endured until the present time.

I was impressed by my teacher’s deep spirituality and devotion to God. It was not uncommon to see Muslim believers serving on the camp lay out their prayer mats wherever they were and turn to Mecca at the set times of the day. Many of my fellow airmen mocked them, but I could not. I sensed a brotherhood with them in their devotion and their openness about their spirituality. Although sharp differences exist between the two world religions, the way that Islam affects every aspect of life continues to impress me.

I was led also to appreciate the overlap between the Christian faith and Islam. I discovered its deep commitment to Jesus – a fact hardly known to most Christians – who is seen as a great prophet who will come as Messiah at the end of time. I began to appreciate the remarkable role of Mohammed in Islam, and the way in which he is a role model for male Muslims. Perhaps one of the most striking things that Iz’ik revealed to me was the fact that in Iraq Christians had been living alongside Muslims for centuries in complete harmony. In time I met a number of Assyrian Christians whose faith was deep and real.

Iz’ik and I often discussed the areas of faith and life where our religions diverged. Among these was the Trinity, and I hope that my youthful explanation led my teacher to understand that Christianity is monotheistic, and not polytheistic as many Muslims believe. I argued as strongly as I could for the relevance of Jesus Christ and the determining significance of Him for faith. As I saw it then – and still do – one can have a high regard for Jesus (as Muslims undoubtedly do), yet fail to see that unless He is central to the faith, that faith is inadequate without Him. Some thinkers have termed this the ‘scandal’ of Christianity, and the reason it can be seen as uncompromising and exclusive.

Perhaps above all I was led to appreciate the spirituality of Islam, and its devotion to prayer and the disciplined life. Although, as a young evangelical, I was perhaps over-eager to convince Iz’ik of the truth of Christianity, he would give as good as he got, and we both enjoyed our weekly discussions. Later in life those times would help me to treat Islam not as a faith hostile to Christianity, but as a religion with many virtues and many similarities to our own. Sadly, when I left Shaibah I left the study of Arabic behind me as well. In 1956 I did not consider it remotely possible that I would ever find the language useful in the days to come. How wrong I was.

The months passed quickly because there was so much to do. As the Wireless Operator of an air-ground rescue crew, I enjoyed several weekends on practices in the wonderful Iraqi marshes, which in recent years Saddam Hussein has so destructively drained. In the 1950s it was a fertile area for wildlife and fishing, and if the truth be known, the air-ground rescue practices were in fact an opportunity for the CO to indulge his love of shooting game. Besides being the wireless link with the base, my other job was to pluck and skin the beautiful pheasants he shot. Ironically, on one of these weekends an aircraft actually did crash in Kuwait, and an ad hoc rescue team had to be formed to do what we were supposedly training to do.

Because the desert ground was so hard, and the heat so debilitating, free time was passed in less strenuous activities, and the open-air swimming pool was our daily centre when off-duty. I was keen on other sports too, and accompanied a friend who was a dedicated runner in punishing laps of the perimeter of the airfield. The daily routine of work and sport allowed time for Christian fellowship as well. Of the 120 men on the base, there was a small but healthy number of practising Christians of all denominations and traditions. There was no Chaplain, so we had to create our own worship, which usually took the form of Bible study with hymns and prayers.

Towards the end of my time at Shaibah I found an old building left open for spring cleaning. Shaibah had been a huge base during the Second World War, and most of the former camp was now closed up. To my surprise I found myself in a well-kept Anglican chapel. I immediately conferred with some of my friends, and we agreed that it would be good to keep it open – that is, if the CO agreed. He did, but for a limited time only. So for several weeks we held services according to the Book of Common Prayer rite and I celebrated holy communion – quite illegally, of course. I don’t suppose for one moment that the Almighty was bothered that in the absence of a priest a group of young men took it in turns to use the words of the 1662 Prayer Book and to celebrate communion.

Once a week a flight from RAF Habbaniyah would bring us one of the latest films being shown in the UK, and we would gather in the open air to watch them. I well remember one which suggested to me the residual hostility some people felt towards the Church of England. The title I cannot remember, but one of the characters, a vicar, was a detestable man out to con an old woman of her wealth. When he was shown putting on his dog collar, jeers and whistles of disgust drowned out the soundtrack. The moment seemed to show that young people felt alienated from the life of the Church. That of course had not been so in my case, but I had to remember that not everyone had had good experiences of clergymen.

There was a darker side to service life which brought home to me the value of a faith, with its framework of moral values. Several times a week men would visit the brothels of Basra, and sometimes they returned with the unexpected fruits of pleasure – in the form of gonorrhoea, syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. This meant that we had to endure horrific educational films on the dangers of these diseases, which certainly disturbed many of us, but did not seem to dampen the ardour of others. I did not see it as my job to reprove them, although I would certainly put my view forward. Neither was I immune from the temptation that led them to succumb, but I suppose I felt that my faith expected me to honour women, and not to treat them as mere objects of sexual gratification.

As time drew close to my demob, the next stage on my journey increasingly occupied my mind and prayers. One evening when I was on a late shift, the silence of the desert called me to reflect deeply on the future. When the shift ended I signed the usual summary of work, then waited outside for the car that would bring out my replacement and take me back to the camp. I could not but marvel at the beauty and brilliance of the night sky from the darkness of the desert in which I stood. Thousands of stars illuminated the heavens, and seemed within an arm’s length of me. As I drank in the awesome scene, I was overcome by the finiteness and smallness of man when measured against the age of the universe. And yet, that did not intimidate me. Later Gerard Manley Hopkins’s great poem ‘The World is Charged with the Grandeur of God’ would become one of my favourites, and would capture for me the feeling of awe I felt then.

It has sometimes puzzled me that the size of the universe has led thinking people into agnosticism. Some have said to me, ‘How can you possibly believe in a personal deity when our planet is a third-rate planet in a tenth-rate galaxy in one of countless solar systems?’ I would usually reply that this was making too good a case for the earth, but that size has little to do with it. If the Almighty is so awesome that He has created as many galaxies as there are grains of sand in a million deserts, that same awesome God may still love us and be our heavenly Father. Pascal’s cry, ‘The silence of eternal space terrifies me,’ did not stop him trusting in the maker of all things.

It was those evenings in the southern Iraqi desert, under the velvety blanket lit by the brilliance of thousands of stars, that led me to take an interest in cosmology and the mystery of creation. I have not read anything since that has caused me to falter in my conviction that a personal faith in a loving God is not irrational or incredible. But it is not faith that drives people to serve God and others, so much as love. I was convinced of the love of God for all, and that was the element that energised my response perhaps more than any other.

But that moment beneath the stars also crystallised a question that had been on my mind for months: what was I going to make of my life on my return to England in a few weeks? Teaching was an admirable profession. Social work too attracted me. But the tug at my heart was definitely the ordained ministry, and in prayer I tried to put into words my deep desire to serve God and humankind with all my heart.

I had no qualifications to speak of, just an overwhelming longing to make something of my life with all the energy and ability I had been given. Yet even with the optimism and self-confidence one has at that age, I was conscious of the huge challenge ahead of me. But under that wonderful night sky the thought began to enter my head that ordination might not be beyond me. I might lack academic qualifications, but I did not lack ability or a great desire to do something useful with my life. I was still young enough to learn. I could only do my very best, and rely on God’s grace.