History of Halford House 3

[00:00:00] Now, it wasn't only swing chairs or flowers or the musical instrument, but also it covered such things as the possession of the old house next door. Now, when we came here, as you know, we were all on this side. We were meeting downstairs. We gradually got up into this room, but next door we had the tenants, Professor Hulla Brown and his wife, who'd been there for 30 years and who paid really a nominal sum. It was one pound 50 for the whole house, and they let it. Or a number of the rooms on the top floor were let for a good deal more than 150 per week. [00:00:39] And of course that caused a certain amount of discussion amongst some of the more hard headed christians in the company here. They used to say to me, do you know, I don't think it's right. I mean, these people are living there for 150 with the whole thing. And some of our people are their tenants next door, and they're being charged five or six pounds a week. It doesn't seem right. [00:01:00] Are we being too kind to them? We'll have them there forever. We'll never get possession. Don't forget, the only bit of garden we had was the strip. [00:01:09] We didn't have any of the gardens. They had all the garden as well. [00:01:13] And oh well, there was much sort of discussion about this. We were told, don't make it easy for them. It's not being unchristian to make it be righteous, but don't be stupid, you see, make it difficult really, in one way for them. [00:01:34] But however we prayed about it, we didn't feel that was right. We felt that our duty was to love them. And that if this was the sojourner, as the scripture says, in our midst, if this was the alien who was on our ground, we were to love them and care for them. As I said last night, we gave them their roof next door, and the Lord honoured that. So we decided that rather than do that, we would seek to do every single thing we could to express love toward them. Well, the Lord answered in the most incredible way, and I shall never forget it. It was in early spring, I think, if I remember rightly or thereabouts, that there was a knock on the study window, as always, and I opened the window and there was misses hellebrand, I've got a shock for you, she said. She obviously could hardly contain herself. And I thought, now what you see, had the wall fallen down, the roof collapsed again, or what you see? But she said hala. She always called him hala. Halla and I are emigrating now. He was 87 and she was 67. I said, what? I thought you'd be surprised. She said, we're emigrating. I said, where on earth are you going at your age? To New Zealand. I said, oh, you couldn't go farther? No. She said, but you know, our daughters in New Zealand, we've thought a lot about it. She said, well, we feel it's time we went. So she said, we're just giving you a few months notice and we'll be gone. Well, you know, it was the happiest going in the world because first of all, they loved us when they went. In fact, they came in and said, now listen, you know, we've got a house full of furniture next door. We're gonna sell a lot of it's been a lot of it's valued. Now if you'd like to come in and say all the pieces that you think should remain in the house, we'll come to a. An arrangement with you. Now that's how many of those very beautiful pieces of furniture finally came to stay with us because we went in and we bought this, that and the other, and they stayed with us. In other words, instead of making enemies, we earned friends. And Hullabaun actually died near to 100. I think he was 97, 98. His wife unfortunately died after a very sad car crash just before him. And finally he. But he had, they had a wonderful life in New Zealand. He was on television quite regularly and up and down the country and, oh, he was quite a greatly loved figure in New Zealand at that time. But wasn't it wonderful that when we did what God wanted us to do, he took over? You see, we've been told again and again by the hard headed ones that, listen, when he dies, you'll have his wife for another 20 at least. [00:04:21] And one brother said to me, I've had a good look at her. She's the kind that livestream. [00:04:32] That's true. [00:04:38] So you see, we really, I thought to myself at times they're probably right, but in actual fact, what God did was he put it into their heart and furthermore, he blessed them so that they were happy and we were happy and there was no hard feelings and no one in the area could say we had made that marvelous old couple, made their lives a misery and finally driven them out of Richmond. Praise the Lord that he led us. Now then, there was another extraordinary thing we could mention here, and that was really the central heating, you see, in the winter of 1962, 63 that quite a few of you will remember was called the big freeze up. Do you remember? It started snowing when we were having the Boxing Day party here, I remember. And the snow never left our lawn until the end of April and beginning of May of that year. Now, in that one winter, we spent a fortune on keeping this place warm. We had to, if once we had burst, we knew we'd have dry rot. And so we had to have log fires, which, of course, we all enjoyed in one way. We had log fires in the rooms we could have log fires in. We weren't a smokeless area then. We had electric air, hot air convectors, we had dimplex radiators, we had oil paraffin oil stoves. You remember that. Oh, it was such a business. And then we felt frozen. I mean, when all these things, we really felt very cold. And it was Ralph who said, well, of course you always will feel cold until you have a proper heat heating system for the whole house, not only this side, but next door. Once you. Now it was worked out that once we had that we would in fact spend the same amount we had spent on keeping two, three rooms half warm. We would keep the whole, and we wouldn't have the risk of frozen pipes and all this other kind of thing. Now, our problem was capital, because we knew the running at that time was going to be very cheap. At that time it was cheap, but it was the capital. And our whole problem was, would the Lord have us trust him for the capital to put in the central heating and thus make the whole running of the house? You must remember, those of you don't remember those days that we downstairs, the walls of the downstairs room were wet. At the end of each meeting, the condensation ran down in rivers and our carpets used to rotate along the side of the wall. And constantly when we had visitors, they rushed to me and said, you've got a leak in one of your pipes. It wasn't a leak at all. There was a cold water pipe that went along the hall and the condensation ran along it and dripped, unfortunately, right over people as they came out the door. And so we were always having people coming to tell us that our pipes were leaking when in fact it was just condensation. [00:07:38] It was a problem to us. We asked the Lord, and we felt the Lord say to us, go ahead, trust me. For the capital. Now, it was quite a lot of money because it was going to cost 2400 pounds to do this whole house, which has about in all, I think, about 20 rooms. So we really, and of course, some of them big rooms. So we really had to trust him. But in the most wonderful way. It was the biggest sum we'd ever had to trust the Lord for he met that literally right the way through, right the way through to the, to the finish. We came through into 1964, I think it was. And we, in the late winter or beginning of the spring, we had the last sum to pay, 348 pounds. I shall never forget that, 348 pounds. Because it just didn't come. It just did. I mean, all the other money just poured in and then suddenly the 348 pounds just didn't come. We didn't know why. And, you know, we began to wonder whether we were wrong. And as always, we all began to look at one another and think, who's wrong, who's sinning, who's causing trouble, you know, that kind of thing, which is always what happens in fighting, sort of witch hunt and so on. And then suddenly in a prayer meeting in the library, one I came up, I thought it just flashed into my heart, faith has to be concretely expressed now it suddenly came to me in a flash of light every time Bill has come, expressed faith to him. You said, bill, we haven't got it, but we've asked the Lord and we know he's going to honor. [00:09:09] And then it came. [00:09:11] But this is a big firm, you never had the chance to say to them, look here, we're christians, we have no money and we trust the Lord and we pray and it comes, you know, that kind of thing. Every time they asked for something, we had prayed. They didn't know about that. And the money came, we gave it. And I said to everybody, do you not feel that this might, there was a little bit of discussion. I said, the only way I can see that we can concretely express our faith is to send the check. [00:09:37] Now I didn't realize that was illegal, but I sort of said, you know, why don't we just send the check? That would be the best way of expressing our faith in a concrete way. [00:09:51] So after much discussion and we prayed about it again, everyone said, okay, okay, you said, so we, I wrote the check was made out by David, someone else signed it and it was waiting for my counter signature. As you know, all our checks are countersigned. And I thought, now I will not send it, I will not do anything about it. I'll hang on to see if the Lord now meets our need. Tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning came not a penny. But what did happen was that the managing director of the, of the heating installation company phoned up and he said, oh, Mister Lambert, I just phoned to ask how you are. And I said, oh, I'm very well, thank you very much. And he said, and are you all nice and warm? Yes. I said, we're enjoying the central hill. We've never known it in this old house. We've got no condensation. We can go in any of the rooms. It's really wonderful. Well, he said, I'm so glad. He said, you've got no complaints about the way the work was done? None at all. We were very, very pleased with the cleanliness of the men, the speed and efficiency. They were marvelous. So then he said, oh, well, that's all I wanted to know. [00:10:58] Will the little outstanding amount be? Why, I said, yes, yes, I've got the check here on the desk. Oh, he said, we need it badly. Would you please put it in the post straight away? Yes, yes. I said, lord, you've got to do it now. So I put it into the post. I went straight down the post it. I promised him it would. And so I put it straight into the post. And then I thought, how, lord, you got. But the Lord did nothing. One week went by, not a penny came. I told everyone I could have kicked them. [00:11:31] Now, of course, you all understand this, don't you? This kind of battle that goes on between employee and employer and sort of authority and leader and those led and so on. I know. Why? Well, surely I thought people could give a penny. I mean, if everyone gave a penny, we'd have at least say 70, 80, you know. But they don't give a pee. I mean, no one gives anything. They all sit there like wooden puppets. And I thought, I really think it's terrible. Two weeks went by, and then we really got by. And David Hilditch came to me and said, do you think I should go to the bank manager? No, I. He said, because the bank manager has got in touch with me, we must be 348 pounds in the red. So I said to old David, he said, we've never been in the red before. You know, that's quite a bit of money to be in the red. [00:12:18] So then I said, no. I said, you know, there's an old proverb, let sleeping dogs lie. I said, if he hasn't got in touch with us, don't bother. Of course, that's very wrong, I know, but I said it, you see. And so David went, but David, of course, in charge of all the money, came back again a little while later and said, don't you think I ought to go to the bank manager? So by then I thought, oh, and by the way, by then it's someone I think it was. Alan had told me that it was illegal, you know, to sign a check when you haven't got it. Oh, I said, I didn't know that. And then I think it was Alan Boyer who came to me and said, I'll see you in prison. [00:12:59] Oh, I really thought, oh, my goodness. I didn't realize we'd done something. Why doesn't the bank manager do something? I thought, why doesn't he tell us that we're in the rain? So I said to David, when David came there, I said, yes, David, go. So David went down, but he didn't see the bank manager. David also was quite shrewd. He went up to the man at the desk and he said, could I please have, you know, our balance sheet, a statement? And the man gave statement 348. Oh, he thought so. Then he went away. Then he came, went back a second time and wondered. Still, it was exactly as David thought it. We weren't in the red. But he. There was not that 348 pounds was not there. [00:13:44] That's the extraordinary thing. Now, he was asking for the statement for the number one account. [00:13:50] When he then waited a little long, a whole month went by. Then David went down into the bank for the third time, and this time the man gave him the statement, and this time it showed 348 pounds. So David then said to the man, well, I can't understand this. It says, paid here on such and such a date. But he said, I've been in twice. Yes, he said the sum was paid into another bunch. And because they didn't understand your three accounts, you have. They didn't know which to put it in. So, in fact, it was a slip up on our part. You hadn't been notified. But the interesting thing is this. The 348 pounds was paid into that branch the very morning that the cheque. [00:14:38] Now, I'm not telling you to sign checks and send them when you haven't got money. And faith, that would be an extremely dangerous thing. But, you know, the law taught me and all of us, I think, a great lesson that faith has to be concretely expressed. Until you take that step in faith, it is not really faith. You have to burn your boats behind you. Well, we had tremendous excitement over that and great joy when we found. Oh, it was so amazing to think that it was paid and there'd been this mix up and the Lord had kept us all on tenterhooks until we found that finally it was done. Then, of course, there are many other things, too. There is the studio well, we called it the studio, of course, we could hardly call it a studio I mean, it was a little lean to place with some glass on the northern faith aspect Miss Williamson, we found out, lived there we first discovered that when a smell of paraffin and fish came across the garden and I thought I'd go and investigate and I saw at least four or five cats scampering around and then I saw this old lady oh, I shall never forget her and when I spoke to her, she spoke in the most beautiful county beautiful I realized straight away that she was a very good class family and I thought, how sad to see her with an old battered hat, grime on her face, black finger nails, a piece of string tied round her waist, old plimsolls through which her toes showed I looked inside and she had a mound of sacks over in the corner in which she. She slept hardly any furniture, no running water, no sanitation oh, it was dreadful and I immediately was so horrified, I came back and said, listen, we can't. She was paying 50 p a week we stopped that straight away no, we won't do that. We ran a cable across the garden and gave her free electricity we found that was a default too, but never mind, we found that out afterwards but we ran the cable across and gave her free electricity we did it. We went in an army of us, some of you will remember, scrubbed the place up, sent in fruit and flowers, did everything we could. Brush the cats. Oh, we did everything for her and then finally, I remember Miss Williamson asked to see me. Mister Lambert, she said, I am very grateful for all the kindness that has been shown to me by your church, but I would like to make it quite clear that I wish to be alone well, of course, that was the famous garbo phrase, but I mean, she wasn't. [00:17:22] But I said, well, Miss Williamson, if you wish to be alone, we shall respect that but can't we do anything? No, no, you can't do anything. She said, I wish to be alone. [00:17:33] She said, there's one thing I don't get my pencil well, I said, miss Williams, I'll look into that for you, but she said, that would be very kind of you and I, of course did. I went and phoned up and got through and they were most upset. Oh, they said, sometimes this happens, we overlook these old people. They said, how old do you think she is? Well, I said, I understand she's about 86 well, they said, she's got a nice little nest date coming because if we find that she's not being paid her pension. She'll have the whole lot accumulated, given to her. [00:18:02] There was quite a lot of interest showing Miss Williamson nothing more happens. I look into it and I'll come back to you. And about two, three weeks later a big top brass of the committee sort of phoned and said, mister Lambert, we've had a special committee session this morning about your Miss Williamson. Oh yes, I said, what's. Well, they said, Mister Lambert, we have decided that you're the one to deal with the case. [00:18:24] Really? I said, why? Well, they said, your Miss Williamson has more money than all your people put together. [00:18:31] They said, we have discovered that she has a fortune in gilt edge securities and furthermore, all the interest that she is getting, she is refusing to touch, she's putting it back into the capital. [00:18:45] So he said, it's accumulating and accumulating. Accumulating, he said, if you can persuade Miss Williamson that she could move into a place she could live on the interest like a, like a queen. Oh, I thought, how am I going to face Miss Wilson? I belted across the garden, tried to look very sort of, you know, normal, and I said, hello, Miss Williamson, lovely day. Yes, it was a nice day. She said, and how are the cats? Also those. The cats are quite all right. And then I said, miss Williamson, about your pension. Oh, yes, you said. I said, it appears that you have a little money. So she said, well, how do you know that? Well, I said, you see, they had to inquire. And I said, it's nothing to do with me, but I said, they found that you have certain amount invested. And I said. She said, it's not mine. [00:19:29] I said, oh, it's not yours? Oh, no, she said, it's not mine because I can't touch it. She said, it's not mine. [00:19:36] Oh, well, I said, they're under a complete misapprehension. They believe it's yours. Well, I said, whose is it, Miss Williamson? She says, my father's or Miss Williamson? I said, is your father still alive? She was 87. Oh, no, she said, he died in 1931. [00:19:55] Well then I said, miss Williamson, how does the money then how can the money be his if he died in 1931? I said, didn't he leave it to you? Of course he left it to me. She said, well then I said, it's yours, miss. No, no, no. She said, father was a very upright man, he was a disciplinarian. She said, I wouldn't dare to touch his money. But I said, miss Williamson, if it was put into your name, it's yours. [00:20:23] I said, listen, don't touch the capital. Live on the interest. I said, if you just let the interest come here, I said, you could live beautifully. I said, you know, all your cats and you, you could all move into sort of luxury. No, no, Miss Williamson wouldn't have. She said, never, never, no. And she said, mister Lambert, another thing. And she said, I am not sure that once I start to use it, it will last. [00:20:44] Oh, and now I happen to know the sum, which was really amazing to me. It was a really big fortune. And I said, oh, Miss Williams, I said, if you live to be as old as Abraham, I said, you'll still have so much to leave. I didn't say to a cat's home, but I said, you'll have so much to leave. [00:21:06] No, no. Do you know Miss Williamson died again at 98 years of age in an old age home in this area? And she never touched a penny of that money. The whole lot went to the government. [00:21:20] Never touched a penny. Well, we had great problems over the studio. The news of the World got to hear about it. [00:21:26] They rushed round, they smelt a rat. They published articles about religious landlords living on old lady in disreputable studio. [00:21:40] Margaret and I were decorating the ladies toilet. I had a thing wrapped around my head. I had an apron down here. And I was doing up here in that confined space, as all you ladies well know. I mean, you could hardly turn round. I nearly fell in there, you know, two or three times in that little confined space. And suddenly there was a wing ring, ring and a knock, knock, knock on the door. And Margaret was doing something, I don't know what she was doing and I forgot. And I went to the door and I opened it and flash, flash, flash, flash. [00:22:16] And I stood there with my mouth open at a pace, brushing my hand. [00:22:21] And I had had my photo taken by the News of the World, the Sunday pictorial and a few others. And I said to them, listen. And they said, well, thank you, thank you. And they were off. They had got their stroke. They never asked us anything. It shows you what happens sometimes. Never asked us anything about our side or anything else. Of course, we were so concerned, you know. I mean, it took us so by surprise. We knew nothing about it. We didn't know what to do. Margaret immediately got on our knees. The ladies waited for a little longer. We got on our knees and prayed, oh lord, do something. It came to our heart. Go and see the rich man, Twickenham. And so I immediately phoned Mister Godfrey. I've known him from childhood who was in charge of the reporting side at the Richmond Twickenham. And I said, what? And, oh, he said, they're just youngsters, they're out for a story. He said, leave it to me, I'll get hold of it. And I don't know who he phoned, but the pictures never got into the place. [00:23:12] But I mean, if anyone wanted to vote for the national fund, they would have voted. They must have thought I was a Pakistani. This turban on my head and this sort of flywhisk in my hand standing there. Oh, dear, we laughed so much about that thing. But in the end, of course, we had a great battle with the local government. And this is the interesting thing. This company made history on local government because a precedent was established here over Miss Williamson that was to go right through the whole country. That when a company such as ourselves is involved with an old lady who needs comfort and care of some kind and will not, it should not be left to a church or charity such as ours to have to evict her, but that the local authority would have to move in and do it. And in the end they did. It was the best thing that happened, in many ways, because Miss Williamson was looked after all the way through the latter part of her life. [00:24:09] And of course, the studio came to us and we felt the right thing to do was to knock it down. The moment it became vacant, which we did, the walls were falling out, there were cracks in the walls. And I remember some of the boys burning that. And I suppose some of you will remember how we had the fire men around. They weren't on strike. Then they came rushing round because a pilot going overhead had signalled to London airport that there was a big fire in Richmond. It was this great column of smoke going up from the old studio over the garden. And then, of course, another very interesting story is the market garden. Much more interesting, really, than that, although I always feel this is a marvelous illustration of us believers who have so much, but we feel it's all fathers we must not touch. It belongs to father. If you belong, if you're one of the elites, saints, you can start to experience the riches of Christ. But for the majority of us, we're just ordinary people. Father's a very, very tough man. He's very strong. He's very, very. [00:25:15] He's a disciplinarian. We dare not touch what's his. So we live like paupers when we should live like kings and queens. But the market garden was interesting because about ten years before, it was offered to us, we, in a time of prayer, prayed that if God was interested in that great piece of ground, he would get it. We said, o Lord, we had a great time of prayer. We didn't spend a lot of time on it, but we did take it in the name of the Lord. We said, if that's part of your purpose, if you need that land, we take it in the name of the Lord Jesus. And we stood together upon that portion of land. Then, of course, nothing happened. [00:25:56] Time went by, no more happened. [00:25:59] When we were offered the freehold, we knew that Mister Archer had no money. And I just went up to talk with him and I said, mister Archer, someone in the company had said that they were prepared to give Mister Arlen, Mister Archer the money he needed so they could buy it. It was about, I think it was about 400 pounds. It wasn't a lot of money for that whole piece of ground. You see, it was market garden. This market garden was part of the original garden of Halford house. And the old boundary walls with the salt stones and the barn are still at the very top of the garden. All part of the scheduled buildings that are not really supposed to be touched. At least the old barn piece, which is not actually on our property, it's just off it. [00:26:42] We claimed it, but nothing happened. Ten years went by and then suddenly Dan Archer. Dan Archer was the man who ran the market garden. And of course, his father and he were the basis for the Archer series. [00:27:00] All of you who knew Dan Archer knew what an incredible character he was. [00:27:06] And you've only got to listen to the archer's heroes to see where the men who lived up the hill here got the whole idea from. But anyway, Dan Archer lumbered down the garden through the little wooden gate and came in for a cup of tea. He was always down, he was full of fun. [00:27:23] And he said this time his face looked like thunder. And he said, when he saw me, he said, your boys have been burning my lilac bushes. [00:27:33] Oh, I said, mister Arthur, we're always telling them about those bonfires. Now, we had two german brothers with us at the. And they loved bonfires, bigger the better. And I'd said to them two or three times, please have small bonfires. They had bigger, bigger, bigger and bigger bonfires because they scorched all his lilac. And he said, well, he said, where are they? I said, well, there's Mumford and Tayo, you go and talk with him. And he lumbered and said, here, you two boys, didn't we fight a war with you burning my lilac? Then, of course, his face creased into smiles, he said, don't do it again. And then he sat down, had a cup of tea of great fun. And then as he got up to go, he said, lance, he said, I'd like to have a little word with you privately. So I walked with him up, and as we got to the gate, he said to me, now listen, he said, I've been offered 22,000 for this garden and I've been offered by another 25,000. Do you know what they want to do? You said, they want to turn it into a multi story car park. [00:28:32] He said, and I won't tell you who it was. I better not mention any names, it's dangerous. But he said, and there's old what's his name, and he called him by a nickname, he said, he was in charge of such and such an estate, he said, to do with old people, he said, he's after it, too. He wants to build places all over it now. He said, listen, I told my wife Joan that the day you came up and offered that money to me for that field, he said, I thought that was one of the loveliest and kindest things anyone's ever done to me. He said, I said to job, he said, the one thing I promised before God is that before I die, I give them that garden. [00:29:10] So all these years later, you see, we see, we've claimed it. But you see, you've got to show love. [00:29:16] Some people have got this marvelous mental idea that all you do is claim something and then you don't do anything more. But see, it was just interesting. Someone in the company was concerned and said, look, go and tell him if he hasn't got the money for that market, I'll do it then. And that's what did it, just that kindness, he said. He said, I've got to retire, you know, I've got kidney trouble. It was very serious. He said, I've got to retire. Yeah, I've got to give up. I don't want to give up, he said, but I've got to. And he said, we're going to go move near my kids and the grandchildren. And he said. He said, all I want is enough money to get a little cottage. So I said, well, how much is that, mister Archer? I don't know. He said, 12,000. I said, 12,000? Yeah, he said, 12,000. And I said, you sure? Yes, he said. He said, listen, I'll give you a week to go down to the bank manager, he said, and talk about getting a loan. Oh, I said, Mister Hart, you would never do that. We'd never done that in our lives. I said, we wouldn't do that. Oh, no, I said, without hardly thinking, I said, we'll pay you in cash. In cash? He said, 12,000 pounds in cash? Yes, yes, I said, 12,000 pounds in cash. Well, he said, all right. He said, I don't know how it comes, he said, but I mean, he said, if you'd like to. He said, think about it and let me know. Well, I was so shaken that I walked from there straight, didn't tell anybody else, went straight in the study and I knelt. I said, oh, lord, please deliver me from this thing. Either this is you or it isn't you. If it is you, give me peace. And if it isn't, deliver me from all fear of having a multi storey car park built right up there above us. [00:30:49] And deep in my heart, not an audible voice, but the voice of the Lord. I'm sure you shall have it. And I laughed. It was so silly that I laughed, you know, I can't explain it any other way. And I got up from my knees and I had just an inner conviction, God is going to do this thing. So then I told the others, and of course we had the prayer meeting that night, many of you will remember. I do believe it was up in this room, if I remember rightly. And I mentioned it about this thing and I thought, now I know everyone's going to be down on this like a ton of books, because we were getting this room finished and I thought we all, we actually had need in this room. And I thought, they're going to say no. First things first, we've got to pay off this. We can't go into market gardens and so on. I never told them what the Lord had said to me. I just kept my mouth shut. And no one else said anything else. But at the end I thought, well, we've got to ask them because we've got to give a reply tomorrow. I said, what do you all think? To my amazement, everybody said, we must have it. You remember I said to you, but I said, I said, but we haven't got anything. And someone said, oh, the law to provide. And misses luck said, well, we can always fall back on a mortgage if he doesn't. [00:32:08] Oh, I loved misses luck for that. I thought it was one of the lovely, because, you know, it's how we all think, you know, if the law doesn't provide, well, we can always fall back on something, you know, and I said, oh, no, no, no, we can't do that. Either the Lord provides or we think. [00:32:27] You remember? And we all said, well, we think so. Then we all move forward. And I said, do you remember to everybody? I told you all, now we must all be together on this. We must not speak to anybody. There are ears and eyes everywhere in this town. As soon as they hear about this, they'll be down immediately to try and get it. So no talk. [00:32:49] I went to phone Mister Greg. I thought he was going to be extremely difficult about it because I thought Greg's first question will be everywhere. Got the money? And I was going to have to say, no, we haven't. But in fact, Mister Greg said straight away to me, what do you mean that piece of ground up there? My goodness me. He said, it's worth a hundred thousand pounds. What's he offering? Twelve. Oh, it's a gift. But I said, mister Gregg, I said, we haven't got the money. Doesn't matter. He said, you have miracles there, don't you? So I said, yes, yes we do. Well, he said, and it'll bound to happen. [00:33:19] I'll start, he said, on this straight away, don't worry. So then the most amazing thing was that Lady Ogle. Now I can tell the full story on this. Lady Ogle phoned and she said, lance, would you come and talk with me about that market garden? And I said to her, oh, no, I can't, I certainly can't. Who told you? I said, no one is supposed to have said anything about this. I said, no, I couldn't possibly do it. I would. It would damage the Lord's name. I said, we everyone last night swore together not to tell anybody. [00:33:51] And she was going on and on and on, quite excitably, you know, on the phone. And she said, just wait. And I stopped and she said, would you please give me the chance to say something? [00:34:03] So I said, yes. So she said, the Lord woke me up at 05:00 this morning and said, don't buy the house, buy the garden. [00:34:13] And she said, I have been phoning all my friends all over the place, does anyone know of a garden for sake? And no one knew of a garden except so and so when I first said, oh, Lance has told you about the garden, has he? And I said, no, he has not, Tom. Well then she said, you better get in touch with him then. [00:34:33] And so she said, now she said, would you come and talk with me about this garden? Since the Lord has told me not to buy the house, but to buy the garden. [00:34:44] So I said oh well Lord spoken to you and gone through all that trouble I suppose I better come. So I got into a car, went across and saw her and she said now tell me what it's for. And I told her and I told her the garden. She said yes I do remember it. And she said well she said I'm quite clear about it. The Lord has spoken to me about this thing. She said I will arrange for you to have 12,000 pounds in cash within 24 hours. [00:35:11] And the amazing thing was I'll never forget Mister Greg because her solicitor was opposite mister Greg up in town and all he had to do was walk across, you know. And I got this excited call from Mister Greg. Oh he said, I can't even remember this. Someone's coming with 12,000 pounds, he said for the market garden. And that market garden was all settled within a few days. How amazing it was. Well many of you remember that story. And then of course we've had many other, we've had the battle over the Red Cross hut thats not won yet by any means. Im quite sure that the final victory on that is certain. Then we had the completion of this upstairs room. Do you remember the beginning of the multiplication? [00:35:53] We began suddenly to grow. The Lord kept us about the same size for a whole number of years. And then suddenly in 1965 we began to multiply and grow and increase, spreading out downstairs. Do you remember all the difficult conditions? I remember so well those years in 1950, 519 56 that we always called our baptism of fire here. Some of you will remember those days when God gave me at the time when everyone was going, I remember one, you know, oh, literally everybody was leaving us. They just couldn't stick the trial or the pressure or the trouble that we had at that time, one kind or another. It was just as if hell had moved into our midst. And I remember thinking to myself, I wonder are we forsaken? [00:36:38] What is happening? I remember one brother with great humour standing up and giving that hymn, coming, yes they are. And he said to me, I think it should be going, going, yes they are. [00:36:51] And I remember another brother who was so fed up with one brother who was a real pain in the neck to everybody in the company and he hadn't got too much grace. He announced a hymn and said, looking at this brother for my sake and the gospels go, I've never forgotten then either. But I wonder, oh dear, what is happening? And then I opened my Bible that morning and I read these wonderful words. Isaiah 40 914. But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me and the Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sin sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, these may forget yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have gravened thee upon the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before me. Thy children make haste. Thy destroyers and they that laid thee waste shall go forth from thee. Lift up thine eyes round about and behold all these gather themselves together and come to thee as I live, saith the Lord. Thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament and gird thyself with them like a bride. For as for thy waste and thy desolate places and thy land that hath been destroyed surely now shalt thou be too straight for the inhabitants and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children of thy bereavement shall yet say in thine ears, the place is too straight for me. Give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thy heart, who hath begotten me? These seeing I have been bereaved of my children and am solitary an exile, wandering to and fro. And who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone. These, where were they now that was given to us at the hardest time of that period of trial. [00:38:39] And I remember at times I used to wonder have I been deceived and deluded in being given this scripture? And the Lord waits sometimes a long time to fulfill his word. And through those years he kept us quite small. This word was never fulfilled. We grew a little, little and a little. But it was very small, very comfortable and very pleasant. And then all of a sudden, in 19, 64, 65 we began suddenly to grow and grow and grow and grow. And you will remember that when we began to meet in this upstairs room in 1966 almost the day we met for the first time in this upstairs room we nearly filled it. And from then on, we began to expand and expand and expand until literally from that point of 1964 onwards the whole refrain in my ear from every aspect of the work has been it's too straight for us. It's too straightforward. Where can we put these files? Where can we store these books? Where can we have room for the children's things? Where can we have this? [00:39:38] Can we push this wall down? Where can we expand out here? What can we do about another office? And so on. And so it's exactly a fulfillment of this word. Thy children shall come to thee and say, the place is too straight for us. Give us. Room to dwell, of course. I must say I do feel at times the Lord has very great humour, because I remember on one occasion, just before Christmas, it must have been about 66, 67. Downstairs we had the biggest love gathering, Christmas love gathering we'd ever had. I think we had about 200 people to tea that afternoon. Do you remember? It was just like a crammed buffet in a southern region, Waterloo, you know. I mean, it was jam packed downstairs, the stewards got all tied up, put chairs all over the place. People were sitting with their backs to one another. It wasn't. I thought it was awful. [00:40:37] Awful. And I remember going home thinking, oh, my goodness me. I've never seen all those people swarm all over the place. You couldn't get anywhere. Children under you, above you, every side. You couldn't think. I fell into bed that night and I remember thinking, oh, what a mess. What a mess. And I swear I heard God laugh. [00:40:55] It was like a chuckle. And then these words came back. Thy children shall come to thee and say, the place is too straight for me. [00:41:03] And then it suddenly came to me, from now on, you will have accommodation problems. You'll never get away from them. And then I thought that God has fulfilled his word. Kept her so small for years and then kept his word to the. You know, he said about that house that we could never understand how Richmond Hill came out of that. About Isaiah, too. And all nations shall come. But we hardly ever have even a prayer time when we're together, that we haven't got 14 nations represented amongst us. And sometimes we have as many as 23, 24 nations represented. Now, of course, we are all used to this. We're used to having different languages, used to this interchange all the time. But when you go around the country, most people just don't have so many in a company that are from other countries. And so it is quite amazing when you think the Lord gave us this word. Oh, the first meeting we ever had in this upstairs room was a baptismal, I think, akim, I remember you were baptized there on February 11, 1968. I don't know where all those people came from, but a quarter of an hour before the meeting began, there was a queue for the first time that went right down the stairs and right out down the pavement. [00:42:19] That was the first ever time we got into this room. In June of 1968, we began actually to meet up here. Now, these lights are also another very interesting little item. You will remember. You remember many of you younger people. You will remember Diane Miles, and she died tragically in tragic circumstances, 1974. And you will remember that her parents and family gave us some of money, and they said, we would like to provide, in memory of Diane, the lights in this room. But when the money was given, we felt. We talked with them. They said they'd like something in keeping. We said, well, now I remember that in Notting Hill there is a shop that does lamps. But we couldn't think where it was. And I said to Paul, if only I could think of the name. I went down to Betty and I said, can you remember that shop we used to go to where all the she's. I can't think of the name. It's somewhere in Notting Hill. I think it's to the left. Yes, I said, I think it's to the left, too. And so if I could only think of the name, we could have looked it up in the telephone, but directed, but couldn't think of the name. We went through everything, lost it. So then I said to Paul, well, let's get in the car. And we've got into the car out here. And we just literally went. I shall never forget it, nor, I suppose, will paul, because we just drifted across to the great. Not the great westward, but the what road, I can't remember. But anyway, we got to Notting Hill, but instead of going to the left, we turned to the right. And almost immediately, I saw this shop with all these lights. And I said, paul, that looks like the shop I was thinking about. But I said, even if it isn't, it's got the most marvelous things. Why don't we just go? So we stopped the car and I went in and began to talk to very, very nice people. And then after a little while, we got talking a bit more, and this man said, yes, we could do something, something like this for you. [00:44:06] She said, I wish you would wait. She said, because my nephew will be coming any moment, and he deals with these kind of things, so we wait for her. And then a man walked in, a very, very nice man. Young man, youngish man. And then he sort of shook hands and sort of began talking. And they said, where are you from? We said, richmond. Richmond. Oh. He said, I live. I live in Richmond. Live over and Eastrick and them. Really? [00:44:32] He said, where are these olites for? We said, halford. Halford House. So you're believers? Why, yes. We said, yes, we have believers. Well, he said, so am I. I go to St. Stephen's. So I've often prayed for you in Halford House. No, I said, yes, he said, but he said, now, I said, I don't know whether we can do a special thing. But you know what he did? These are copies, but they're so marvelous copies that, as he said, any thief would think they were originals. Of course, if they were originals, they would be worth about 200 pounds a piece now. But, you know, those were made by him for here, for all of these. You remember, it was. But it was the way the Lord led us. I mean, isn't it amazing, out of all those shops that we should be led. We didn't even know where we were going. We got in the car, it was almost funny, like Abraham, we went out not knowing whither we went, but the Lord led us. And we came to the only shop that had a believer in it. And he lives in Denton Road. His name's Michael Denton, but he lives in Denton Road, East Twickenham, and goes to St. Stephen's. Isn't that incredible? [00:45:40] I mean, things like that, of course, do tend to make you sort of. Your mouth drop over. What about Hermitage House? Many of you will remember Hermitage House. You will remember the prayer we had in that in the early 1960s for this house across the garden here. Oh, we got so excited about it. We felt it would be a good place for a training center. That's what we were thinking of in those days. And we got down on prayer. Do you remember? I should never forget it. Anyway, we sort of possessed it and took it. And they wanted 27,000 pounds for that old place over there. And then they said they'd have 25,000. But the man we had, surveyor, when he went over, he said, no, it's not worth 18,000. You mustn't offer over 18,000 for it. So of course we thought, oh, dear. Oh, well, if that's the case. But Ron had a word in Genesis 24, I should never forget this word, because you see, our problem here in this house, we have no place for storage. And this is one of the things that had been said, you know, we have absolutely no place. We've got no cellars under this house and no where to store. And Ron got this word in Genesis 24 and verse, verse 31, which said this. Let me get it and come in, thou blessed of the Lord, wherefore stands thou without? For I prepared the house and room for the camels. And we thought it was the room for the camels that got run. He said, that's it, that's it. Room for the camels. So we all had visions of the camels going in, in caravans into the house. Well, we took that house. But, you know, nothing happened, happened just like the market garden. Ten years we took it. And, you know, for me it was a real question. I thought, how could we all be so misled? A whole company of people who were all supposed to be led at the Lord. We all went up the gum tree together because we were all sure about that place over there and it never happened. I shall never forget when Eddie came to me, or just a few years ago, and said, you probably haven't heard, he said, but Hermitage House has come on the market. And I bought it. [00:47:38] And I said, really? And then he said, yes. He said, I want it. I thought it would be good if we used it for christians so they could live, provide a place. [00:47:48] He didn't know. He wasn't in the company in those days. He didn't know anything about the battle we'd had over this house. Now, of course, it's not ours, but I mean, they're all believers over there. The group meetings are there in the house. And the interesting thing was that when we met the owner of the house, she told us that her aunt, who originally, I think it was a Miss Jarvis, was a Christian, she had Bible studies and prayer meetings in that big room over in that house. And misses Penn Lewis used to speak at them, isn't it? Because misses Penn Lewis, you know, by the way, I never told you all that misses Penn Lewis lived in the house just down the road across here, and we often thought she must have prayed for this school of art, for all the youngsters going in, in and out. Her whole work in this country began in Richmond. Her first meetings were opposite the town hall. Her Bible studies were down the road. A doughty house opposite the Holy Trinity. That's where she had the first conferences there. Some of them, Frieda Hanbury Allen, the hymn writer in our hymn book here, was here. She, in fact, was the Sunday school teacher of one of our number, misses Nellie Bowne, who went to the Lord's attorney triumphantly a few years ago. Well, anyway, there you are. That was another interesting. Then what about the building at the top of the garden? That was in 1974. It's incredible when you go up and look at that building at the top of the garden to realize that we built it. [00:49:07] That was built. I've often said I wouldn't mind living there. It's so nice, like a japanese tea house, you know, graceful curve. But that was built by ourselves and we never had any experience in building. I always am. The miracles connect with that. And then, of course, there was the rebuilding of the wall and the pointing of the house. You remember that story. You will remember how it began with the. With the hermitage entrance across the garden. Do you remember how we got the bricks and then had no one to do the job? And we all didn't know what to do. And after prayer, we decided, well, would anyone volunteer to mix the cement and all the rest of it? And one or two said, yes, we'll do it, we'll do it, and you will remember that. Then we said, we've got no bricklayer. And so on the Thursday evening, we said, we are going to go ahead with this. We've got people to do this and people to do that, but we've got no bricklayer. And in that meeting, one of the fathers of. One of the girls who was visiting us was a bricklayer, retired bricklayer. And he was just about to move down to the south coast, but he had these three, four weeks free. And he said, I will do it for you. And then you will remember that a fellow came in on Sunday evening, was a backslider, who was a bricklayer, came back to the Lord and said, there's a bricklayer strike this week. I've got no work to do. I might as well bricklay for you. And he came in, do you remember? And did it. And so that whole gate was finished. Then we went on with that at the pointing. Now, you remember there was a terrible mistake over that. That was awful, awfully sad. It was really, in many ways, we can't apportion blame on that. But something went wrong on this pointing. And it was, do you remember, the most terrible sight? And we were so concerned about it. We had complaints from residents in Richmond. The town council was phoned up about it, about the work and so on. Do you remember we asked the Lord specifically that he would guard his name and reputation. The wall then fell down, as always. [00:51:00] The wall fell down here along the garden. And we then. And Alec Buchanan said, there's something in this. [00:51:07] We've got to take note when walls fall down, that perhaps the Lord is trying to say something to us about walls really being enclosed to the Lord. And then you remember we got hold of the Lord about this. And the firm that did Albert hall came in and we thought it was going to be so expensive. Although it was an expensive job, it was marvelously done. And the Lord has answered prayer in that we received this year. The first commendation of the Richmond society was given because of the wall and the pointing, as well as the other work that has been done in this house, I think that's something to praise the Lord for. Then, of course, we came to next door the old house, the residential park. We began the work there straight on from their work up in the garden. In autumn of 1975, Paul and Bob and the others, they tried to do it themselves, but realized very soon that it was far too big a job for them to do, really. They began to uncover things next door. That they found that really it was too much. We could see them. The brothers were going to be swallowed up and completely exhausted. Because it was really, in many ways, beyond their depth, technically, to be able to cope with. And then we made prayer to the Lord about it. I was off to Israel. [00:52:33] Just before I went, Paul said to me, do you think that we should perhaps get someone in, you know, who's a builder, to do this job? And I wondered about Bill. But I thought Bill was now going to Rio de Janeiro to build places. He was going to Buenos Aires to build places. He was doing all banks. [00:52:50] His fees, his wages. Were now far beyond anything we could manage. And we thought, it's ridiculous. We won't be able to do it. And then all of a sudden, Bill walked in for the first time. And I think it must have been almost 19 to 20 months. He suddenly walked in. He said, what's going on? He went and had a look. He looked around it, saw what was going on. And said to the brothers, well, I should do this, I should do that, I'll do the other. He said, of course, you couldn't afford now. He said, I just can't drop my thing. Because my whole life, the home we're in, and everything is dependent upon my income. I can't go below it. So I couldn't help you. But he said, I'll give you advice. I'll drop back. He said, in a week or two or three weeks time and see how you're getting on. He was as good as his word. He came back in two or three weeks time. And then he said, now, listen, I could offer my services if you pay me such and such. That was quite a lot. But we felt before God that it was right after praying. Now, I believe that that was justified. [00:53:50] Do you know that that Red Cross hut was about two months work? Approximately. And all of you must go and look at it. In my estimation, it's superficially renewed. It had the same corrugated stuff on top of the old asbestos corrugated stuff put on the side. The inside, it's true, has been renewed. Do you know how much that cost? Two months, 13,000 pounds. [00:54:17] Do you know how much it's cost to have Bill doing a mammoth work of reconstruction next door? 12,000 pounds for one whole year. [00:54:31] Now in that year bill has renewed every single bead across the house from the roof to the ground floor. Every beam. And they were all ship's beams had all rotted or were worm eaten now in an existing house. And don't forget dear Blanche and Ivan. That's another miracle of grace. They lived all through this while. Floor after floor came down. Ceiling after ceiling came down. RSJs went in. Blanche should be given a gold medal. She had Jonathan in the middle of it. [00:55:07] It is amazing when you think about it. [00:55:11] I find it quite remarkable when you look at the whole thing. [00:55:17] Even the staircase next door was found to be another miracle. Three floors of staircase and the whole thing was resting on air. [00:55:27] All those staircase right the way there was nothing. [00:55:31] All those years we've had some quite heavy people next door and some of them they don't always go up step at a time. [00:55:41] And yet those stairs have stayed up all the way. It is amazing. Bill has done things so that you don't see undergirding. It's all done into the ceiling. It is an amazing job that has been done. And furthermore Bill himself has shown great interest. Only just recently he asked for the tape of the house and we were a bit nervous as to whether he himself might be upset at when he heard himself described. But no. He's ordered for today. [00:56:13] Margaret used to say Bill is like Hiram of Tyre. [00:56:19] He is not yet the Lord. [00:56:22] But he is helping in the building of the Lord. [00:56:26] And it is as if the spirit of God comes upon him to do the work. Well now I think we have to bring all this to an end. This story. But you see all this work has been done literally while Ivan and Blanche have been inside. And while we've had to trust the Lord really for the largest sum of money weve ever had to trust him literally month in month out for the last year and a half. [00:56:55] People have sometimes said to me its an awful burden. I agree in one sense. And yet when I look back, you know it is amazing that weve kept our head just above the water and the Lord has come in again and again and again. Now what can you say about that whole story? [00:57:13] I mean it's right up to date. [00:57:15] It's the Lord to whom all the praise and the glory must go. He began the work. He directed it. He provided for it. He has enabled us to complete each stage and he will finish the whole. [00:57:33] We can only praise him and glorify his name. Now I will try to say something tomorrow evening, I thought. Tomorrow we'll have a time of real praise and worship together. Bring your musical instruments if you wish, whatever. And we'll make a joyful noise to the Lord. And then we'll say something about the meaning of this whole story, what it's all about.