A Good Read: Woodbine Willie

I found myself a new book this week: Woodbine Willie: an Unsung Hero of World War One (Bob Holman    ISBN 978-0-7459-5561-2)

In 1914 a simple, unknown parish priest enlisted as a Chaplain. This man became one of the most famous personalities of the 14-18 war and although few might have recognised the name, Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, as 'Woodbine Willie' he was a hero!

His habit of passing cigarettes around and being with the troops where the action was; braving shells and bullets to do what Chaplains did then (and continue to do today). He maintained morale and when war ended, took up another battle against poverty, unemployment, war itself and injustice.

A man who brought Christian and socialist thinking together and did rather than just talk about it. His money and his mouth were firmly to be found residing in the same place! The dean of Westminster Abbey refused him a funeral in that place because he was a 'socialist' (always good to see the days when we were perhaps the much vaunted 'Conservative Party at prayer'). But the man wasn't a political type, in fact he had a dislike and distrust of them (because he been to war and seen that politicians start them and soldiers either end them or are ended in them?).

This is one of the first practical theologians and looked to the Church to stand up against, poverty, poor living and  the condemnation of the class system. 'If we share we have enough,' was his mantra, and many ignored it; but some didn't and that's part of the man's appeal - he was ahead if his time!

This is man who knew long ago that Church is the 'Big Society' and that we have a new Commandment to live by that goes into no man's land with those who are about to die; and ministers to the wounded and dying too!

This is a hero of the 20th Century and I can but commend the man (and the book) to you as an exemplar of what it means to live the Christian message and take up your cross to follow Christ.

Enjoy

ps. I was privileged to see a painting of the man hanging in the vestry of Worcester Cathedral whilst preaching there recently. I have to admit that the thrill of seeing it and the memorial (below) was one of the (so many) high points of that day:

Woodbine Willie

We ask our men and women to go where no one should be asked to go
To see what no one should be asked to see
And to do what no one should be asked to do

And as we reflect on the loss of six of our soldiers on foreign soil the Church of England remembers another soldier, the Reverend Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy MC, affectionately known as 'Woodbine Willie'.

When war began, Kennedy volunteered to serve as a Chaplain and became one of the best known characters of the war thanks to his habit of handing our cigarettes (which gave him his nickname), his pastoral care of those under his car and his poetry and other writings. Here's one of them, 'War':

There's a soul in the Eternal,
Standing stiff before the King.
There's a little English maiden
Sorrowing.
There's a proud and tearless woman,
Seeing pictures in the fire.
There's a broken battered body
On the wire.

An encounter at the front at Arras (1917) sums up what it is to be a military Chaplain in a most explicit manner when Kennedy crawled out to join a working party putting up wire in front of the trenches and was challenged by a sentry, the tale of which goes like this:

"Who's there?

"The Church!"

"what is the Church doing out here?

"Its job!"

If you stop by and read this - please pray for the men and women who serve in the role of Chaplain to those men and women who march away into conflict in pursuit of peace and justice - the Church 'doing its job!' -  and give thanks for the lives of men like Studdert Kennedy.

"I bet my life on Christ - Christ crucified."

Pax