Norwich Christian recalls fizzy pop and Bubble car

A recent column on Network Norfolk about the Joystrings' chart success in 1962 has stirred memories for Norwich Christian couple Les and Linda Champion, and Les recalls some of his experiences from that time.

Back in the autumn of 1962, Sainsbury’s, for whom I worked, sent me to Cumbria to a development course similar to Outward Bound.  That caused me to fall in love with The Lakes, and I have spent a lifetime going there up into the fells as often as I can.
 
The story about Joy Webb and impact of The Joystrings brought back happy memories.  In the summers 1964 and 65, my pal Maurice and myself, both at the top end of our teens, and members of our local Baptist church youth group near Epsom in Surrey, went to an NYLC (now known as Young Life) holiday in the Lake District.  We travelled all that way in my Heinkel bubble car, with only the M1 to ‘speed’ us on our way.
 
Witherslack Hall (then a private school hired by NYLC for the summer hols) is in the SW Lake District, not far from Grange-over-Sands.  Maurice and I went there in ‘64 and ‘65. Had a great time.  It was led by Peter and Audrey Anderson, assisted by John and Helen Dyer, all NYLC staff evangelists I believe.  John Blanchard was a contemporary of theirs if I remember rightly.
 
The picture, right, shows our dormitory group holding bottles of fizzy pop, definitely NOT beer bottles – this was a NYLC Christian holiday for young people!
 
Maurice took his guitar with him, and together with Margaret, a lass from Norwood in South London, we became part of the music scene of those holidays.  I think it fair to say that our theme song was known as ‘Surely Goodness and Mercy’.  The first line as I recall is ‘A pilgrim was I and a’wandering, in the cold night of sin I did roam’.   I have not heard that sung for years. The picture below shows the three of us leading the singing by the grand staircase at Witherslack Hall.
 
I lived near Epsom in Surrey at that time.  I once rolled my Bubble Car over en route home from a party in the early hours of the morning. (Completely sober, I should add. I have never been a drinker; I actually dislike alcohol). It had been a dry spell followed by a fine rain making the road slippery.  We finished up 100 yards further down the road, on the opposite side, resting on its nearside. I crawled out of the sunshine roof, pushed it back on its wheels, got back in and drove it home!
 
For my wife and myself, I would say the greatest impact of the new worship songs and music came from New Zealand in the mid 1970’s. Her sister Irene, with husband and family  emigrated there in ‘74, and found themselves in the midst of a move of the Holy Spirit in a large AoG church in Auckland. There the music and songs of Bruce MaGrail, with David and Dale Garratt featured strongly, together with ‘Scripture in Song’.
 
To sing the words, music and themes of the Word of God is so enriching and facilitates the absorbing of God’s Word into our hearts,  minds, emotions and spirits in such a wonderful way that by-passes the intellectual approach held by so many, and hinders so many more. ‘
 
Five of us from those teenage years in that Surrey Baptist church still keep in touch and meet from time to time.  The top picture shows us all, with Maurice on extreme right and myself second from left, on a jaunt on Windermere in The Lakes in 2017. This September I turn 80, and am going there with a friend for 4 days to say a specific ‘thank you’ for a lifetime of joy they have given me. I just want to get to a high peak I love and shout it to the heavens and to our great God.