That we were eligible for two Sunday School treats excited a certain envy among the rest of the village children! But I went on to take my place as chairman of the Baptists' Little People's meeting - at the age of ten! Sadly, on a recent visit, I discovered that all trace of what had been a strong Baptist tradition had entirely disappeared.Later I was to spend Sundays with my godfather who took me to the village church for matins. In the late afternoon we caught the bus for the county town of Aylesbury and its ancient parish church where my godfather could be sure of a `good' sermon. This was my first contact with the `High' church; why did the curate turn east for the Gloria?

My sisters and I were confirmed in Melton Mowbray parish church after the family moved to Leicestershire. My confirmation was a real spiritual experience. I felt the Holy Spirit did come down in abundance as the Bishop laid his hands on my head. There followed a fairly regular attendance at Holy Communion with my brother.

My first teenage job was as junior clerk on wartime Aerodrome construction followed by a period with the local Auctioneer and Estate Agent, which included rent collection on Mondays and cattle vending in the large market on Tuesdays. A monthly furniture sale was to give me a lifelong taste for antiques and fine porcelain. There followed National Service in the Royal Navy where I was one of two churchgoing youths in a Mess of 24! Demobbed I found myself back on a farm which gave me a little insight into the then rigours of agricultural life; I have never sung the Harvest hymns with more gusto! By then I was a sidesman and choir member in the village church, and ere long I became Secretary of the PCC. While serving here I felt the first stirrings of a call to the ministry and I was soon off to London to study for my A Levels. I have vivid memories of the blizzard conditions on 1st January 1954 as I waited for the train.

It took me 18 months to acquire my A Levels that, after selection by CACTM to my parents' great joy, gained me admittance to St. John's College, Durham and Ordination. It was while studying for A Levels that I became aware of posters on the London Underground advertising the Billy Graham Crusade at Harringay. There I heard a message which seemed fresh and entirely new: how Christ had died for my sins! The smartly-dressed figure in the limelight was a long way off but I felt I was hearing these words for the first time. They made a deep impression on me as the tears rolled down. I had been brought up in the Church of England. At the same time I had good cause to be thankful for the influence of the village Baptist Church and I was already an Ordinand, but at this precise moment the enormity of my sinful past hit me. To the world I was a godly church youth but inwardly I was a Jekyll and Hyde character. I had no excuse. I was guilty. All I could do was to repent and receive Christ as my personal Saviour, Lord and King.

I concluded that while I came from a solid church background, which I in no way wish to denigrate, I was now an Evangelical Christian. This was evidenced in the next five years at Durham University where I took a B.A. degree, later an M.A., and a Diploma in Theology. I found time to stroke the College boat in racing on the Wear. I also valued my membership of the Christian Union. It was at the Saturday evening meetings that I first heard those great Evangelical hymns: "And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood?”, “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise!", and, to a tune recently arrived from America, "Amazing grace (how sweet the sound!) that saved a wretch like me!"

There followed Ordination at Rochester Cathedral and curacies at Gravesend, Streatham Common (where I met and married my wife, Chris - a former member of the Lee Abbey community) and livings at West Bromwich, Tiverton, and Poole where we were well supported and received incalculable blessings. While Rector of Poole I was made a Canon of Salisbury Cathedral, and I still make a monthly trip to Salisbury to do duty as a chaplain, which includes officiating at the Thursday morning Prayer Book Communion.
Retirement has set me free to apply myself to other interests, including the privilege of serving on the Council of the Protestant Truth Society. I am very conscious that John Kensit was an Anglican and that as long ago as 1898 he protested at the idolatrous kissing of the wood of the Cross in the Good Friday Liturgy - something, I very much regret to say, is still carried on in Anglo-Catholic parishes to this day.

In my latest Broadsheet I venture to remind readers that in its official formularies the Church of England is a Bible Church and is entirely subject to Biblical authority. It is the duty of its ministers to preach a biblical message. All ordained Anglican clergy still affirm their belief in the historic Anglican Formularies including the 39 Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal (the Making of Presbyters, Bishops and Archbishops). In my Broadsheet The Triumph of Anglo-Catholicism Challenged, I call upon all clergy who cannot sincerely affirm these historic formularies to leave the Church of England and for Anglo-Catholics to go to their true spiritual home, the Church of Rome. I also call for a second Reformation in the Church of England, a reformation according to the Word of God beginning with the abandonment of the unscriptural use of the title "Father" (Matt 23:9) and the wearing of a hat in church by the Bishop (1 Cor 11: 4). A second Reformation would clean out the Augean Stables of Anglo-Catholicism and leave the Church of England as our Protestant Reformers intended, Protestant, Reformed and preaching the Gospel of Grace.

Canon Stanley Holbrooke-Jones