Sorted Magazine

Category: Faith Matters

  • Faith: 80 year-old-pilgrim walks 1,333 miles to help Leprosy Mission

    Faith: 80 year-old-pilgrim walks 1,333 miles to help Leprosy Mission

    Rev John Merrill will walk from Canterbury to Rome in 80 days, arriving at the Vatican on his 80th birthday. John has walked a total of 228,500 miles on walking trails, almost the distance from earth to the moon, and worn out 151 pairs of boots! He keeps all his old boots in his garden shed in Hertfordshire as he says they feel like old friends. John has written 520 books about his expeditions. These range from walking the coastline of Britain, 7,000 miles, to the Pacific Crest Trail from the US/Mexican border to the Canadian border, 3,000 miles.

    His latest challenge will see him leave Canterbury Cathedral June 1st where he will receive a pilgrims’ blessing. He is scheduled to arrive at the Vatican on August 19th; his 80th birthday. He has no rest days scheduled on the 1,333-mile route through France, Switzerland and Italy. Averaging 16.66 miles a day, he hopes to raise as much money as he can to help people affected by leprosy.

    Rev Merrill, a multi-faith minister, heard how leprosy was still a problem in the world today at a Carol service at St Giles in the Fields Church in London. He heard Peter Waddup, Chief Executive of The Leprosy Mission, talk about Dr Paul Brand who was a medical missionary to India where he witnessed firsthand the prejudice surrounding leprosy. While treating a patient for the disease, Dr Brand put his hand on the patient to reassure him. He was concerned when the patient began to sob. A translator for the patient told him: “You touched him and no one has done that for years. They are tears of joy.”

    John, deeply moved by this story, was inspired to raise money to help people affected by leprosy. This could mean giving the gift of reconstructive surgery, pioneered by Dr Brand, to restore movement to hands and feet frozen by leprosy. Or providing bespoke prosthetic limbs to those who have had limbs amputated because of injury caused by the disease. John said: “It would be lovely to think by doing this challenge for my 80th birthday, I could give someone else a second chance of life on their feet again.

    “I have been extremely fortunate that I have never broken a bone or been hospitalised during my expeditions. I have some amazing adventures and have been up close to rattlesnakes and bears but have always remained safe. I have been very blessed really as I usually walk alone. That way you never forget what you have seen because you’ve been chatting! I have gone 14 days without seeing another human being.” John says that walking is a way of life for him and his pilgrimages have deepened his faith. He was adopted as a baby during the Second World War and said he was an exasperating child at school.

    “I used to come bottom in everything and the only thing I loved was sport and running up and down Bell Hagg Rocks in Sheffield where I grew up. I loved the sense of freedom and exploring made a great impression on me.”

    After being expelled from several schools, Rev Merrill’s father sent him to a Quaker boarding school in North Yorkshire. “I loved it there as you were allowed to explore anywhere, you just had to be back by 6pm. When I was 15, however, I was caught climbing up a three-storey building at the school. I was called to the headmaster’s office and thought I was going to be expelled. But amazingly, he sent me on an outward bound mountain course in the Lake District for a month! From then on I walked and climbed whenever I could. After I left school, I worked for my father’s company as a commercial director but it never suited me. I spent my holidays walking and climbing.

    “One time I was climbing in the Isle of Arran and it felt like I was being prompted by God. I felt He was telling me that I was not doing what I should be doing. Then a short time later I camped outside Iona Abbey on the Isle of Iona in the Hebrides and saw there was a service there at 6pm. I somehow felt called to go the service. But when I got there I was thinking ‘what am I doing here?’ Anyway, the minister began his sermon and said ‘God gives you the chance to do what you should be doing. If you don’t take it, he will give it to you again’. It was the prompt I needed to leave work and start my new life of hiking, climbing and writing books.

    “I drove back to Derbyshire and gave in my notice. I have been doing this ‘new life’ ever since! As I failed my English O-Level twice, they were quite surprised at my old school by the number of books I had published! Even though I’m approaching 80, age is but a number, and now I just intend to keep going and walk the Pennine Way when I turn 100!“

    Rev Merrill has raised more than £1.5 million for good causes from his own walking expeditions. More than £1 million has also be raised by other walkers completing his challenge walks. To sponsor his 80th birthday Canterbury to Rome pilgrimage visit: https://tinyurl.com/80daywalkforleprosy

    Main Photo Credit: Courtesy of Rev John Merrill

  • Beyond the Banter: Putting down deep roots

    Beyond the Banter: Putting down deep roots

    Gardening experts advise that when planting a young tree a stake should be fixed at an angle which points in the direction of the prevailing wind. They also advise that the stake should be removed after a couple of years to allow the tree to develop deeper roots as it bends in the wind. Apparently part of the design of the tree is to bend and flex under pressure, because that action is what produces deeper and stronger roots. The roots grow deeper on the side facing the direction the wind is coming from.

    I was out walking recently and came across an uprooted tree in woodland not far from where I live. This was a huge, mature tree, surrounded by many other trees, and it had been around for a long time, maybe since the woodland was planted in the early 1900’s. The woodland and adjacent parkland was a gesture from the landowners to the people of the local mining and industrial community to provide some respite from the dust and grime of the coal mining industry which was so prevalent in this part of the north west.

    Despite its huge size and weight, and it not being identified as a tree at risk or attacked by disease, it had been blown over and lay like a spent matchstick. The ‘root plate’, as they call it, was very thin. The roots went sideways more than downwards. Perhaps the roots were shallow because the tree was surrounded by other trees so it hadn’t had to withstand the full force of the wind. In recent storms many big trees were blown over because the wind came from a different direction to the norm, making it easier to dislodge any shallow roots.

    I came across another angle on this recently when I spotted a tree clinging for all it’s worth to a cliff edge (see main photo). The ground below half of it had been washed away by coastal erosion, exposing the root system. It was a smaller tree standing on it’s own, but had developed deeper roots. For now, it was standing firm.

    I’m sure you can see some parallels here with our spiritual lives. No matter how strong we may look on the outside, if our roots don’t go deep we can be vulnerable to being blown over in the storms and strong winds of life.

    Trees are fairly resilient on the whole and will bend in the wind. You may have heard trees creaking sometimes. We too may creak and sway a bit in the storms but still stay standing. We are designed to withstand a certain amount of pressure, but if we are constantly battered and have only shallow roots, there may come a time when we fall over when something comes at us from a direction we weren’t expecting.

    We can seem strong when surrounded and protected by others. But we may need to leave the security and relative shelter provided by others and feel the full force of the prevailing wind. Our resilience and faith will grow stronger under pressure.

    The picture of a small tree suffering from coastal erosion suggested to me that there are no guarantees in life. Even if we have put down strong roots there are some things we have no control over. Here are a couple of snippets of ancient wisdom to consider:

    You can’t find firm footing in a swamp, but life rooted in God stands firm. Proverbs 12:3 (New Living Translation)

    Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Jeremiah 17:7-8 (New Living Translation)

    Main Photo Credit: Courtesy of Bob Fraser

  • Beyond the Banter: Nothing to hide; nothing to fear; nothing to prove

    Beyond the Banter: Nothing to hide; nothing to fear; nothing to prove

    The idea of becoming men who have nothing to hide, nothing to fear and nothing to prove is a theme developed by Morgan Snyder, one of the Senior Leaders of John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart organisation, in his online podcast ‘Become Good Soil’. (Home – Become Good Soil) As I’ve thought about those three phrases, I find I can identify with each of them to some degree.

    I’m sure many of us have done or thought about things that we’d rather not admit to, and we’ve kept it hidden from others. It’s understandable. We want others to think well of us; we want to preserve our reputation or perhaps we’re just not ready or willing to admit to some failure in the past. It feels safer to hide it or bury it and try to move on.

    Nelson Mandela believed that everyone should be treated the same, whatever the colour of their skin. That belief resulted in him spending 27 years in prison, but he went from being a prisoner to a President and became an inspiration to people all over the world. He said: “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not the man who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers fear.”

    Fear can manifest itself in many ways, but many men won’t admit to being afraid in a dangerous situation as it may look like they are weak. However, fear sometimes has a way of galvanising courage within us when in a tight spot or when lost or when facing overwhelming circumstances. So fear can be a good thing. It’s a natural survival response and it can get us out of danger or keep us out of trouble. Bear Grylls said that being brave is having fear but finding a way through it.

    But fear can also immobilise us to the point where we are unable to figure out what to do in a difficult situation. What may come to the surface are times when we got wounded or treated badly, so we are understandably reluctant to make ourselves vulnerable and put ourselves in that kind of situation again.

    It’s often fairly obvious to us when someone seems to have something to prove. There is something they are striving to live up to, some image they are trying to maintain, some impression they are trying to give. But it’s a false front and underneath there is a different person who is insecure and perhaps wounded by past events. Richard Rohr, an American Franciscan priest and writer on spirituality based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a very popular writer and speaker on spirituality said, “There is nothing to prove and nothing to protect. I am who I am and it’s enough”.

    Wanting to be a man who has nothing to hide, nothing to fear and nothing to prove gives me a route map for leaving the past behind, whether that be stuff I’ve done, or stuff that happened to me, and I can head into the future more secure in who I am becoming. I like that idea of becoming. It reminds me that, whatever age I am, I am unfinished; I am still work in progress.

    Main Photo Credit: Eddie Kopp via Unsplash

  • Bear Grylls: “I was biting the ground in agony …”

    Bear Grylls: “I was biting the ground in agony …”

    In the summer of 1996, I spent a month helping out on a game farm in the northern Transvaal in South Africa. I decided to head north to Zimbabwe for some fun before heading home to the UK. For me back then, fun meant skydiving with good friends, with cool drinks in the evening. Life was all good.

    The flight to 15,000 fee was uneventful. I stood in the cargo area of the plane and looked down. I took a deep breath, then slid off the step. The clouds felt damp on my face as I fell through them. At 4,000 fee I pulled the ripcord and heard the canopy open with a reassuring crack. My free fall quickly slowed down from 130 to 25mph, just as it always did. But when I looked up, I realised something was wrong – very wrong. Instead of a smooth rectangular shape above me, I had a very deformed-looking tangle of chute, which would be a nightmare to control.

    I pulled hard on both steering toggles to see if that would help. It didn’t. I kept trying but I was burning through time and altitude fast. Within seconds I was too low to use my reserve chute, and the ground was coming up fast. I flared the chute too high and too hard. This jerked my body up horizontally, then I dropped away and smashed into the desert floor, landing on my back, right on top of the tightly packed rock-hard reserve chute.

    I couldn’t stand up; I could only roll over and moan on the dusty earth. I was biting the ground in agony. I didn’t know the extent of the damage at the time, that I had shattered three key vertebrae and would go on to spend months in and out of military rehabilitation back in the UK, strapped into braces and unable to move freely. But in those first few minutes as I lay there, one thing I did know was that my life had just changed forever.

    Sometimes it isn’t until we get knocked down that we find which way is up. Sometimes it isn’t until the sky clouds over that we notice the light. And sometimes it isn’t until we lie in the gutter that we begin to see the stars. The light of God has been the greatest source of hope this world has ever known. We can never be so far away that the light won’t reach us. Sometimes it is good to be reminded of that. Hope will always win – and the light of Christ reaches everywhere.

    Extract taken from Soul Fuel by Bear Grylls, published by Zondervan in the US and Hodder Faith in the UK.

    Main Photo credit: Fair Usage

  • News: Churches serve their community

    News: Churches serve their community

    The pantry initiative by Ribbleton Parish, based at the Community Centre at Watling Street Road in Brookfield, Preston, was opened by the Mayor of Preston, Councillor Neil Darby (pictured on the left).  The Mayor, partners from the council, local housing and schools supported the launch at the parish, along with the new Vicar, Rev Linda Tomkinson and her husband Pete, a Church Army Evangelist.  

    The pantry is scheduled to be open every Tuesday morning from 10am to noon; creating a community drop-in space providing support. Fresh and tinned food supplies will be available for those in need, with a referral voucher required which can be obtained at the Centre from the church clergy team; from local school headteachers and local councillors. 

    Pete Tomkinson said: “As well as welcoming the Mayor to perform the opening it was great to have support there from councillors and local housing and school engagement officers, as we all work together to provide a joined-up approach to supporting the needs of our community.  

    Over the past few months scores of churches across the Diocese have developed new initiatives or built on existing work to support people struggling to put food on the table or heat their homes at this difficult time.  

    The Diocese has been tracking and promoting these initiatives in a series of news stories and via a website page where we are collating some of the best examples of this work from Blackpool to Burnley and from Morecambe to Chorley and all points between; with more being added all the time. 

  • Comment: Where is St. Valentine on Valentine’s Day?

    Comment: Where is St. Valentine on Valentine’s Day?

    Editor’s Note: I’m delighted to welcome JP Dao, UK Chief Executive, GFA World as a Guest Writer for Sorted Magazine.

    JP writes: Valentine’s Day is here, and many of us will be caught up in the excitement of sharing a romantic day with our loved ones. Preparations have been made all over the country, restaurants with their deals on champagne, teddy bears with love hearts stacking the shelves that recently held advent calendars. But what is less obvious is, where does Valentine’s Day come from?

    Compared to some other events in the Christian calendar such as Easter or Christmas, Valentine’s Day usually flies under the radar, if it even makes the Christian calendar at all. Indeed, very few Christians that I know of mark the occasion by celebrating one of the Church’s revered saints. Instead, St. Valentine has largely been lost in the annals of history, and very few of us today know anything about him.

    So, who was St. Valentine? And why is it important for churches to remember him?

    St. Valentine was a courageous missionary priest and martyr who lived in Rome in the Third Century, an incredibly dangerous point in history in which to be a Christian. His faith and purported healing of the son of a prominent teacher led to many becoming believers. This miracle, however, also led to St. Valentine’s arrest. But before he was sentenced, St. Valentine healed the judge’s daughter of her lifelong blindness after he had heard of St Valentine’s healings and wanted him to pray for her. The judge then cleared St. Valentine of all charges and let him go free.

    At the time, the Roman Emperor Claudius II made a decree that no soldiers could be married, as marriage was seen as a distraction from service to the Empire, and St. Valentine would marry Christian soldiers in secret. St. Valentine did many other things to help Christians who were being persecuted in and around the capital. However, the news reached the ears of the Emperor and St. Valentine found himself in prison once again.

    Many of those who helped St. Valentine were also arrested, and he wrote letters to them, encouraging them to run the good race. His letter to the judge’s daughter ended with his signature “from your Valentine”, which has developed into the much-loved phrase we use today. Ultimately, St. Valentine was beaten and beheaded for his faith on February 14th around approximately 270AD.

    St. Valentine was a man who loved Jesus Christ, and through whom the power of Christ flowed to minister and to heal. His work opened doors for him to share about the love of Christ with many people, and many found Jesus as a result. He died for sharing his faith and not holding his own life dear to him. So why does the Church not celebrate him?

    No doubt, there are challenges for Christians in the UK too; our views are strongly challenged and often ridiculed. But just imagine if to be a Christian we had to lose our British citizenship. Or if our children were not permitted to attend certain schools because they are Christian. Or if we were refused work because of our faith. Or if we could not get access to clean water because we attend church. This is what people in some parts of the world are facing.

    One of our GFA-supported overseas workers once had his hand broken while sharing Christ’s love in a village as part of our Film Ministry. Others have been beaten and chased out of communities for doing similar things.

    Imagine if, for Christians, Valentine’s Day could become about remembering our families and friends overseas who are risking their lives for their faith. Imagine if, instead of just buying our romantic interests chocolate roses or going to the cinema, we stood together in prayer for our brothers and sisters who face the death penalty simply for being believers. Imagine if we came together to support them prayerfully or financially, connecting ourselves with their lives as they see the Lord working through them and answering their prayers with healing and miracles.

    The UK church has a long, proud history of supporting our brothers and sisters overseas and in challenging situations. This Valentine’s Day, isn’t that a tradition worth continuing?

    To support indigenous overseas workers this Valentine’s season, visit:gfauk.org

    Main photo: Nick Karvounis via Unsplash

  • News from The Leprosy Mission

    News from The Leprosy Mission

    Leprosy Mission teams are shocked to discover the tea gardens of Bangladesh are home to the highest leprosy rate they have seen.

    The Leprosy Mission has worked in the slums of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka for many years. The overcrowded living conditions and poor sanitation are not only distressing but ripe for disease.

    Just a few hours’ drive Northeast of Dhaka, the fresh air and the vibrant foliage of the tea gardens are the perfect antidote to the city slums.

    But appearances can be deceptive. While the tea crop flourishes, leprosy is choking the life out of its workforce.

    There are 600,000 people living and working on the tea estates of Sylhet with the leprosy rate 20-30 times the global average. This equates to thousands of people living with untreated leprosy. Almost no family remains unscathed and even children are showing the early signs.

    Leprosy Mission doctors and health workers are staggered by the number of new cases they have found. Since going into tea estates in 2017, they have found and cured more than 1,600 new cases of leprosy. The more they look, the more they find.

    The discovery has culminated in the launch of the Flourish campaign on Sunday 29 January, World Leprosy Day 2023. Flourish seeks to find and cure tea workers and their families of leprosy, protect livelihoods and create a future where the whole community can flourish.

    Chief Executive, Peter Waddup, says there is a real urgency to find and cure new cases of leprosy. This is before disability sets in and the tea workers lose everything they know and love.

    Peter said: “The situation in the tea gardens is very unusual. This is not just because of the extraordinary high rate of leprosy but the lack of stigma surrounding the disease.

    “I’ve had the privilege of visiting our projects across Asia and Africa and one thing is constant. That is the terrible prejudice surrounding leprosy. People are, understandably, reluctant to come forward for treatment because of this prejudice. They live in fear of being seen as cursed and cast out of their families and communities.

    “But what is unusual within the tea estates of Bangladesh is there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of stigma surrounding the disease.

    “This is likely to be because the workforce is made up of ethnic and religious minorities who are, sadly, already marginalised from society.

    “When the workers are fit and well, they form a tight-knit community with friendships between the tea pickers often going back decades.

    “The trouble comes when nerve damage caused by leprosy causes fingers to curl.

    “As the tea pickers are paid by the kilogram of tea picked, speed and efficiency are everything.

    “There is a very real worry among the tea pickers that they will lose their home and community. This is because employees are provided with a basic family home which they must leave should they become too sick or disabled to work.

    “My colleagues in Bangladesh are already running pop-up clinics in a third of the tea gardens in Sylhet, finding and curing new leprosy cases.

    “Knowing the full extent of the problem, we desperately need the resources to scale up this work.

    “There is a real urgency to find and cure people before leprosy leaves them too disabled to work and they lose everything. 

    “The aim is always to cure people of leprosy at the earliest opportunity.

    “As well as preventing transmission, prompt treatment stops leprosy from causing life-long disabilities.

    “The fact that there doesn’t appear to be too much stigma surrounding taking the cure for leprosy in the tea gardens is a good thing. It means people are open to treatment.

    “Tragically it is when they are forced to leave the tea gardens because of leprosy that they are exposed to extreme prejudice.”

    Main photo credit: Ruth Towell

  • Faith: Happy Hanukkah!

    Faith: Happy Hanukkah!

    Hanukka 2022 lasts from December 18th until December 26th. According to the Religion Media Centre Hanukkah is an eight day Jewish religious festival which commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago.The name comes from the verb meaning “to dedicate” and the festival commemorates the rededication of the second Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BCE, after an uprising by Judas Maccabeus against the rulers of Israel, the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks) and their king Antiochus IV.

    How is Hanukkah celebrated?

    Hanukkah begins on the 25th day of the month of Kislev in the Jewish calendar, which occurs between late November and late December. The festival is marked by the daily lighting at nightfall of a nine-branch candelabrum, with one flame being used to light the other eight, one day at a time. It stands in households, synagogues and public places.

    Customs include rituals including singing and prayers; eating fried foods such as a potato pancake latke, or doughnuts; playing games with a dreidel, a four-sided spinning top; making gifts of money to children and charity; and greeting all with “Happy Hanukkah”.

    Huge menorahs are to be found in towns and cities throughout the UK where public ceremonies are held each year, including at Trafalgar Square in London, where it stands in front of a Christmas tree.

    What is the significance of Hanukkah?

    Hanukkah is often understood as an event that celebrates freedom of religious oppression and persecution, and of hope over fear, light over darkness. In Jewish tradition Hanukkah is a minor holiday that evolved long after the Hebrew Bible was completed and as such does not have any major religious restrictions on work associated with other festivals such as Yom Kippur or Passover.

    However, over the past century it has risen to greater prominence, largely through the efforts of American Jews who promoted it as their equivalent to Christmas, which is often about the same time. It was especially popular among otherwise secular Jews who wished to have a holiday as Christmas became such an important part of American culture.

    In Ashkenazi Jewish traditions, children are often given money during Hanukkah and in some places this has been replaced with presents, which also mirrors Christmas customs.

    Article credit: Thanks to the Religion Media Centre for providing this information. The Religion Media Centre is an impartial and independent organization aiming to increase further cohesion and understanding in society by helping the media report and understand religion and belief. It does not promote any one religion or belief and has no editorial line other than religion matters.

    Main photo credit: Robert Thiemann via Unsplash

  • Interview: “We would find drug dealers and rob them …”

    Interview: “We would find drug dealers and rob them …”

    Last Saturday on The Big Lunch radio show I chatted with my mate, John Lawson, a former violent criminal, bouncer and body guard. John’s worked with some famous household names such as the Rolling Stones and Neil Diamond and in this interview he opened up to me and gave an incredibly honest account of what some of those experiences were really like for him. He’s also been a significant player in the criminal underworld and I was privileged to hear first hand about John’s mindset during that dark season of his life. John went into great detail about some of the staggering exploits and risks he took. Here are a few highlights from the show:

    On emigrating from Scotland to South Africa:

    John Lawson (JL): “I was born in Glasgow, we emigrated (to South Africa) when I was three, that was a huge contrast!”

    On being abandoned by his father as a child:

    JL: “Unfortunately I was a bit of a wild child really … came to the UK … raised on one of the toughest housing estates in Europe, just developed a violent mentality. By the time I left school I got involved with my uncles who were running most of the sex industry in Soho.”

    On leaving prison and working as a bouncer:

    “I enjoyed the violent aspect of it … we were a tight team … for a bit of pocket money we would find drug dealers and rob them the night before they bought their drugs. Believing we were good guys we would flush all their drugs down the toilet, believing we were doing society a favour, but really it was nothing but pure violence.”

    On the police catching up with him:

    “The police caught up with me … they had my voice recording, they had CCTV footage, I got done for four years for attempted extortion … I was a foolish idiot … but that prison was the best place that I could ever be cos that’s where my life completely changed.”

    I asked John how it was for him to walk into prison on the first day and what his experience was like during all those years inside. I was aware that John came to faith in prison and was interested to know exactly how that came about. What followed was one of the most dramatic, inspirational and emotional stories I have ever heard. Listen to the full interview here. Read John’s autobiography in novel form here, his ministry work is here and there’s a song inspired by a poem he wrote for his wife here.

  • Faith: How the former wife of Stephen Hawking emerged from the shadows of her past.

    Faith: How the former wife of Stephen Hawking emerged from the shadows of her past.

    Dr Jane Helyer Jones is an accomplished writer and novelist, she is also Jane Hawking, the former wife of Stephen Hawking. She’s the author of the best selling book Travelling to Infinity, which is the true story behind the famous motion picture film The Theory of Everything.

    The film tells the story of Jane’s early life with her husband, Professor Stephen Hawking, who is possibly the world’s best known scientist and the world’s best known sufferer of motor neurone disease. Stephen is played by Eddie Redmayne and Jane is played by Felicity Jones. Jane told the BBC, “Felicity’s performance was phenomenal. When I saw her on the screen I was flabbergasted because she captured my mannerisms, my movements, my patterns of speech even.” It is a stunning performance and Felicity Jones somehow portrays the complex bitter sweet nature of Jane’s life.

    Just as in real life it’s a beautiful love story and Jane is clearly devoted to Stephen. But as Stephen’s disability worsens she becomes his carer. His fame and career place more and more demands upon her and she struggles with the physical and emotional effort of this work alongside the job of caring for their young family.

    Jane told Christian Connection, “Faith was my rock and my blessing because I believed that there was help and support for me in all the challenges I faced and that things would resolve themselves eventually.”

    In another interview she said: “I felt I needed the rock of my faith to do what might be expected of me, I was very dependent on my faith to help me through. I thought there must be a loving God acting in his (Stephen’s) life otherwise he might not have been gifted with the brain of a genius which enabled him to do the science that he could do. He couldn’t walk, he was having difficulty talking, he couldn’t write. All he could do was think, but he could think in such an extraordinary way, in a way not given to many people, to himself and [Albert] Einstein perhaps, but not many others. And that seemed to me to be the most extraordinary gift.”

    In 2018 Jane told Readers Digest: “One day I asked him (Stephen) ‘How do you decide on a theory?’. He said, ‘Well you have to look at all the possibilities in various areas of research and decide what you’re interested in. Then you decide which area of research is most likely to give you the positive result. So you choose your theory, your area of interest, and then you have to take a leap of faith.’ I said, ‘What? What’s the difference between taking a leap of faith in physics and other people taking a leap of faith in religion?’ He laughed.”

    Jane describes her parents as ‘darlings’ and says her Christian faith has helped her persevere, “I think my parents were rather taken aback, but they were very supportive of me when I married Stephen, and my mum, Beryl, encouraged me to keep faith as the way forward”.

    Her first novel Silent Music was published by Alma Books in 2016. It tells the story of a child growing up in an unhappy family in London after the Second World War. The title of the series is The Immortal Souls. This stems from Jane’s belief that “everybody has a spark of spirituality and the divine inside them, and that circumstances often combine to prevent that spark from blossoming”.

    “I saw Stephen’s spark blossom and my own is blossoming now in so many ways. I have my wonderful children and I’m doing all the things I want to do, especially my writing. I’ve been down a long winding path to reach that ultimate fulfilment but I think I’ve found it now.”

    Jane is a strong, inspirational woman who has emerged from the shadows of her past and found a new life for herself. She’s found meaningful creative work. She’s found a special love with her husband Jonathon Jones Helyer, together they share a strong faith and a deep love of music. Her life has a happy ending. She said: “Life goes on doesn’t it? One year succeeds another and you concentrate on all the really wonderful things.”

    Interview credits: Readers Digest, The National, Christian Connection, BBC Woman’s Hour.