Thanks to Brenda Richardson, one of our members, here is an interesting response by June Williamson, to a recent article by Leo Hickman in the Guardian. Her response regards the role of our church in providing a warm welcome to German prisoners of war post-1945. This was a remarkable lived-out reality of Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies (Matt 5:44), in a time where German PoW’s were treated with suspicion by locals across the country.
June is the eldest daughter of our former minister, the late Rev’d Walter Richardson, and is Brenda’s sister.
I was 16 years old in 1946 and living in Bletchley. My father, the Rev Walter Richardson, the minister of Spurgeon Memorial Baptist Church, and Ron Stanford, joint owner and editor of the Bletchley Gazette, went up to the PoW camp at Little Brickhill to ask for permission to allow the prisoners to come into the homes of local people.
This was granted, and every Sunday many families had two PoWs for tea and then on to church for the Sunday evening service. The PoW Alex Claviez was the camp translator and would translate my father’s sermon into German. There were often 30 PoWs in the congregation, as those not included in the home visits were given tea by the ladies of our congregation.
Ron produced a small paperback book which Alex translated into German. It was called Experiment in Friendship and told their families what we were doing. We sent a copy to every family of the men at Little Brickhill and received many replies. Alex became a Christian and a personal friend, and years later my husband and I visited him and his family in Germany. Until his death four years ago, I received a Christmas card every year, always remembering his days at Spurgeon Memorial Baptist Church.
June Williamson, Writing to the Guardian, June 2024
Click on the link to read the full response, and then on the link within the letter to read the original article by Hickman:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/14/prisoners-of-war-were-given-a-warm-welcome-in-bletchley

To read the original story of ‘Experiment in Friendship’, as mentioned by June Williamson in her letter to the Guardian, you can view or download the pdf below:
You can find out more about the history of Spurgeon’s on Our History page.
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