Leonard Cheshire

CHESHIRE – BOMBER/CARER

(Preached Remembrance Sunday 2001 & 2005)

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. That is the greatest and first commandment; the second is like it – Love your neighbour as yourself”. Matthew 22^37-39.

That was the reply of Jesus to the Pharisee who asked him: “Which is the greatest commandment?”

One of the books I have read is Richard Morris' biography of Group Captain Leonard Cheshire.

His life appears to fall into two parts, for each of which he received public recognition, with a transitional stage between them.

The first part concerns his wartime experiences in which he flew some 101 operations in the Second World War. Most of these were during his command of 617 squadron, previously made famous by Guy Gibson and sometimes called the Dambusters. His first operation took place just six days after Dunkirk and, after the hundredth, he was awarded the Victoria Cross. His last mission was as the British observer of the dropping of the atom bomb on Nagasaki.

The second part of his life concerns his pioneering work to provide recognition and accommodation for the disabled which eventually grew into the worldwide organisation known as the Cheshire Homes Foundation. For this work he was awarded the Order of Merit.

During the first part of his life he became famous as a destroyer of life. In the second part he became famous as a saver of life.

What brought about this change in direction in Cheshire’s life?

His earlier biographer, A. Boyle, attributed the change to Cheshire's experience of being the British observer at the dropping of the atom bomb on Nagasaki. True this had a tremendous impact upon him, as his subsequent writings and interviews reveal. However, this is perhaps too simplistic.

The change of direction in his life is perhaps more subtle than that and can possibly be attributed to two people. One of them he met shortly before the end of the war, and the second he met a couple of years after the end of the war.

The first person he calls Clare. Shortly before he was demobbed he was in the Vanity Fair night club in Mayfair, celebrating his brother's safe return from a prisoner of war camp in Germany.

“It was late at night”, he writes, "the third in an almost nonstop celebration. Christopher had gone to bed. The original party had dwindled to a mere three or four. Then the conversation became noisy. The most voluble of them leant across the table and asked: ‘How much do you know about God?’"

He goes on to say: “She was a good looking girl, whom I had met twice before, a trifle worn perhaps from too many late nights and too much gin, but not the sort to fall for religion, nor to lose her balance for more than a passing moment.

So I answered in no uncertain terms: ‘God is an inward conscience, personal to all of us, that tells us what we ought to do and what we ought not to do…It is as simple as that, and if people wouldn't go and confuse the issue by bringing religion into it, the world would be better off’.

To which the girl replied: ‘Absolute nonsense. God is a person. A person, and you know that as well as I do.’”

The suggestion that God is a person and not one's conscience obviously challenged Cheshire to begin to take God seriously in his life.

That was the first influence. But before we look at the second major influence some 2-3 years later, it is important to recall what was happening to Cheshire in those intervening years.

Like so many servicemen and women, he had a difficult time trying to adjust to life in civvy street. As he observed in a letter to his mother: “I had no trade but killing…that is what they have taught me for six years".

He was listless and wandered from one project to another. He tried his hand at journalism. He tried to promote an idea called 'Commandos for Peace’.

And he tried to establish a commune – or classless colony which would be self-sufficient. This was not a success. Members began to fall out with each other and leave the colony. Soon he was faced with mounting debts and was forced to sell up and live in a smaller house on the estate.

These intervening years must have been very traumatic for Cheshire as he tried to discover a purpose in life.

As his recent biographer observes: “By the end of 1945, Cheshire had been granted four wishes. He was universally admired, driving a Bentley, wearing Savile Row suits and had access to wealth”.

Then, having gained what he imagined he wanted most, he found it joyless, and one by one the wishes were reversed. Within two years, he was down to his last shilling, the last chair, and those who had praised him most deserted him first.

It was then that he encountered the second person to influence the future direction of his life. It was Arthur Dykes.

He was about 50 years old and had been a former member of the colony. For some time he had been ill, and more recently had lain in bed in Petersfield Hospital, dying from liver cancer. Since the hospital could do nothing for him, and they wanted his bed, he was discharged to die at home.

The only real home he knew was where Cheshire was living. It was to here that Arthur came upon discharge.

Following a crash course in nursing, Cheshire looked after him. He fed him, made his bed, washed him and helped him to the lavatory. Sometimes they sat and talked, whilst at other times they just held hands in silence. And when he lapsed into unconsciousness, he sent for the local Roman Catholic priest to anoint him. But before Arthur died, he was already caring for a second arrival at the home.

Writing to a friend at the time, Cheshire says: “Needless to say, the nursing received at my inexperienced hands was very rough and ready. Nevertheless, he soon settled down to this new life and I was much surprised at the change that came over him. I think he felt that he was wanted.”

He continues: "I was so struck by this that I began to wonder if there weren't others in his position, dying and unwanted. I also decided that I would not go out of my way to find them, but would merely let things take their course. If they came my way, I would accept them; if they didn't I would turn and find something else”.

They did start coming his way, and therefore he did not have to 'turn and find something else'. Thus began the Cheshire Home Foundation which was to grow worldwide,

Shortly after this, Cheshire was received into the Roman Catholic Church.

Now I have chosen to recall the life of Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC, OM on this Remembrance Sunday because his life has so much to teach us.

Firstly, through the influence of Clare who challenged him to believe in a personal God, and then Arthur's need to be nursed, Cheshire brought together in his life the two great commandments of the Christian faith - to love God, and to demonstrate that love in caring for others. A vertical relationship which expresses itself in a horizontal relationship.

These were so fused together in his life, that his biographer says that, from 1947 when he turned completely to Christianity, he saw himself less as an instigator than as a length of copper wire through which the charge of God's power might run.

Secondly, it shows how a person can change. The destroyer of life became the saver of life. He came to realise that it is not enough to seek to destroy evil; one also needs to be prepared to care for those who suffer as the result of evil and seek to build a better world.

The former - caring for those who suffer as the result of evil – is very much the responsibility of the voluntary bodies such as the Royal British Legion in UK, or the equivalent in other countries, such as the Returned Servicemen's League in Australia. One also recalls the work of other voluntary bodies which seek to bring relief to casualties of conflict such as Christian Aid, Oxfam and so on. The latter – the building of a better world - is the responsibility of politicians who very much need our prayers.

And thirdly, just as Cheshire was prepared to display enormous personal courage and risk his life in leading his squadron, never knowing whether or not they would return from their missions, so we also recall those others who during two world wars, and subsequent conflicts, have shown enormous courage and risked their lives.

Particularly do we remember those who have not returned from the conflicts including those whose mortal remains lie buried in a foreign land; those whose lives have been cut short, often in the prime of life; those who, whilst fortunate to have returned home, have nevertheless had their lives shattered through the experience of conflict – the injured and disabled, the mentally distressed, the homeless and the refugees.

And let us not forget the courage of those who have lost loved ones – husbands, wives, children and parents – and have been obliged to continue without the support of those they have loved.

So let us, this Remembrance Sunday, rededicate our lives by praying a prayer that Leonard Cheshire and his wife, Sue Ryder, wrote:

Grant peace and eternal rest to all the departed, but especially to the millions known and unknown who died as prisoners in many lands, victims of the hatred and cruelty of Man. May the example of their suffering and courage draw us closer to thee through thine own agony and passion, and thus strengthen us in our desire to serve thee in the sick, the unwanted and the dying wherever we may find them.

Give us the grace so to spend ourselves for those who are still alive, that we may prove most truly that we have not forgotten those who died.