Just in case anyone missed it, there was a wonderful little article in yesterday's Observer.
The article was a review of a book about a British officer in the First World War called Walter Tull.
Tull played for the Clapton Orient, Northampton and Tottenham Hotspurs football teams. During the war he was commissioned as an officer, quite a feat for someone from the ranks not born the the officer class of Victorian and Edwardian England
Remarkably he had been bought up by the Methodist children's charity the National Children's Home after being orphaned at the age of nine. Even more remarkably he was Black, the grandson of a Barbadian slave.
The writer observes:
Methodism shaped his character, producing an uncommonly moral and stoical man, who endured casual, institutional and official racism throughout his life. Even essentially well-meaning football writers habitually referred to the forward as "our dusky friend", while one chilling report of a Spurs match away at Bristol City in 1909 says "a section of the spectators made a cowardly attack on him in language lower than Billingsgate".
At one point, shortly before being killed in action, his commanding officer recommended him for the Military Cross but this apparently proved too much for the top brass. It is a shame that we don't make more of this role model of a Black British Methodist, it may have something to say to our young people today.
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4 comments:
http://www.ntfctrust.co.uk/artman/publish/article_226.shtml
http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/walter_tull.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWtull.htm
http://www.crossingthewhiteline.com/page10.htm
They broke the rules by making him an officer. Some pen-pusher somewhere wouldn't break the rules again. Request denied. Next.
I include him in our teaching of black history to yr8 (12/13 yr olds) - they find his story fascinating. Have to admit I didn't know much of his Methodist background - I'll have to investigate for next year.
I'm a History teacher and I use his story when I teach WWI. A pretty inspirational character and a useful way to teach a topic which is often mired in cliche and stereotypes.
Looks good to me. Please read my book and comment on it.
Have you heard about John Wesley? Do you like reading about John Wesley? Are you interested in John Wesley’s theology?
Are you interested in what John Wesley thought about the Roman Catholics? How about the Quakers? Did you know that he wrote about the Deists and the Mystics and compared their thinking with that of his “True Christianity?” He also wrote about the relationships between Judaism and Christianity.
John Wesley was a very ecumenical thinker holding together many views that apparently are opposed to each other. We should be proud of our founder.
The book “John Wesley, Natural Man, and the ‘Isms’” written by J. Robert (Bob) Ewbank, discusses all of these issues and more.
Written for the layperson as well as the scholar, there is a Study Guide in the back of the book to help individual or group study. The Guide has questions in the front, which are answered later in the Guide.
Bob has a B.A. from Baker University in Baldwin, Kansas and an M.A. from Garrett-Evangelical. He is currently Lay Leader of St. Mark UMC, in Mobile, AL.
Bishop Rueben P. Job of the United Methodist Church has written some kind words on the back cover.
Sam Royappa District Superintendent of the Coulee District in Wisconsin has recommended this book to his clergy and laity.
Dennis Mohler, District Superintendent of the Foothills District in Ohio also comments on the book at www.foothillsdistrict.org/newsletter/october
The book is found on the Newcastle Methodist Church site at www.newcastlemethodist.org.uk.
A review of the book has also been published in the October 15, 2009 copy of The Laity Link which is the newsletter of the Alabama-West Florida Conference Board of Laity. It is also been written up in “The Rainbow,” the magazine of Delta Tau Delta, The “Aware” magazine of Garrett-Evangelical and the Baker University magazine “Baker World.”
The book has been used by a local Sunday School in its entirety and quoted in others.
To find the book go on the internet to:
1. www.wipfandstock.com (Wipf and Stock)
2. The book is now available at Cokesbury, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, WJE at Yale (The Jonathan Edwards Center), Kalahari.net, Paddyfield.com,www.deepershopping.com, Booktopia, abdbooksellers.com; Christianbooksbibles.com, IBS.it, Webster.it, Bibleknowledgebookstore.com, Angus & Robertson.com.au, JabezChristianStore.com, Boonbridgebooks.com, Alibris.com, Infibeam, and Amazon.com among others.
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