John Stott’s Right Hand. J. E. M. Cameron

with millions now settling down in their new homes and new jobs. After all the wartime restrictions, and now with a little money to spend, people were planning visits to relatives, and days out.

      For Frances, the thought of returning to the loneliness of life in South Africa, where she had wept on the hillside with a sense of purposelessness, held no attraction; she resolved that she would remain back in England, for the time being. Having made her decision to stay, at least through The Festival of Britain, she wrote to her mother. Evelyn knew how much Frances enjoyed the arts, and that life on the fruit farm did not provide much opportunity for aesthetic pursuits; she replied to Frances’s letter to say she understood. After a few weeks spent in Devon with her grandmother, Frances was drawn back to life in London.

      Frances needed to find a job. So, travelling up from Devon to London by train, to visit her friend Doreen from Malvern days, she scanned the columns in The Times. Here she saw an advertisement for a temporary secretary at the BBC, to work for a talks producer in the overseas service. This would provide a foothold for her without long-term commitment. She applied and was duly appointed. Her department was based at 200 Oxford Street, close to the tube station at Oxford Circus. From London it would be easy to see more of Ian in Oxford, with the frequent and easy train service from Paddington. In God’s providence, she never returned to South Africa. London would become home for the next sixty years.

      Frances was able to share digs with her schoolfriend at 66 Princes Square in Bayswater. Doreen, a gifted pianist and ’cellist some years her senior, was teaching music at a private school close to the Royal Albert Hall. They had become friends at Malvern when Doreen had helped Frances with her piano playing. London offered rich cultural pursuits for the two women with their common love of music.

      In due course, Frances was invited to apply for a permanent appointment at the BBC, working for a talks producer in the West Africa service who held a dual role. As well as creating educational programmes, she also produced talks in the Overseas Service (now the BBC World Service) for programmes on culture, with slots for book reviewers, concert critics and theatre critics. The interview for this dual role was with the formidable feminist Mary Treadgold, literary editor and Carnegie medal winner. Here Frances fielded a completely unexpected question. ‘You’re not an evangelical, are you?’ Frances, not yet a committed Christian, was unfamiliar with the term. She could have betrayed her puzzlement, but the tone of the producer’s voice gave away her sheer distaste for evangelicals. ‘Oh no!’ said Frances. Obviously competent in all aspects the roles would require, she was appointed.

      Frances discovers All Souls

      A few months after she arrived at the BBC, news came that her department would be moved to new offices in the Langham Hotel, at the top of Upper Regent Street. She and a fellow secretary decided to walk up there one lunchtime, to look at their new quarters. Frances noticed that the doors were open at All Souls Church, which stands opposite the Langham Hotel and adjacent to Broadcasting House, the main BBC building, and she felt strangely drawn to look inside. This church, designed by John Nash and opened in 1824, is situated at the bend of the road, as Upper Regent Street turns into Portland Place. The building looks not unlike a rocket on its launching pad. With its curving steps and Ionic pillars, it remains a well-known West End landmark. In December 1940, a landmine exploded in Portland Place, which brought down much of the church ceiling. The restoration work after the war took until April 1951, when the congregation was able to return. She found a light, modern church, so unlike those in Bovey or Lustleigh. A commanding painting by Richard Westall, Ecce Homo (‘Behold the Man’), depicting Christ, bound and on trial, hung in the east end. This painting, clearly visible from the pavement, with spotlights shining on it, immediately drew Frances’s attention.13

      After the office relocated to the Langham Hotel, Frances was again drawn into All Souls, as, on her lunchtime walk one day, she noticed a concert with a string quartet was about to start. So she went in and sat down. Not many people were there. The concert finished and Frances got up to leave. While she had appreciated the music, she felt disappointed at the lack of any sense of welcome. There seemed such a contrast between the welcome of the building, into which she had been drawn a few months earlier, and the indifference of the few people there. As she walked back to the office she resolved not to go again.

      A few months later, Frances was taking her lunchtime walk with a particular spring in her step on a bright, sunny day. The BBC staff were often offered complimentary tickets to sundry events, and Frances had just received tickets to Lords cricket ground. She found her mind taken back to her first schooldays, when she watched cricket with her father on the green in Bovey Tracey. As she walked through central London, she could hear church bells ringing from the tower of St Peter’s Church in Vere Street, a narrow street off Oxford Street, running along the side of Debenhams. St Peter’s was a sister church of All Souls, under the oversight of its young Rector. It was here that the Sunday services had been held after the damage was caused to All Souls by the wartime landmine, and here a weekly lunchtime service now took place.