Ronald Searle’s Holy Communion Book from his Confirmation in 1933
Ronald Searle’s Holy Communion Book from his Confirmation in 1933
Inside front page reads:
Ronald Searle
6, Petersfield
Cambridge
Opposite page reads:
Ronald Searle with best wishes from ….
for his Confirmation
St Andrew’s Day, 1933
The book itself is a small, 12cm x 8 cm, hardback blue book, Holy Communion preparation and companion by W. Walsham How, First Bishop of Wakefield. Published in London by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 1930 reissue.
Ronald Searle was a WWII prisoner of war along with my grandfather William Bullivant and so many other ‘Mill Road’ and Cambridge boys.
My granddad William was so badly affected by the experience that after he came home, he along with many others had electric shock therapy at Fulbourn Hospital as outpatients to try and help them with the nightmares and depression they suffered afterwards.
My father Bill Bullivant remembered when he was a child that his dad (grandad William) had a book full of Searles drawings, which my dad would sit and trace and colour in - but one day his dad, in a fit of depression, burnt the lot. Grandad used to have terrible nightmares and so many of those that returned suffered a great deal.
There is much more to write on this subject but for now, here’s Ronalds little book from a time before the war.
