PREFACE

TO WRITE about one's experiences during the Sino-Japanese war over thirty years after that war is over has not been an easy task, especially as I have written most of it from so far away from the scene of the events as Rhodesia.

This book was written in my spare moments over some five years. I have been fortunate in having a number of letters, cuttings and photographs with which to sharpen my memory.

The background to my story is the Chefoo Schools and the China Inland Mission (now the Overseas Missionary Fellowship). In introducing them in the first two chapters I have drawn heavily from the writings of three C.I.M. missionaries (listed later under Acknowledgments); and I wish to thank the O.M.F. for their kind permission to do this.

I would like to express my gratitude to three ladies who gave such willing help typing the manuscript ― Mrs Marion Purkiss of Fort Victoria, Mrs Yvonne Barkley and Mrs Marlene Harding of Sinoia; and to my wife Lilian who not only helped with the typing, but encouraged me to see this work through to completion. Mr J. Liddy kindly checked the MS from the grammatical and literary point of view.

The purpose of this book can best be summed up in a verse of the Chefoo School anthem:

Plaudits of men we lightly appraise, set we a nobler aim,

Ever to bring through the toil of our days glory to God's great name.

I trust that in this in some small measure I have succeeded.

Sunderland 1977

Norman Cliff