Northern light - 01.07.1941, Page 5

NORTHERN LIGHT
:í
I will not weary the reader with de-
tails of the difficulties in which we were
involved in getting posession of the house.
Premises are never easy to obtain during
an acute housing shortage, and if I say
that there were three separate tenants for
whom fresh accomodation had to be found
and a number of legal difficulties to be
overcome — the rest can be left to thc
imaginalion.
However, with the exception of the two
rooms and the kitchen which were still
occupied by an Icelandic family, the house
was ready early in December, and on the
9th of that month the Club was opened
with a complete absence of ceremony. So
many improvements and additions have
been made since that date that those first
weeks when we had nothing more than
the bare necessities seem a long time ago.
Then on December 17th. Alec Churcher
arrived, and that meant that we could ex-
tend our activities considerably. The can-
teen was opened and various activities
sueh as the Sunday Night Play-reading
and Literary Circle, the Debating Society,
and the Icelandic classes were commenc-
ed.
At the end of January the last of the
original tenants departed, and the two
extra rooms and the kitchen thus acquir-
ed added a great deal to the scope and
amenities of the house.
That is the brief story of Toc H in Ice-
land up to date. What the future holds
for it is largely bound up with far wider
issues, and we can do no more than ex-
press the hope that whilst the British
Force rcmains here Toc H will continue
to render good service.
G. S. Johnson.
AROUND
The Twenty-First Annual Report of
Toc H recently received shows that Toc H
has now established three hundred
Services Clubs in Great Britain, while
many more are being financed and oper-
ated by Toc H in Africa, Australia, Can-
ada, India, New Zealand and elsewhere.
A recent visitor to the Club here told of
a pleasant evening spent in the newly-
opened Toc H Club in St. John, New-
foundland. A Club was opened in Alex-
andria at the end of last year, one in
Cairo in February, and two new houses
in Malta now supplement the work of our
old-established house there. The first Ser-
vices House for Women has been opened
in Farnborough by the Toc H League of
Women Helpers.
The three Toc II Houses established
with the B.E.F. in France in 1940 — at
Lille, Rouen and Douai — have of course
been lost, and of the nine Toc H Staff
men serving with these Houses five are
now prisoners of war in Germany. The
remaining four, who were based on Rou-
THE MAP
en, were evacuated by the military author-
ities and ultimately reached home safely.
Toc II Houses at Gibraltar, Coventry
and Portsmouth have been totally de-
stroyed by enemy action, and those at
Southampton and Plymouth severely dá-
maged.
All Hallows Church, by the Tower of
London, the Guild Church of Toc H and
since 1922 the spiritual centre of all its
work, has been almost completely de-
stroyed. Those who knew this lovely and
historic church will find some consolation
in the fact that while almost everything
above the surface has been laid flat, the
Undercroft and its contents were left un-
touched. The silver Lamp of Maintenance
— the parent lamp of Toc H, kept per-
petually burning in the church itself —
was extinguished but not harmed.
The Toc H Journal, giving the latest
news of the activities of Ihe movement
round the world, continues to be publish-
ed regularly each month. Copies may al-
ways be seen in the Library of the House.