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DISCOVERY AT COVENTRY
The sequence of overt events leading directly to The Coventry Miracle began in February 1975. Over the weekend of Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd, a party from the Youth Club of Harpenden's St. Nicholas Church visited Coventry. The group stayed at Kennedy House, a U.S.A.-run mission which had been opened a year or two before as a memorial to the assassinated President. Kennedy House was located near Coventry Cathedral, with which it was closely associated.
Among the Youth Leaders who accompanied the young people were my wife, Sheila, and our friend Derrick Elliott, an electrical engineer with the oil industry as well as a Freemason and who later became Priest in Charge of St. Mary's Church, Harpenden. One of the youths in the party was our youngest daughter Bridget, then fifteen years old.
The programme for the weekend included discussions, prayers, Services and visits. One of the most significant happenings for the participants in general was an evening in which the group had the run of the Cathedral. However, it was their visit to The Belgrade, the civic theatre of Coventry, which signalled the starting point of The Coventry Miracle.
The group from Harpenden had not been long in the foyer of The
Belgrade when Derrick Elliott drew the attention of Sheila and others to a
most remarkable item on a poster. The poster, printed in bright red,
set out forthcoming attractions at The Belgrade's two theatres.
Beneath an emblem of a dove bearing an olive branch, which apparently was
the logo of The Belgrade, were listed the next 10 productions in Unit 1
and the 6 planned for Unit 2.
The item which grabbed the attention of the Harpenden people was at the bottom of the Unit 1 list. It was billed as a World Premiere and was scheduled for production from 28th May to 7th June 1975. Its author was named as Rony Robinson. It was a play entitled Speak Up, Harold Beck!
It seemed that my prayers had been answered in a miraculous way! I had long been praying for the guidance of the Lord in the very perplexing situations outlined in Political Developments and Much to Pray About. Here was a clear response in no uncertain terms.
I found it quite incredible that both my surname and Christian name appeared and that, given the previous happenings in my life, the title as a whole expressed a personally meaningful imperative!
The poster was discovered in the Belgrade Theatre on Saturday 22nd February. The following day Sheila returned to Harpenden with a copy, which turned out also to be a brochure for on the back was further information about the play:-
SPEAK UP HAROLD BECK! The hero of Rony Robinson's new comedy is an exile from his beloved north, has married above his station and has a dead end job in local government: no wonder he is waiting for the revolution. Set in Coventry, today.
Soon after learning of the play I wrote to The Belgrade at Coventry to book seats for Sheila, Bridget and myself for Friday 30th May. I enclosed a cheque on our usual joint account in the names of H.V. & S.J. Beck and signed the booking request "Harold Beck", without further comment.
On Saturday 22nd March 1975 there was another fascinating event. As Chairman of the local Community Health Council (CHC) I was invited to be present at a Competition run by St. John's Ambulance - a new member of staff at the Management Centre was very keen that I should attend and arranged that I be sent an invitation. The venue was the canteen at Marconi Instruments, the adjacent Managing Director's dining room being set aside for the judges, senior St. John's Ambulance people and visiting dignitaries. I was considered to be in the last of these categories. Thus I renewed acquaintance with a room, with its notable laminated beam roof, which had been my main lunchtime eating place from 1962 to 1966. This time I had tea and met among others Sir Martin Gilliatt, Private Secretary to the Queen Mother.
It was probably towards the end of April that I took steps to obtain publicity for the Speak Up, Harold Beck! play. I had been asked to keep quiet about what had happened in my 1970 meeting with the MOD/Cabinet Office man following the Edinburgh invitation to go to Moscow. I was not going to treat the latest extraordinary development in the same way; I wanted it on public record. I therefore spoke to Ivor Lewis, Editor of the local Evening Echo, who I knew through St. Nicholas Church (we were members of an Other Faiths and Sects group), and he decided to feature the event.
Apparently, as the time for the production drew near, one of the Evening Echo journalists telephoned The Belgrade and was put in touch with the author who provided some information about the fictitious Harold Beck. The Evening Echo was also sent a large poster on current display at the theatre.
On 1st May 1975 there was another interesting development, namely a meeting of Christians in CHC's, called by Bishop of Bedford, John Hare. Bishop John was a member of the South Beds CHC, based on Luton. I do not think I had met him since his involvement in Harpenden's
Before that he was a member of my Safeguard Group and here we were meeting again, at his instigation, under quite different auspices. I was struck more than ever before by his humility.
The next
outcome of my move to obtain publicity for Speak Up, Harold Beck!
was an interview on the morning of Saturday 17th May by the Evening Echo's
Susan Dale.
Then on Friday 30th, just before Sheila, Bridget and I set out for Coventry to see the play, a photographer called on behalf of the Evening Echo. I was photographed in my home holding the large poster, which I had seen for the first time only minutes before. The poster described the play as a new political comedy and depicted a group of demonstrators on someone's forehead with the words "Speak Up, Harold Beck!" writ large on a watery background.
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