"If you love your children, set them free." What would I have done if God had not caused me to know this and find peace with the fact that my children would travel far and wide to the four corners of the Earth. I have seen a daughter to France, a son and a daughter to New Zealand, another daughter to California, a son-in-law from Egypt.... What could have prepared me for such diversity. My early days in the Mission maybe!

And my dreams!! It was a dream that prepared me to serve the latter days at Lochside. And it was another unforgettable dream that came for my own children. This was the dream:

A Pentecostal wind whooshed through the Cottage and suddenly there were all my children, every one, standing on a rainbow, in a rainbow. And at the head was my younger son, Ross. And there stood his big brother, my elder son Gavin, and Gavin commanded: "Let Him Speak!!" And there, Ross rose to his full stature, filled with a great power, and his voice rang forth: "Let Us Be Free!!!"

Amen Lord!! I got the message loud and clear!!!

I was born into this old Scots Protestant family, a mix in fact of Protestant, Catholic, Irish, Moors and French Huguenot, as far as I know; and our spiritual Leader came from Covenanter stock, a people who once, it was said, "worshipped on the hills in all weathers with ’twa’ (two) pistols in their pockets.." Yes, what a mix, and what a mix of ideas; of love and of punishment, of a fierce and angry God on the one hand, a loving, gentle God on the other. How on Earth were we to sort it all out? To do this has been my life’s work and, like Paul after all his ’Old Law Ideas’ he came to the conclusion; There Is Only Love.

In 1957 a tragedy befell our little family. Our firstborn child, our eldest daughter, drowned in a pond where all the children were playing on one of the hottest days on record. She fainted from heatstroke they said at the inquest. She fainted in the water. She was gone before the ambulance reached the hospital. Her daddy had gone down to the pond to see what the commotion was about. "The Lord Has Given and the Lord has taken away." was how he delivered the news to me. I didn’t understand what he was saying.

What? The War was over, the killing was done.. What was this??!! I couldn’t take it in.

The following day was Sunday and everyone came as usual for the Meeting which went ahead as scheduled. The sermon that went forth was "that ye sorrow not for those who sleep." So inappropriate!! My God, she wasn’t an old lady! She was just a child!! Did we ever get over that death? I trow not. Someone whispered it was punishment. Why? How?? What cruelty!! These old beliefs, just as in the old days in Glasgow, it was said the Scarlet Fever took grandfather’s children away as punishment for educating them.

Just the year before, my dear mother-in-law had died and, only two years after our little girl was taken from us, so too was my father-in-law. He who had been my first spiritual teacher, there since my infancy in the London Mission; gone. All three, gone. It was unbelievable. How could we stand it? How could we endure it all?

Does it seem strange that this would appear in the final paragraphs, fitted in the Thank You Chapter? Well, it’s here because that little girl came with us all the way. You don’t lose a child and leave her behind. She comes with you in a way that is hard to describe or explain. At first, I wondered how the sun could even rise after such an event. Oh, mercy; how could it shine?! So awful. Then one day, I seemed to see her, still skipping, just as she always did on her way to school, and that gave me some measure of relief and Peace to hang on to. How I missed her, though she was only 7!! With four other children younger than she, she seemed to be always entertaining them; talking, singing, or reading to them! Such an old-fashioned wee thing, she charmed our friends in the group when she and her brother went for a little holiday at their house: "Now Gavin," she said to her little brother, "we must be good because if this door closes, there’s nowhere else we can go!"

Now she was gone and I had to grow up quick. "Art Thou afraid his power shall fail when comes the evil day?" Surely not! So I pressed on, believing there must be an answer. And come the answer did; in the form of an Irish man who had himself been through hell and high water. He came to be our Teacher, our spiritual Leader. And as much as I loved my old father-in-law, it was time for the old ways to be finished. And, in keeping with everything I love and hold dear, it was our own uncle Duncan, our beloved ’grandfather’ of the old ways, who recognized it before his death, and passed the baton on. It was an inspired moment when he said those words to Robert Morrow: "It’s in the stars Robert; you’ll have to go it alone!!" And so he did. An Irishman; not so easily accepted by our people of the old Scottish ways. But it was meant to be, and I had my own inner Knowing to confirm it for me.

Now there came a frankness and an openness which was to me (brought up to be seen and not heard!), a great blessing. So began a discussion of Life and its problems, which I enjoyed immensely! Where there had been confusion, understanding dawned and I began to have a confidence I’d never had in my life before. And the children grew, enjoying a freedom we had never known.

Through it all, I am glad for our children’s sake that life could open up for them. I so enjoyed watching them grow and develop their skills, loved to hear them talk, bring home their friends, bring home their New Age records, play the guitar, go youth hostelling, marry freely whomsoever they chose.

My story is almost told. It surely is towards evening for me and my day far-spent! I am still amazed at the guidance given along life’s road. My mother was a gentle and wise Lady, like her mother before her, and I had absorbed so much of her. I felt very close to my mum in my early years but the War put paid to that. Then the separation , long and weary, down in the country; no one to confide in anymore. And that’s not to say I didn’t have some very special friends along life’s path, but that Guidance, beyond our everyday ken, has been my lifeline.

So here I will tell you of my dear dad. What on Earth happened to him?! Well, it was part of our deepest grief and tragedy that in the midst of losing our little girl, our spiritual leader, my father-in-law, ’grandfather’ was losing his mind. In truth, he was like the old priest with the light going out in the temple but he had been held in such esteem for so long that nobody really understood or recognised what was happening. Perhaps if he had faded away quietly, that would be the story all told but that’s not what happened. In his last days his preaching rose fiercely, and the wrath of God came down on this one and that one.

Of course, it wasn’t ’God’s’ wrath but it was devastating to those who had come see him as God’s Voice. So my dad, so faithful a servant, was one of those who was driven away, and it broke his heart. His tears I will remember to the end of my days. Numb with grief, dazed and stunned as we were already, nobody had the wherewithal to gainsay the old Preacher’s Word. My father once more was gone from our lives with an awful familiarity, to hark back to the War years, but now with a dreadful finality.

Again, it is important to say that that was the way of the Meeting. Either you were In, or you were Out. And if you were out, you were gone. Gone as if dead. My children never knew him. He was not part of our lives in any shape or form. And, he was never back with my mother. The day came when he officially filed for divorce.

Then, in 1986 my Duncan passed away and, as I was waking one early morning in so much sorrow, there came a little voice in my ear "Ye might be able to see yer dad!"  - my Duncan’s Scots brogue, you couldn’t mistake!! Now I’m remembering what I didn’t tell you; wee Duncan, who was born into the London Mission Hall, as was I, he was given away at 3 years old, to be raised by one of the Meeting folk while his parents were ’about the Lord’s Work’. Who he was given to was my own granma, raised in that wee cottage in Gartocharn, like her own, raised a country boy in the old Scottish ways. My granma loved that boy and he loved her. And, just as we were evacuated from London to granma’s, Duncan was a grown lad of 13 and gone from the cottage to work with the men, with felling the trees for a new town. But all that to say that he had the Scots tongue, whereas I did not.

My Duncan, so newly passed over, telling me that the moment was ripe to see my father! And I didn’t hesitate.

As it was, my younger son, oh yes! the one that had followed in his grandfather’s footsteps even not knowing him, had hit the road; a transport man, driving the big trucks. He took me down, all the way to Suffolk, on the wings of the wind, and we found the place miraculously. Saw daddy there in the garden! Just looked like any other old man. But then we went in, and tea was made, and daddy began to talk about his home; way back in Scotland, long ago. The years rolled back and he was at home with his mammy once more. Told the story of granma  getting them all ready for a day trip to Helensburgh, near Balloch. Quite a trip from Gartocharn in those days; a memorable occasion!! All dressed in a nice sailor’s suit. So bonny he must have looked with his fair curly hair. Fell through a corrogated iron roof and the day was ruined, sailor suit and all! Stories I had never heard!!

"Thank You mum!" said my son as we drove the road home that night, "Thank You for taking me to see my grandfather; I saw the man he used to be!!

What a comfort to see my dad after so long. And especially with my Duncan so recently taken with his sudden heart attack. Duncan had worked for my dad, learned all he knew about cars from my dad. And loved every minute of it; had a great admiration for Guy Browning. And sometimes through the long years of separation he would say; "Pity about yer dad..."  But that was all. No one thought to doubt or question even though that seems so strange looking back.

Well, at one point towards the end, it seemed my dad might come and live with me at Lochside Cottage and I would take care of him, but that was not to be. He did spend his last days with my youngest sister Nell and her husband Charlie (one of the McFarlane boys) down in England. Then my father and I had a communication that meant all the world to me. To receive his letters, in his own hand, and what he shared; more precious than gold:

"My Dear Daughter Cathy, I received your welcome letter, keeping me in the picture.. I thank you for all the lovely Scottish views. I can in fancy visit the auld haunts and re-live the happy days gone by and where I spent my young manhood, learning how to hold my own in an ever changing world. I could keep on forever blowing my trumpet about my own Land..

I am glad that I have kept the Faith and the precious promise God has given. To see my "seed" unto the 3rd and 4th generation. And the joy to know my children walk in Fear and Love of our Great Redeemer... By the way, I have found your mammies grave and beautiful headstone... When I made a great mistake and through legal channels, got a Decree Nisi, Isa said to me; "Whom God has joined let no man put assunder"  Elizabeth Hassan will always be Mrs. Gavin Browning to me; I am putting a Red Red Rose on her grave.Thanks for your lovely communication. Please excuse my shaky hand writing. Ever and always "Old Jock" your own Dad (4.4.92)

What a journey. My mum, my dad, now gone. Duncan, father of my children, gone. My wee brother George, gone, my big sister Marg, so full of life, gone. It’s hard to take it all in, yet I never have stopped believing I will see them all again on the Other Side and I have never forgotten that when sore was my need, my need was supplied, by Him in whom I put my trust before I was full grown:

"He’s the Lily of the Valley,
  My Bright and Morning Star,
He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul..."