It seemed a tall order for Paul to fulfill his father’s wishes, especially since he was worried about his mother. He did not understand everything, but from what he could work out, the mission had a strict policy of sending a missionary wife home immediately if her husband died. But Evelyn Brand refused to leave her station. The Harris family was frantically trying to get her to come back to England. In the end it was decided that Paul’s older cousin, Ruth Harris, who was in her last year of medical school, would take time off from her studies and go to India in the hope of talking sense into Evelyn. The ploy worked, and eventually Ruth cabled to say that she and Paul’s mother had booked passage to England.
Paul waited eagerly for his mother’s arrival. “Everything will be different when Mother gets here,” he confidently told Connie. Their mother was strong, beautiful, and feisty. She would help them understand what had happened. On the train to the Tilbury docks to meet the ship, Paul was so impatient to see his mother again that he wished the train would go faster. When they arrived at the dock, the P&O ocean liner had already berthed, and passengers were flowing down the gangplank. Suddenly Uncle Bertie pointed. “There they are!” he exclaimed.
Paul could see Ruth Harris on the gangplank. Behind her was a tiny, shrunken woman he did not recognize. Paul wondered how his mother and Ruth had become separated disembarking the ship and continued to scan the other disembarking passengers for a glimpse of his mother.
Moments later, Ruth was embracing Uncle Bertie, and the woman who had been behind her fell into Connie’s arms weeping. “Mother! Mother darling!” Connie sobbed.
Paul drew back at the sight. This woman was his mother? He wanted to run back to the train and hide. But before he could move, he felt himself being enveloped in a hug from Ruth and then being pushed gently toward his mother. Evelyn let out a cry, and threw her arms around her son. Paul dutifully kissed her on the cheek and then stepped back. His heart felt like stone.
The train ride home did not soften his heart. His mother sat between him and Connie. At first she plied the children with questions about their schooling and holidays. Paul answered her politely, as he would any stranger. Then Evelyn got a faraway look, and she began weeping. “I don’t know how I will go on,” she said. “Your papa was my entire life. I am not whole without him. All the light has gone out of my life. There is only darkness left. What am I going to do without him? I will never be the same.”
Paul shrank back toward the carriage window, uncomfortable with his mother’s public display of grief.
The next weeks and months were difficult for Paul, Connie, and their mother. Evelyn Brand would weep one minute and tell stories of how she could never again be a missionary, and then in the next breath, grab Paul’s hand and tell him that she had to find a way to get back to the hill people in India—“Jesse’s hill people,” as she called them. At other times she begged Paul to grow up and follow in his father’s footsteps. It was more than Paul could take. His mother disrupted his life so much that he almost wished she had not come back to England.
With everything that was going on at home, school receded farther into the background of Paul’s life. In December 1930, sixteen-year-old Paul Brand decided that he was done with school. In the English school system, boys who did not have a lot of academic promise or who wanted to learn a trade left school at that age. Those who wanted to go on to university and professional jobs stayed for another year of schooling.
Even though Paul’s mother urged him to stay in school and study to become a doctor, Paul had no interest in either staying in school or joining the medical profession. Sometimes he struggled to bring back specific memories of his father, but the one memory that was always close was that of his father draining pus from the infected leg of an Indian man. He could still conjure up the sickening stench of the pale yellow pus oozing into the bucket.
“No, thank you!” Paul told his mother. “Medicine is not the life for me.”
Paul wanted to do something more practical that did not involve a lot more schoolwork. In the end he chose to follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps and become a builder. Soon he was apprenticed to Mr. Warwick, a devout Baptist who had known his father and under whose tutelage Paul would learn the craft of building houses.
On Monday, December 8, 1930, Paul entered an entirely new world—the world of the apprentice builder. He woke up at five-thirty in the morning so that he could eat breakfast, take an hour-long train ride across London, and be on the job by seven-thirty. In entering this new world, he also had to learn a new language—Cockney slang, which almost all the tradesmen and other apprentices on the job spoke. It was quite a change from the refined English he had learned growing up in West London. Still, he did not mind; more than anything else he wanted to fit in.
Being an apprentice was a five-year commitment that involved learning everything about a particular craft from a master tradesman. Paul was soon learning all the facets of building houses, including how to estimate the cost according to the plans, how to order the required amount of materials, and how to actually build the house. He also learned how to use tools, hammer in nails straight and true, put on roof tiles, and fit windows and doors so they were level and watertight.
Soon after Paul began his building apprenticeship, his mother managed to persuade the mission board to take the unusual step of allowing her to return to the Kolli Hills region of India to serve as a missionary once again.
During the next five years Paul worked diligently to become a builder. In his spare time he played tennis, taught Sunday school, and organized youth meetings. He also made many new Christian friends.
In 1935 Paul finished his building apprenticeship and was ready to take the next step in life. By now his mother was back in London, and she urged him to think of the unsaved millions of people in India. Paul listened to all she had to say and decided to take up the challenge and apply to a Baptist missionary society to be sent to India as a missionary builder.
Paul was shocked when the society turned him down, saying that they needed trained missionaries, not builders. The director of the mission society told Paul that he would have to consider either going to Bible college or taking a one-year course in tropical medicine. Paul was reluctant to consider medicine. He could still vividly remember the bucket of pus, but as he prayed about the situation, he felt that taking the one-year medical course was the right thing to do.
With little enthusiasm Paul walked through the doors of the Livingstone Medical School in Leyton, East London, the same medical school where his father had received his education in tropical medicine. Paul hoped the year would pass quickly and that he would have the attention span to take in all of the detailed information. He expected the course to be difficult, and it was, but he did not expect it to be fascinating. Somehow, watching his father perform limited medical procedures back in India had convinced Paul that medicine was all about blood and pus and ulcers. To his amazement, he found that it was about causes and cures, alleviating pain, and treating ill people with dignity.
The year at tropical medicine school flew by. While he studied, Paul stayed involved in his youth work and often co-led events with David Wilmshurst, a fellow student and friend. The only sad note during the year was the death of his Grandmother Harris at the age of ninety-four.
At the end of the year, Paul and David were among the top five students in the tropical medicine course. It was not wholly unexpected when Paul was called into the office of Dr. Wigram, the director of the Livingstone Medical School.
“Ah, Brand, you like medicine, don’t you?” Dr. Wigram began.
“I don’t think like is the right word,” Paul replied. “I love it!”
“Yes, I can certainly see you do,” Dr. Wigram said. “In fact, my advice to you is to make medicine your profession.”
“Become a doctor?” Paul questioned. “But I am planning to become a missionary.”
“I know you are. But haven’t you ever heard of a missionary doctor?” Dr. Wigram inquired.
“But it would take six years to become a doctor.”
“Quite right. But all worthwhile things take time,” Dr. Wigram said.
“But I have to get to the mission field,” Paul said, stunned at the turn of events.
Undeterred, Dr. Wigram went on to explain to Paul that he had already contacted his mother, who had informed him that Paul’s Uncle Dick had once promised to fund Paul’s medical studies. Dr. Wigram, a step ahead of Paul, explained that he had already contacted Paul’s uncle, who was still willing to fund Paul’s medical studies.
Paul felt conflicted. Yes, he loved medicine, but he had chosen the path to go to the mission field as a builder as soon as possible. He felt that was what he must do, despite his Uncle Dick’s generous offer to fund his medical studies. He had fulfilled the mission society’s requirements to become a missionary, and he had expected to be in India sooner rather than later. Paul was encouraged in his decision when his friend David also was urged by Dr. Wigram to go on to medical school. David rejected the idea and made plans to set out for Africa.
The board of the mission society was pleased with how well Paul had done at the Livingstone Medical School. However, it felt that he still needed some Bible training before being sent to India. It suggested that Paul take the two-year course at a place called the Missionary Training Colony—the Colony, as most people referred to it.
The Colony was located in Norwood, Surrey, on the outskirts of London. It was designed to give prospective missionaries intensive Bible study and preaching practice, as well as a taste of the sparse lifestyle they would encounter on the mission field. Four large huts, each sleeping twelve, housed the Colony students. Paul was assigned to the Africa hut, where he had a bed, small desk, and straight-backed chair. The hut was heated by a charcoal stove, which Paul soon discovered was inadequate.
Despite the living conditions, Paul enjoyed life at the Colony. Each morning the students rose before daybreak and, regardless of the weather, jogged to a nearby park, where they did calisthenics before returning to their huts for cold baths. During the summer they undertook a six-hundred-mile trek through the Welsh and Scottish countryside, pulling all their supplies in a cart behind them. Paul also enjoyed the intense Bible study and the many opportunities to go into London to preach in the parks and on the streets.
All was proceeding well for Paul at the Colony until he came down with a bad case of influenza. He could not be sure whether the sickness muddled his mind or made his thoughts clearer. Either way, he felt certain his calling was not to be a Bible teacher or a missionary builder. He realized he had made a terrible mistake when he turned down the opportunity to become a doctor and help sick people. As he lay in bed sweating out the fever, Paul wondered whether his Uncle Dick might still be willing to fund his medical studies to become a doctor, providing he could pass the entrance examinations.
Chapter 6
Doctor in Training
Thank You, God!” Paul exclaimed as he read the acceptance letter. He had made it into the University College Medical School, and his Uncle Dick had agreed to pay for his room and board and tuition. For the first time in many years, Paul felt like he was on track. He packed up the few belongings he had brought with him to the Colony and in early September 1937 moved to 49 Highbury Park, London, a hostel that housed twenty young men all studying to be doctors. Twenty-three-year-old Paul felt invigorated and ready to begin this entirely new phase of his life. Although he had moved only a few miles across London, Paul had entered another world. The Spartan lifestyle, Christian training, and camaraderie of the Colony were behind him, and ahead lay six years of study to achieve his goal of becoming a doctor.
