LONG-DEFERRED MEETING OF OLD WAR COMRADES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22888, 7 March 1949, Page 6

LONG-DEFERRED MEETING OF OLD WAR COMRADES

Mutual memories of the conditions under which prisoners of war suffered in the First World War were shared on Saturday by Canon L. G Mannering, of Bristol, England, and Mr. H. J. Poole, Gisborne, who met for the first time in many years.

They shared the experience of being prisoners of the enemy in the 1914-18 war, and formed a friendship which the intervening years have done nothing to diminish.

Mr. Poole is now a patient at the Cook Hospital, and one of the first wishes expressed by Canon Mannering, on his arrival at Gisborne by railcar on Saturday, was to meet his former comrade. He visited the Cook Hospital in company with Canon A. F. Hall, his host in Gisborne.

Canon Mannering is founder of the Bible Reading Fellowship, which had its oiigin in 1922 when he was working in a South London oarish. The fellowship now has a membership of 400,000 scattered throughout the world, including 7500 in New Zealand. A notable recruit of a few years ago was Queen Elizabeth.

A primary belief of the fellowship is that many people do not read the Bible properly.' The function of the fellowship is to provide the keys to the bountiful store of knowledge and faith which casual rcading'of the Scriptures might overlook.