THE PRIVATE BUCHMAN

The theatre he always loved. His letters home from Philadelphia in the 1890s announced that he had seen Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in Robespierre and Bernhardt as Ophelia - 'Think of it, the most noted actress in the world.'6 Later in life he was to use plays as a main, often the main, expression of his message - probably the first spiritual leader to do it on such a scale since the Middle Ages. The idea struck him when, in 1937, he made a trip from a Brighton house-party to London to see William Douglas-Home's play Great Possessions, in which the Oxford Group was treated with not unkindly humour. He took a young Oxford graduate with him and on the return journey startled him by saying, 'You will write the plays which the world and we need.' That man has never written a play, but he later introduced Peter Howard to Moral Re-Armament, who subsequently wrote many. The other principal playwright among Buchman's colleagues was Alan Thornhill, to whom he had talked about theatre when they first met in the twenties.

Phyllis Austin, who had worked under some of the major directors of stage and screen, was of the opinion that he would have made a great director. 'His timing was impeccable, and all his suggestions were to the point,' she said. He could never understand, however, the need for rehearsal. 'Where have you been?' he would indignantly ask Campbell, who often acted in addition to his doctoring, when he returned from a gruelling session. For him a play was ready to go on stage the moment it was written, just as his secretaries had found that he often seemed to expect a letter, once dictated, to be already typed. Cece Broadhurst told him one morning that he had an idea for a musical. 'Fine,' said Buchman, 'can we have it tonight?'

To have a holiday or take time off would not have occurred to Buchman. He did go away to quieter environments when his health demanded it: Bunny and Phyllis Austin describe one such 'rest' in Italy when Buchman was 77. For once, the party was small - Buchman, the Austins, Paul Campbell and Jim Baynard-Smith, one of his personal assistants. They stayed in a hotel. Buchman was low in strength, but wanted to be in touch with his friends in other parts of the world. Austin rashly mentioned that he could type a little. Instantly, Buchman started: 'Then take this down - "Dear..."'. And for days Austin and Campbell struggled with the typewriter, Buchman dictating practically non-stop to prime ministers, presidents, the priest on Mackinac Island, the cook on the island ferry, and a myriad others.

While following this method of doing nothing, Buchman was also making friends with the hotel management and staff. Mario, the waiter who brought his breakfast each morning, arrived one day in tears. His father had died. Buchman had himself driven to Mario's village and carried up the wooden steps into the sitting room, and spent two hours with Mario and his family. Another waiter had escaped three times from the gas chambers during the war, had lived on roots and grass for weeks, and joined the Communist Party after the war. He and Buchman had long talks and one day he said to Phyllis Austin, 'I would be willing to die for that man.' The manager and his mother of ninety, the maid, all became friends.

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