Review
Community
Culture
3 min read

One life's relevance to today

One Life is a historic story retold for today audience, highlighting the response of individuals, families and leaders. Krish Kandiah ponders what it can teach us about sanctuary.

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

An old man wearing a suit and tie sits in a TV audience as people stand around him.
Anthony Hopkins plays Nicholas Winton.
BBC Film.

There’s an elderly man with thick-rimmed glasses sitting in the studio audience of a popular 1980s television programme. The camera lingers on him as the presenter on the stage, in her signature blue dress, opens up a scrapbook detailing a hitherto unknown mission at the beginning of the second world war that rescued 639 Jewish children from the Nazi genocide. 

The man in the audience was the force behind this rescue mission, and the camera is focussed on him because there’s about to be one of the best television moments in history. Unbeknown to him, he is sitting next to a lady whose life he once saved. As Esther Rantzen reveals the connection, a look of shock, wonder and amazement crosses his face.  

The story that was kept secret for nearly a lifetime was broken in front of a live television audience of millions. I’ve watched the recording a hundred times; it never fails to make me tear up. I’ve spoken to people who were on the production team of that show who say that this programme was the highlight of their careers. It was a truly brilliant piece of television. 

40 years later and I am sat in the Royal Festival Hall next to another elderly gentleman. We have just watched Anthony Hopkin’s incredible performance as Nicholas Winton, that man in the studio, in the new movie One Life. The director of the movie, James Hawes, makes his way to the front and asks if there is anyone in the audience who is alive today because of Nicholas Winton. The elderly gentleman beside me stands along with hundreds of others. Some of those standing were on the Kindertransport in 1939. Others were their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  

It was an immense privilege to spend some time with these survivors. Many had their original identity photographs with them. It was an emotional evening as I heard stories from those who remembered boarding the trains in Czechoslovakia in 1939 and saying goodbye to their parents for the last time. 

Many of the Kindertransport descendants had met Nicholas Winton personally before he died and were astounded by Hopkin’s ability to capture his likeness and his story.  

I never met him myself, but as I watched One Life, I felt like I was in the room with him. The audience meets him as a young man discovering the terrible situation for Jews in Europe and deciding to take action. We journey through the many obstacles to the rescue mission.  At first nobody would take in the Jewish children because of the misconception that migrants would overwhelm local services at a difficult time for the country. Yet through savvy use of media, great administration and pure unrelenting persistence, Winton and his mother (Helena Bonham Carter) were able to get a system running that meant hundreds of temporary foster parents not only came forward but paid for the privilege of helping to save the lives of these children.  

As many of the children lost their families to the horrors of the gas chambers and could not be reunited with their families, a large number were adopted by their foster carers and grew up in the UK. Some went on to greatness, others lived quiet lives of service. The 91-year-old man who sat next to me at the premiere had dedicated his life to the church and also to making sure the next generation didn’t forget either the horrors of the holocaust, or the hospitality of ordinary people. 

One Life is a deeply inspirational film. As I reflected afterwards, I couldn’t help but draw parallels with the situation in the world I live in now with terrible wars that are in full swing. I wondered what Nicholas Winton would do for the children being slaughtered today. What would a modern equivalent of the Kindertransport look like? Who could step forward to inspire our nation once again to offer sanctuary, protection and hope to our world’s most vulnerable children? 

  

https://youtu.be/8u1UAc7GKek 

Watch

Kirsh Kandiah reports from the One Life premiere.

Article
Belief
Culture
Music
5 min read

How Mumford and friends explore life's instability

Communing on fallibility, fear, grace, and love.

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

A bassist hauls a double bass of its base as he plays it.
Daniel Boud/x.com/mumfordandsons.

“Serve God, love me, and mend” must rank as one of the more unexpected openings to a hugely popular album in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. A quote from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, it introduces us to the potent mix of Shakespearean and Biblical allusion and imagery to be found on Mumford and Sons debut album Sign No More.  

Sigh No More, both as song and album, begins with confident assertions of faith then moves into acknowledgement of human fallibility and prevarication summed up in the Shakespearean phrase that “Man is a giddy thing” before asserting that love does not enslave but is freeing, enabling those who know it to become the people they were meant to be. The song ends with a prayer to see the beauty which will come when the protagonist’s heart is truly aligned with love. Throughout the album, the overriding concern is that personal fallibilities and fears – the darkness within – will prevent grace from having its full effect and the beauty of alignment with love from being fully realised. 

In many Mumford and Sons songs such personal instability is the problem to be resolved; “Man is a giddy thing”, “Why do I keep falling?”. Their search is often for the relationship or place that will provide stability:  

I can't say, "I'm sorry," if I'm always on the run 

From the anchor (‘Anchor’) 

‘Roll Away Your Stone’ describes the darkness within as a God-shaped hole filled with false gods: 

See you told me that I would find a hole 

Within the fragile substance of my soul 

And I have filled this void with things unreal 

And all the while my character it steals 

but this is not how life has to be: 

It seems that all my bridges have been burned 

But, you say that's exactly how this grace thing works 

It's not the long walk home 

That will change this heart 

But the welcome I receive with the restart 

Lead singer and songwriter Marcus Mumford knows how this grace thing works because, on the one hand, his parents founded the Vineyard Church UK and Ireland meaning he grew up in the context of grace and, on the other, he seems to have experienced grace personally in relation to the sexual abuse he suffered as a child (which was not experienced in his family or his church). In ‘Grace’ from his self-titled solo album he contrasts grace, flowing like a river, with the experience of acknowledging the abuse he endured and the healing for which he prays. 

Such biblical allusions and references abound in the songs of Mumford and Sons, as is also the case with some of those with whom they performed, supported or inspired. The Nu-folk movement of which the Mumford’s were part, began at a club called Bosun’s Locker in Fulham. There, with the likes of Laura Marling, Noah and the Whale, and others, their musical journey commenced. Noah and the Whale’s first album Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down featured philosophical rumination on a par with that of Sigh No More including lines such as: 

Oh, there is no endless devotion 

That is free from the force of erosion 

Oh, if you don't believe in God 

How can you believe in love?          

Following the closure of Bosun’s Locker, Ben Lovett from Mumford and Sons, with others, set up Communion Records, a network of musicians, songwriters, industry and music fans who all share a common philosophy and set of ideals. Among the artists supported by Communion have been Bear’s Den and Michael Kiwanuka. 

Bear’s Den is one of several bands, which also included Dry the River, that have used religious and spiritual symbols in their songs. Andrew Davie from Bear’s Den has said: “I wouldn't say I'm particularly religious, but I was brought up going to church every Sunday, I studied a bit of religion in school and just from going to Sunday school, it's almost that I know the stories so well, that I find it a cool way of telling more modern and more nuanced stories about my own life. As a backdrop to that I find it just constantly helpful and it's quite a powerful way to talk about things. It adds weight to me.” Similarly, Matthew Taylor of Dry the River said of the theological imagery in lead singer Peter Liddle’s songs: “It’s always been a tool for Peter I think, to use the imagery you’re talking about, to add weight to what he’s writing about. It’s rich imagery, and the ideas are ones that people can relate to easily, if there’s that familiarity there.” Both recognise, as do Mumford and Sons, the continuing power of Christian ideas and imagery and their resonance for young people. 

Michael Kiwanuka was surprised that his early song about faith ‘I’m Getting Ready’ was enthusiastically released first as the title song of an EP from Communion Records and then by Polydor as a single from his debut album Home Again. Kiwanuka, who is married to Christian singer Charlotte, has consistently expressed aspects of his faith through songs like ‘Love and Hate’, ‘One More Night’, ‘Solid Ground’, and ‘Floating Parade’. Alexis Petridis has noted that Kiwanuka sees more people searching for a belief system: “Having a faith in things now is, I think, a lot more acceptable, whatever faith it is. There’s no dogma, necessarily. We’re connected by the struggles we have and I think that’s what I’m singing about – being a human being and trying to overcome, which is what we’re all doing in a way.” 

Whether opening up space for bands to utilise the power of Christian imagery in their songs or enabling singers with a Christian faith to be heard on mainstream labels, Mumford and Sons, by example and support, have created opportunities for faith to be explored and appreciated. The response to their music, its themes, and those of artists with whom they connect, seems to reflect a growing openness to spirituality and faith. As they sang, together with Pharrell Williams, on ‘Good People’, “Welcome to the revelation”. 

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