I felt this would be a good time to remind you about my first and most successful book – Chinese Whispers. The story of Gladys Aylward would make an ideal Christmas present or a New Year present for someone who got overlooked at Christmas.
Gladys was born and educated in Edmonton, East London and never gained any scholastic qualifications. Whilst working as a parlour maid, she accepted the Lord as her Saviour and felt the call to be a missionary in China. Not being accepted by the China Inland Mission, she made her own way to China. The hazards she met on the Trans Siberian Railway would fill a book in themselves.
On one occasion the train entered a war zone and could travel no further. Gladys had to walk back down the track for a day and a half to reach safety. (The howling she heard in the night were not dogs as she supposed, but wolves) Being mistaken for a ‘machinist’ instead of ‘missionary’, which was the wording on her passport, she was nearly kidnapped.
Once in China she ran a hotel for mule train drivers, was shot in the shoulder by rebels, escaped over the mountains to safety with nearly a hundred children as well as facing a crazed axeman in prison. The film ‘The Inn of the Sixth Happiness’ was based on her life but very much glamorized.
Contact www.dayone.co.uk to obtain a copy of this book.
Carol, the author of Chinese Whispers.