In 1939 the newly ordained minister Rev Leslie Brame left Stowupland to commence his missionary career in China. He wrote in his manuscript ‘As I Remember It’ that he ‘was very glad to be home for Christmas, to be able to spend that time with my family…although I did not know it at the time, I was not to see Mum again‘ She died in 1941 whilst he was in China and unable to return for her funeral.

Leslie ‘had a call from L.M.S to be at the London Docks by midnight on December 31st…our farwell prayers filled us so full of emotion that I could hardly speak’. The Stowmarket minister  Mr Weir drove Leslie and his father to Stowmarket station but his mother waved goodbye from their garden gate ‘but we could not see her for very long, as the blackout was on and there was no moon to light our departture’.

At the station Leslie’s father broke the blackout by shining a torch onto his face, ‘so he could just see the last of me’.