Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow - The Shed That Fed a Million Children - The Mary’s Meals Story

Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Prologue 1 Driving Lessons in a War Zone 2 A Woman Clothed with the Sun 3 Little Acts of Love 4 Suffer Little Children 5 Into Africa 6 A Famine Land 7 One Cup of Porridge 8 A Bumpy Road to Peace 9 In Tinsel Town 10 Reaching the Outcastes 11 Friends in High Places 12 Friends in Low Places 13 Generation Hope Epilogue Picture Section Acknowledgements Thank you … About the Author About the Publisher

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2015

Copyright © Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow 2015

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008127640

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780008132712

Version: 2015-12-15

This book is for Julie, without whom there would

have been nothing at all to write about.

Thank you for loving me.

Cover

Title Page Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Prologue 1 Driving Lessons in a War Zone 2 A Woman Clothed with the Sun 3 Little Acts of Love 4 Suffer Little Children 5 Into Africa 6 A Famine Land 7 One Cup of Porridge 8 A Bumpy Road to Peace 9 In Tinsel Town 10 Reaching the Outcastes 11 Friends in High Places 12 Friends in Low Places 13 Generation Hope Epilogue Picture Section Acknowledgements Thank you … About the Author About the Publisher

Copyright Copyright Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Prologue 1 Driving Lessons in a War Zone 2 A Woman Clothed with the Sun 3 Little Acts of Love 4 Suffer Little Children 5 Into Africa 6 A Famine Land 7 One Cup of Porridge 8 A Bumpy Road to Peace 9 In Tinsel Town 10 Reaching the Outcastes 11 Friends in High Places 12 Friends in Low Places 13 Generation Hope Epilogue Picture Section Acknowledgements Thank you … About the Author About the Publisher William Collins An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2015 Copyright © Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow 2015 Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008127640 Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780008132712 Version: 2015-12-15

Dedication Dedication Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Prologue 1 Driving Lessons in a War Zone 2 A Woman Clothed with the Sun 3 Little Acts of Love 4 Suffer Little Children 5 Into Africa 6 A Famine Land 7 One Cup of Porridge 8 A Bumpy Road to Peace 9 In Tinsel Town 10 Reaching the Outcastes 11 Friends in High Places 12 Friends in Low Places 13 Generation Hope Epilogue Picture Section Acknowledgements Thank you … About the Author About the Publisher This book is for Julie, without whom there would have been nothing at all to write about. Thank you for loving me.

Prologue

1 Driving Lessons in a War Zone

2 A Woman Clothed with the Sun

3 Little Acts of Love

4 Suffer Little Children

5 Into Africa

6 A Famine Land

7 One Cup of Porridge

8 A Bumpy Road to Peace

9 In Tinsel Town

10 Reaching the Outcastes

11 Friends in High Places

12 Friends in Low Places

13 Generation Hope

Epilogue

Picture Section

Acknowledgements

Thank you …

About the Author

About the Publisher

I am writing this in my father’s shed. An east wind is blowing from behind Ben Lui, whose snow-powdered flanks I can see through the window above my desk. Some of the cold air buffeting and moaning around my corrugated-iron shelter has found a way in. There is a draught gnawing my feet. I can hear someone using a power saw in the distance, perhaps my brother-in-law at the firewood, and every so often a tractor chugs down the track towards the farm.

We don’t know exactly when the shed was built. It was certainly here a long time before we arrived in 1977. It is clearly marked on a map, dated 1913, hanging in an old wood-panelled corridor of Craig Lodge (my favourite part of the house when it was our family home), meaning it has been standing here for over a hundred years. That the shed is quite clearly leaning to one side today is therefore easily forgiven and it is understandable, perhaps, that I can now hear something clanking in the wind on the roof above me.

Initially, after we arrived, it served as Dad’s garage and workshop. It was the perfect size for parking the old Land Rover, in which I would one day learn to drive. Later, he converted it into a playroom, surprising us one Christmas by opening its door to reveal a magnificent pool table. My brothers and I spent many hours enjoying that gift, while at the back of the shed, right outside my window, was our football pitch. Seumas, Fergus and I played for hours there every day, shooting at home-made wooden goals, our pounding feet creating a muddy, grassless strip. In the winter months, when the darkness arrived frustratingly early, we would sometimes turn on the lights of the shed and all the neighbouring outbuildings, in a desperate attempt to create enough illumination for at least a few extra minutes of play. Later, in our rather wild teenage years, friends would join us in the pool shed. Sometimes beer would be smuggled in. Once, when my parents were away, it was the catastrophic scene of the experimental sampling of my home-made cider. I had brewed this secretly, using apples from trees in the little orchard above where my own house stands today. I have never been able to drink cider since.