Page 77 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 77
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
months holidays at Christmas. Many rules were relaxed during that time and every
possible effort was made to keep us happy. One such was permission for us boys to
climb in the rafters of the Box Room which promptly became our "ship". GFA had
gifts of leadership even in those days, and was readily made "skipper", but in after
days he was often teased about his order to "go full speed ahead and astern!"
In January 1901 when he was 13 he returned to Manchester with his parents and met the sister of his
father's mother (Esther Grimshaw). His grandmother's sister was 104 when he met her, born in 1797,
and she entertained him with stories of the Battle of Waterloo and the coronation of Queen Victoria.
For a year he attended the Priory School at Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast where his Uncle John
now lived. His full time education ceased then and he was employed for three years by Henry
Bannerman & Sons, during part of which time he attended Manchester Technical College, but gained
no special qualifications.
In 1907 George Findlay Andrew offered himself to the China Inland Mission and spent a year in
training at Newington Green in London. Then on 12 September 1908 he sailed for China aged 21.
Three days later Fanny Riley, who later became George's wife, sailed in the women's party. She too
was a child of the Mission and had been a student at the Chefoo School.
After six months' language study at the Men's Language School up the Yangtze at Anqing, George
was designated to Gansu where by this time his parents and his sister Esther were already living and
working. It took him two months to get as far as Lanzhou, the capital, and he was then sent even
further inland to Xining on the border of Tibet.
It was there that he really began his adult life in China, and he could never forget that beyond Lanzhou
lay Xining, 7,500 feet above sea level, with its rolling grasslands, Lake Kokonor at 10,500 feet, and
behind it all the background of the great Tibetan mountains.
He learned to approach the black tents of the nomads on horseback, whirling a lump of metal on the
end of a rope to create a circle of safety as their fierce dogs challenged him. He came to enjoy the
staple food of barley flour kneaded into tea and butter, though he struggled as politely as possible with
mutton cooked at an altitude at which water would not boil. "I remember when it has taken all the self
control I possessed to get the half cooked, quivering fat down my throat", he said.
Camping out in August he was wakened to find himself covered with snow and had to hunt
desperately for the droppings of the wild asses, or wild horses with which to make a fire in the treeless
wilderness. Sometimes riding by the great salt lake with its island just visible across the ice, he would
sling bladders of butter on either side of his saddle, only to find to his dismay that what was on the
sunny side was melting in the rays of the sun, while that on the other side remained frozen.
Further south George saw the Yangtse and Yellow Rivers close to their source. "I have forded each in
their upper reaches when the beautiful crystal clear water came just to the horses' girths. One
memorable morning in 1910 I saw in all its pristine splendour, that towering peak of the A'nyêmaqên
Range which at one stage was thought might prove higher than Everest." Once he went above
17,000 feet (5,180 metres) and paid the price in frost bite and the loss of a toe on each foot,
amputated without anaesthetic. He became very much at home on horseback, racing with the
Tibetans on his splendid black mule. He had a special interest in lamaseries, particularly the famous
one at Kumbum, 17 miles from Xining where there were almost 6,000 lamas.
GFA's use of the English language when addressing a public meeting was often slightly archaic, and
his irreverent nieces and nephews never lost an opportunity to tease him afterwards if any of them
77
Amy Moore
months holidays at Christmas. Many rules were relaxed during that time and every
possible effort was made to keep us happy. One such was permission for us boys to
climb in the rafters of the Box Room which promptly became our "ship". GFA had
gifts of leadership even in those days, and was readily made "skipper", but in after
days he was often teased about his order to "go full speed ahead and astern!"
In January 1901 when he was 13 he returned to Manchester with his parents and met the sister of his
father's mother (Esther Grimshaw). His grandmother's sister was 104 when he met her, born in 1797,
and she entertained him with stories of the Battle of Waterloo and the coronation of Queen Victoria.
For a year he attended the Priory School at Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast where his Uncle John
now lived. His full time education ceased then and he was employed for three years by Henry
Bannerman & Sons, during part of which time he attended Manchester Technical College, but gained
no special qualifications.
In 1907 George Findlay Andrew offered himself to the China Inland Mission and spent a year in
training at Newington Green in London. Then on 12 September 1908 he sailed for China aged 21.
Three days later Fanny Riley, who later became George's wife, sailed in the women's party. She too
was a child of the Mission and had been a student at the Chefoo School.
After six months' language study at the Men's Language School up the Yangtze at Anqing, George
was designated to Gansu where by this time his parents and his sister Esther were already living and
working. It took him two months to get as far as Lanzhou, the capital, and he was then sent even
further inland to Xining on the border of Tibet.
It was there that he really began his adult life in China, and he could never forget that beyond Lanzhou
lay Xining, 7,500 feet above sea level, with its rolling grasslands, Lake Kokonor at 10,500 feet, and
behind it all the background of the great Tibetan mountains.
He learned to approach the black tents of the nomads on horseback, whirling a lump of metal on the
end of a rope to create a circle of safety as their fierce dogs challenged him. He came to enjoy the
staple food of barley flour kneaded into tea and butter, though he struggled as politely as possible with
mutton cooked at an altitude at which water would not boil. "I remember when it has taken all the self
control I possessed to get the half cooked, quivering fat down my throat", he said.
Camping out in August he was wakened to find himself covered with snow and had to hunt
desperately for the droppings of the wild asses, or wild horses with which to make a fire in the treeless
wilderness. Sometimes riding by the great salt lake with its island just visible across the ice, he would
sling bladders of butter on either side of his saddle, only to find to his dismay that what was on the
sunny side was melting in the rays of the sun, while that on the other side remained frozen.
Further south George saw the Yangtse and Yellow Rivers close to their source. "I have forded each in
their upper reaches when the beautiful crystal clear water came just to the horses' girths. One
memorable morning in 1910 I saw in all its pristine splendour, that towering peak of the A'nyêmaqên
Range which at one stage was thought might prove higher than Everest." Once he went above
17,000 feet (5,180 metres) and paid the price in frost bite and the loss of a toe on each foot,
amputated without anaesthetic. He became very much at home on horseback, racing with the
Tibetans on his splendid black mule. He had a special interest in lamaseries, particularly the famous
one at Kumbum, 17 miles from Xining where there were almost 6,000 lamas.
GFA's use of the English language when addressing a public meeting was often slightly archaic, and
his irreverent nieces and nephews never lost an opportunity to tease him afterwards if any of them
77
