Sword & Trowel 2018: Issue 2
gave up the world and of her own desire, gathered the children of the ship together, and held a children’s service each Sunday afternoon, adults attending too.’ By the thirties this greatly re- spected Chief Officer was elevated to command a number of large liners. In 1932 he was named to command a rejuvenated Arundel Castle, and in the years leading up to the war he was Captain of the Llandaff Castle, the Carnarvon Castle, the Llangibby Castle, the Windsor Castle, the Grantully Castle and the Athlone Castle. During these years he gained a tremendous repu- tation both for maintaining happy ships, and for his sincere Christian faith and witness. Then – the war.
Torpedoed twice
‘Next Sunday,’ he wrote home in a typical wartime letter, ‘I expect to sail with about 2,750 souls on board [troops]. May the Lord have his un- hindered way in and through me this next voyage.’ Always on these hazardous war- time journeys carrying battalions of troops (twice he was torpedoed), Brown’s cabin was open for prayer meetings and for private conversa- tions with those wishing to discuss questions of eternity. Many a service- man came to find God through his help and counsel. At the end of the war Captain Brown was honoured with a CBE, and immediately ap- pointed by the Union Castle Line as Captain of the latest and finest ship in their fleet – the Capetown Castle, which carried 4,500 people. The responsibility of the Captain on such a huge, floating hotel was enormous,
especially as it included the psycho- logical responsibility for the ship’s ‘atmosphere’. Every morning at 8.15, Captain
Brown held a Family Prayers service, which was broadcast throughout the ship. He recorded, ‘The numbers at Family Prayers in the morning were mostly between thirty and forty, sometimes they rose to about fifty. We had large attendances at Sunday services and children’s services, and the intense interest shown (with many after-discussions) seemed to prove that the Lord was working in the ship.’
The highest point of Captain
Brown’s career was reached in 1948 when he was made Commodore of the Union Castle Line and appointed Captain of M.R.M.V. Pretoria Castle, an appointment he held until his re- tirement in 1950. Throughout most of his service, he had been an active member of the Merchant Service Officers Christian Fellowship, and on his retirement, he took over the honorary responsibility of its maga- zine Living Links from the veteran Captain Carre. Captain Brown was a true man of God, called and saved by the Lord Jesus Christ to live by the daily study of God’s Word. He was a man of prayer – the first hour of every single day being sacred for God – and a man whose witness reached the hearts of many, many people. He was one of a long line of sea captains who lived in the service of the Lord.
[Originally included in the earliest edi- tions of Men of Destiny, 1968-75, by the Editor.]
Commodore of the Fleet page 29
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