In the novel Limitations by British author E. F. Benson, Cambridge students Tom Carlingford and Ted Markham decide to take a break from their studies. They leave their rooms at King's College, one of the most prestigious colleges in this English university town, and walk toward the Pitt Club, where they are both members. Along the way, Tom sees a crowd outside the mission rooms, and decides to see what has attracted so much interest.
Tom says good-bye to his friend and wades through the crowd. The room is packed, banners hang from the ceiling, and the moisture from everyone's breathing coats the walls. On the platform,an impassioned greengrocer testifies how becoming saved led him away from a life of strong drink and regularly shortchanging his customers.
On the second day of our 2017 visit to Cambridge, England, my wife and I took a bus into town. We disembarked near St. John's College, the Round Church, and a candy shop. As none of these had yet opened for the day, we wandered along until we found a tea room in an old church, where my wife and enjoyed tea and scones, along with a Dalek and K-9.
Had we wandered the opposite way, we would have walked past the Pitt Club. Originally founded on political principles, by E. F. Benson's day the Pitt Club was a members-only social club. The club has a prestigious history, with writers, actors, politicians, and even royalty listed on its membership rolls. In addition to Prince Charles, other names most people would recognize are John Cleese of Monty Python fame, Tom Hiddleston who played Loki in Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, and Eddie Redmayne, who plays Newt Scamander in J. K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts films (a prequel series to the popular Harry Potter franchise).
As with the church in which we took tea, the Cambridge missions were Anglican in nature. Many of the colleges also set up inner city missions in London. There they ministered alongside missions set up by Oxford colleges, as well as others like the Salvation Army.
I'm not sure if any Cambridge colleges operate mission rooms in the university town anymore. Still, visitors are always welcome at the Pitt Club. There you can enter, sit at a table on the ground floor, and enjoy a pleasant lunch courtesy of Pizza Express, which leases the space from the Pitt Club. Maybe next time my wife and I visit Cambridge, we'll arrive a little later, and enjoy a pizza lunch on the ground floor of a building in which E. F. Benson often relaxed with his friends.
Then we'll head back to the candy shop near the Round Church, which ought to have opened by then.
Dragon Dave
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