A #teenager picked up a snooker ball and just smashed it through the club window.

.

Before I was called to work at

The Mayflower Family Centre

in East London E16

there was a legendary Youth Worker there.

George Burton

untrained

passionate

Lover of young people

Lover of God

as evangelical as you could be.

I only read his book

and once heard him speak I think?

One day in this beat up youth club

a teenager picked up a snooker ball

and just smashed it through the club window.

George picked up another snooker ball

and threw it through another window!

and said

"I guess you are having a bad day....."

I love that identification with the emotions

of that young offender.

Connecting with the feelings

not the property.

That sort of GB behaviour

would stop a young person

dead in their tracks - seems to me.

The empathy with his feelings -

that's what connects with those who

live in or

on the edge of violence daily.

I must reflect on it further.

He wrote a book

appropriately called

'People Matter more than Things'

I love this about him

"GEORGE BURTON challenged the assumptions of many of us.

By what right did we assume that middle-class values

were necessarily Christian values?

Why should we assume that people from a non-reading background

could not become thoughtful, deeply committed Christians?"

David Sheppard

A book about him HERE

ABOUT THE BOOK

George Burton wanted his life story to be written and left to us all his films, papers and letters for this purpose. In addition we have had access to the Mayflower Family Centre's library of tape recordings, so that quotes from his speeches are verbatim.

We are indebted to many sources, oral and written, in particular to the late Lt-Col. Percy Coriat's 'Soldier in Oman'. The short quotation on page 32 is taken from 'Bugles and a Tiger' by John Masters (Michael Joseph). We are grateful to William Heinemann Ltd. for permission to quote from Allan Bullock's 'The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin'. We would like to acknowledge help given by many people through personal interviews and correspondence. [David and Jean Hewitt, Southport, January 1969].

"GEORGE BURTON challenged the assumptions of many of us. By what right did we assume that middle-class values were necessarily Christian values? Why should we assume that people from a non-reading background could not become thoughtful, deeply committed Christians? Why should we not expect leaders to emerge from our community in Canning Town as much as anywhere else? This story includes some great disappointments among young people he tried to help; I believe that some of these will one day come back to deep Christian committment as George himself did. But it also includes some who are continuing with great ability the work that he began. [David Sheppard]