Just after I had moved to Stafford, The Revd David Watson led a mission in the town. Twenty years earlier I had been greatly helped by reading David’s books. He had also helped me personally to open my life to the power of the Holy Spirit.

I was able to hastily arrange a meeting for key members of our three parishes with one of the mission team that had come from Oxford. I think we were expecting a student, but our visitor was a tough, rather weather-beaten looking middle aged man with a pronounced cockney accent.

He started his talk by looking round at all of us, and then spreading out his hands he said quietly “There’s blood on these ‘ands”. You could have heard a pin drop.

He went on to tell us that he had “done stuff” for the Kray brothers. He never said what he had done exactly – and we never asked! While serving a long prison sentence the Lord Jesus Christ had come into his life, and he explained how this experience had transformed him.

Then, just has he had begun, he held out his hands, looked round at us all and ended by slowly saying

“There’s blood on these ‘ands….it’s the blood of Jesus…Thinking about it reminds me how much he loves me….that’s why I serve him”

For our visitor this was a wonderful life sentence.

Roger M. Vaughan