John Bradburne Story

In 1979 the war in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, was at its height. The government still kept all main roads open, but the guerrillas of the patriotic front controlled much of the hinterland. Whites in outlying areas were told that the government could no longer protect them and were invited to move to safer places.By August that year there were only two white men left in the area of Mutoko, a trading post about 70 miles east from the capital, Salisbury (now Harare). One was Fr. David Gibbs, a priest at All Souls Mission. The other was John Bradburne, an Englishman who looked after lepers at their settlement in Mutemwa. On the night of September 2, 1979, Bradburne was abducted from the round tin hut that was his home.

In the early hours of September 5, Fr. Gibbs found John Bradburne's body beside the main road. He was wearing only his underpants, and he had been shot dead.

There were many deaths in that war. Some have remained obscure and many have been forgotten. But the death of John Bradburne is fervently commemorated, for many believe him to be a saint.

Searching for God

John Bradburne was born in 1921, into a High Anglican family of the upper-middle class. His cousins included Terence Rattigan, the playwright, and Christopher Soames, the last Governor of Rhodesia.

In World War II,]ohn was an officer in the Gurkhas. After the fall of Singapore, he and one brother officer had to live in the Malayan jungle for a month before managing to escape. Later he served in Orde Wingate's Chindits. During the war he began a life long friendship with his fellow Gurkha John Dove, later a Jesuit priest, who has been one of the main guardians of his memory.

To the question, "So what do you do?" which the world always asks,]ohn Bradburne could provide no satisfactory answer. He had a few brief jobs after the war - forestry, teaching - but it was clear that his mind was elsewhere. He was searching for God. In 1947, he converted to Catholicism. In the ensuing years he tried to become a monk, twice in England and once in Belgium, but gave up each time. He fell in love and almost married. He made a penniless pilgrimage to Jerusalem, wandered England as a sort of Minstrel, became caretaker of the Archbishop of Westminster's country house in Hertfordshire, and while living for a year in southern Italy, made a private vow to the Virgin Mary that he would remain celibate. He was clearly holy, but equally clearly in the eyes of many, hopeless.

When he was nearly 40, Bradburne wrote to Father Dove, by this time a priest in Rhodesia, and asked him if he knew of "a cave in Africa where I can pray?" He went out to Rhodesia to join his old friend. Even there, he did not really settle. Although he worked happily enough on various mission stations, and loved the people, fauna and flora of Africa, he did not find a niche. "I'm a drone," he would say. He felt superfluous.


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