Then my father had a new idea. He would like to establish a Christian mission printing press overseas. He gave the plant away to the Brethren's 'Stewards Trust' so that publishing of Christian literature could continue in New Zealand.

The monthly payments my father received from the sale of the farm had always gone immediately into the printing funds. About that time the great economic depression was beginning to be felt. Father got a letter from his brother-in-law stating that there was no money to pay the farm instalment. I remember him talking to us about it. What was he to do? According to the law of that time, he was entitled to repossess the farm. He had arranged to go overseas and did not want the land back. So he forgave his brother-in-law the payments. I know that the depression deepened and many farmers walked off their land with only the things they could carry away. I do not know if payments for my father's farm were renewed, but I doubt it. I just did not hear any more about farm payments from that time on,

My parents then made a grand tour of most of the Open Brethren groups throughout N.Z. While they did this, I stayed on a poultry farm in Upper Hutt with some church friends. My parents and I then embarked on the long sea voyage for the land of Palestine (now called Israel), Edwin stayed behind with the new management and the old plant which had been moved to Auckland.

We sailed from Auckland in December 1931 and arrived in Sydney three days later. Friends were there to meet us and take us to their home for a few hours. The house was built of brick and I was afraid to enter in case there was an earthquake. I relaxed when I was assured that Sydney did not have earthquakes. On the ship Father organised Bible studies for some passengers. He never stopped trying to convert people. That also embarrassed me because it drew attention to the fact that we considered ourselves different or separate from others.

We arrived in Palestine in the Northern winter. It was cold and I was surprised to find that it snowed in Jerusalem. For two or three weeks we stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Clapham. Then a large building in St. Pauls Street was rented from the Ethiopian Consulate. Both the Coopers and Claphams shared the accommodation. On the ground floor there was enough room for the printing plant, a large room for religious services and bedrooms for the interpreter and household help. Upstairs there were three bedrooms, a large living and dining room and kitchen. Sitting on top of all this was the third story of one room, my bedroom, A door opened out on both sides onto an almost flat stone roof. There was enough room in this large place for both families and the mission centre. The building was typically Middle Eastern. It was built completely of rock, concrete and plaster. The walls were a metre thick. Commencing at each comer, the beautifully curved vaulted ceilings ended in an apex at the centre of each room. The roof and floors were built of stone slabs set in concrete. Underneath alt this structure was a large water reserve filled with rain water which fell on the roof. When the partnership with the Claphams broke up, the Coopers moved to another house. As we had no mortorcar, the large basement garage was suitable for the printery.

Palestine was a different and exciting world for me. I had just fumed sixteen. The family was still the centre of a tight religious group. Our home became the stopping place for many passing evangelists and missionaries. For about a year I helped father full time to erect the machinery and get the plant going properly. It was also a time to study Arabic. Father learned the Hebrew and Armenian alphabets and started printing in English, Hebrew and Armenian. During that time 1 became the unofficial guide to our many visitors and became very well acquainted with the historical sights in and around Jerusalem.

The ancient walled city occupies about 80 hectares. Within that area, 13.5 hectares of land is where the ancient Hebrew Temple had stood. The Jewish Temple was completely destroyed by the Roman army some time after Titus captured Jerusalem in 70 A.D. In its place now stands the beautiful Muslim sacred shrine known as the Mosque of Dina. The walled city is divided into four residential areas and the 'souk' or market streets. The Jewish quarter is on the south side next to the Temple area; the Armenian quarter is on the south west comer; the Christian quarter on the north west corner and the Muslim quarter on the north east corner. It is surprising that such a small nation as Armenia should occupy an entire quarter of the ancient city. The Armenians claim that they were the first nation to embrace Christianity. They have occupied their quarter since the early middle ages. It appears that they are the only group who have never been expelled from Jerusalem by the various conquerors.

Our visitors, of course, were mainly interested in ancient sites. The way I would take them depended on the time available and the number of persons in the group. I would often enter the walled city at Damascus Gate and visit the ancient bottle dungeon cut deeply into the solid rock. We would go down to the floor of the dungeon by a central steel staircase. It was a dark, cold and damp place. One American lady started to panic, '"get me out, get me out". No wonder, it was an awful and cruel place to hold prisoners. We would view the place where Roman soldiers had chiselled dice games into the stone pavement two thousand years ago. These two places may have been bombed during the Israeli Arab war; I do not know if they still exist. On we would go to the Temple area to visit the Dome of the Rock. Tradition rather than history has it that here is the place where Abraham bound Isaac his son. Islam claims that the rock marks the place where Mohammed ascended to heaven. There is even a so called footprint in the rock as 'proof of the event. The other main building on this land is the large Al Aksa Mosque, site of much political and religious fervour,

We would come back to see the Western Wall of the Temple, often called the Wailing Wall. This is where the religious Jews would come to pray for the restoration of their Temple. It is the only surviving portion of the magnificent Temple built by Herod, Now it has become the most sacred site of the Jewish world. Perhaps we would double back to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine claimed to have discovered the sepulchre site and the True Cross over three hundred years after the event. In fact it is most unlikely to be an authentic site as it is within the city walls. The Jews never buried their dead within the city so I cannot imagine that she could have found the true cross of Christ after all those years. The ancient church is shared by the several divisions of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic faiths. Before going home we might walk through the crowded and narrow streets of the 'souk' or market place where little shops stand shoulder to shoulder and heavy human and donkey traffic slow movement down,

Another time we might walk around the city on top of its ancient walls. Or we might walk around the outside of the wall past King Solomon's Quarry, deep underneath the city where sandstone had been taken for building the Jewish temple. They were still taking sandstone from the quarry in the 1930s, donkeys being used to transport stone to the surface. We would then visit the Garden Tomb on the left which was discovered at the close of the First World War, General Gordon was looking from the city wall and noted a hilt which he thought looked like a human skull. The Gospels talk about "a place of a skull", so Gordon sent people to investigate. They found a genuine tomb which had been hewn out of solid rock, now called the Garden Tomb, It was outside the city walls and a place where two roads met. We usually attended an early morning Easter Service at the spot. Many Protestants have come to believe this to be the true site of the burial place of Jesus. Of course there is no historical proof that this is the place but it could have been.

We would walk around to the eastern wall of the city among the thousands of Jewish graves, and past the Golden Gate on our right. Its double aperture in the wall has been sealed. According to the tradition of all three religions, the Messiah will enter Jerusalem here. On our left we would see the tomb of Absalom and nearby the tomb ofZachariah, Before leaving the city wall, we would visit Solomon's Stables on the south-eastern corner underneath the Temple area. The name is thought to have been given to the place by the Crusaders who may have kept their horses there. As we followed the Kidron valley we would divert slightly south to the Pool of Siloam near where the Gehenna valley joins the Kidron. We would return by the south wall of the city