Roundabout
'NO BATHING TODAY TILL 12 A.M.,' proclaimed a notice at the Ruislip Lido; but to the casual eye things seemed to be
going on much as usual. White sails scudded in the distance against the trees; a line of People in swimsuits made their way to the water's edge; the girls gave little shrieks as they stuffed their hair into their bathing caps and tried the temperature of the water; a few yards out, muscular young men in trunks were splashing about and occasionally ducking someone under.
A closer look showed the difference. On the banks there were no bikinis and punchballs, only a sober crowd in street clothes; among the bathers there were several elderly women being helped into the water in cotton dresses; the man who held the towels wore a badge proclaiming him a Jehovah's Witness. This was a mass bap- tism, and all 438 bathers were being totally immersed in the name of the Lord.
There was no ceremony attached to the dunk- ing: sermons and hymns had come earlier, at the Empire Pool, Wembley. Now each convert said a silent prayer, locked his wrists together and held his nose and was swished under by one of the sixteen 'practised immersers'; when he came UP, he was wished a Happy Birthday, Brother. UP at the changing huts, men and women re- corded the names of the soaking among the lists of the saved, and that was that.
Behind the immersing, half a dozen boatloads of press photographers paddled about; several more were wading about in the water. Two were braving it out in swimtrunks ('But I'm putting ''To hire of Boat" on the expense sheet'); one Was in a quiet dark suit that stopped abruptly at his pale hairy knees; two had decided tO dress as for fishing and strode masterfully through the shallow water in green tweedy suits and rubber boots.
The reporters. on shore, wore a hunted look and hunched together in groups for protection. Traditionally, their reply to 'Are You Saved'?' . s,,irnPly 'I'm Press'—but on this occasion they ,4" been getting the word from most of the r"°111e they tried to question.
An
Witnesses carry out door-to-door preach- ing: by this method they have increased their world total to 800.000 since they were founded (in America) in 1872. ‘11 fiver, go to a man's house and offer him a he'll say "Come again." You offer him eternal life and he slams the door in your face,' complained one Witness, a stocky Man with a face like an aggrieved brick, who was waiting for one of his converts to surface. His manner suggested not so much a saint as a union leader from one of the tougher collieries, but he was just as solidly sincere. 'I've known the truth for eight years,' he said. 'But I wouldn't admit it for a long time. I'm a sportsman, you see, and I
played football on Sundays. But you can't serve two masters : I've given up football now, and I go out on sermon work on Sundays. These days,' he added, 'I play cricket on Saturdays.'
A woman in a tight pink frock who glittered with fancy spectacles, moist eyes, shell ear-rings and a smile very full of teeth was simply over- flowing with it all—She had been handing out pamphlets in the Tube on the way there: her audience had been mesmerised by her like rabbits caught in the headlights of a car.
'Oh, it's wonderful,' she said. 'I feel just like a champagne bottle bubbling over. Not that I've ever tasted champagne, actually.'
There is nothing in her religion to stop her : the Witnesses have few rules, no policies about food and drink. Believing that the world as we know it is coming to an end in this generation, they do not organise charity or refugee relief and run no schools or hospitals.
'We don't worry about the atom bomb or any- thing like that,' the woman explained comfortably. 'All that business about Strontium 90 in the food —it all leads up to Jehovah's cleansing of the earth. We know that Jehovah God will stop it before it goes too far.' And she turned radiantly to congratulate her son who, the water of his baptism not yet dry behind his ears, was walk- ing across the grass towards her.
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