Janet Simpson She Breathed God

Sarah Barnett

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Sarah Barnett

‘The pathway was indeed rough but how sweet was his

presence.’1

‘You are nothing. Nothing. Neither clever nor pretty, but

nothing.’ She remembers as if it were yesterday, although it

was long ago. Even after all this time they are hard words.

Harder words coming from one’s parents. I am sitting opposite

her as she speaks, watching her. She is old now; her hair is

grey, her faced lined. She is neither smiling nor frowning.

Nearly seventy years have passed since those words were

uttered, and she still remembers. She sees my anger but feels

none of it herself. ‘They weren’t to know,’ she explains. ‘Life

was harder then.’ She has forgiven them long ago. There is

no resentment, no trace of bitterness, but still the regret,

the hurt. ‘You have nothing to lose,’ they said, ‘by leaving

school early.’ She was a young girl at the time, only fourteen,

Janet SimpsonShe Breathed God__________

1910-1995__________

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but the oldest. Old enough to share the responsibility. She had

to leave school and work – the family needed the money and

it was her duty to help. Early mornings stretched into long

days of hard work. There were several jobs; the milk run, the

shoe shop, the warehouse. She does not linger long over these

stories. They are not happy memories.

I have asked her for her stories, for pictures of her life in

Scotland, Brazil and Australia. Her childhood, parents,

husband, work. I do not need to ask her about God, whom

she calls The Lord. He is in every conversation and evident in

every decision. The way she speaks of him – they sound like

old friends. He is her strength. One day, I tell her, ‘I will write

a book about you. She laughs in her Scottish voice, ‘No, who

am I? What have I done?’ I smile and think, everything. She

tells stories like no one else I know.

Janet Simpson in Brazil (second from the left)

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Janet Simpson: She Breathed God 1910-1995

Four years before Europe erupts into war, Janet Geates, the

first child of James and Jenny Geates,2 is born in Girvan. Girvan

is a small, cold fishing village on the west coast of Scotland,

which will later become known for its Scotch whiskey. The

Geates do not drink. They belong to the Christian Brethren

and are well respected by their family and community. The

Geates have a fervent love for the Lord and will raise their

children to fear and obey him. James Geates leads the Sunday

School; he is an upright man, strict and proud.

The Scots are not a race of giants, and James and Jenny are

no exception. James is of stocky build and has strong hands.

He had been a miner, but is now a mechanic. He wears a suit

to work. He gardens in his suit. He wears a different suit on

Sunday, the Lord’s Day.

Janet is called Nettie. Everyone calls her Nettie even though

she prefers Janet.

There are two other children born after Janet. Elsie is three

years younger and John is nine years younger. James and

Jenny are pleased to have a son. He is a class apart from his

sisters because he is the youngest and a boy. Janet adores

him. She is like his second mother.

Hard times make hard parents. Janet already knows from

an early age that she is a wretched sinner, but she is also

conscious of God’s mercy. The Lord doesn’t seem as angry

as her father, who believes that if you ‘spare the rod you spoil

the child’. Janet is not spoilt. However, she is at times a fearful

child and does not want to displease. At school one day she

cries. The teacher asks, ‘What is the matter?’ A new stitch,

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the class is learning a new stitch. What if she can’t make the

stitch properly? What if she fails?

Despite her fears and worries she is a bright child. She delights

in her salvation. It releases her. Her laugh is never a stranger

to her home, regardless of the propriety and sobriety that

reside there. She sees herself as weak, but her spirit is strong.

The Geates family move from Girvan to Pollockshaws in

1924, where they spend six crowded months with another

family, kin, in their home. They then move to a new home

in Giffnock, a suburb of Glasgow. They stay at the church in

Pollockshaws, the Greenview Gospel Chapel.

Scotland, like other countries, experiences great poverty in

the 1920s. Although a tiny minority of people enjoy the roar

of the 1920s, most of the world struggles with hunger. The

Stock Market Crash of 1929 makes things even worse. For

the Geates family, money is scarce and times are tight. Janet

must share the burden of making ends meet. Her parents

tell her that it is not worth her staying on at school. Yet she

is intelligent, and this does not go unnoticed by her school,

which awards her a watch as an academic prize.

Does Janet realise that she is bright? Does she believe that she

is nothing? Whatever she believes, Janet knows that she has

to obey her parents’ decision. She would stay on at school if it

were her choice, but it is not. The disappointment and shame

remain with her for years afterwards, but she does not carry

any anger. She has enough to bear, and it is not her way to

resent or dwell on things. Instead, Janet has learnt endurance

from her Saviour, her Lord, and she cherishes this relationship

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Janet Simpson: She Breathed God 1910-1995

during long, arduous, lonely days of work. Janet is strong and

hardworking, but her work colleagues do not share her same

mindset or faith. At fourteen she begins to learn much of the

world and its ways, and learns that it is often not a pleasant

place for a young girl. She hears things that she has never

heard before, but she does not betray her heart.

Janet displaces her anxieties and sadness with thoughts of the

future. She has such a love for the gospel and an interest in

the ‘mission field’. She is confident that the Lord will guide her,

and she cannot stop speaking about him. In doing this, she

does not realise that she is a missionary already.

Soon after the move from Girvan Janet makes a new friend.

His name is Alexander Simpson, but he is Alec to Janet. He

calls her Nettie. She does not mind it so much now. Alec

lives in Pollockshaws. These two take part in tract bands,

going out to other towns and delivering leaflets and tracts

containing the gospel. They enjoy the open-air meetings, the

prayer, the preaching, and doing God’s work. The boys and

girls of that fellowship will remember the friendship of those

two, Nettie and Alec. ‘An ideal couple,’ they will say, ‘with

such a love for the Lord.’

Throughout her teens and into her twenties Janet works.

Some evenings she dines with another family in her dinner

break. The children in this family hurry home from school to

see her, as they don’t want to miss out on a moment with

Nettie. She is a favourite, and her laughter is contagious. Janet

does not know how quiet and empty her own home is without

her presence on those evenings. How could she know, when

she is ‘nothing’? John misses his sister. She has already made