By Charles Gardner

As Americans celebrated Thanksgiving this week, one of their legendary country and western stars was far from home on a tour of England. Back in North Carolina, his family were tucking into turkey and pumpkin pie to mark the day when the nation gives thanks to God for their freedom won at great sacrifice by their founding fathers.

But George Hamilton IV was not left out – because a junior school in the Yorkshire town of Doncaster put on a special Thanksgiving dinner in his honour during their lunch break. The cafeteria was festooned with appropriate decorations as he was served with much of the traditional food he would normally have received back home.

George’s association with the Kirk Sandall School goes back some 20 years – the headmaster referred to him as an honorary governor – to the time when, following a gig in Sheffield, he called his friend Al Moir – a teacher at the school – to say how much he was missing being with his family over Thanksgiving.

So his friend invited him over to celebrate in nearby Doncaster, and he was amazed to discover that America’s founders – the Pilgrim Fathers – had originated not from Plymouth in Devon, as he and many of his compatriots had always assumed, but from this very South Yorkshire town and its surroundings, particularly in neighbouring North Nottinghamshire.

And so he has since made regular return visits to the area, holding concerts at the school, as he did again this week. Clearly the show wasn’t so much about himself as the God he follows who provided such a strong foundation for his country. Indeed, a more gracious, humble, warm and friendly personality you would be hard-pressed to meet.

And the 71-year-old veteran singer, who began his glittering career over 50 years ago with the hit A Rose and a Baby Ruth, made much of his supporting act – the school choir who joined him for some of the songs, many with overtly Christian overtones despite it being a state-run rather than a Church of England school.

George’s friendly manner made everyone feel important – he even sang Happy Birthday to one of the teachers and, as well as including a superb rendition of Ralph McTell’s England, he also sang both Scottish and Irish folk songs because of the presence in the audience of people from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Cork. Explaining his choice of the song England, he said : “I’m just tired of telling people why I spend so much time here. So I just learned this song.”

His ancestors actually came out from Scotland in 1685.

And he went on to explain the importance of Thanksgiving, which was initially held in gratitude to God for the first harvest reaped by the Pilgrim Fathers in 1621. Of the hundred or so who sailed from Plymouth in the Mayflower in 1620, only half had survived the harsh winter.

But they were still profoundly thankful for their deliverance from the intolerance and persecution they had suffered for their faith in England. They were now free to practice their religion according to their own conscience whereas in England they were hounded and pilloried for daring to question the authority of the King and his bishops. It might surprise some readers to know that ordinary citizens were forced to go to church in those days – fines were imposed on those who played truant. And it had to be the established church, the Church of England, where it was all order and decorum, with set prayers, order of service, and a Bible chained to the pulpit – if there was one at all !

But there were those who wished for more spontaneity in prayer and worship, especially when they discovered the reality of a personal faith in Christ. Such were the Pilgrim Fathers, most of whose original leaders – including William Bradford, William Brewster, John Carver, John Robinson and Richard Clyfton – hailed from South Yorkshire and North Nottinghamshire. And although those intrepid men and women of 1621 were thanking God for freedom in the general sense of the word, they were also rejoicing in the liberation provided by the gospel of Jesus Christ, who said that the truth would set us free !

George Hamilton IV told his audience : “The pilgrims who went out to the New World from these parts were very brave people. There was no heating or sanitation on the Mayflower and the only privacy was a blanket hung on the clothes line. And when they got there, it was too late to plant crops. But one-third of the passengers were children, most of whom survived the winter with the help of the native Indians, who told them how to plant corn, pumpkins and squash. In fact as many as 90 Indians attended that first Thanksgiving – and they stayed for three days, with only six women to do all the cooking !” George also told of the significance at Thanksgiving of a small bag containing five grains of corn, which was the ration to which the pilgrims were reduced when things got really bad, and of how it is a fitting reminder of a heroic past.

And he also held a Thanksgiving concert at St Helena’s Church in Austerfield, near Doncaster, where New England’s first governor William Bradford was baptised.

© Assist News