David & May Piggott – 180 years of God’s work!

Well, here we are—both 90 years old. We can’t believe it! You can? Oh well, perhaps you’re right, but what has happened in all those years?

David remembers: I was born to Christian parents in a house situated at the beginning of Station Road, Horsham. In fact, it looked straight down New Street, with Rehoboth Chapel near the bottom, where I was first taken at about 4 years old. There I heard Bible stories and learnt Scripture texts. As an older child I remember passing on the way to Chapel a Salvation Army open air meeting on the corner of Oxford road, I heard the preacher saying “Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found.” Just this phrase spoke to me and I realised that I needed to come to the Lord. Although I did believe from that time, it wasn’t until in 1954 when we went by coach to the Billy Graham Harringay Crusade in London that I responded to the call to go forward for counselling. In fact the counsellor who spoke with me recorded it as ’Confirmation of faith’.

I subsequently requested baptism and church membership at Rehoboth on confession of my faith, and, as the Lord would have it, my mother, father and sister, Elizabeth and I were all baptized, and received into membership together in November 1954. This led to a time of service and blessing.

May remembers: I was born in Aldershot, where my father had been in the army, but then, when I was 2, we moved to Pulborough, which was my mother’s home. She was a Christian and always took my brother and me to church, prayed with us, talked with us and told us Bible stories. A further move took place when I was 9 to Lancing, but sadly our father died a few months after. While there, we attended Lancing Tabernacle Evangelical church.

A couple of years on, mother married again – a printer by trade, John Stewart – and we all moved to London, attending Balham Baptist church. However, in June 1939, when war was threatening, we were on the move again, this time to Horsham, West Sussex. We settled in Arthur Road, actually backing on to cottages and Rehoboth chapel in New Street. As she always did whenever we moved, Mum tried various churches to see where she might feel at home. When I was 13, that Easter Sunday evening we went to Denne Road, Gospel Hall, and yes, Mum was happy there. As we entered, we found the hall full to overflowing; people were singing with great gusto and joy. The hymn was ‘Low in the grave He lay’. I shall never forget the swell in the singing at the chorus ‘Up from the grave He arose, With a mighty triumph o’er His foes.’ I came away feeling that these were people who were singing and preaching about Someone they really knew and believed in. From that time I really started to think what this was all about. For a few years I had a mixture of belief and doubts, but then two particular portions of Scripture came to me forcefully; John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life; and Ephesians 2: 8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. I read these in bed one morning and I suddenly said, “That explains it—it’s true!” I was eventually baptized when I was 19, after being challenged over the need for obedience to the Lord.

Soon after this I went off to Teacher Training College in Bromley. It was a great time, partly because of Christian fellowship in the C.U. and opportunities to serve the Lord with others.

Back in Horsham I continued to worship at the Gospel Hall. It was at this time that Steve Piggott’s sister, Miriam, then at Rehoboth, gathered together some of us young people from several churches in the town to give support to Len Simms, the local colporteur (Christian Colportage Assoc., now OUK) and it was through this that a number of us met our future marriage partners! Thus David and I met, fell in love and were married in 1956. Soon after our marriage, I transferred my membership to Rehoboth, where we were able to worship and serve God together.

Most of our married life we lived at 186 New Street, but now 61 years on, and enjoying our Gardener’s Court apartment, we still thank the Lord for how he has watched over our marriage, and that he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.