Servant of God John Bradburne

John Randal Bradburne, OFS (14 June 1921 – 5 September 1979) was an English lay member of the Third Order of Saint Francis, a poet, and warden of the Mutemwa leper colony at Mutoko, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Bradburne was killed by nationalist guerrillas and he is a candidate for canonisation. On 15 July 2019, the Holy See gave the nihil obstat for the start of the cause of canonisation by giving Bradburne the title of 'Servant of God'. John Randal Bradburne was born on 14 June 1921 in Skirwith, Cumberland, England. A son of the marriage of Thomas William Bradburne and Erica May Hill in 1916, he was baptised in the Church of England at Skirwith on 31 July 1921. He had two brothers and two sisters. Their father, an Anglican clergyman, was rector of Skirwith. The Bradburnes were cousins of the playwright Terence Rattigan and were more distantly related to the politician Christopher Soames. Bradburne was educated at Gresham's, a private school in Norfolk, from 1934 to 1939, after his father had gained a new benefice in Norfolk. His brother Michael was at Gresham's with him, but moved on to Eton. Bradburne was a member of the school's Officers' Training Corps. He was planning to continue his studies at a university, but at the outset of the Second World War he volunteered for the Indian Army, with which his mother's family was connected; she had been born in Lucknow. He was sent for training at an Officer Cadet Training Unit at Bulford Camp. In December 1940 Bradburne was commissioned in the Indian Army. He was assigned to the 9th Gurkha Rifles of the Indian Army and soon posted with them to British Malaya to face the invasion of the Imperial Japanese Army. After the fall of Singapore in February 1942, Bradburne spent a month in the jungle. With another Gurkha officer, he tried to sail a sampan to Sumatra but they were shipwrecked. A second attempt was successful, and Bradburne was rescued by a Royal Navy destroyer and returned to Dehra Dun in India.