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New Life Today


Counselling course


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About this site

In the late eighties when I came back to the Lord after 27 years as a back slider, I came across Douglas' tape set, New Life Today. It was such a help to me in clarifying who I was in Christ, and what had happened to me on being born again. Also, I was set free from a particular stronghold whilst listening to the study on the occult.

I can't recommend this set highly enough, both for mature and new believers. Douglas has a very gentle way, probably from his long carreer as an eye surgeon.

 

A vision fulfilled

Somewhere around 2000, the Lord laid it on my heart to get Douglas' tapes and restore them, (I am a recording engineer by profession.) and make them available to everyone so that this marvelous ministry would not be lost when Douglas 'went home'. By God's grace, this has happened and here it is. Download and be blessed by Douglas' teaching and ministry.

Dr Douglas Calcott

Douglas was born in India in 1920. His father was a Major in the British army.

At the age of 8 Douglas was sent to England to live with a friend of the family to allow him to attend a British school. His parents came to England in 1930 and lived in Ealing. When World War II started his father joined the army again.

Douglas’ father was brought up by an older brother because his parents had died of Cholera. His father had to win a fight in order to get breakfast. He in turn treated his children like soldiers. While Doug was waiting for an ambulance to have his appendix removed, his father made him recite his latin verbs. His father showed little affection. He insisted Douglas attend church three times on a Sunday, as a result Douglas decided to keep away from Christian things once he left home.

Douglas’ brother Stanley kept a diary and when he was dying from wounds in an Italian field hospital, he wrote in his diary in scrawny writing “I cannot hold out much longer, but won’t it be wonderful, I’ll be with my Jesus!” When Doug read this he was shocked, he could never say that and he began to search. Shortly after he was invited by a boy to attend a Crusader bible class to hear a visiting speaker. After the talk, the speaker said to look up and that he would catch your eye and pray for you to become a Christian. Douglas looked up but the speaker didn’t see him. A few days later, as he prepared to leave his bedroom he saw a vision of Jesus out of the window. He said it was horrible with blood streaming down his face. Jesus said ‘I had to go through this for you and I saw you looking up “Douglas responded I’ll do anything for you Lord, I’ll even be a dustman on the North Pole !!”

Satan came to test Douglas and told him he was not a Christian. Doug said to the Lord ‘If I am a Christian now meet with my brother David and change him. Douglas and David were daggers drawn with each other since school when Doug was head boy. A few days later he heard David coming home and Doug was about to say “Here comes trouble”. When he saw a change in David he asked what had happened. David said he was standing by a farm gate when he met with Jesus and became a follower. Since that time the two never had a cross word with each other.

Douglas attended a second co-ed school and became head boy. He was due to join the army but whilst helping his mother sort some books he found a book on anatomy and felt the desire to become a Doctor. When he told the headmaster he said he was not clever enough and the school had no sixth form in any event.

The other teachers at the school did want to start a sixth form so they started one up for Douglas and one other student to do their A levels.

After A levels he went to Westminster Hospital who were happy to accept him but the fees had to be paid immediately. His father had written to the Kitcheners Scholarship Board and they sent through enough money to pay his tuition fees.

At Westrminster he lived in an attic bedroom, the snow blew in and he would wear all his clothes all night due to the cold. He bought a penny loaf and cut it in half to make it last two days, plus one pint of milk that would last two days. On one of the days he would have no lunch. He earned money by doing the dangerous job of fire watching on tall buildings. After qualifying, he did two houseman’s jobs at the same time. For a 6 months he never left the hospital building. Once he had qualified, he then did National Service and later discovered most of the boys who had been in his class had been killed in the war.

With the army he was sent to Mogadishu and Egypt and then Kenya. In Nairobi, Douglas met Elizabeth’s father at the military hospital. Shortly after, he contracted malaria and was given mephaquin injections which nearly killed him. Elizabeth’s uncle had seen mephaquin poisoning and persuaded the hospital to stop the injections. Douglas was discharged from the army on medical grounds and for a year, while recovering Elizabeth’s parents supported him. Elizabeth’s father stood surety for him so that he could join the colonial medical service and practice as a doctor.

Douglas helped in the eye department of the hospital and went back to the UK for a diploma in Eye surgery.

On returning back to Kenya, the Director of medical services said he was too young to be given a prized post as the eye surgeon and insisted he just did general surgery. This Director was the only employer of doctors for the Kenyan government , but Douglas refused to just work as a general surgeon and resigned. As Douglas left the Director’s office he had no idea of what he would do. A car drew up outside the office as he was leaving and in it the only private eye specialist, Dr Puller. He said ‘if you ever leave government service, come and join me as a partner. Douglas joined Arthur Puller in Portal House. He put out Christian books in the waiting room. When CMS book shop was taken over by a secular society, Douglas’ books in the waiting room became Keswick book shop. And in April 1957 the books were moved downstairs into a vacant shop with Mary Smythe taking care of the day to day running.

During the Mau Mau emergency, the Pocket Testament League supplied Doug with Johns Gospels to distribute in the prison camps. He would stand in fear and trepidation, his knees knocking in a room of hundreds of murderers and offer them the chance of a new life. All who wanted a gospel were given one and many repented of their evil ways and received Jesus, starting a new life and enrolling on the Emmaus Bible Course, returning to their villages as pastors.

Douglas also carried out a survey of blindness in Kenya, especially to the semi desert in the north of the country. The Royal Empire society for the blind gave him a truck that was used as an operating theatre, complete with a driver and medical assistant, and a Land Rover for Douglas. He found the main cause of blindness was the very painful disease of Trachoma. Due to the lack of water the mothers did not wash children’s faces and flies would settle on the eye lids transferring the disease. Douglas taught school teachers to put the appropriate eye ointment in the children’s eyes. Thereby saving many from going blind. On one of his travels the truck driver got stuck crossing a dry river bed. A local man said rain was falling in the hills and was due down this river any time so said to Douglas “Why don’t you pray to God for his help?”. Someone then remembered a vehicle was nearby in a field that had a winch and so the truck was pulled out just in time before it was swept away.

In December 1960 when Elizabeth completed her B.Com at Cape Town University, they got engaged and married in Cape Town on July 8th 1961. After a short honeymoon, they sailed to England for Douglas to do further study.

In July of 1970 Fred Hadley made Spittern farm available for Christian students to camp and a Godly Pentecostal Missionary, John Kitts who was an honorary Chaplin to Kenyan prisoners came to speak. Douglas went to see him and he prayed for Douglas and said he was conscious of something evil leaving the room. After that Douglas’ Christian life was no longer a great struggle. He was also helped by attending a ‘Wholeness in Christ’ weekend which helped with his inferiority complex which had been induced by his father who had often told him he would never achieve anything. This led Douglas to a ministry of helping other struggling Christians at Spittern Farm. He met with Grace and Doris there. Douglas visited them once a week and Doris would pray in an adjoining room whilst Grace and Douglas prayed with the person asking for help. This continued for a number of years and then, when the children went to school it was no longer required to travel to Spittern farm and the counselling continued in Douglas and Elizabeth’s home in Worcester.

During latter years after Douglas had been struck with a stroke and was feeling lonely he would ask for his brother David. Elizabeth would say, he is waiting in heaven for you. David had died in Dec 2000 of a heart attack.

Douglas in his younger years

Douglas3