Written by Mrs Natalie Hanks. This article was first published in Quarterly Record 641. Golden Thoughts calendars can be purchased at this link.

Introduction

Recently Bill Greendyk, TBS (USA) General Secretary, was travelling with a Brazilian missionary down the Manuripi River in Bolivia. He was amazed to hear from the missionary that one of the Bolivian pastors from the Pando region (a remote area of the Amazon Rainforest in the north of Bolivia) had heard of TBS, as they had received Golden Thoughts Calendars from the Society forty years ago, showing that TBS had reached this area many years before! These simple calendars, familiar to many of our readers, have travelled far and wide across the world over the many decades they have been produced by the Society. In 2021 alone 356,155 of these calendars were sent out from the Society in ten different languages. 

The format of the Golden Thoughts Calendars is unvarying: each has twelve pages, one for each month, and each page has a list of verses, one for each day of the month. Printed plainly on white paper, using the same font and colour ink every year, the daily verses rotate in a five-year cycle, chosen many years ago. However, people don’t realise that there is a story behind these calendars and a reason for this unvarying pattern.

The Golden Thoughts Calendars did not originate with the Trinitarian Bible Society. Instead, they were initiated and funded by the Young family from Cooden Mount, Sussex for many years, who eventually passed the calendars to the TBS to continue the work. The Youngs also left Cooden Mount and their estate to the Society, to sell and use the funds in trust to continue printing the calendars aft er their deaths. These funds were invested, and to this day the Society is using them to continue printing and granting the calendars to people around the world.

So Who Were the Young Family?

The Youngs were a wealthy family from Cooden Mount near Bexhill, England. The Mount had been built in 1893 on the highest part of Cooden Down, which at the time was covered with gorse, heather, and sheep. The house looked down across

the marshes, the English Channel, Eastbourne, and the South Downs; as time passed the scenery changed as increasing numbers of houses were built around the area. The patriarch of the Youngs, Mr Richard Henry Young (1842–1929), was a sculptor, reported to have been one of England’s first major art-bronze founders of modern times. His foundry was a social centre for the London art world of the 1870s.¹ His works included various statues of Queen Victoria on display in places such as Hong Kong and Canada. He was also entrusted with casting the bronze sphinxes and supports at the base of Cleopatra’s Needle in London.

Upon our knees in great weakness, for we were both suffering from the prevalent plague of Influenza [the Spanish Flu from which an estimated 20-50 million people died, of whom nearly half the dead were adults aged 20 to 40], and with only our Post Office Savings, we dedicated the proposed business to the Lord, asked Him to be our Director, and undertook to give a tenth of the profits to the Lord’s Work. We kept our part of the promise for the thirty three years we were in business, and the Lord never failed us—He, in answer to prayer, provided for us in a miraculous way with work, so that we never once, to the wonder of our competitors, wanted for this— finance, staff , and protections from rings and combines who envied us and threatened to do us hurt if we didn’t join them. But we stood firm in the Lord, and were enabled to pay thousands of pounds to the Lord’s works, as we were guided by Him. I therefore say ‘Taste and see that the LORD is good’.²

The First Golden Thoughts Calendars

However, it was Henry’s daughter, Miss Amy Young, who was the force behind the calendars. She and her brothers started a work during the Second World War to send out ‘Roll Text Almanacks’ to deep-sea fishermen and lighthouse keepers. Sadly, the premises of the firm Messrs. John Shaw and Co. who produced the calendars was utterly destroyed by enemy bombing in 1940. All the files relating to the calendars were lost. Amy later wrote.

Now, what were we to do? When, suddenly, the Lord called me to continue the calendar work. I soon began compiling and my elder brother designed it, and it was not long before it was in the printer’s hands. ³

Amy’s brother, Stanley, was the designer, and his work has remained unchanged over the years. Initially 1,000 calendars were distributed, but circulation gradually rose, with organisations working amongst sailors, soldiers, colleges, and missionary societies along with men in prisons receiving the calendars.

Amy’s brothers agreed to cover her costs, her brother Douglas saying, ‘We felt it to be our ministry. Amy put so much work into preparing the calendar we felt it was the least we could do’.⁴ She had success in distributing in prisons; one group of prisoners who were transferred to another prison took their calendar with them, and when the other prisoners saw them they also asked their chaplain if they could have one in their cell. Amy heard of a chaplain who was greeted each morning with a text from the calendars. She also distributed many calendars via the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen and organisations such as the Red Sea Mission Team. The late Queen Elizabeth II also received copies from Amy every year, for which Amy received thanks.

Passing the Baton to the Trinitarian Bible Society

As Amy became older, she began to find the work increasingly tiring and was worried about the future of the calendars. She was sending out an incredible number of calendars—in 1969 she had reached an annual circulation of 74,000.

In October 1968 Amy’s brother Douglas felt led to write to the Trinitarian Bible Society.

It is thought that my sister Amy, who is nearly 89 years of age, and who, under God, has compiled for the past twenty-eight years and sent forth, mostly without charge, to the recipients many thousands (the requests for the 1969 issue being 74,000) will not be able to continue indefinitely.

He went on to ask

Do you think that when my sister must needs pass the work on to others, that your Society would undertake to send forth the Authorised Version of the Word of God in this same form? I would mention that the calendars for the next ten years have already been compiled. And, that we would be happy to make grants of money for this work for some years ahead, so that your Society would be relieved of financial responsibility in connection therewith. ⁵

After discussion the Society agreed to continue the Golden Thoughts Calendars, Terence Brown, the Secretary of the time writing, ‘I think it would be very sad indeed if such a useful testimony should be discontinued’. It was also agreed that the same formatting and quality be used for any future printings, and it was arranged that the Society would take over the printing and distribution from 1970. Amy passed over to the Society meticulous records of all the addresses that she sent calendars to.

A settlement was made on 15 September 1972, in which the three living Young siblings, Arthur, Douglas, and Amy, transferred their shares in Cooden Mount Estates to the Trinitarian Bible Society, who would hold them in trust. Th is trust was solely to be used in the production and distribution of the Golden Thoughts Calendars, stating that the calendars must retain

its present form and style of lettering and using only verses or parts of verses taken from the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures to be selected by the Committee for the time being of the Society who may utilise for this purpose the selection already made for this by the said Amy Manfield Young.⁶

Amy was eventually the last surviving sibling. The Society maintained close contact as she became older and frailer overseeing the maintenance and upkeep of her home in trust for her. Letters between her and the Secretary of the time have been kept and show a friendship and appreciation for the work that the Society was undertaking with the calendar. In January 1978 she wrote, 

The Golden Thoughts Calendars were beautifully printed in 1978, and on such good paper … and have been much appreciated by many of my friends. I have had a cheerful letter of thanks from the Queen, and the yachtsman Sir Alex Rose greatly enjoys the message on the calendar.

Another letter speaks of how she and her brother felt led to approach the Society about the calendars: 

It is nearly ten years ago since the Lord said ‘Trinitarian’ when my brother Douglas and I were anxious to find ‘someone’ to take on the work, as I was finding the work getting too heavy for me.

In 1979 Amy had her one hundredth birthday. She had asked that any gifts made on her birthday should be given to TBS towards the publishing of the Golden Thoughts Calendars. To mark the occasion the Society also printed ‘One hundred precious promises from the Holy Scriptures selected from the Golden Thoughts Calendar to mark the occasion of the 100th birthday of Miss Amy Manfield Young’.

On the 22 January 1983 Amy passed away aged 104. In her will she left various small legacies to family, friends, and mission organisations, but left the bulk and any property to the TBS upon trust solely for the production and distribution of the calendars. Her will stated that the money should be applied solely in the production and distribution of Golden Thoughts Calendars in ‘its present form with its present style of lettering using only verses or parts of verses taken from the Authorised Version of the Holy Scriptures as selected by me … and repeat them in a cycle’.⁷

The Golden Thoughts Calendars Today

The Trinitarian Bible Society has faithfully continued the work of Amy Young in producing the calendars and distributing them across the world. The money left by the Young family has been invested and pays for the granting and distribution of these calendars. Today they are produced in ten languages: English, Afrikaans, Armenian, French, Hausa, Ndebele, Portuguese, Shona, Spanish, and Xhosa.

It is a privilege to be able to continue distributing these calendars. The grateful letters received by the Society affirm that people still appreciate and use them and they are a means of getting the Word of God to many people around the world. As a pastor from India recently wrote,

We would like to express our sincere thanks for your compassionate heart; prayers and words of encouragement have blessed us personally, but more importantly, you have impacted hundreds of believers around the rural and tribal areas here with your Golden Thoughts Calendars. Your prayers, blessings and Golden Thoughts Calendars enable us to continue reaching the unreached in some of the most isolated places in our area.

Even old copies of the calendars are useful: a man from Zambia wrote of the encouragement he received even from reading copies from previous years. Other people have been encouraged by heeding the last line on the calendars to read the entire chapter from which the daily verse is taken and have received additional blessing.

The calendars have also proved very useful in providing a form of Scriptures, however small, to those who don’t have their own Bible. At a missionary school in Angola they were received withenthusiasm; the recipients ‘were delighted when they received the Golden Thoughts Calendars 2022 … as this is a wonderful tool for spreading the Gospel as well as reading the Bible—as many do not have any other Bibles’.

These calendars are but a drop in the ocean when we think of the vast number of people around the world without the Scriptures in their own language, but they provide a means of getting the Word of God to needy souls around the world.

The sacrifice, determination, and labours of one or two individuals can have far-reaching consequences in distributing the Scriptures. 

In conclusion we quote a recipient of the 2021 Golden Thoughts Calendars:

We distributed the first box of Golden Thoughts Calendars to various people in Namibia. These people usually wait in anticipation to receive the new year’s Golden Thoughts Calendars as they use the daily Scriptures as their ‘Bread of Life’ in their daily walk. Many people in rural areas do not have Bibles. The past few years were difficult because of a severe drought all over Namibia and most of the people in Ovamboland (a region in north Namibia) lost many or all of their cattle. The people need something to hold on to and were ready for receiving the Word of God.

It is sad to say, but in difficult times people are more inclined to be seeking after God. In a time like that the Golden Thoughts Calendars were like ‘water’ in the desert to thirsty souls. We trust our Father in Heaven that the words in Psalm 42.2 ‘My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God’ will become the daily walk for each of them that received a Golden Thoughts Calendar and that their thirst will be quenched by the Living Word.

Endnotes

1. National Portrait Gallery British Bronze sculpture founders and plaster figure makers, 1800–1980 www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes/ british-bronze-founders-and-plaster-figuremakers-1800-1980-1/british-bronze-founders-and-plaster-figure-makers-1800-1980-y last accessed 23 August 2022.

2. Taken from a testimony written by Douglas Young.

3. From a note written by Amy Young in December 1968.

4. ‘Golden Thoughts’, Christianity Today 30 May 1969.

5. From a letter to the Rev. Terence Brown from Douglas Young, 18 October 1968.

6. The Golden Thoughts Trust Deed, 15 September 1972.

7. From the will of Amy Mansfield Young, 12 September 1975.