Unlisted Legion

Jock Purves has long been known for his popular classic, ‘ Fair Sunshine ‘ – the story of the 17th Century Scottish Covenanters – which he prepared while engaged in missionary service. With fifty years of such service behind him, the author, who lives in West Lothian, Scotland, has now produced another absorbing book, this time autobiographical in character and concerned with the most colourful and dramatic period of his life- the years 1926-30, spend in Lesser Thibet and on the Indian-Afghan Frontier.

While the Royal Scottish Geographical Society recognized his travels by making him a Fellow of the Society in 1931, the real spiritual story of those days as been left unrecorded until now. In part it is a tribute to the memory of colleagues- men and women of ‘the unlisted legion’ who lived, and sometimes died, in that remote and challenging mission field on ‘the roof of the world’; but it is chiefly the human story of the people of those regions, Baltis, Pathans and others, who are vividly depicted in a series of individual portraits. The author’s love for them all shines through these pages but he lingers longest on those who came to adorn the gospel of Christ.