The morning of 9 February 1945 started off much like any other at Presbyterian Church House, Tavistock Place, London.
Staff arrived at their desks for a busy day of work and by the afternoon colleagues, delegates, ministers and lay people from across the country gathered for a conference with the newly formed British Council of Churches’ Department of International Friendship.
When the conference had finished, the Revd William Thorburn Elmslie, General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church of England, made his way to another appointment – a church extension committee meeting which was also being held in the building, now the central office for the United Reformed Church (URC).
He never made it.