Life Supreme — Page 120
LIFE SUPREME 123. LIFE SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR. Bashir Ahmad Orchard was born in Torquay on the south coast of. Devon on April 26, 1920. His father was a doctor and his mother had worked as a nurse prior to her marriage. He had two elder brothers. . The eldest was killed during World War II and the other is a Roman. Catholic Priest. . He and his brothers attended Winchester Lodge Preparatory. School where he played both cricket and football. He never enjoyed school and wasn't a bright pupil so he left school at age sixteen without any kind of educational certificate. . Finding himself at loose ends after quitting school, he joined the army even though he was two years younger than the minimum age requirement of eighteen. He found life in the army unpleasant and did not find congenial companionship as he had been brought up in a more cultured society. After serving two of the seven year enlistment, he wrote his father asking him to purchase his discharge. This was the only way of terminating his service and his father promptly came to his rescue. . After his discharge, he joined a Territorial Unit of the Royal. Medical Corps. They were part-time soldiers who normally did not have to train more than one evening a week. When Britain declared war on Germany in 1939 he again became a full-time soldier. In 1941 he applied for a commission in the Indian Army. He was accepted as a cadet and sailed for India in 1942. . The year 1944 was a time when deeper spiritual inclinations seemed to awaken within Orchard. Several things happened to him to encourage these awakenings. One event happened while he was serving in the trenches close to the Assam-Burma border. At one point, during a battle, he was called away from his position by a senior officer. During that brief period a shell landed in the trench on the spot which he had just vacated. Two sepoys who had been near him were killed. . It was also during this time that an Ahmadi havildar clerk who was serving in his unit decided to introduce him to the message of Islam.