Sure enough, on May 15, 1978, a letter came from John written by hand and, as may be expected, in versified form, which after some initial personal remarks, developed into a disquisition on the Holy Trinity, but ended inconsequentially with a heartfelt last line: "Forgive me if I ever was unkind."

He was forgiven and Pam's poem in reply, mimicking John's style and correcting his trinitarian theology, lovingly finished on behalf of both of us:

Heaven keep you safe and sound dear John
And bless the bed that you lie on.

This prayer was not heard in heaven. By 1979 the situation in Southern Rhodesia, soon to become Zimbabwe, had fast deteriorated. The colonial authorities advised all the whites to evacuate the region, but John was not going to abandon his beloved protégés. We learned from the British newspapers that on September 3, 1979, the "lepers' saint", "a man of love and peace who could not hurt a fly" — the words of an African friend — was shot dead by Mugabe's marauding guerrillas while kneeling in prayer. 

Two weeks later a requiem mass was celebrated in Salisbury Cathedral by the local archbishop. The process potentially leading to John's beatification was launched by the Catholic bishops of Zimbabwe, supported by the John Bradburne Memorial Society, which also collects money to support the Mtemwa leper camp.