PITS, PARACHUTES AND PULPITS by Rev. Peter Bayley only £11.95 Born in the Midlands, on the eve of WW2, Peter Bayley looks back over the significant events in a varied and dynamic life.  He recalls his early life, and humble beginnings, including missed opportunities at grammar school.  He relates how his abiding fascination with religion and the church began. We watch the boy develop into a confident and accomplished adult, following him through a brief and almost disastrous experienc down the pit.  Then during five years of life as a regular soldier, the pride of earning his parachute wings, tours of duty in the Middle East, which culminated in a jump into the Arctic Circle on his 21st birthday, before deciding to candidate for the Methodist ministry.  The story continues as the young Peter, although burdened by family responsibilities and associated financial restrictions, studies for the ministry and is subsequently ordained and assigned to a parish in his home area.  The energetic young clergyman is shown building the Church community in a large new council estate, returning to a colliery as a chaplain, working as an agent for the local Labour Party candidate during the critical election of 1970, developing his talent as an amateur entertainer and singer, as well as bus driving and teaching to make ends meet. Throughout the book the reader is presented with a disarmingly honest insight into the world of the author, who writes about himself in a compelling manner as he reveals the driving forces which lead him from pit to parachute to pulpit.  At the close of this first volume he is about to combine two of the great passions of his life: the Church, and the Army as he is invited to server as an army chaplain. Part2: "High Flying, Heavy Landings" continues the story, giving a moving account of 16 years serving as Chaplain to the Forces in a variety of arenas and describes how in 1988, now Lt. Col. Bayley, he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis an event which was to have enormous ratifications on his future life.