Fred Lemon was born in 1914 in the east end of London. He grew up in the world of jellied eels, winkles and cheeky, cockney geezers. His mum and dad taught young Fred “to steal whenever there was an opportunity and to forage in dustbins for rags and bottles and other useful salvage.” At the age of six his mother, prone to drunkenness, sent him to a ‘Home’ where he slept in a big dormitory. He hated living in this institution.
He escaped and returned home but life was still hard. At a young age he began to embrace the criminal portfolio. This got him into a lot of trouble with the police. He prided himself on never being a grass (slang for informer). He became a soldier and he ended up in India. Shamelessly drunk he walked stark naked through a street market in Bombay. After six years he left the army and rededicated his life to burglary and petty thieving. He had a bad stammer and bought a gun to bolster his confidence.
He then met and married Doris, a lovely woman, but his lifestyle had turned him into a brutal husband. On several occasions he tried to throttle his wife. Fierce anger dogged his life. On one occasion he almost murdered a Jewish man he was robbing. In his autobiography Breakout he confessed that he had become “a coldly calculating and ruthless criminal”. Eventually he was arrested by the police and he was sent to Dartmoor prison in the noble county of Devon. In prison he developed a ferocious hatred for prison warders but he did attend Christian events organised by a Methodist minister. He began to read the Bible.
In 1950 he was scheming the murder of Tojo, a prison warder by plunging a knife into his chest. On the night of August 10, alone in his cell, he woke to find three men standing in his cell. They were wearing ordinary civilian suits. Fred swung his legs out of bed and sat bolt upright on the edge, wide awake. The man on the right hand said, “Fred, this is Jesus.” The man in the middle to whom he pointed then spoke to him.
Quite incredibly Jesus then traced the whole of Fred’s criminal life up to the present. He knew everything about Fred; all the sordid details. Lemon listened to every word, surprisingly not afraid or overawed. Jesus showed him that God was offering him “forgiveness for every wrong he had ever done, because of Jesus’ death on a cross. This paid for Fred’s sins and His rising to life again overcame the power of death.”
At the end of this incredible but challenging talk, Jesus stated, “If you want to become a Christian, you must drive hatred from your heart.” Fred knew that Jesus was referring to his plan to kill Tojo. Fred had been listening with his head in his hands but, as the last sentence was spoken, he looked up. The three men, still facing Fred, were fading through the wall. There was a distinct click and he was alone.
The next day Fred was working with a cutting knife in the sewing workshop when Tojo appeared barking out orders to all and sundry. Fred’s hand tightened on the knife as he prepared to strike but in that precise moment his hand went completely numb. He couldn’t lift it an inch! As soon as Tojo left the room, the power in his hand was restored. These two extraordinary experiences led Fred to the Lord.
His marriage was renewed and strengthened and he became a gifted evangelist with a powerful testimony. He also became a much better husband to Doris. Throttling her became a distant memory. He and his wife provided warm hospitality to many people on the edge of society – former prisoners, alcoholics, drug addicts, ne’er-do-wells and orphans.
A few years later God told Fred to start a business selling eggs when he was unemployed and had no money. He also got employment with a building firm. One day he and the boss prayed about unpaid bills and the next morning a thousand pounds arrived from the debtors. The top banana was delighted so he called the rest of the staff together and they held a thanksgiving service in the yard.
Fred described how the Christian faith impacted the business like this: “For a long time after that we had prayers before and after work, and there was a happy, light-hearted atmosphere that made every job a pleasure. We had some good laughs, and I’ll admit to playing a few jokes now and then.”
Fred was very perceptive about God and having fun:
“I had a bit of a laugh with him then. Isn’t it a pity that we get so solemn in our prayers? I think we ought to talk to him about everything, good and bad, happy as well as sad, because it’s like that tract says, ‘He careth for you’ and that means all the things that happen, including the funny ones!”
Fred continued to work as a gifted evangelist until his death in 2000.
There is much to learn from Fred’s inspiring story but we also need to be discerning about some unhelpful distortions of the Christian faith. He understood salvation as ‘getting to heaven when you die’. Indeed this genre of Christian biography is invariably focused on salvation as a passport to heaven. This framework is not completely wrong but needs to include the good creation, the hope of the resurrection body and the restored and transformed earth (Rev 21 & 22). Salvation in the Bible is much broader than Fred surmises but the incidents in the book about marriage, family and business life suggest far more. One day the entire created order will be put to rights and the trees of the fields will clap their hands (Isaiah 55:12).
Mark is a lively storyteller and the author of four books, including The Spy, the Rat and the Bed of Nails: Creative Ways of Talking about Christian Faith. His work is focused on storytelling and how this can help us to communicate the Christian faith. He has written many articles for the Baptist Times, RE Today, Youthscape, Direction magazine and the Christian Teachers Journal.
- The Story of Fred Lemon who met Jesus and Two Angels in Prison - November 26, 2025
- The Inspiring Story of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) - October 22, 2025
- Fifteen False Prophets and Testing the Spirits - September 29, 2025
1 Comment
t_bowman · November 26, 2025 at 8:20 pm
Fred Lemon was a diamond geezer. Top banana for digging this one out. Buy that man a beer, guv’nor.
Tim