Seeing beyond the job: Peter Hinton

For A Change, Dec-Jan, 2000 by Paul Williams

At 26, Peter Hinton was the youngest First Lieutenant (second-in-command) of a submarine in Britain's Royal Navy, serving in HMS Cachalot, one of the new `Porpoise' class. He had joined the Navy as a Cadet at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. All seemed set for a successful career.

Yet beneath the surface all was not well. `I was not happy,' he says. `I tried to leave the Navy but this was not accepted. I lived a hectic social life but this did not satisfy. I had been through two engagements to be married but neither had worked out. I was a regular churchgoer but the way I lived was far from being Christian. I put on a respectable front but was living a secret life.'

An uncle in Canada, who knew something of his unhappiness, arranged for him to visit the MRA international conference centre in Caux, Switzerland. `Although anything "moral" was far from my agenda, I must have had a feeling that I might find what I was looking for to fill the emptiness of my life,' he recalls.

He was not disappointed. `When I heard people speaking at meetings and over meals of the changes that had occurred in their lives--and then around them as a result--I knew that this was what I needed.' People he met talked of having used the yardstick of standards of honesty, purity, unselfishness and love as a measure to see where changes were needed in their lives. `I decided to make the experiment of listening to God for direction for my mixed-up life. I asked him to show me where, in the light of those standards, I needed to make changes.'

He emphasizes that it was not the desire `to be good' that encouraged him to make a new start. It was hearing how people who had done this had become effective agents of change in their different fields. `I thought about life in the Navy and decided that, because alcohol (available duty-free aboard Royal Navy ships) was something I was not good at taking in moderation, I would give it up altogether.' He decided to allocate time each morning for listening prayer where he would seek God's direction. `One practical outcome was that I paid back money to London Underground which I owed for using peseta coins which, at that time, fitted their ticket machines! I also decided to tell my parents about the real me.'

Other outcomes were more long term. He feels that, in his naval duties, he was given greater concern for those he was responsible for. (The submarine of which he was second-in-command had 60 men, and he later served in a similar post in a submarine depot ship with 600 men.) `Also, it reinforced for me the peace-making and community-building role of the Armed Forces,' he said. `Wherever in the world I was stationed I made it a point to get to know the people of the country and not just "do my job" and keep to my own group.' This led to opportunities to work with under-privileged children in Hong Kong and Singapore and also (while serving as Assistant Naval Liaison Officer) with boys' clubs in Northern Ireland, where he won an MBE for his work in community relations.

While stationed at NATO Headquarters in Portugal he learned Portuguese and later, while in Gibraltar, he learned Spanish and became the Admiral's Spanish interpreter. On retiring as Lieutenant Commander after 37 years in the Navy, he became the bursar of an international school in Sotogrande in the Andalucia region of Spain. After returning to Britain 11 years later, he was offered a job as senior editor on Burke's Peerage & Baronetage--the 106th edition of this reference book on Britain's aristocracy was recently published after an interval of nearly 30 years.

Looking back on a varied and action-packed life, he feels God prepared him at each stage for the next part of the adventure. `I don't think I would have had half as exciting a life if I had not tried to follow God's direction,' he says. `He has taken me to so many places and given me so many friends, because to acknowledge him as father automatically makes one part of a world family. And I have had the wonderful support of my wife Jenny, who shares the same goals and beliefs.'

He does not pretend that everything has gone smoothly. It has often been a struggle to try to live a life honouring God. `There have been times when I have abandoned him, but he has never abandoned me.'