In the year 1971, when Brian Wren’s (1936- ; see Biographies) children were young, it was a household habit to tune to the BBC program Listen With Mother. One day Wren’s wife, Brenda, heard this children’s song sung to a traditional English melody:

                                          I am going to Timbuktu,

                                              Would you like to go there too,

                                          All the way and back again?

                                              You must follow the leader then.

      She suggested to her husband the words of stanza I, which he promptly extended into the complete song. It is a delightful way for children to sing about and absorb the experience of Jesus dying on the cross. Here Jesus is telling the story Himself and inviting them to come along and play “follow the leader.” As Wren says: “There is no reason why a song about the Crucifixion should be in a minor key, and our guess is that children will like and understand it.” It will surely help them to understand Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:24, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

       SEE SAW SACCARA DOWN is the name supplied with the arrangement of this tune, made in 1972 by Charles E. Strange. Strange was born in 1902 at Oxford, and now lives in retirement in the Palmers Green section of London. He describes himself as a “retired civil servant, organist, and choirmaster.” He served from 1954 to 1972 on the Public Worship and Aids to Devotion Committee of the then Presbyterian Church (now United Reformed Church) of England. From 1964 to 1972 he was a member of the Revision Committee for the book The Church Hymnary. For many years he was editor of the Guild Review, of the United Reformed Church Guild of Organist and Choirmaster. His musical contributions appear in the book New Church Praise, a hymnal supplement published in 1975 for the United Reformed Church.