V.C. AND A CHILD IN

QUEST OF THE HOLY SHROUD
Group Capt. Cheshire wins a great honour for 'Little Josie'
By Maurice Quinlan
THIS surely must have been Group Captain Cheshire's greatest adventure. Yes, Leonard Cheshire saw the atom bomb explode over Hiroshima. He
went on innumerable raids, won the Victoria Cross and the D.S.O. and the D.F.C.
But this going to Turin all alone with a sick little girl from a Gloucester village and getting the Holy See and a King and a Cardinal Archbishop to open the casket containing the Holy Shroud—this was achieving the impossible.
Indeed, IP-yea r-old Josephine Woollam has done what the Holy Father himself and the King and the Cardinal have never done. She has had the Holy Shroud in her lap for minutes all to herself.
She has touched with her hand the winding sheet in which Our Lord's body was wrapped while He lay in the Tomb.
There is at least something of a mystery even in how the two of them got to Turin at all-Leonard Cheshire himself. after his long serious illness: even more so little Josie, as he calls her, who has been ill for five years and is completely crippled with a bone disease. Last Easter time she was very ill indeed and had to he rushed to hospital,
Frightening ?
While Group Captain Cheshire was telling us the story at a Press conference in London this week I asked him if it wasn't rather frightening to he taking Josephine actoss Europe by himself.
" Didn't think of that," he said.
When the question came up again later he smiled and said: " With little Josie it was like a holiday."
Their journey to Turin took altogether nearly a week.
Only once did she ask for anything, and that was for a drink of water. Group Captain Cheshire's smile grew to a wide grin as he told of their only mishap. The thing he chose for their dinner one evening turned out to be too rich.
" I was feeling a bit funny myself," he said, " and then Josie turned to me and said: ' I want to be sick. . . . '"
Saw the picture
The story began when earlier this year the Daily Sketch published an illustrated article by Cheshire on the Holy Shroud and later there was another article with pictures in Picture Post.
Josephine saw the picture of the Holy Face. Never having been to school, she cannot read and she cannot write. But the. picture of the Holy Face made a great impression upon her.
Her mother told her what the picture was and explained it to her. Josephine's reaction was to say that if only she could see the Holy Shroud she would get better.
A week after seeing the picture— on the Thursday after Easter—she became so ill that she was rushed to hospital.
On the following Thursday the picture was sent to her.
" No sooner had it arrived." said Group Captain Cheshire, " than she said she wanted to sit up. She was got up and sat in a wheel chair. then she said she wanted to go home. The doctor, seeing her so much better. let her go."
Hidden away
Moreover. the running sores with which she had been afflicted dried up. though she still had the marks.
The news came to Cheshire's Mission to Relieve Suffering. He went to see Josephine in her home in Brookthorpe, near Gloucester. When he arrived she had just returned after being taken out to the shops.
" She was by no means cured," he told us. " and she still wanted to go to see the Holy Shroud."
But, Cheshire explained to the reporters, the Holy Shroud is very seldom shown to anyone. It was exposed in 1931 and again in 1933 —during the Holy Year proclaimed by Pope Pius XI for. the 19th centenary of the Crucifixion.
Since then it has remained hidden in a casket in its shrine in the royal chapel beyond the high altar in Turin Cathedral.
Seeing the King
Permission to see it would have to be obtained from ex-King Umberto of Italy—the Holy Shroud belongs in the House of Savoy—from Rome and from the Cardinal Archbishop of Turin.
So Group Captain Cheshire and Josephine set out for Lisbon to see the King. Not only had her parents given their permission to Cheshire to take the child but
Josephine's doctor, when asked, said " You must take her."
They went by train because Cheshire's own doctor would not let him fly.
" King Umberto." he said, " received us with open arms— most charming. He was deeply impressed by Josie, and said he would give permission. But. he told us that it was practically impossible for the Archbishop of Turin to give permission. He said he would write a letter for us.
The Cardinal
" Had we arrived 12 hours later we would have missed the King: he went off to Switzerland the next day.
"We thought it would be a good idea to go to Lourdes, and we said some prayers there.
" We caught the same train as the King. His two daughters were with him and the two princesses came along and played matchsticks with Josie. She won, too. . . .
" At the frontier the King waved his hand and we were shot through the Customs without any inspection of our luggage.
" We could not speak Italian and I was wondering how we would get on when we reached Turin, However, at the station we found five men waiting to meet us. The King had sent them."
Cardinal Fossati saw them on the Thursday after they had set out —" everything happened on a Thursday." His Eminence had been given the letter from the King.
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