Looking back: ‘Cosmobile’ gets Commissioned

From February 1974

The Church’s ‘Cosmobile’, a caravan with a mission, is now on the road. It was commissioned by the Moderator, the Right Rev. Dr George Reid, at a blustery mid-January ceremony after the keys had been handed over by Mrs W.D. Hart, president of the Woman’s Guild.

The caravan is a mobile education unit, specially designed and equipped. Presented by the Guild and Young Mothers’ Groups to the Parish Education Committee it will be operated by the education field officer, the Rev John R. Lyall. It carries projectors, a tape recorder, literature, and publicity material and contains sleeping and cooking facilities.

Mr Lyall, described by the Moderator as a pioneer in a new kind of mission work, will take advice, encouragement, and training as well as the caravan’s practical facilities to all parts of Scotland. Shortly after the commissioning he was due to start many thousands of miles driving with an assignment in Alloa.

‘Cosmobile’, though paid for from the 1973 Guild project, is part of a major investment by the Parish Education Committee, which reckons the cost of their five-year plan for mobile education at about £30,000. The caravan itself (on a Ford chassis with a 2 ½ litre engine) cost £5,000 including equipment.

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