Fred Lemon – Christian Preacher and Evangelist

Going Straight by Fred LemonFred Lemon is a man I’ll never forget.  In 1983 he was preaching at the Luis Palau “Mission to London”.  I remember this because I was in a big tent in Clapham Common listening to him tell his story.

Fred was an ex-prisoner and had accepted Jesus as Saviour when he met Him in his prison cell.  A few days earlier I had turned from atheism and accepted Jesus as my Saviour, but I hadn’t met Him in the way Fred Lemon had.  I was amazed at his story.  This man reinforced my decision to turn my back on atheism.  I wanted this Jesus that Fred told me about.

My friend, who had been instrumental in my conversion said that he had problems accepting Fred’s story.  I had no problem with it what-so-ever.  Jesus is alive, so why shouldn’t He appear to people if He chooses to?

Breakout by Fred Lemon

Nearly 30 years later, I still haven’t met Jesus in the way Fred met Him, not many do.  But I know Jesus, and I know that one day I am going to meet Him the way Fred did.  I’m looking forward to that day, but while I’m waiting I’ll serve Jesus with great joy here on earth.

What happened to Fred Lemon?

I have had a look on Google for more information about Fred Lemon, but there is very little to find. I can only presume that Fred is in paradise now. If you have any information about Fred I’d love to hear from you.

I am delighted that we now have a recording of Fred.
Fred Lemon at Great Wakering Evangelical Church in June 1988


Comments

Fred Lemon – Christian Preacher and Evangelist — 86 Comments

  1. Pingback: The Preachers' Blog · Cassette tapes and lemons

  2. I was a Prison Visitor at Dartmoor prison in 1959, and have quite a story to tell you about Fred Lemon. However it is a lengthy and remarkable story which I would like to send you as an attachment to an email. It is too long for the confines of this rather small blog. I am sure you will thrill to it, as I will in the retelling of it.. John J. Jones. Plymouth, Devon

    • I would love to read your story, Fred was my father and it would be nice to put what you have to say in our family history file on Dad, for his Great Grandchildren to read in years to come. If thats ok with you.
      God Bless you.
      June.

      • Hello June. I don’t know if this message board is still read, but I have rediscovered your dad’s books and I’m reading through them just now. My mam took me to hear Fred in the Town Hall in Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland…I think around the late 70s. Would anyone know the exact date? I’ve just listened to the recording of him on this page and it’s SO good to hear his voice. His prayers made a huge impression on this little boy.

        • Hello Neil, Thank you for taking the time to comment. Fred has had a huge impact on so many lives and it’s great to hear another testimony to this faithful servant of our Lord. Sadly his daughter June passed away some time ago. Although I never had the opportunity to meet her I understand that she was an amazing Godly lady and she is, of course, much missed by her family. – Vince

          • Thanks so much for getting back to me Vince. I’ve tried to download the recording from 1988, posted above but I’m unable to. Do you have any idea if any of his children are still alive? It’s great that memories are being rekindled. – Every blessing, N

    • I would really like to know the story of when Fred Lemon was introduced to Jesus by another man when they entered his prison cell.

      Thank you.

      David Gentle

    • Please could you send me the attachment regarding Fred Lemon, it was a book of Fred’s that led me to the Lord many years ago. I have often wondered what happened to Fred in his later years.

      God Bless,
      Denis Kirkham >

    • HI
      I remember meeting Fred in Aberdeen in the early eigthies when he came to speak at the a Police Christian event. I know it is some 4 years since you wrote your e mail, but if you have a copy of your account I would be so pleased to read it. What a remarkable servant of Jesus.

    • Please send me an attatcent of your story involving Fred on Dartmoor in 1959.His story effected myself and a friend of mine whilst we were at Teen Challenge Duns in a powerful way.

    • Please could you send me the attachment in an email. I knew Fred from the time I was a Member of the Methodist Central Hall in the 1950’s. I attended his funeral service in 1999. There were several Prison Chaplains and Prison Officers at the service some of whom testified to Fred’s great work with ex offenders and some prison inmates.

    • Hi John,
      I would like to read the story of Fred Lemon being introduced to Jesus by a spirit in Fred’s prison cell. Can you send it to me, please?
      With thanks and best wishes,
      David Gentle

  3. My Grandad, John Sams was good friends with Fred, He and my Grandma would do the music ministry at some of the meetings he held. I met him a number of times as a child but I don’t remember a lot although my Grandad still tells me stories of Fred and their meetings.

    • Hi June,

      Did your father, Fred Lemon, ever tell you re the story when he met Jesus in his prison cell? I understand that another man who came in with Jesus introduced him to Fred. If you know this story, I would be grateful if you would sent me details.

      Thank you,

      David Gentle

    • I have spoken about fred at huntercoume Prison where I believe he once preached I wold love to hear from you love jan

    • It is wonderful that your father got saved, did you?

      I do NOT believe that he met the Lord Jesus personally. The reaon is that NO such appearence is recorded in scripture. Paul’s experience was “a great light”, quite different from just meeting someone!

      Matthew 24 insists that the Lord’s coming will be something far more than him just coming into his cell or living room etc. So I do NOT believe this story.

      One big question I have, did all Fred’s children get saved? Also, which group of saints did he gather with, Baptists, Pentecostals, Brethren?

      I am very concerned about this issue as my mother in S. Devon believes the Lord visited her as well. I refuse her story.

      Kind regards,

      Jerry Mott

      • The Hebrew Scriptures in Genesis 18 says that YHVH appeared to Abraham at his tent. These 3 men are YHVH. That’s The Original Hebrew text.
        It is exactly the same experience that Fred Lemon had. God is Eternal & Sovereign He can certainly do in The New Covenant age what He did in the old.
        My own mother like yours has been visited by our Lord Jesus Christ, but The New Testament says it’s better to believe without having to have such a visitation!
        Jesus Christ is Lord! Trust in Him & let His love be shed in your heart freely.

      • Hi Jerry,

        the gospels record that Jesus appeared on several occasions after His resurrection. Luke says that He even ate broiled fish with the disciples. (Luke 24:36-43).

        Kenny Parker

      • Jeremy, if you are applying your own standards of an understanding of doctrine to this, you also have to understand that ‘we see through a glass darkly.’ None of us has a perfect understanding of scripture and the proof of the pudding is in the eating; Fred’s life was transformed until the day he died, as was his wife and children’s.

        The fact that Fred was temperate at home, successful in his ministry and did all this under the noses of many police officers over many years inclines me to believe his story, without doctrinal inhibitors. Who is anyone to say that The Lord can’t do something which he chooses which is, by the natural understanding ‘unorthodox’?

        The point about revelation is that it can be corporate or it can be private. But any new revelation from God, whether corporate or private, will not contradict the old. And I don’t believe that it does in Fred’s story, even though I never met him. I did read Breakout and Bittersweet even though it was many years ago. Fred’s account of his visitation lines up fairly well with the ‘theophany’ (pre-incarnate appearances of Jesus in the Old Testament) visits, such as Jesus Christ and two angels, just before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, when he appeared to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis Chapter 18. It also doesn’t appear out of line with Jesus’s first appearance to Paul in Acts chapter 9 either.

        Even to this day, Fred Lemon is being used by the Lord to touch hearts and lives. I hope that this has come across in a loving way because I am less than perfect, and perhaps the poorest of excuses for a Christian, but some people like Fred really do live the life. Whereas the Bible on its own might be a religious, cultural and/or even legal document, the Holy Spirit imbues the transformed believer with his grace, “Where the letter of the law kills but the Spirit gives life.”

    • I used to live in Southampton ,and perhaps you know my friends Bob & Collette Light? Christian outreach workers in Swaythling for some years now?
      I would love to you lunch and hear more about your dad sometime if you ever felt comfortable to meet and share fellowship. Your dads story braught me and my Irish mate to tears one afternoon reading part of it out loud together it spoke so clearly into our own lives and how much we needed and wanted the same transforming encounter with Jesus in our lives. Subsequently we both have experience just that since that day four years ago. I’m sure my mate Colin would second my applause of your Dads ministry and service to the Lord. I wish I couldv chatted to him in his fruit n veg shop about it all back in the day. Bless you. Simon Rivers sirivrrs@icloud.com

  4. I CAN REMEMBER WORKING AS A FORK LIFT DRIVER IN THE FRUIT AND VEG MARKETS IN SOUTHAMPTON,WHERE FRED USED TO BUY,FOR HIS SHOP.AS I ,D HAD A HARD CHILDHOOD,HE WAS ALWAYS THERE FOR ME …GOD BLESS WHAT AN AMAZING MAN

  5. Hi, I have just been talking to my mum about your dad’s book. My grandad read it many years ago and became a Christian through it, just before he died. My mum is reading it now and then will pass it on to me.

  6. I was a Met police officer and along with many officers, of all ranks, knew Fred as a friend. I stayed with him and Doris in their home in Southampton and he stayed with us in London. he was the same in the home as on the platform speaking. Though living in Australia when he went to be with his Lord I missed him and felt a sense of loss. One big, humble, genuine man of God.

  7. I was a bad lad in the mid eighties and was incarcerated in a boys home called North-brook School in Exeter, Fred came to give us a talk about his wayward life and his experiences as a convict, and the eventual realization that his life could change after the meeting with angels at his lowest time, in that hell hole they called Dartmoor. He touched my life that day and was a constant reminder to me that there could be a different path to be taken at my darkest times, I am 46 years old now with a beautiful family, a good job, and a future, and although the real catalyst for the change in my life is my wife, Kids, and hard work, I will never forget his story, God bless you Fred, I will never forget your name. I am not religious, but I believe in the power of people changing for the good, all we ever really want in life is love and happiness.

  8. My mum got to know Fred’s amazing sister, and we would pick her up every Sunday morning, in the early 1980s, to take her to church, as she lived 100 yards down the road from us in Woodford Green, Essex. Hers, too, became a wonderful testimony.

  9. I have just finished Freds book Breakout. What an amazing and beautiful book. I am hoping to read his others and as I understand his wife wrote a book too. This book is a hidden treasure and has really helped me.@June Lemon your dads faith is still touching lives today. Xx

    • David, yes Dad did tell me the story and he said the other two who came into the prison cell with Jesus were angels, the story is written in Dad’s books

    • I gave the book Breakout to the grandparents of a lad who had taken the wrong path and was incarcerated. I spoke to his grandma in church today but she doesn’t know if he ever read it. He came to his grandads funeral and I was able to tell him we are still praying for him! I too would love John Jones’ story about Fred if it is still availa ble. Thank you.

  10. I heard Fred share his testimony in 1979 whilst I was an inmate at Portland Borstal. On the 10th May 1984 I was converted to faith in Christ whilst in Stafford Prison. I remember Fred and his testimony of having seen Christ with his own eyes. I was a little doubtful of that possibility, until the day it pleased the Father to save me for Himself.

  11. I was a Prison Visitor at Dartmoor prison when Fred came to faith in Christ, and I can testify that prisoners and prison staff alike were amazed at the transformation that took place in his life. He really was a living testimony to the power of the risen Christ to change people’s lives. He spent a glorious weekend with my wife and I, and brought along two tear- aways who were running away from the police. Fred then took them back to his own home so that he could “tell them all about Jesus”. Christ was so real to Fred, and he was a living testimony to the change that faith in Christ can produce. I bow my head in gratitude to God for the day i first met Fred Lemon. John J. Jones

  12. I have some recordings of Fred preaching and praying. My Grandad gave them to me on tapes from his time with Fred. I can convert them to MP3 if anyone would like a copy, feel free to email me at dansams@live.com

  13. I met and heared Fred’s Testimony in The Glass house Colchester(1988),It brought me to realise my need for Jesus,it took a while for all of the lords plan to work through,as he’s still working today,but i’ll always be eternally greatful for Fred’s story and i’ve since given his Book to many people whom i’ve since had the pleasure to tell my testimony.
    Thanks for the news x

  14. Hi, I am Fred’s daughter and loved reading all your comments. My Dad went to his reward in 1999, he is still missed so much by me and all his family. So thankyou all for your lovely words.

  15. Hi, I became a Christian in May of 1987. Sometime in 1998, Fred came to Clacton on Sea and gave his testimony to a full house at the Princes Theatre in the Town Hall. Just before it started one of the choir who were also present, was taken ill and someone called an ambulance. I was in the Foyer where this happened and I can remember how upset, angry even, Fred was when he heard this. He said those who were Christians (there were a large number of local clergy present too)should have gathered round and laid hands upon the man and he would have been healed. I can remember the marked effect this had on me. Fred was a man of very strong conviction. He knew the Lord and wanted everyone else to come to believing faith in our Saviour. I know that many were converted that night after hearing Fred’s testimony. My condolences to those of you who are related to him, but without doubt, he is with his Lord and I look forward to seeing him again – in the Lord’s time. If anyone still has a copy of John’s Story – see entry on 3rd September 2013 – if possible. My email is peetahoward@gmail.com – Peter Howard

  16. iv heard about fred from my mentor Ron Simms.fred for worded Ron’s first book called flying free.
    it’s brought a tear or few (of Joy) to my eyes reading all these comments GOD BLESS YOU ALL. AND to Fred’s family he was a 1in a million dimond

  17. I’m sat without Ron Sims a friend and fellow preacher of Fred , were talking about Fred and I’m
    Just about to watch a video of Fred and Ron Preaching

    I’d like to get Fred and Rons books reprinted and back out there , I’d distribute them for free in the prisons

    Can Fred’s children give me the ok ?

    My email is
    Ceo@caap.org.uk

  18. Hi
    I remember buying a copy of Fred Lemons testimony in the early 80’s.
    It was in my early years of becoming a christian. I would buy copies of his tape and pass them around.
    His story really touched me.

    Does anyone know if the tape is still available. I have been looking for a copy but can;t find it anywhere on the net. I met Fred once at Greenbelt Christian arts festival in the early 80’s too. A wonderful humble brother. I would love to purchase a cpy of his tape again

  19. I was a Member of the Central Hall Methodist Church in Southampton in the 195’s when Fred came to join us with his wife Doris, We knew of his background and conversion. He worked for a while at the Joseph Rank Flour Mill in Southampton Docks before he became a greengrocer in Woolston. He was an amazing manned a wonderful Christian, I went to his funeral service in a little evangelical Church in Sholing in Southampton. He was faithful

  20. I had dinner and tea with Fred in 1987, all at Ron Sims house in Hartley Witney, with Gypsy John.
    Fred was speaking in the evening at Aldershot Kings Church (think it was Aldershot) I’ll never forget when Fred prayed, it was like Jesus was stood next to him. What a privelidge. An amazing man.

  21. I was 16 years , in segregation in a YOI. On 23 a day lock up. I pick a book up called Breakout , because I thought it would give me ideas on escaping . It certainly did that , but not in the way I imagined. No could believe the change in me , . I am like 50 now ,, I Still think of Fred , and I owe him so much .

  22. I had all his books and video of the tv programs. I lent them out but never got them back
    Does anyone have copies of the tv footage?
    His daughter spoke on them
    He was a big influence on many people

  23. ‘allo,

    I met Fred when he visited the old Ashford Remand Centre in Middlesex in May/June 1983. Rev Jay Ridley was the prison chaplain at the time. I wrote Fred after and was always faithful in replying to me. I was surprised much later that he included part of one my letters in Bitter Sweet. I last saw him in late 80’s in Crawley, West Sussex. Thank you to his grandson, Philip, for letting us know of his passing.

  24. Picked up a copy of the book Breakout today from
    a charity shop in Peterborough and it has an inscription and autograph from Fred on the inside cover.

    Started to read the book but thought I’d try and find a bit more info out about him too. This thread seems to be the only thing available except for links to purchase the book online.

    • Thank you to Daniel Sams for uploading the recorded messages from Fred Lemon. I’ve read two of his books and have always wanted to hear him speak but have never been able to– until now. Many thanks for taking the trouble.

  25. hi does anyone know if there is some footage of the tv show Fred and Doris did via k in the eighties I think could someone put it on utube, miracles do happen…. I love Fred And Doris’s testimonies, they both resonate the Lord, and I still have one of his books tucked under my arm most years, He was so biblical, can’t say enough about him and his work for the Lord so humble

  26. Fits perfectly with Genesis 18 YHVH appeared to Abraham as 3 men too. God is 3 persons.
    That’s what the original Hebrew says the 3 men they are YHVH .

  27. I didn’t know him personally but I remember when I was about 8 he use to bring fruit to West End church. Also remember him being very radical as he quite often to sing the last verse again on certain hymns! Amazing Grace use to be repeated and my father told me that he was a man who understood the words on that hymn.

  28. Met him at Filey & – as a young Christian – loved his unquenchable positive attitude. At a very, very early prayer meeting before the main events I remember him standing up & telling us all it didn’t matter whether we’d slept well or not, we’re going to worship our Saviour. It woke everyone out of slumber! Then heard his testimony when he visited Solihull. Many thought he was bonkers, but his story affected me & changed a lot of things for the better in me. Look forward to seeing him over eternity!!

  29. I purchased a copy of Bitter Sweet from World of Books. Read many years ago, but wanted to reread. Came today 30/12 and when I opened it there is a dedication in it dated 2/7/88 to Sister Avril and signed by Fred. Really made up.

  30. Fred Spoke at a meeting in Essex when the choir I belonged to called The Praise Singers were part of the programme. I have never forgot the wonderful way he would break from what he was saying and said “I’ve just got to speak to the Lord” Then he would start to pray the most wonderful simple and straight from the heart prayers. No fancy words, just things he thought he needed to bring to the Lord on that evening. Then he would carry on with his talk. I thought if only people would realise that this is the way to pray and talk to our heavenly father. I’ve never forgotten that evening. What a wonderful humble, down to earth simple man who was in love with His Saviour and not afraid to show it. If that story someone mentioned is still available I too would love a copy. It has been a joy reading all the comments and how blessed his family were to have him as part of his life. Mrs Norma Huxter from Halstead Essex.

    • Have been sorting out the contents of a dear friend Mary Clarke, wife of Rev Charles Clarke who knew Fred well. In the flat we have found a cassette tape of the Braintree Praise Singers with Fred Lemon. That was the Gt Wakering Evangelical Church Anniversary Service 11th June 1988. It was lovely hearing Fred and the special way he talked to Jesus. He did not give his testimony that evening but invited people back to a meeting the following day when he would share his testimony. Does anyone have a recording of that please?

      Not sure how to make a copy of the cassette we hold but will investigate in case anyone would like to listen. Phil and Marian Westlake, Guildford

    • I came across this site by accident whilst scrolling for Fred’s books and it was with great joy to see all the people affected by Fred’s testimony, and hear from his extended family.
      I first met Fred as a young bobby on joining the Hampshire branch of the Christian Police Association.
      With his good friend Bill Thorne, a retired traffic policeman, he used to travel out to churches over the south coast, he would preach and witness and Bill would sing.
      I had the privilege to accompany them on occasions and was held spellbound by his stories of the Lords work in his life.
      I went to Filey a number of times on the CPA team and Fred would turn up with his grandsons to the holiday convention.
      After I was married Hazel and I would accompany Bill and Fred on their preaching trips, Bill and Hazel would sing while Fred gave the word.
      Some time later I picked Fred up from his house in Shirley and we took him to our church at Ringwood and after lunch in the garden, our daughters sat at his feet enthralled at his words on a faithful God.
      It was a real privilege to know Fred and his story, and Hazel and I were truly blessed to know such a wonderful man and it is a joy to hear the ways his witness impacted many other peoples lives.
      Can we send our love to his family and look forward to the day we will see him again.

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