At the end of August 1907, Thomas Barratt came to Sunderland to start a campaign of meetings in the church hall at All Saints, Monkwearmouth. The meetings were quite small, and were overlooked by many for a while. The Sunderland Echo was still giving plenty of coverage of Pentecostal League meetings, at which Alexander Boddy was still speaking in September 1907, along with its founder Reader Harris and leading light Graham Scroggie. Gradually word began to filter out that something strange was occurring. Why, everybody is talking about them.
Women throw themselves on the floor and then babble in unknown tongues.
The reporter comments that the meetings are the one theme of conversation in the neighbourhood. These reports are interesting to read, because they sound very similar to some of things being said of meetings held in Sunderland 87 years later. Ha, ha, ha.' in a sing-song tone. The meetings were conducted in two sections - the second was intended just for people who were pursuing the Baptism in the Spirit, and onlookers were discouraged from attending this meeting, which often went on late into the night. Speaking in tongues was actually quite rare in the meetings.