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A Corporate Act of Prayer
Members of the Society are encouraged to join together in saying the following Collect
at the same time in their own homes, at 10.00 p.m. each Sunday evening.
THE COLLECT OF THE SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITYO LORD, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend
thy Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy
succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness; through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
© The Prayer Book Society 2011.
Individual articles are © the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
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appropriate reprographics rights organization
Issue No 27 · Michaelmas 2011 ISSN 1479-215X
THE PBS JOURNAL
Editorial Board:
Trevor Butler
Charles Cleall
Prudence Dailey
The Revd William Doyle
Professor Watson Fuller
Anthony Kilmister
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Front cover:
Evensong in the Nave, with Chichester
Cathedral Choir
Picture courtesy of Chichester Cathedral
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Publication date:
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Editorial 3
The Importance of Evensong Alan Wilson 6
Evensong, the most used part of the Book of Common Prayer and largely untouched by the liturgical
reforms of the past 40 years is the subject of Bishop Alan Wilson’s contribution in this issue. His
article reflects how Evensong continues to inspire and support some of our culture’s most
sophisticated musical endeavours.
The Formative Role of the Book of Common Prayer (part 2) Jeff Astley and Bridget Nichols 8
In the second part of their article the authors raise some challenging questions, forcing us to come
out and say in what way does the Prayer Book engage a Christian community in their faith?
The Prayer Book I Own Jane Moth 13
PBS member Jane Moth shares her memories of the value of the BCP from childhood to the present
day. Like so many lovers of the Prayer Book she has found it of great comfort.
ALSO IN THIS ISSUEConference Report 14
Letters 20
Book Review 23
News from the Branches 24
3
Contents
Corrigendum In the last issue, we stated that
the BCP ‘iPray’ iPhone app was
developed by the Prayer Book
Society of Canada. This was not
correct: the app was, in fact,
designed in the USA, and was
the brainchild, not of the Prayer
Book Society, but of Mr David
Hill from Oklahoma City. Mr
Hill and his wife, Shannon, say
Morning and Evening Prayer on
a daily basis with their six
children, and realised that such
an app would make this more
convenient.
Is your church preparing for the 350th
anniversary celebrations of the 1662 Book of
Common Prayer in 2012? This is a wonderful
opportunity to highlight the BCP (our national
book of prayer). Do make use of the Society’s
network of Branches in each of the dioceses. Ask
your clergy what plans they have to mark this very
special anniversary in your parish church, school
and within your community. It is hoped that every
parish in the country will stage a series of
additional BCP services some time in 2012 to
mark the occasion. Let your community know
what you are doing. Consult this site
www.bcp350.com it will give you more
information of this very special event in the life of
the Church.
I warmly welcome the comments by The Rt.
Revd Jonathan Gledhill Bishop of Lichfield, urging
a return to Morning Prayer and Matins, which he
believes will help stem the decline in church
attendance. There is a lot of truth in what he says.
I do hope members of the General Synod and
Liturgical Commission are listening.
What does the BCP do for you?
This is a question we should all be asking ourselves
and not leaving it to the clergy. Let it be known that
you want more Prayer Book services. Bring the
BCP alive in your community and it will bring the
community to life. Because of the spiritual nature
of its impact on listeners, the memorable words of
the BCP can help build up faith. Take godly action
and the Holy Ghost will do the rest. Be ready in a
spirit of love to use the Prayer Book and help avoid
any further fracture of Anglican brokenness. The
PBS is willing and able to provide support in your
efforts to promote the BCP in your community.
If the brokenness facing the church today is not
healed, more people will experience the bitter
taste of the fruits of apostasy and division. With
largesse God has provided a banquet of spiritual
food to revive the human spirit, but this generous
gift has not always been acknowledged or is often
refused. Indeed, a conspiracy of interruption has
caused men to give less time to seeking God and to
pray; many minds have become polluted by the
desire for secular gains. But it is not too late. If men
will change their hearts and turn to God, His
teachings reveal that He will deal mercifully with
all. Let the BCP guide you. It is still a light shining
in a dark place.
Numerous factors influence faith and going to
church, but none as searching as the growing
influence of postmodernity (a puzzling reality
indeed). A number of people seem to be held sway
by it. There is then the widespread use of
computers which has invaded our space, yet at the
same time enhanced the free diffusion of a wealth
of knowledge. We live in an intellectual and
spiritual marketplace, reasonably accessible, but
lacking teachers and collective wisdom,
interpretation becomes a private matter. There is
the danger that this leaves out a relationship with
the divine and so people focus on this life only.
Society may be embroiled in postmodernity, but
those who love God know that the word of the
Lord ‘endures forever’ and no amount of the
multilayered concepts of post-modernism is going
to change that.
If the BCP is not to be side-lined any further and
the Christian disciple is not to get side-tracked by
today’s market forces, there is only one answer:
focus on God’s redemptive design – the Cross -
which leads the aspirant to God and through this
revelation learn of the deeper meaning of God’s
love: the soul’s true joy.
William Doyle
Editorial
4
Buy a copy of the Book of Common
Prayer for only £5!
In order to increase the availability of Prayer Books to
individuals and to help ensure that no-one wishing to
purchase a copy is deterred by the cost, the Society has
agreed to make single copies of the standard pew
edition available through PBS Trading at a subsidised
cost of £5 (normal price £8.30). The books are available
with your choice of red, blue or black cover, and can be
obtained by contacting the PBS office (contact details
inside front cover).
Please note that this offer is available for a maximum
of one copy of the standard pew edition per person; if
you wish to purchase more than one copy, the standard
price of £8.30 applies. (If you are buying large numbers
of copies, e.g. for use in a parish church, a bulk discount
may be available; please contact the PBS office for
details.)
Article omitted because online copyright expired.
6
The Importance of EvensongAlan Wilson
7
Plans are well advanced for a raft of celebrations
to mark the 350th anniversary of the 1662
Book of Common Prayer; not only the
Church’s founding liturgy but also its official
doctrine.
Nationally, the Society is delighted to announce
that one of the highlights of next year’s celebration
will be a service of Evensong in St Paul’s Cathedral
with our Ecclesiastical Patron, the Bishop of London,
at 5.00 p.m. on Wednesday, 2nd May 2012, followed
by a reception in the crypt. It is hoped that our
Patron, HRH The Prince of Wales, will be present to
make it a really special occasion.
Details of how to attend the public service and
purchase tickets to the grand reception will be sent
to all members in due course. We look forward to
seeing as many of you as possible there to join with
us in celebrating such an important year for the Book
of Common Prayer and for our Society. Please save
the date in your 2012 diaries, and spread the word
to others who may be interested in coming.
The special anniversary website
(www.bcp350.org) continues to be popular, with
new pages being added as we approach the start of
2012 celebrations around the country. There are now
links to social media sites: Facebook, and Twitter
(where we are @bcp350). Please ‘like us’ and ‘follow
us’, as the terminology goes, if you are active on
these networks and encourage others to do the same
as it is the perfect way for the Society to reach out to
a new audience and spread its message further.
Recently added to the website, under the
growing Supporters Page, are contributions from
both archbishops. Dr Williams speaks of the BCP as ‘a
profoundly valuable inheritance which we neglect at
our peril’, while Dr Sentamu prays that the Prayer
Book will ‘challenge us afresh to express the love and
grace of God, His glory and holiness, in words and
in forms which are worthy of the Gospel.’
We are receiving news almost weekly of events
being arranged by Branches. Full details are on the
PBS website and our Facebook page along with
information about the many cathedrals and parishes
which are also arranging their own festivities for the
2012 anniversary.
A specially-commissioned booklet has been
produced, telling the story of the BCP and its role in
defining not only the English language around the
globe, but also culture. The 18-page, full-colour,
publication has a cover price of £3.50 and will be
available from Copyhold Farm by late October. This
will be sent to all clergy listed in Crockford’s and
given away, free, at various events throughout the
year including the Christian Resources Exhibition
and at St Paul’s.
To accompany the booklet the Society is creating
a travelling exhibition. The series of lively panels has
already been promised space in many prominent
places, and will be widely seen throughout 2012. We
are discussing various venues including Lambeth
Palace Library.
Our Press Officer, Trevor Butler, is co-ordinating
much of the 2012 activity and would be delighted to
hear of your plans so he can promote them via the
websites and through press releases. His email is
pr@pbs.org.uk and evening telephone number
01444 239407.
350th Anniversary Commemorations
In the first part of this article (published in the last issue) we
raised a question about the power of liturgy to form Christian
worshippers.
PART 2
But does it work?
In the first part of this article (published in the last
issue) we raised a question about the power of
liturgy to form Christian worshippers. There is
little empirical research to help us in this area,1
although many assertions abound. In particular,
most agree that the Prayer Book models a
spirituality of obedience, penitence and self-
examination. It also facilitates a deep awareness of
the cross as central to salvation. It recalls for those
already baptised that ‘baptism doth represent unto
us our profession, which is to follow the example
of our Saviour Christ and be made like unto him.’
But what else does it do in terms of creating,
deepening and engaging a Christian community in
their faith?
Readers of this journal are likely to have strong
views on this topic, reflecting their own
experience and that of fellow worshippers. We
don’t want to disparage such ‘anecdotal evidence’.
Perhaps the Prayer Book Society itself should
gather this evidence, or even institute a more
scientific survey of the formative power of this
text. Such an enquiry might begin by asking what
aspects of Christian formation the Prayer Book
particularly effects. Reflections on this question
may lead to others: What sort of God does it
portray and celebrate? What sort of society and
Church does it endorse or assume? In a word,
what and how do we learn through praying with
the Prayer Book?
There are criticisms that those who answer such
questions need to bear in mind. How ‘common’ is
‘common prayer’? Does it still serve as an all-
embracing liturgy; or is it now (as its critics claim)
a middle class, family-unfriendly form of worship,
expressing an individualistic and moralistic
spirituality—and one that is too heavy on
listening, and too light on congregational speaking
and movement? Does its language still provide the
deepest and richest expression of what the
worshipper believes, and is it the idiom best able
to evoke it?
In 1985, Faith in the City, a Church of England
Report on Urban Priority Areas, suggested that
inner city communities, living in poverty and
often having a low level of literacy, benefited more
from a style of worship that reflected local culture
and communicated ‘through feeling rather than
the mind, through non-verbal communication
rather than verbal’. Such worship would be ‘more
informal and flexible in its use of urban language,
vocabulary, style and content’.2
Leaving aside the deeply patronising
assumptions of these well-intentioned proposals,
they reveal a startlingly limited view of the human
capacity to grasp complicated ideas. Religious
language, by which we mean not only words but
also gestures and choreography, is doing its job
properly when it engages the whole person,
finding its way to the intellect via the body and the
imagination. Success is not related to the antiquity
or contemporariness of the words and movements
which frame our prayers. Thus worshippers might
enter deeply into the picture of themselves as a
feudal household serving a benevolent and
protective master painted by the Prayer Book
collect for the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity:
‘Lord, we beseech thee to keep thy household the
Church in continual godliness . . . .’
When confronted in Common Worship on the
Second Sunday before Lent with a post-
communion prayer rich in the kind of imagery
that the compilers of the Prayer Book would not
The Formative Role of the Book
of Common PrayerJeff Astley and Bridget Nichols
1 cf. Robert Cotton and Kenneth Stevenson, On the Receiving End, London: Mowbray, 1996
2 General Synod of the Church of England, Faith in the City, London: Church House Publishing, 1985, p. 135
8
Thou also shalt light my candle: the Lord myGod shall make my darkness to be light.
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10
have used, they might find themselves just as
profoundly caught up, yet by a very different
linguistic and literary appeal:
God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the
earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your
Church . . . .
The domestic and the mystical both exert their
claim on us, as do the familiar and the new. A
generation of worshippers who regularly
experience not only a variety of Eucharistic
prayers, but also a variety of seasonal proper
prefaces, will have their imaginations seized by a
series of beautiful retellings of the story of
salvation impossible in the Prayer Book Order for
Holy Communion. Yet a Prayer Book congregation
will find itself lingering time and again over the
mysterious nature of what they hear week by
week. Do we really find that ‘the burden of [our
sins] is intolerable’? What is that special and
precise characteristic of a God ‘whose property is
always to have mercy’, even when we know and
admit that we are unworthy creatures? What does
it mean to go away from the celebration assured
‘that we are very members incorporate in the
mystical body of [God’s] Son, which is the blessed
company of all faithful people’?
These examples do not even begin to take
account of the effect of worship songs and
projected images on those whose practice of
worship is not primarily governed by a text. What
they hope to indicate, however, is that to think of
the Prayer Book mainly as a repository of dignified
and beautiful language is to reduce it to a single
dimension, and almost wilfully to fossilise it.
Worship comes to life and reveals its potential to
form its participants, when it is performed.
On occasion, it can be extremely valuable to
reconstruct a historic rite in a building which
would have seen it enacted at an earlier period of
history. The Sarum Mass celebrated in an eleventh-
century parish church with proper reverence,
chants of the late Middle Ages, and good
preliminary explanation may carry a modern
congregation back to its earlier roots without
losing its devotional integrity. At the other end of
the spectrum, the 1552 Order of Communion in a
church with a surviving wooden communion
table set lengthwise in the nave or chancel,
whitewashed walls, and the priest in a surplice at
the north end can induct a congregation
powerfully into an austere yet intently focused
Eucharistic spirituality, with all the trappings of
image and colour stripped away from the central
gathering in obedience to Christ’s command.
But performance is not neutral. We noted earlier
the claims that have at various times been made for
the authentic intention of the Prayer Book and
indeed its rite has been inflated to resemble the
Roman Missal and deflated to look like the plainest
of Protestant documents. The use of gesture,
music, vestments, processions, images, incense
and candles can turn a Prayer Book service into
something that rivals Rome at its best. But where
the dress is surplice and stole, the church is
whitewashed, and the celebrant ‘north ends’, it
might seem and indeed would be an entirely
different creature. Both ways of performing the
rite express and therefore ‘teach’ something, but
there is little common ground between what is
taught in the two cases. Knowledge of our
traditions, of where we have come from, can make
sense of what we do and connect us in prayerful
continuity with those from whom we have
inherited our faith.
Something has gone badly wrong, however,
when the interpretation of the rite is being used to
enforce a set of interests that has little to do with
worship as the best offering of our best selves to
God, and a great deal to do with establishing our
rightness against the errors of others. Equally,
something has gone wrong when a practice is
adopted in order to teach a principle, and then
proves to be working against itself by sending
contradictory messages. Thus the practice of
‘gathering round the altar’ may be adopted
because it is hoped that this will ‘show that God is
in the centre of human concerns and that we are
all joined one to another’: the circle being seen as
‘communitarian and democratic’ whereas ranks of
eastward-facing worshippers imply ‘authority and
externality’. However:
the line facing east may just as well signify
open-endedness. A priest with his back to
the congregation may signify that both he
and they are subject to the divine
transcendence and judgement. Equally the
circle has symbolic disadvantages: the
people of God are all turned inward with
their backs to the world. If they are a circle,
how can they be en marche, en route? They have
lost their orientation and the external point
of reference to which they may move and to
which all things tend.1
Or so David Martin claims—plausibly, perhaps,
but without the benefit of rigorous, evidence-
based research.
Promoters of the Book of Common Prayer need
to be able to answer this final question: What
would really be lost from the Church’s Christian
formation if we lost the learning power released in
and through the prayer and worship that this book
provides? Is anything comparable to be found in
its successors, whose formational intention has
been very clearly articulated? Readers of this
journal may feel that they are in the best position
to provide a convincing answer.
The Revd Professor Jeff Astley is Director of the North of
England Institute for Christian Education, and an honorary
professor at Durham University. Dr Bridget Nichols is Lay
Chaplain to the Bishop of Ely, and Chairman of the Society for
Liturgical Study. She has recently been appointed to the
Liturgical Commission.
1 David Martin, The Breaking of the Image, Oxford: Blackwell, 1980, p. 98
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11
Continuum - winner of the 2011 IPG Independent Publishing Awards: Independent Publisher of the Year and Academic & Professional Publisher of the Year
The Book of Common Prayer: Past, Present and FutureA 350th Anniversary Celebration
Edited by Prudence Dailey - Chairman of the Prayer Book Society
Foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales
The words of The Book of Common Prayer have worked their way deeply into the hearts and minds of English-speaking people, second only to the English Bible and the works of Shakespeare. This collection of essays seeks not only to explore and commemorate the Book of Common Prayer’s influence in the past but also to commend it for present use, and as an indispensable part of the Church’s future — both as a working liturgy and as the definitive source of Anglican doctrine.
Publishing Septe £12.99 (plus p&p)
Please order from PBS Trading Ltd on the order form included, Code 715
Independent Publisher of the
Continuum - winner of the 2011 IPG Independent Publishing ear YYear Independent Publisher of the and
- winner of the 2011 IPG Independent Publishing rofessional Publisher of the Academic & P
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13
The Prayer Book I OwnJane Moth
Recently, at an antiques fair, I was intrigued by
two copies of the Book of Common Prayer,
both in immaculate ivory covers, each
bearing an inscription dated during the First World
War. One wonders about their owners and what the
Prayer Books meant to them. I acquired my copy of
the Book of Common Prayer at the age of sixteen. The
purpose of this article is to describe how the copy
came into my possession and the importance it has
had in my life in the forty plus years since then.
Like many of my contemporaries in the late 1950s,
I attended a Church of England Primary and Junior
School where the Rector made weekly Friday
morning visits and the Ten Commandments and the
Catechism were learned by heart. My parents were
believers, but not regular church goers. I recall that
we had a Bible in the house but certainly there was
no copy of the Prayer Book. As a child, I was happily
packed off to the local Methodist Sunday School each
Sunday afternoon but in adolescence I liked to go to
the Evensong in the parish church, whose graveyard
backed on to our garden. The beauty of the language,
the solemnity, the calm, all drew me in and made me
feel that I had found a ‘home’, though I was never
confirmed.
My mother, who was born in 1913, had me at the
age of 40, so even as a small child I accepted that my
mother’s friends were several generations removed
from me. One of these friends, Doris, ran the corner
sweet shop so I knew her all my life. When she
retired, I liked to go and visit her and hear her tales
of seeing Pavlova dance and Ferrier sing. Best of all to
listen to her word perfect recitals of the Abdication
Speech and Portia’s ‘The quality of mercy is not
strained’. Doris knew that I liked books and she must
have sensed that I had a respect for history and the
beauty of language. One day she disappeared into the
morning room and came back with a small book.
‘Have this,’ she said, ‘I know you will look after it.’ So
into my hands came the small black bound book
entitled ‘Common Prayer’, its pages brightly gilt
edged. Opposite the title page was an inscription in
brown ink:
This Prayer Book was used on the occasion of
the marriage of Francis Herbert Gordon Poole
and Martha Elizabeth Fenton on 22nd August
1906 and was presented to the bride and
groom by G. T. Birch (Rector) after the service
in St Mary’s Church, Bucknall.
So this was the Prayer Book that had been used at
the marriage of her parents-in-law. The same Rector
would later preside at my parents’ marriage in 1934.
Lengthy incumbencies seem to have been the norm
then.
I won’t pretend that the Prayer Book was my
regular study during the 1970s and 1980s, so it
remained in its pristine condition. Then in the
1990s, I found myself drawn to my then local parish
church, St James in Daisy Hill, near Bolton; a fine arts
and crafts church where the welcome was as warm
as the red brick. I’m sure that many readers will
recognise the importance of a good priest. How can
we fail to respond to well-ordered Prayer Book
services, crisp and intelligent preaching. So in time I
became a candidate for Confirmation and was
confirmed in 2000 and my Prayer Book came with
me to the service.
Since then, it has gone to church with me Sunday
by Sunday. I have read the commendatory Prayer for
a sick person at the point of departure at the bedside
of my dying mother. It has been my stay and comfort
when dear friends have died; I have taken it joyfully
to family weddings, including one at St Mary’s
Church where the story started. Anxious times, for
me and for others, have been greatly relieved by
reading and re-reading a Prayer for persons troubled
in mind or in conscience, and who cannot find joy
and consolation, in reading the Collects. The one for
the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity ‘Almighty and
everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear
than we pray,’ is a particular favourite because I think
it is all-encompassing and says what I suspect many
of us feel.
Does it seem wrong to say that a service conducted
from the Book of Common Prayer is a pleasure? I
hope not. Most recently, I attended a memorable
Evensong at Plumstead Church in Norfolk at the end
of an enchanting afternoon of church visiting
organised by the Round Tower Churches Society. It
was Palm Sunday and I felt transported back to the
Evensongs I had known and valued in my youth.
Shaking hands with the Vicar, he was heard to say,
‘We’re old fashioned here, but we don’t intend to
change.’ Well, my copy of the Prayer Book is old,
rather battered now, but I don’t intend to change it
either.
14
Prayer Book Society Annual Conference 2011
Prudence Dailey
This year’s Annual Conference took place in
mid-September at Chester College, founded
in 1839 as a Church of England Teacher
Training College but now part of the University of
Chester. The College chapel was built by some of
the early students with their own hands, and
proved to be an attractive venue for the many
Prayer Book services permeating the long weekend
of the Conference.
Following Evening Prayer, the Friday evening
speaker was the Rural Dean of Chester, the Revd Dr
Mark Hart, who is also the Chairman of the
Society’s Chester Branch. In an address
provocatively entitled ‘Here endeth the order of
Morning Prayer?’, he emphasised that the purpose
of a daily office is to hold us and keep us present
to God in prayer rather than to provide continual
interest and stimulation. The lack of variety in the
Prayer Book offices meant that they had the
capacity to be internalised, and it was then up to
God—rather than to the office itself—to provide a
sense of experience.
After dinner, the evening closed with Compline.
Saturday began with Morning Prayer and then,
after breakfast, the Revd Dr David Pym, a retired
priest with a number of published works on
literature and theology, covered the development
of the Litany from pre-Reformation times to 1662
(and beyond). He noted that Cranmer had drawn
on a number of sources from John Chrysostom to
Luther, but his main source had been the Sarum
Rite, with the many references to the saints
removed.
The conference then heard from the Revd John
Masding, canon lawyer, Chairman of the English
Clergy Association and Trustee of the Prayer Book
Society, who outlined some of the legal rights of
PCCs in relation to the use of the Book of Common
Prayer. In a talk full of amusing anecdotes, he also
said that the Book of Common Prayer was part of
an entire package with a legal background, and
that the credibility of supporters of the Prayer
Book depended on observing the law.
Saturday afternoon was taken up with the
necessary business of the Annual General Meeting,
John Scrivener (left) prepares to introduce Mark Hart
David Pym delivering his address
John Masding expands his point
after which Evensong no doubt provided light
relief. The service was sung by a visiting choir,
Accidental Baroque, and the Senior winner of the
2011 Cranmer Awards Finals, Phoebe Griffith,
beautifully read the second lesson. The Archdeacon
of Chester, the Ven Dr Michael Gilbertson,
preached a sermon concluding with the General
Thanksgiving which was, he said, his favourite
prayer.
The after-dinner speaker was the Revd Canon
Eric Woods, Vicar of Sherborne Abbey in Dorset
and a former Trustee of the PBS. He spoke on the
theme ‘A Parson’s lot’ which, for him, was
evidently a happy (if eventful) one. Compline
again rounded off the day.
On Sunday, following an early Holy Communion
service followed by breakfast, Professor David
Wulstan was the final speaker of the Conference. As
well as being professor of music at Cork and then
Aberystwyth, he was also visiting professor in
Near Eastern Studies at the University of
California, Berkeley, and his address on the Psalms
and Anglican chanting owed as much to his
interest in Semitic philology as to his musical
knowledge. Professor Wulstan’s address was
probably the first ever at a Prayer Book Society
conference to incorporate singing by the speaker!
Matins and Litany provided a fitting end to the
Conference, which was noted by a number of
participants to have had an especially friendly
atmosphere. Thanks are owed to all those who
made it possible, especially to Rosemary Hall for
organising the Conference; Peter Bolton for
arranging the programme and dealing with last-
minute hitches; and Nikki Sales for managing the
ever-popular PBS Trading Bookstall.
Prudence Dailey is Chairman of the Prayer Book Society
15
THE COLLEGEOF READERS
An organisation to provide members withsupport and fellowship, especially those whosubscribe to the authority of Scripture, thegrace of the sacraments and the traditionalunderstanding of the ordained ministry.
There is a quarterly magazine, “Blue Scarf”,occasional publications on aspects of Readerministry, a national AGM and meetings in theregions. Membership costs £10 annually.
Contact Mary Snape for further information. Tel 01782 332606;
mesnape@yahoo.co.uk
www.college-of-readers.org.uk
Conference-goers prepare for worship in the College chapel
16
At the Annual General Meeting in September, the
Revd Dr Roger Beckwith and Mr Ian Robinson
retired from the Board of Trustees (although Dr
Beckwith continues as a Vice-President of the
Society). We are most grateful to both of them for
their valuable contribution.
The following were elected to the Board of
Trustees to fill the resulting vacancies:
Mr Paul Meitner, 51, is the new Regional Trustee
for the South East Region (replacing the Revd Paul
Thomas who remains on the Board as Deputy
Chairman, but has relinquished his Regional
responsibilities). A qualified Chartered Accountant
and member of the PBS for five years, Paul Meitner
has been actively involved as Vice Chairman and
Treasurer of the London & Southwark Branch for
the last two years. At Edinburgh University he read
Economics and Economic History and on
graduation joined Deloitte Haskins & Sells, later
incorporated into PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP
(PwC), where he qualified as a Chartered
Accountant in 1986. He currently works in the
Business Recovery Services division of PwC,
specialising in solvent liquidations and group
reorganisations, as well as advising charities and
companies in the not for profit sector. Outside
work he has been a Churchwarden at Holy Trinity,
Prince Consort Road, South Kensington (near the
Albert Hall) for the last six years, which included
two interregna with no resident Priest in Charge.
He is also Treasurer and a Trustee of Music in
Prisons, a registered charity that provides music
training and workshops to inmates at UK prisons.
Mr David Richardson, 67, has been a member of
the PBS since 2006 and has served as Vice
Chairman of the Carlisle Branch since 2009. He is
Churchwarden of Kendal Parish Church.
His career was in higher education, first in
administration and later in fundraising. He was a
member of staff of the University of Manchester
for over thirty years. Posts which he held included
those of Deputy Registrar, Academic Secretary and
Secretary to the University Foundation. He was
one of the initial Directors of the University’s
support foundation in the USA, and has a track
record of success in securing major gifts. He
continued in a post-retirement role with the
University, as Senior Development Fellow in the
Division of Development and Alumni Relations,
until earlier this year.
He has extensive experience in charity
governance at both national and local level. He has
been a member of the Board of Trustees of the
Alzheimer’s Society since 2006 and chairs the
Board’s advisory group on fundraising. He is
much in demand as a speaker on behalf of the
Society. He is currently Chairman of the Cumbria
Council for Voluntary Service, and is also a
Director of South Lakes Housing.
New Trustees David Richardson (left) and Paul Meitner (right)
Hail and Farewell
PBS Chairman Prudence Dailey with retiring Trustees Ian
Robinson (left) and Roger Beckwith (right).
Welcome back, John!
Following an open recruitment process, we are
pleased to announce the appointment of Mr John
Service to the part-time post of Prayer Book
Churches and Clergy Co-ordinator, to help develop
the Society’s work with churches and clergy
having a particular commitment to the Book of
Common Prayer.
John will be well-known to many in the
Society, having previously held various offices,
including as Honorary Treasurer for a number of
years, and subsequently as a Trustee and the
Society’s voluntary Chief Executive. He was
responsible for establishing an administrative
office in his home in Goring Heath (which, when
it was subsequently deemed necessary to have
separate premises, moved to the nearby Copyhold
Farm in order to enable our experienced part-time
office staff to be retained). John subsequently lost
contact with the Society, and we are delighted to
have him back on board, bringing with him a
wealth of experience and enthusiasm.
Anyone wishing to get in touch with John can
find his contact details in the inside front cover of
the magazine.
17
18
The Marketing and Communications Committee
agreed that the Society should attend the Christian
Resources Exhibition (CRE)— the country’s major
Christian exhibition—taking place at Sandown
Park from 10th–13th May 2011, with a view to
promoting the 1662 BCP’s forthcoming 350th
anniversary.
An evangelical clergyman sympathetic to the
Prayer Book’s values, and who has considerable
marketing expertise, was enlisted to advise on
display materials, special literature, promotional
give-aways and the key messages to be promoted.
He recommended emphasis be put on the BCP’s
solid Biblical connection and to focus on key facts,
including that the BCP is used for thousands of
services each week, that it contains services for
every occasion, that it the foundational doctrinal
document of Anglicanism, and that it is all
available online on the Church of England website.
He also suggested featuring some immediately
recognisable phrases which come from the BCP.
Fabric panels were created to ‘dress’ the exhibition
stand where we handed out promotional
bookmarks with key bullet-points about the BCP
on the reverse (rather than leaflets, which people
often just throw away), and gave
away small packets of mints
suitably emblazoned with the
message ‘The 1662 Book of Common
Prayer: Still in mint condition after 350
years’. All were well received.
Snapshots from two of the days at CRE:
Tuesday: The exhibition’s opening day...
our modest stand, located in ‘publishing
corner’ alongside SPCK and CUP, was
quickly full of literature stands, tables
and chairs and the first day provided some
serious supporters who wanted to linger
and discuss the finer points of the BCP.
The Society Press Officer, Trevor Butler,
noticed that there was a considerably
larger and unoccupied stand on a main
thoroughfare through the Surrey Hall. Swift negotiation with
the exhibition organisers allowed the PBS to move, lock stock
and barrel, ready for the start of day two. The recent launch of
the App for the Prayer Book on the move was warmly received
and our Chairman used her own iPhone to demonstrate it to
several interested parties.
Thursday: Our much busier position meant that many moregracefully accepted information about the Society along withtheir pack of 350th anniversary mints and commemorativeCranmer bookmark. Several new members were recruited,including one from South Africa, and the stand staff met manyold friends. The free wallcharts proved immensely popular andCopyhold Farm had to send fresh supplies. Back numbers of boththe Journal and Faith and Worship were taken by interestedparties, while sales of merchandise were steady, with the 1549and 1552 Prayer Books of Edward VI among the most popularitems, along with the Matins CD. Several clergy stopped by andwere persuaded to mark the anniversary in their churches.
Over the four days of the exhibition we engagedwith hundreds of potential supports whom weotherwise would not have reached. This was downto the diligent work of the volunteers whomanned the stand, including a clergy PBS membereach day. We look forward to repeating the exercisein 2012.
The PBS at the ChristianResources Exhibition
PBS Chairman Prudence Dailey encourages a visitor to celebrate the BCP 350th
anniversary in 2012
Working for a Biblical
Church of England
Church Society exists to promote and encourage biblical faithfulness in the Church
of England. We aim to do this through:
Publishing, Patronage, Campaigning
Church Society publishes the magazine Cross†Way and the journal Churchman, as well as
publishing literature on current issues. Church Society Trust is patron of 118 churches.
We seek to be a voice for biblical Anglicanism
as issues in the church and nation arise.
For more details please contact: Church Society, Dean Wace House,
16 Rosslyn Road, Watford, WD18 ONY Tel. 01923 235111 Fax. 01923 800362
admin@churchsociety.org
www.churchsociety.org
LettersMay I heartily commend the Chairman’s excellent
article ‘Prayer Book Weddings: not just for Royalty’
in the Trinity edition of the PBS Journal. It so
succinctly describes the battle I am having with my
Diocesan management who seem to think the very
mention of the possibility of offering any
‘traditional’ wedding service to prospective couples
immediately involves the ‘fornication, brute beasts
and carnal lusts’ theme. I am struggling with my
Benefice administration to even have ‘there are
alternatives to Common Worship’ included on our
website.
As a churchwarden / verger I was attending a
wedding rehearsal in our village parish church on
the eve of the Royal wedding; and all seemed well.
After the actual wedding itself, the bride and groom
asked why the ‘words’ had been different at
Westminster Abbey the day before. I answered it was
because they had chosen their service to be
Common Worship. ‘What choice?’ was the reply. Last
month, at the Archdeacon’s Visitations, I noticed a
‘collared’ minion handing out what appeared to be
a new pack of Wedding Services. When asked if I
could have one I was told, ‘We’ve given them out to
your Benefice already; if we gave one to you
everyone would want one.’ When I enquired if
alternative forms of service were included, I was
confronted by the usual ‘Oh we don’t want today’s
couples referred to as brute beasts &c.’ Of what are
they frightened ? Today’s clergy seem absolutely
terrified of any reference to the BCP or even its
successors, that the counter-revolution will return
us to pre-Reformation Dark Ages. Would that it
might, perhaps, in some circumstances !!
John R. Wesley Lt Cdr RD RNR
Committee Member & Branch Representative,
Winchester & Portsmouth Branch
Memorable Phrases
It is easy to overlook the fact that Cranmer, like
Tyndale and Coverdale, was writing for the illiterate.
They knew that what they were writing would be
heard by many more than would be able to read it.
Cranmer writing texts, many of which were to be
repeated after the reader or to be responses to a
verbal prompt, could have had no doubt that his
phrases had to be memorable, had to capture
cadences of the English language that ‘sang’ in the
mind.
Since long passages from the Scriptures were an
integral part of the Reformation liturgies the
translators must have been no less aware of the need
for this property. We can accept that their motive to
write was spiritual given that the works they were
translating are exhortatory; but they would be less
than human as creative writers if they had not also
wanted a text that they knew would be heard and
attended to, even if only occasionally, to be
remembered by the hearers for its own sake.
We can safely assume that they were aware, as
many contemporary liturgists seem not to be, of
how dependent on the memorability of key phrases
and passages is the longevity of orally transmitted
tales, and aphorisms. If having a remembered access
to crucial concepts is religiously valuable, then this
holds as true of the literate reader or hearer as of the
illiterate.
In our literate society the most easily accessible
evidence of the value to understanding of
internalising passages, occurs when reading stories
to children. Little children as listeners do not want
variations or interpolations, they want to hear the
story you read to them yesterday in exactly the same
words that you used yesterday. They have worked to
understand what they have heard and want that
understanding confirmed.
For millennia, folk tales and ritual passed orally
from one generation to the next. Humans are hard
wired to react to remembered verbal prompting.
One can understand the attraction to today’s clergy
of using their computers to create new orders of
service. Their writing leads one to believe, however,
that they do not place importance on the rôle of
repetition and poetic memorability in shaping recall
and thus behaviour.
Writing memorably is not a common skill,
especially when you know that the hearer cannot
refer to the written word. We cannot overestimate
the remarkable poetic ability of Cranmer and those
he worked from and with to create phrases and
whole passages that when heard regularly live in the
mind, and can be summoned to service when
apposite to some event in the hearer’s life.
Maurice Vassie, York Branch Committee Member
A Benedictus sermon
A visit to a Book of Common Prayer church in
London on my summer holiday made me realise
20
what a superb sermon Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer’s liturgical masterpiece is.
The Revd Michael Neville, the Anglican
evangelical vicar of St Simon Zelotes in Chelsea, was
doing a sermon series on the biblical canticles in the
Prayer Book.
That morning he preached magnificently on the
Benedictus and showed clearly that its central
message is the glory of God’s salvation through the
remission of sins achieved by the Lord for whom
John the Baptist was going to prepare the way—
Jesus Christ.
Mr Neville pointed out that the placing of the the
Benedictus at the end of the set readings from both
the Old and New Testament in the BCP service of
Morning Prayer is highly significant. Cranmer was
thus intentionally proclaiming the fact that the
crowning message of Holy Scripture is God’s gift of
eternal salvation by his forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
With alternative gospels on offer in the modern
Church—salvation through socio-
political action or therapeutic
spirituality or emotionally-charged
worship—that is a sermon I was very
thankful to hear.
Julian Mann
The Revd J.F.E. Mann is vicar of the Parish
Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge, South
Yorkshire. He is an occasional columnist for the
Church of England Newspaper and blogs as
Cranmer’s Curate.
Thank you
Sir, may I, through these columns, thank
all those who sent cards, letters and
memorial donations following Kate’s
death and those who attended her
funeral. These categories exceed three
hundred in total and it is too big a task
to write to everyone individually. Please
be assured that the generality of this
acknowledgement in no way
diminishes its sincerity.
Such support at a sad time is greatly
appreciated and goes to show that the
PBS is not just a pressure group but truly
a Society, even a ‘Big Society’ to use the
current phrase.
Neil Inkley
21
The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662
1Purchase at www.oup.com
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1
1
CHRISTMAS ISCOMING ...
.. . and you still have time to order your PBSChristmas cards, if you haven’t alreadydone so. But please don’t delay, as somedesigns are selling out fast.
If you have mislaid your Christmas cardleaflet, please contact the PBS Office(details inside front cover) for another copy.Alternatively, the leaflet can bedownloaded from the PBS website,www.pbs.org.uk. (Please note, however,that it is not possible to order the cardsonline, because orders are handled by athird party distributor which does notprovide an online ordering facility.)
Mrs Kate Inkley
We are sad to report the
death of Mrs Kate
Inkley, wife of Neil
Inkley, on Thursday,
26th May. In addition to
his role as the long-
standing Secretary of
the Blackburn Branch,
Neil has also previously
served as a Vice-
Chairman of the Society and as Chairman of the
Branches’ Representative Council, in all of which
Kate was a stalwart support.
Miss Nada Pobjoy
The death is announced of Miss Nada Pobjoy who
was for a brief period in 1997 the Hon Secretary
(nationally) of the PBS Society before ill-health
caused her to resign. Her funeral took place at the
Church of All Saints, Pavement, York on Thursday
28th July.
Miss Pobjoy was born in Mirfield, West Yorkshire.
She had a colourful career as a singer at Covent
Garden though also spending some years in South
Africa where her father—formerly of the
Community of the Resurrection—had been a
Canon of Grahamstown and Rural Dean of East
London. On first retiring from the Opera House
she became an active assistant to Mrs Margot
Thompson in dealing centrally with voluminous
PBS correspondence. For a very brief period in
1997 Nada, who was then living in West London,
became the Society’s Hon Secretary but family
affairs intervened and this national role was taken
over by Mrs Elaine Bishop. In later life Nada Pobjoy
returned to Yorkshire and was for a time a member
of the PBS Branch in York. At her funeral service the
Society was officially represented by Mr Alan
Harding.
Basil Mitchell
A notable supporter of the PBS campaign to retain
the Prayer Book, Professor Basil Mitchell died in
June 2011 aged 94. A former Nolloth Professor of
the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at Oxford
University he made clear where he stood in the
Nineteen Eighties and early Nineties in the
differences between the trendy ‘modernizers’ in
the Synod and the upholders in university circles of
traditional liturgical expression. Recruited to our
side by Professor the Rev David Martin he was an
absolute gem when we sought to devise and
present a major, formal case for the traditional
liturgy to the Liturgical Commission.
On 1st November 1991 an all-day meeting was
held in a House of Lords Committee Room
comprising a high-powered group of academics
and others that I had invited (thanks to a booking
of the accommodation in the names of Lord
Sudeley and the Earl of Lauderdale). Over a break
for lunch in the Peers Dining Room Professor
Mitchell (at the suggestion of Professor Martin)
agreed to draft our Submission. Its text was
thereafter endorsed by the PBS Finance & General
Purposes Committee during a residential weekend
spent at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park
and in a subsequent meeting at Northwood. The
Submission also received the blessing of the
Society’s Executive Council being delivered to the
Commission in February 1992. It is worth noting
that the Submission was considered at all four
meetings of the Commission in 1992 and was not
only published as GS 407 but also as a glossy
version published on the Synod’s behalf.
Basil Mitchell who was born during the First
World War in April 1917 served on the Doctrine
Commission from 1978 to 1984 At his local
parish church he always insisted on reading the
lesson from the King James Bible (AV) pointing out
that had St Paul written in English he would never
have begun 2 Corinthians 5 :19 with “What I
mean is…” (as the NEB has it) rather than with
“To wit …”
Anthony Kilmister
Obituaries
22
William Aldis Wright, The Bible Word-Book,
Cambridge University Press
IBSN 978 1 108 02464 8
William Aldis Wright (1831–1914) held various
posts at Cambridge, worked on the Revised Version
of the Bible, and wrote on literary and philological
subjects. The present volume, first published in
1884, is a facsimile of the second edition of a book
begun by Jonathan Eastwood, which Wright
completed and revised. The word ‘facsimile’ may
arouse fears of imperfect reproduction and print
which is difficult to the eye, but in fact modern
methods have transformed the process and the text
is highly readable.
The full title deserves quotation for those who
love the Prayer Book as well as the Authorised
Version: A Glossary of Archaic Words and Phrases in the
Authorised Version of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer.
The books of the Apocrypha are included, usefully
since they offer some alternative readings in the
Lectionary and are now more generally valued
than they have been in the past.
This is not simply a glossary giving modern
equivalents. Its great strength is the supply of
quotations from writers of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. We may think that we know
our way through the language of the traditional
versions of the Bible and the liturgy. We have no
difficulty with words like ‘prevent’ in the sense of
‘go before’, or ‘indifferently’ as ‘impartially’. But
do we always respond to the significance of
‘comfort’, ‘confound’, ‘magnify’ which have a
deeper meaning beneath their apparent
familiarity? If we refer to this extended glossary, it
will prevent us (in the modern sense) from
reading carelessly or indifferently (also in the
modern sense).
We may also find it useful in explaining the
older texts to those who are genuinely, or
sometimes maliciously, confused by
them—today including many clergy. For
example. there is plenty of evidence that
‘which’ was frequently used for people,
that Shakespeare and others used ‘let’
meaning to hinder, and ‘castaway’ for an
outcast. No one has suggested that
Shakespeare’s plays should be rewritten without a
single word in them that is not current
conversational usage—although anything might
yet happen. Critics who say that the traditional
religious register of English is inaccessible today
might pause to reflect on the ability of people to
pick up a new vocabulary of words for using the
computer and other new means of
communication. The language of worship is a
barrier only for those who make it so: as Hamlet
says in another connection, ‘The readiness is all.’
With 678 pages of text this is a worthy
memorial to the knowledge and painstaking work
of a Victorian scholar. Admittedly a Cambridge don
was free from the demands of domestic life, but
consider that this and all books of the time were
written by hand without any mechanical aid, and
then printed from the manuscript. Use this book,
and banish excuses for our own laziness and the
objections of hostile critics of the traditional Bible
and Prayer Book.
Raymond Chapman
Review
23
Bristol
400th Anniversary of the
Authorised Version
Although not entirely under the
auspices of the Prayer Book Society,
Christ Church with St Ewen, in
central Bristol, a church where the
1662 Prayer Book is exclusively
used, was the scene of a mammoth
Bible reading session from the
4th–8th July, 2011, to mark the
400th anniversary of the King James
Bible. The Authorised Version was
read aloud in totality by relays of
readers, non-stop, day and night,
over this 4-day period. 200
volunteers shared the reading, many
of them doing so through the small
hours.
The priest-in-charge, the Revd
Richard Hoyal, initiated the venture,
thought to be the only such event in
the diocese, assisted by Mrs
Margaret Dymond, who sent out
300 emails in the course of her
organization. The congregation of
Christ Church, many of them Prayer
Book Society members, played a
large part in the process, not only as
readers but also as stewards and
providers of refreshments.
Amongst the readers were the
Lord Mayor of Bristol, the Dean and
the Archdeacon of Bristol, the
Bishop of Swindon, and the
Archdeacon of Malmesbury.
David Sansum
Chelmsford
Over 80 supporters of the Prayer
Book gathered at the Church of St
Francis of Assisi in Barkingside, to
enjoy a rousing service of Choral
Evensong and to hear the Bishop of
Chelmsford speak enthusiastically
about the liturgy of the Book of
Common Prayer. The Rt Revd
Stephen Cottrell reminded us of the
glorious story of the first Easter
morn, and how magically it was
recorded for us in both the
wonderful cadences of the King
James Bible, 400 years old this year,
and in the insurmountable liturgy
of Cranmer’s prayer book. The Vicar
of St Francis, Father Andrew Fenby,
led the worship and the PBS is
grateful to him for the use of the
church.
The Prayer Book Society’s
Chelmsford Branch annual service
was highly musical, in the capable
hands of the church’s organist,
Helen Kerr-Wallace, and the day’s
choirmaster, John F.G. Pettifer, who
is a PBS member. The service began
with a processional voluntary, Byrd’s
‘The Earl of Salisbury’, and Vaughan
Williams’s introit ‘O taste and see
how gracious the Lord is’, a setting
of verse eight of Psalm 34. The
anthem was Bruckner’s popular
‘Locus iste’.
After the service Bishop Stephen
Cottrell took time to speak to
regular members of the church
congregation and to PBS members
who had travelled for the Branch
event. He met PBS Trustee Nicholas
Hurst, who is a Churchwarden at St
Francis, and Mrs Connie Hardcastle
who, at 95, is the oldest regular
worshipper there. He also enjoyed
the wonderful tea which had been
provided by the events team at St
Francis.
Next year, for the 350th
anniversary of the BCP, the bishop
has kindly agreed to host a special
service in Chelmsford cathedral and
has sent us his support for the vital
role the Prayer Book has within the
Church. ‘The Church of England has
always believed that we learn and
express our doctrine through our
worship,’ he says. ‘The Book of
Common Prayer, therefore, does not
just contain beautiful liturgy, it is
the finest expression of what we
believe. Through its language our
faith is shaped . . . because of it I
know that I can come to the Lord,
not trusting in my own
righteousness, but in God’s
manifold goodness. As we pray it,
the words become our own and
faith is grown within us.’
Chichester
Copies of the 1662 Book of
Common Prayer were presented to
each of the twenty-one Ordinands
made Deacon in Chichester
Cathedral in the special St Petertide
Service on 25th June. They were
joined by the Secretary of the
Guildford Branch, John Fox-
News from the Branches
24
Bishop Stephen Cottrell with the choir and music director, PBS member John Pettifer
25
Reynolds, ahead of the scheme
being expanded to cover Surrey.
The Branch Chairman, the Revd
George Butterworth (Vicar of
Saltdean) reminded those
assembled, who also included 20
Deacons soon to be ordained Priest,
of the Prayer Book’s strong Biblical
roots and how it is as relevant to the
Church today as it was 350 years
ago.
He drew a parallel with Moses:
just as Moses was given the tools for
his ministry (the Ten
Commandments, together with
God’s authority to speak), so the
copies of the Prayer Books that
candidates were given were for their
tool box as deacons.
The Reverend George
Butterworth, vicar of Saltdean, has
been elected chairman of the PBS
Chichester Branch, taking over from
Canon Donald Johnson who had
been Chairman for nearly 20 years.
Before the Branch AGM, a service of
BCP Holy Communion was held in
the parish church of St Nicholas in
Saltdean on the feast day for the
Apostle St Barnabas.
In his sermon, Father George
suggested that the many Prayer
Book Society members present
would do well to follow the
example of Barnabas in their calling
to promoting the 1662 Book of
Common Prayer, and to remind the
modern church of its deep Biblical
roots.
Coventry
Our AGM and Annual Supper
Meeting took place in the historic
village hall, Aston Cantlow, on 6th
July. Good food and friendly
company made the evening a
resounding success.
The speaker for this occasion was
the Revd Dr Clifford Owen, who
gave us fascinating insights into his
ministry as an Anglican Chaplain in
Corfu, Ostend and Bruges and his
use of the BCP.
Alan Lyne
Ely
A Prayer Book for the Bishop of Ely
On Monday July 4th, Prayer Book
Society Members gathered together
with the local congregation at St
Andrew’s Church, Old Chesterton,
Cambridge, for a special service of
Choral Evensong, in celebration of
the Book of Common Prayer, and of
the King James Bible in its
anniversary year.
The service was led by the vicar,
Nick Moir, in the presence of a
special guest, the Right Revd
Stephen Conway, newly installed
Bishop of Ely. The choir greatly
assisted the devotions with
Stanford’s Canticles and the anthem
‘O Thou the Central Orb’ by Woods,
and the lessons were read by PBS
Branch Treasurer Philip White and
Chairman Adam Dunning.
Towards the end of the service, Dr
Dunning presented the Bishop with
a most beautiful Prayer Book—a
desk-size edition in red binding and
bright gold page edges. This
wonderful and generous gift, signed
by national chairman Prudence
Dailey had been donated by an Ely
branch member. Bishop Stephen
was clearly delighted by the gesture
and spoke strongly about his
feelings for the liturgy, suggesting
that this book is likely to look ‘well-
used’ over the next few years!
Gloucester
The Autumn event of the Gloucester
branch took place on September 3rd
when members and friends,
including some from South Wales,
attended a celebration of Holy
Communion at St Mary’s, Deerhurst.
St Mary’s, which dates form the
700s, is one of the few churches in
England where the layout of the
chancel allows the original Prayer
Book rite to be used, the Celebrant
standing on the north side. Before
the service, the Revd Tom Clammer,
Vicar of Deerhurst, gave us a short
and fascinating explanation of the
history and practice of this form of
service.
After the service, Sheila Ryan, the
benefice Visitors’ Officer, talked
about the history of the church and
the neighbouring Odda’s Chapel.
We then had an opportunity to look
round both these churches before
adjourning to the Hop Pole Hotel in
Tewkesbury for refreshments.
London and Southwark
The Branch is again on its feet. We
still think with sorrow of the
previous Committee and the break-
down in health that caused the lapse
in its work. There is also the
memory of Frank McFarlane, who
sometimes wrote this column for us
until he fell ill and died at a great
age in February 2011.
The national Board said they
Pictured L-R: Chichester Branch Chairman, the Revd George Butterworth; Branch
Secretary Valerie Dane; retiring Branch Chairman Canon Donald Johnson, and Mr
John Fox-Reynolds
would help revive the London and
Southwark Branch, and they
certainly did. All our speakers at
Branch events in 2010 and 2011
were Trustees. Subjects were
adventurous: defending the Prayer
Book in argument; the future of
Liturgy; the rights of PCCs and
parishioners; and the future of the
Anglican Communion. During the
talk on rights, astute members of
the audience took notes. Essex and
Guildford members were invited,
and they attended. Meg Pointer, a
former organizer, has returned to
her work of organizing the London
heats of the Cranmer Awards. Some
schools are keen, others not.
Two Committee members
resigned amicably, because of other
commitments, but we have learned
the value of consultants and non-
Committee volunteers. One of our
Committee members is ill, and is
recuperating.
We received help and advice from
the Society’s largest Branch,
Salisbury. We are not far behind
them in membership numbers.
As the Branch in London, we wish
to aim higher. We aim to collaborate
with other Branches, and raise our
profile.
Norwich
Once again we have had an active
few months commencing at
Petertide with the very pleasant task
of presenting Books of Common
Prayer to the deacons and in August
when further books were presented
to our newly trained Readers. These
books were happily and well
received.
In July members enjoyed a most
pleasant visit to the parish church of
St Helens, Ranworth, near Norwich,
where a member of their
congregation, Patricia Mockridge,
gave us a most instructive and
interesting tour of this notable
church with its beautiful and
famous screen. Tea and homemade
refreshments were very welcome.
The day concluded with Evensong
taken by the Rector, the Revd
Nicholas Garrard.
In August, members were able to
enjoy Choral Evensong with music
by William Byrd and Orlando
Gibbons at Forcett St Peter Church
near Norwich.
At the beginning of September,
members met at Bressingham, near
Diss, where they toured the famous
gardens, after which the Rector, the
Revd Robert Mellowship and
members of the congregation of St
John the Baptist Church attended
sung Evensong.
Richard Harrison
Peterborough
The Peterborough Branch AGM was
held on Sunday May 29th in Little
Houghton. Prior to the AGM 20
members gathered in Little
Houghton for a tour of the
delightful Little Houghton House
conducted by the owner Mr
Christopher Davidge. We are
extremely grateful for being given
the chance to see this lovely house
which is not normally open to the
public and in which we held our
AGM. We were later joined in the
parish church by members of the
local congregation to attend a
service of Choral Evensong taken by
one of our members Miss Esme
Godden.
Mary Stewart
Rochester
On Sunday 3rd July this year we
visited St Mary the Virgin,
Westerham, for a Choral Evensong
to celebrate John Fryth, a protestant
martyr, who was born in
Westerham. He assisted William
Tyndale in translating the New
Testament into English, was tried on
a charge of heresy and sentenced to
be burnt at the stake as an ‘obstinate
heretic’; he died at Smithfield on
4th July 1533.
The life of John Fryth formed part
an exhibition over the week-end of
9th and 10th July at St Botolph’s
church Lullingstone, one of our
corporate member churches,
celebrating the 400th Anniversary
of the King James Bible. Some of
our members attended the
reception and concert ‘The Bible in
Voice and Verse’ on the Saturday
evening and the Choral Matins on
Sunday. The church attracted many
visitors over the weekend to its
exhibition of Bibles, ancient and
modern.
Canon Derek Carpenter, Canon
Emeritus of Rochester Cathedral and
Chaplain to the Bishop of
Tonbridge, gave an address
following the Branch AGM in
September. His talk entitled ‘No
Small Change’ proved both thought
provoking and entertaining, ranging
over many changes and innovations
26
The photograph shows PBS members and Mrs Davidge at the PBS bookstall in the
parish church.
within the Church of England. After
tea we joined the congregation of St
Paul’s Church, Rusthall, for
Evensong at which our vice-
chairman, Michael Ball read the
Second Lesson.
The Branch presented 12
beautiful large-print, leather-bound
Prayer Books to those being
ordained Deacon in the diocese this
year. A bequest of £500 from the
late Mrs Nora Minty has, for the
first time, made it also possible for
the Branch to present Prayer Books
to those being admitted as Readers
in the Diocese. The seven new
Readers are receiving the large-
print edition.
Salisbury
The Salisbury Branch met at All
Saints Church, Swanage on 11th
June—its first time in Swanage. The
Revd John Staples gave the opening
prayers and the speaker was Mr
Michael Holyoake, head teacher of
Pitton Church of England (VA)
Primary School and a Branch
member.
His talk entitled ‘Maintaining
Christian Vision in School
Leadership’ explained four
particular areas—Christian values;
Collective Worship; Religious
Education and Going to Church.
For some children their only
experience of going to Church was
through the school.
After a vigorous question time
the speaker was warmly thanked by
Miss Sheila Houliston, herself a
teacher for many years. The
traditional famous Salisbury tea was
served in the hall and members
attended Evensong at All Saints
Church conducted by the Revd.
John Staples. The Organist was Mr
Bill Brown.
The Branch marked the 400th
Anniversary of the King James Bible
with a choral Evensong on Saturday,
9th July, at the church of St Mary
and St Nicholas, Wilton. This was
built between 1841 and 1844 in
West Street, on the site of the
medieval Church of St Nicholas, at
the instigation of the Dowager
Countess of Pembroke and her son,
Lord Herbert of Lea. The architects
were T.H. Wyatt and D. Brandon and
it is in the Romanesque style, being
an imitation of a basilica in
Lombardy.
The service, which was
conducted by the priest in charge,
the Revd Mark Wood, was
according to the Book of Common
Prayer. The choir sang the
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis to
arrangements by Herbert Murrill
and the anthem was ‘Expectans
Expectavi’ by Charles Wood. Revd
Mark Wood’s sermon on the King
James Bible was witty and
informed, giving food for thought.
The Organ Voluntary played by
the organist Dr Nigel Alison was the
Allegro Risoluto from the Plymouth
Suite by Percy Whitlock.
After the service the Branch
committee hosted a reception
which was held in the spacious
church grounds adjacent to the
105-feet Campanile.
On Saturday, 13th August, 2011
at Netheravon Village Hall, the
Branch held its summer meeting.
The meeting was well attended and
was addressed by the Revd John
Richardson, associate vicar of Ugley
with Elsenham, in the Colchester
diocese. Readers may remember he
addressed the 2010 Society
conference at Cirencester. He is
known as the ‘Ugley Vicar’ in the
computer world.
He gave as the theme for his talk,
‘Prayer Book Tacticians and Prayer
Book Tourists’. It was a thoroughly
interesting address and gave those
present much food for thought. It is
hoped that it will be published in
Faith & Worship in the not too distant
future.
A lively question-and-answer
session preceded tea. The day ended
with the church bells being rung
calling members to Evensong
which was conducted by the priest
in charge of All Saints, Netheravon,
the Revd Mark Zammit.
Ian Woodhead, Chairman
27
L-R: Mr George Comer, Mrs Doreen Spence (Churchwardens) and the Revd Gary Owen,
29
Blackburn
29th January 2012 at 11 a.m.:
The annual Assheton Sermon
service (Morning Prayer), at
Downham
19th May 2012 at 11 a.m.:
Branch Annual Festival in
Blackburn Cathedral, on the exact
anniversary of the passing of the
Act of Uniformity in 1662.
Celebrant: the Bishop of
Blackburn. Preacher: Lord Hope
(the immediate past Archbishop of
York). Afternoon speaker: the Revd
Norman Taylor, author of For Services
Rendered (of which there will be a
reprint in 2012). Cranmer statue
placed in the Cathedral.
14th September—7p.m.,
Whalley Abbey, celebration dinner,
after-dinner speaker: Revd Canon
David Galilee. More detail later.
Guildford
Saturday, 10th December 2011:
Holy Communion at 2.30 p.m. in
the Founder’s Chapel at
Charterhouse School, Godalming,
Surrey.
Saturday, 17th March 2012: Holy
Communion at 4.00 p.m. in the
Founder’s Chapel at Charterhouse
School, Godalming, Surrey.
Saturday, 16th June 2012: Branch
AGM in the Saunders Room at 2.30
p.m. followed by Evening Prayer in
the Founder’s Chapel,
Charterhouse School, Godalming,
Surrey.
Norwich
To celebrate the 350th anniversary
of the Book of Common Prayer
next year we have arranged a
special service of Evensong on
20th May 2012 at 3.30pm where
our bishop, the Rt Revd Graham
James will preach the sermon. Also
the cathedral is arranging a
month-long exhibition of antique
and interesting Books of Common
Prayer during August and
September 2012 and we are
arranging to be present at the
exhibition to hold a meeting with
a relevant speaker on a day during
the exhibition—details in a later
edition of the journal.
Our next event is our annual
Cranmer Awards heat held in St
Lawrence’s Church, Castle Rising
near Kings Lynn in
November/December, very kindly
organised by our president, Lord
Howard of Rising.
Truro
As part of the national celebrations
of 350 years of the 1662 Prayer
Book, the Truro Branch of the PBS
is hosting a service to celebrate this
significant event. It will take place
2nd May 2012. The Service is to be
held at Truro Cathedral, taking the
form of Choral Evensong preceded
by the AGM and followed by a
reception. The preacher will be the
Bishop of Truro.
John St Brioc Hooper
Forthcoming Events
Cranmer Awards Finals 2012The Cranmer Awards Finals will be held on Thursday, 1 March 2012
at Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse, Charterhouse Square, London
EC1M 6AN. We are delighted that the Revd Prebendary Bill Scott,
Domestic Chaplain to HM The Queen, has agreed to present the prizes.
All members and friends of the Society are warmly invited to attend.
The timetable for the day is as follows:
10.30 a.m. Coffee
11.15 a.m. Finals begin
1.00 p.m. Lunch: PRE-BOOKING ESSENTIAL (please see below)
2.15 p.m. Presentation of Prizes
A buffet lunch will be available at a cost of £16.00 per head for those
who have purchased tickets in advance. Cheques (made payable to
‘Prayer Book Society’) should be sent to the Society’s office at
Copyhold Farm. Please enclose your name and address to which
tickets should be sent, with a note indicating that the payment is for
the Cranmer Awards lunch.
The last date on which lunch bookings can be accepted is Friday, 10
February 2012.
Branch Contacts• BATH & WELLS:
Mr Ian Girvan, 59 Kempthorne Lane,
Bath, BA2 5DX
Tel: 01225 830663
iangirvan@me.com
• BIRMINGHAM:
The Revd Dr John Breadon, 101
Causeway Green Road, Langley,
Oldbury, Birmingham B68 8LE
• BLACKBURN:
Mr Neil Inkley, 6 Knot Lane, Walton-
le-Dale, Preston, Lancashire, PR5
4BQ
Tel: 01772 821676
Fax: 01772 259340
• BRADFORD:
Mrs Armorel Nelson, Old Gledstone,
West Marton, Skipton, North
Yorkshire, BD23 3JR
Tel: 01282 843476
• BRISTOL:
Mr David Selwyn, 8 Barrow Court,
Barrow Gurney, Bristol BS48 3RW
Tel: 01275 463421
(Membership) Mrs Joyce Morris, 29 St
John’s Road, Clifton, Bristol BS8
2HD
• CANTERBURY:
Mr Christopher Cooper, Goose and
Gridiron, 6 Churchyard Passage,
Ashford, Kent TN23 1QL
Tel: 07525 095717
saveashfordchurch@yahoo.co.uk
• CARLISLE:
Secretary: Mrs Joy Budden, Arthuret
House, Longtown, CA6 5SJ
Tel: 01228 792263
jobudsignofthefish@yahoo.co.uk
Membership Secretary: Mrs Kate
East, 10 Fernwood Drive, Kendal,
LA9 5BU
Tel: 01539 725055
• CHELMSFORD:
Mr David Martin, The Oak House,
Chelmsford Road, Felsted CM6 3EP
Tel: 01371 820591
• CHESTER:
Mr J. Baldwin, Rosalie Farm, Church
Minshull, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5
6EF
Tel: 01270 528487
mdsc187@aol.com
• CHICHESTER:
Mrs Valerie Dane, 225 Chichester
Road, Bognor Regis, PO21 5AQ
Tel: 01243 827330
valerie.225@btinternet.com
(Chichester East) The Revd G.
Butterworth, The Vicarage, 51
Saltdean Vale, Saltdean, East Sussex
BN2 8HE
Tel: 01273 302345
• COVENTRY:
Mr Peter Bolton, 19 Kineton Road,
Wellesbourne, Warwickshire CV35
9NE
Tel: 01789 840814
peterandrosalindbolton@hotmail.com
• DERBY:
Mrs Jennifer Radford, Poplar Farm,
Hognaston, Ashbourne, Derbyshire
DE6 1PR
Tel: 01335 370143
• DURHAM:
Mrs Rosemary Hall, 23 Beatty
Avenue, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE2
3QN
Tel: 0191 285 7534
hallrosyhall@aol.com
• ELY:
Mr P. K. C. White, The Orchard
House, 12 Thrift’s Walk, Old
Chesterton, Cambridge CB4 1NR
Tel: 01223 324176
pkcwhite@waitrose.com
• EXETER:
Mrs Esme Heath, Brookfi eld,
Stokenham, Kingsbridge, Devon
TQ7 2SL
Tel: 01548 580615
esme.heath@sky.com
• GLOUCESTER:
Mrs S.M. Emson, 38 Gloucester
Road, Stratton, Cirencester, GL7 2JY
Tel: 01285 654591
email: susanemson@hotmail.co.uk
• GUILDFORD:
Mr John Fox-Reynolds, 3 Orchard
Cottages, Bron-y-de, Churt, Farnham
GU10 2LL
Tel: 01428 605156
john_reynolds2002@hotmail.com
• HEREFORD:
Mr Stephen Evans, 14 Raven Lane,
Ludlow, Shropshire SY8 1BW
Tel: 01584 873436
Mobile: 07812 424007
onny@hotmail.co.uk
• LEICESTER:
Mrs S. Packe-Drury-Lowe, 35 Green
Lane, Seagrave, Loughborough LE12
7LU
Tel: 01509 815262
ritaphillips@gmail.com
• LICHFIELD:
Mr D. Doggett, Grassendale, 5 Park
Drive, Oswestry, Shropshire SY11
1BN
Tel: 01691 652902
• LINCOLN:
The Hon. Christopher Brightman,
The Grange, Hall Street, Wellingore,
LH5 0HU
Tel: 01522 811432
cbrightman@hotmail.co.uk
• LIVERPOOL:
Mr I. K. Lang, 5 Bayfi eld Road,
Garston, Liverpool L19 3QL
Tel: 0151 427 0381
• LONDON:
Mrs Kay Wolf, 1 Hereford Court, 77
Worcester Road, Sutton, Surrey, SM2
6QN
Tel: 0208 6428446
Email: kpwolf@hotmail.co.uk
• MANCHESTER:
Mr Nicholas Johnson, 94 Rocky
Lane, Monton, Eccles, Manchester,
M30 9LY
nicholasj2104@yahoo.co.uk
• NEWCASTLE:
Mrs Rosemary Hall, 23 Beatty
Avenue, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE2
3QN
Tel: 0191 285 7534
hallrosyhall@aol.com
• NORWICH:
Mrs A. Wilson, The Old Rectory,
Burston Road, Dickleburgh, Diss,
Norfolk IP21 4NN
Tel: 01379 740561
• OXFORD:
Mr J. B. Dearing, 27 Sherman Road,
Reading, Berkshire RG1 2PJ
Tel: 0118 958 0377
gpwild@btconnect.com
• PETERBOROUGH:
Mrs M. Stewart, The Sycamores, 3
Oakham Road, Whissendine, Rutland
LE15 7HA
Tel: 01664 474353
mary.stewart@decomplexity.com
• PORTSMOUTH: Please see
Winchester & Portsmouth
• RIPON & LEEDS:
Mr J. R. Wimpress, Bishopton Grove
House, Bishopton, Ripon HG4 2QL
Tel: 01765 600888 bgh@ripon.org
• ROCHESTER:
Mr G. Comer, 102 Marlborough
Crescent, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 2HR
Tel: 01732 461462
joannacomer@btinternet.com
• ST ALBANS:
Miss C. P. Cawood, 2 Churchill Court,
Green Lane, Northwood, Middlesex
HA6 2RY
Tel: 01923 824217
• ST EDMUNDSBURY & IPSWICH:
Mr Anthony C. Desch, South End
House, 2 Sicklesmere Road, Bury St
Edmunds, Suffolk IP33 2BW
Tel: 01284 755355
Anthony@adesch.wanadoo.co.uk
• SALISBURY:
Mrs Lucy Pearson, 10 Briar Close,
Wyke, Gillingham, Dorset SP8 4SS
Tel: 01747 825392
lucypearson@waitrose.com
• SHEFFIELD:
Miss Rosemary Littlewood, Railway
House, Hazlehead, Sheffi eld S36
4HJ
Tel: 01226 764092
rowood@waitrose.com
• SODOR & MAN:
Mrs C. Salisbury Jones, 7 The Parade,
Castletown, Isle of Man IM9 1LG
Tel: 01624 824467
• SOUTHWARK: (See London for
details.)
• SOUTHWELL AND NOTTINGHAM:
Mr A.F. Sunman, 1 Lunn Lane, South
Collingham, Newark, NG23 7LP
Tel: 01636 893975
Email: adriansunman@lineone.net
• TRURO:
Mr J. St Brioc Hooper, 1 Tregarne
Terrace, St Austell PL25 4BE
Tel: 01726 76382
j.stbrioc@virgin.net
• WAKEFIELD:
The Revd Philip Reynolds, St Aidan’s
Vicarage, Radcliffe Street,
Skelmanthorpe, Huddersfield HD8
9AF
Tel: 01484 863232
life.draw@virgin.net
• WINCHESTER & PORTSMOUTH:
Mrs Nikki Sales, 19 Heath Road
South, Locks Heath, Southampton,
SO31 6SJ
email: grass.green@virgin.net
Tel: 01489 570899
• WORCESTER:
Mr John Comins, The Old Rectory,
Birlingham, Nr Pershore WR10 3AB
Tel: 01386 750292
john_comins@yahoo.co.uk
• YORK:
Mr R. A. Harding, 5 Lime Avenue,
Stockton Lane, York YO31 1BT
Tel: 01904 423347
eboraco@talktalk.net
• NORTH WALES:
The Revd Neil Fairlamb, 5 Tros-yr-
afon, Beaumaris, Anglesey LL58 8BN
Tel: 01248 811402
rheithor@yahoo.co.uk
• SOUTH WALES:
Dr J. H. E. Baker, 56 Bridge Street,
Llandaff CF5 2YN
Tel: 0292 057 8091
• CHANNEL ISLANDS: Please see
Winchester & Portsmouth
• OVERSEAS MEMBERS:
Mrs Sally Tipping, Woodland Cross
Cottage, Woodland Head, Yeoford,
Crediton, Devon EX17 5HE
sally631@btinternet.com
AFFILIATED BRANCHES
• IRELAND:
Please contact Head Office.
• SOUTH AFRICA:
Please contact Head Office.
SISTER SOCIETIES
• AUSTRALIA:
Miss Margaret Steel, 9/63 O'Sullivan
Road, Rose Bay, NSW 2029
mste8801@bigpond.net.au
Mr F. Ford, PO Box 2, Heidelberg,
Victoria, 3084, Australia
Mrs Joan Blanchard, 96 Devereux
Road, Beaumont, South Australia,
5066, Australia
• CANADA:
The Prayer Book Society of Canada,
P.O. Box 38060, 1430 Prince of
Wales Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K2C
3Y7, Canada
• SCOTLAND:
Mr J C Lord, 11 Melrose Gardens,
Glasgow, G20 6RB
Tel: 0141 946 5045
jcl30@btinternet.com
• UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
The Prayer Book Society, PO Box
35220, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
19128, USA
30
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