St Mary’s Parish

Magazine

Volume 1, Issue 27

Easter 2009

Christ is Risen

www.stmaryswoodford.org.uk

We mustn't get left behind! All four Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection show the disciples slow off the mark and getting left behind! In every case the men are at home, trying to forget what had happened while the women go to the tomb; the women are surprised by what they find: the empty tomb, an angel telling them that Jesus has risen, even Jesus himself – but a Jesus they don’t recognise; the men are incredulous, even when they go to see for themselves. When two disciples meet Jesus on the way to Emmaus he is ahead of them: explaining that the Old Testament had already promised his life, death and resurrection; showing them how to live as people who walk with Jesus; finally eating with them, and then disappearing in front of them. The risen Jesus is always ahead of us, calling us on, urging us forward to follow him. He is always just out of sight, round the next bend. He was here, and we just missed him, so we must keep on, going forward, running to catch up. Life is not static, not even in the Church of England, where it can sometimes seem that all is unchanged since the days of Cranmer! Jesus is always calling us on to new things, he is always going ahead of us, and we must run to catch up. At St Mary’s we’re looking ahead to something new: a new rector; I too am looking ahead to something new: two new parishes. But we can all be sure that Jesus has gone on ahead, has sorted out the path for us to tread and is calling us on to be with him. Jesus has burst out of the tomb, and has gone on ahead, but never so far that we cannot catch up. He has promised he will never leave us, so leap with joy and run with speed and come and join him! Naomi

The spring flowers scattered through this magazine come from our own spring garden which has been lovingly planted and cared for by Ann Snowdon. Thanks to Ann for brightening up our front lawn (and this magazine)!

An Inspirational Preacher When it was announced that our new curate was a Latin speaking classicist, who had taught at a boarding school and had an interest in early music, a certain sterotypical image formed in my mind. When I subsequently met Naomi, it reinforced my view that you should never make assumptions without having all of the facts! Whenever a new curate is appointed (and Naomi was our third in the past 10

years) there is always a certain apprehension, I imagine, from both the apointee and the congregation. Naomi was careful not to “rock the boat” when she arrived and has developed a deep understanding of the needs of St.Mary’s and added greatly to the quality of our parish life. A curate is the original Apprentice, learning as much as possible “ on the job.” However, most apprentices are not subject to such scrutiny from so many people from their first day of starting. Naomi was readily accepted by the congregation and her preaching has become inspirational. She has the gift of being able to make worship enlivening, without detracting from the traditional nature of our services. The children of St Mary’s have experienced a number of new initiatives since Naomi joined us, to name a few: Godly play, Holy Halloween and Welcome to Advent. These, together with the already established Holiday Club have proved very successful and have breathed new life into the area of children’s worship. A “Naomi” sermon is always worth listening to, although the true meaning may not hit you until later during the day. A sermon from October last year, “The Bible and the economic crisis” is for me one of the most sensible pieces written about the problems that we are all experiencing and deserves a wider audience. (available to read on www.stmaryswoodford.org.uk and reprinted later in this magazine) Naomi is very organised, full of sensible ideas and initiatives, which she then encourages others to carry out, while keeping a watching brief. To continue with the Apprentice analogy, for the past seven months, Naomi has been carrying out her duties without “Sir Alan” checking up on her. ( I am not sure whether Geoffrey would appreciate the comparison) . She has passed all of her weekly “tests” and will shortly graduate from being our Apprentice, to being the priest in charge of Hatfield Broad Oak. Not content with the challenges that this will bring, she also intends to study for a doctorate at the same time. She has been a wise and interesting teacher of the faith, coupled with a very good, albeit somewhat dry, sense of humour. We will all miss her greatly and wish her all the best for the future. Thank you Naomi from all of us. John Sainsbury

Our new Rector:Wanstead to Woodford via Africa

Ian was born in Wanstead and grew up in Loughton and Harlow. He was confirmed at St Stephen’s in Harlow, and took part in a Chelmsford diocesan programme called Seventy for the seventies, on which he first met his future wife. Sally was born in central London and moved to Barkingside when

she was nine, and later went to Woodford County High School. After completing secondary school, Ian worked for a year in the Harlow research laboratories of ITT, and then studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge, specialising in Physics, and getting much involved with a student Christian network, the Ecumenical Fellowship Groups. While taking part in a parish mission with members of that network, somebody first suggested that Ian consider ordination – but his college Chaplain advised getting some experience of the wider world first. From Cambridge Ian went to Rotterdam where he worked for a year in the head office of the world Esperanto movement. He then went to Kenya as a CMS volunteer, and taught for two years in a boy’s boarding school. He returned from Kenya to train for ordained ministry at St John’s College, Nottingham, and in a Nottingham church met Sally again – now working on a PhD in mathematics. They were married in the college chapel eighteen months later. Ian’s curacy was at St Mary’s, Ealing, in west London, where he had particular responsibility for coordinating the work with children and young people. Sally worked in the planning department of London Transport. Their first child, Emma, was born while they were at Ealing. After almost a year of further training, in Birmingham and London, during which Kate was born, the family went to Zaire under the auspices of CMS to work with the Anglican church there. Ian’s main responsibility was training church leaders, both in a residential Bible school, and by a scheme of Theological Education by Extension. Sally was involved with the Mothers Union work and later in the administration of church health centres in the area.

Duncan was born halfway through their time there. Towards the end of their ten years in Zaire, normal life was disrupted by the ‘liberation war’ which ousted President Mobutu, and after which the country resumed its former name, the Democratic Republic of Congo. The family lived in Uganda for six months during the war, but were able to return to DR Congo for their final year. They came back to England in 1998, since when Ian has been working as Senior Anglican Chaplain at the University of Nottingham. Sally has trained as a counsellor and a teacher, and is currently teaching both in the university and at Regent College, Leicester. Emma has completed a degree in history at Nottingham, and is now working, on a temporary basis, for Oxfam in Senegal. Kate is in the second year of a nursing degree, also at Nottingham. Duncan will sit his GCSE exams this summer. They will then take a holiday in DR Congo, before packing up to move to Woodford.

Ian writes: It still seems like a long time until our move. From what we have seen and heard, the parish is richly blessed with diversity, creativity and energy – all of which can be used in God’s service to change lives and benefit the local community. We look forward to making new friends, and to worshipping, learning and witnessing with the people of St Mary’s.

Parish Register

Welcomed into the Family of God by Baptism 16 January Farrell William Norris

22 February Daniel Jack Fretten

The Church receives these children with joy. Today we are trusting God for their growth in faith.

Funerals

David Wright aged 85 13 January Abigail Curtis aged 85 21 January Joyce Biancheri aged 79 29 January Jesus said I am the resurrection and the life.

Lift our hearts we pray from despair and sorrow to faith in your promise of your eternal life. Help us to worship you as lord of life and conqueror of death so that, held in your love, we will not be afraid. We remember those we love and see no more, those who stand be-fore you in resurrection light. (prayer From our Lent course book “Meeting Jesus “

by Elizabeth Rundle)

Honouring God with our wealth

Naomi puts the recession into perspective “Proverbs” is genuinely funny. One of my favourite verses is from chapter 27 “whoever blesses a neighbour with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, will be counted as cursing”. When I was at theological college and had to share a breakfast table with loud and hearty types, I held onto that verse as God’s special promise to me! And Proverbs is a funny book to find in the Bible. It’s just common sense, the sort of advice parents give to children: it’s not God’s word in prophecy, it’s not God’s word in history, indeed there’s nothing very holy about it, it’s not about doing things to get you to heaven, so what’s it doing in the Bible? A lot of people think that the Bible is all about heavenly stuff, and that being a Christian is all about saving your soul, and getting some sort of spiritual comfort from thinking nice thoughts and doing good deeds. But, what a book like Proverbs reminds us is that being a Christian affects every part of our lives, physical and spiritual, holy and material. Much of Proverbs is just plain common sense about everyday living, because actually it’s in everyday living that we and God are to be found. That’s what makes it so challenging: Proverbs reminds us that God is at the centre, God comes first: we can’t give him the dregs of our time, our energy, our talents, our money; as far as God is concerned there are no “no-go” areas. I was encouraged to think about that when we went on a clergy conference in the spring. David Ford, a Cambridge Professor, was speaking on the topic “If we’ve got the Bible in one hand, what’s in the other”, and that made me wonder what would happen if we held the Bible in one hand and our current economic situation in the other. Would they talk to each other, and what would they say? I’m not an economist, or a banker, or someone who knows how the money markets operate, so I can’t speak about big business and God. I’m just like you: someone who has to pay bills, heat the house, keep food on the table, and pay the mortgage, and whose pension is in the hands of the church commissioners, so I can speak about our wallets and God. I was particularly challenged by the verses “honour the LORD with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty”. What did this mean to ancient Israel, what does it mean to us, what does it tell us about God? It sounds rather as if God is a slot machine: put in the first fruits and you will get a good crop out of it. But if that is what it means, then you can’t call this wisdom literature. First of all, God isn’t a slot machine. You can’t manipulate him to give you lots of goodies by giving him the first fruits of the harvest. If you could, we’d see lots and lots of people in church every harvest and have

very heavy collection plates too. If it worked like that, everyone would be giving to God to get something back. Second, we know people who do give to God, and yet who don’t get rich as a consequence. What did it mean to Ancient Israel? I don’t suppose we can ever understand what it means to be subsistence level farmers without the safety net of social security if times get too hard. But perhaps we can imagine: what would it be like to know that you had planted enough seed to feed your family if and only if it all came up and none of it caught some dreadful disease, and then to dare to take the first ripe grain and instead of eating it, give it to God? It’s quite scarey, isn’t it? It would be a bit like getting your wage packet in January and putting the whole lot in the collection plate, and then waiting to see if you kept your job and got paid in February. Derek Kidner, a very down to earth theologian and parish priest, pointed out that this was a demand that we honour God with our wealth and resources. We dare to give to God, in the belief that he gives to us. And I suppose this challenges us on two fronts: firstly do we believe that God has given to us, so we can both give to him and trust that he will give to us again. And secondly, if we have given a part to God, do we acknowledge that actually his claim is to the whole? Which means I can’t put a tenner in the collection plate and then do what I like with the rest if “what I like” does not honour God, if “what I like”, satisfies my wants and desires in a way that does not benefit others. Giving first to God challenges us to give all to God. Can we do it? And, if we do, what might that mean for the way we live our lives? There are other challenging verses in this reading. “Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them round your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favour and good repute in the sight of God and of people.” What does that verse say to the people who drive the world’s money markets? Have the world’s stock exchanges and banks and insurance companies been loyal and faithful? And if they haven’t whose fault is it? Who has invested in them? Who drives the world’s money markets?

Who drives he world’s money markets? I do and you do.

I do and you do. I didn’t check the ethics of my bank and building society. Did you? It may sound glib: we will receive loyal and faithful treatment only in so far as we are loyal and faithful, but actually it’s true. When things go wrong, we want to blame anyone, everyone else. But, if I’m honest, my greed and my attitude to money are at the base of it, because my bank and my country are only like me writ large. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying “if you had been faithful, if you had tithed your income, if you had made ethical investments you wouldn’t have to worry about your mortgage or pension now, you wouldn’t have lost your job”. I’m not saying that. There will be people in this church, in your circle of friends, in your own family who will suffer in this economic downturn or crisis through no fault of their own, because we live in a fallen, broken world, and when the world cracks up, some poor innocents will become “collateral damage”. But what I am suggesting is that these few verses are all of a piece: they demand a particular attitude and outlook which is quite different from the attitude and outlook of the rest of the world, and quite different from our own first intentions when we think about money. An attitude that demands loyalty and faithfulness, an adherence to God’s ways first, an acceptance of God’s discipline, a desire for God’s wisdom ahead of earthly riches, and the ability to let go of wealth for God’s sake is at variance with the attitude of the world. Maybe it’s not at variance with what your close circle says, if your close circle are still clinging to a world view shaped by a universal recognition of Christianity, but it is at variance with most people’s outlook. When I go to the gym in the morning, I’m forced to listen to horrific commercial radio stations which both peddle and reflect the attitude that satisfying self is all that matters, and that loyalty and fidelity are outdated concepts. If we accept what Proverbs says we will be at variance with the world. And that hurts. People who are different are the ones who are bullied; people who are different are the ones who are out of step and so get trodden on; people who are different are a threat to society, which is why the most different person there ever was, Jesus, was killed. Jesus, incidentally, never told us to be good or nice. He told us to be perfect, like our heavenly Father is perfect. This passage from Proverbs asks us to think about what our lives might look like if we were perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. And so, I am left with the challenge. When my life is examined and judged at the end of time, will I be living in the way of Proverbs, or another way? The thing about Proverbs with its practical wisdom is that it doesn’t tell us what to do and how to do it. We need to work out for ourselves what it means to live this way. But if this reading has annoyed and stung you, as it has annoyed and stung me, that might suggest that we need to reassess how we are living. What should we do now to keep faith with God and man?

House rules for pets To be posted VERY LOW on the refrigerator door – nose height

Dear dogs and cats:

The dishes with the paw print are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Please note – placing a paw print in the middle of my plate and food does not stake a claim for it becoming your food and dish, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest. The staircase was not designed

by Formula 1 and is not a racetrack. Beating me to the bottom is not the object. Tripping me doesn’t help because I fall faster than you can run. I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out the other end to maximise space is nothing but sarcasm. For the last time, there is not a secret exit from the bathroom. If by some miracle I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, and try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge to try to pull the door open. I must exit through the same door I entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years – canine or feline attendance is not required. The correct order is kiss me, then go and smell the other dog or cat’s bottom. I cannot stress this enough. To pacify you, my dear pets, I have posted the following message on our front door. To all non-pet owners who visit and like to complain about our pets: (1). They live here. You don’t. (2). If you don’t want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. (3). I like my pets a lot better than I like most people. (4). To you, it’s an animal. To me, he/she is an adopted son/daughter who is short, hairy, walks on all fours and doesn’t speak clearly. Remember. In many ways dogs and cats beat children because they: (1). Eat less. (2) Don’t ask for money all the time. (3) Are easier to train. (4). Normally come when called (well OK, the cat thinks about it). (5). Never ask to drive the car. (6) Don’t hang out with drug-using friends. (7).

Don’t smoke or drink. (8). Don’t have to buy the latest fashions. (9). Don’t want to wear your clothes. (10). Don’t need a gazillion quid for university. And, finally, (11). If they get pregnant, you can sell their children.

St Mary’s goes a’ birding Chris and Kath Whitfield are keen bird watchers. But if you think they and their friends indulge their hobby standing in remote hides knee-deep in water in cold dawns sipping luke-warm cocoa, frozen hands clutching iron cold binoculars, think again. They do it in style. Chris explains their particular brand of twitching. And they seem to have it right.

We are extremely bad birders much devoted to gossip, a good walk and a decent pub lunch. We have much experience of hostelries. To have any real chance of seeing many of the smaller birds of this area requires sitting and listening quietly in one place dressed in dowdy colours. This is not our style

at all. A recent winter Thursday saw heavily shrouded figures arriving at 35 High View – the birders. The local church in a broad sense: an organist, a churchwarden, a treasurer – the movers and shakers, and all determined to use our facilities before facing the bushless wastes of East Anglia. A quick consultation, morning coffee/tea is loaded, then the birders, then the master of the sound system takes the wheel. The chat starts. Dick unleashes a couple of jokes he has collected since the last outing. We compare notes about birds seen. The bus is as noisy now as it will be silent after lunch. Target, Fen Drayton, which is very flat even by Cambridge standards – a collection of worked-out gravel pits, the car park a mini Somme. We find a dry spot on the road and gather round Kathleen. “Coffee, no milk, one sugar, decaff please, any tea, have a bit of shortbread, yes please.” We cannot move without this ritual. Off we go, this beautiful sunlit day with hard frost, the light behind us, what a blessing. Blackbirds work the bare hedges, then a noisy upfront mistle thrush poses for all to see, then a slightly shyer redwing, a Scandinavian visitor snacking on hawthorn. We listen while Debbie plays their call on her MP3! Ducks whistle. Widgeon, we all agree, there they are, rust red heads, the males sport a stunning gold parting. There are a lot of birds on the water: mallard, teal, coot, moorhen, tufties, pochard. These we all know. Goldeneye, a winter visitor, a sea duck, low in the water, bottle green head, otherwise black and white, very elegant. We move on.

What’s this? A very long line of concrete pillars and lots of hard-hatted men. They are building an elevated bus/tram track between Cambridge and Huntingdon. We are slightly shocked. How could they do such a thing to our remote birdy backwater! The birds seem quite unfazed. We pass through the building site and come upon a tree-lined sunlit lake. We stand entranced, silent. There are a lot of birds out there. We slowly start to pick them off: cormorants snaking hungrily through this fishing water; great crested grebes, very white in their winter finery; a few goldeneye. We search hard for smew, shining white with a black eye patch and a few discrete black edgings, Michael’s favourite duck. But none today. Despite their fragile beauty they are very tough sea ducks, driven inland only by severe winter weather. That bag-of-bones bird the heron stands patient, immobile, knee-deep in icy water, waiting for lunch, dagger bill drawn. A flicker in the hedgerow and there, glowing jewel- like, a male bullfinch, jaunty black cap, resplendent with his rich pink breast. He takes a bit of finding but everyone gets a really good view. Well pleased, we head off for lunch. The adjacent Three Tuns is a real pub with lots of old beams and proper fireplaces, and plenty of good tucker and a glass. And then the craic flows. It has been a good day; now the silent return.

Faith and Image: Byzantium “Faith and Image” is a society within St Mary’s Church in Woodford which was started 15 years ago, (with the support of the rector Bob Birchnall) by Ian Noble, Mark Lewis, and many others. Over the subsequent years the interaction between “Faith” (as seen in all aspects of religion, belief and spirituality) and its manifestation in “Image” (encompassing, among other things, art, design, music and architecture) were the basis of an extensive series of monthly lectures, on a wide range of subjects. There were weekend courses, interfaith presentations, and many other events. However, in the last year, it was suggested that the committee be enlarged and meet to consider what form the society should take in the future. The first of the new style meetings took place in the Gwinnell Room at eight o’clock on the February 19th. Mark Lewis welcomed everyone, and explained that the committee had decided that “Faith and Image” should be seen as an association rather than a club, and would organise a two to three monthly cycle of meetings open to all. He explained that an evening of appropriate lectures would precede a visit to a current exhibition in

Goldeneye duck—a winter visitor

London. He then introduced the two speakers: Peter Webb whose dramatic paintings of spiritual themes are much appreciated in this area, to give an illustrated presentation about “The History of Byzantium” and Graham Dixon whose interest and expertise includes liturgical worship, icons and music, particularly in the Orthodox Church, who made his audio-visual presentation on the subject “The meaning of Icons in the Church”. The following morning the group met at the Royal Academy in Piccadilly and visited the current exhibition entitled “Byzantium”

History of Byzantium The history of Byzantium spans over a thousand years, from 330 to 1453 AD. The Byzantines were the Christian heirs of the Roman Empire, with the conviction that their emperors and empresses were Christ’s agents on earth. They were immensely dynamic, resourceful and courageous, constantly defending their empire (and often its capital Constantinople) against attack by Arabs, Slavs, Turks and even Crusaders. The culture of the empire was essentially urban, centred on the large and cosmopolitan cities of Alexandria, Carthage, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Thessalonica, as well as Constantinople. Theology, philosophy, the whole spectrum of the arts, military and civil enterprise and administration were integrated in a vast effort to establish a powerful and sustainable Christian State, in which art, architecture, music and literature played a central and hugely important role, directly influencing the Italian Renaissance. Liturgical, theatrical and scholarly; seemingly the whole of cultural life was directed to the single end of magnifying Christ’s kingdom on earth. On a grand scale and at the same time minutely intense; wildly exuberant as well as transcendently solemn and contemplative; equally gorgeous and austere, all-embracing, and ubiquitous, the imagery of this civilization seems to shame the trashy distractions and fads of our own. (Summarised by Peter Webb)

History of Icons From the earliest time, icons were a source of spiritual perception for the faithful, rather than being regarded as a visual aid for the illiterate. The equating of icon worship with idolatry which led to the banishment of icons from the churches was reversed by the second church council of Nicea in 787 AD which clarified the issue that the presence of icons in the church was not about decorating the church but about the nature of Christ, and

the trust of the Incarnation, the very heart of the Christian faith. Since God became incarnate, he could therefore be depicted, to deny this was to deny the Incarnation. The decree of the first Nicean Council (as we say in the Creed) was about the parallel natures of humanity and divinity, while the second Council stated that if God became truly man in the Incarnation then He, unlike the Old Testament God, could be depicted. As the decree stated, ‘…so, as they are seen in artistic representations…so much more readily are men lifted up to the memory of their prototypes…to a longing after them…and to these should be given due salutation and honourable reverence’. Contrary to the idea of

idolatrous worship it went on to say, ‘…for the honour which is paid to the image is passed on to that which the image represents.’ The characteristics of each icon is closely linked to the texts of the relevant feast, the icon being an anchor to the liturgy, as seen in the hymn for the Sunday of Orthodoxy, ‘…the Church is clothed in a beauty which surpasses earthly beauty …so that, holding fast to the icon of the One we worship we may not go astray’. The hymns of the Orthodox Church are not additional to the Liturgy, but at the heart of its services, providing most of the teaching and arranged according to a complex series of cycles fanning out Easter, the Sunday of the Resurrection. Melody and text fit perfectly together, each set of texts being sung with melodies of an appropriate tone. In the icon of the Entry into Jerusalem, we see the celebration expressed by the brilliant colours; the isolated lonely advance of Christ on the donkey a striking contrast to the vast, heaving crowd of apostles and people; the garlands being laid by the children, who will not turn against Christ later, and the grandeur of the City of Jerusalem, symbolising a final heavenly victory rather than a defeat – exactly the same powerful message is expressed in the texts for the feast. Jane Cooper

A group from St Mary's were the runners-up in an inter-church quiz in aid of the Bible Society held in Derby Road Methodist Church on Saturday February 28th. Jean Russell says: "A good time was had by all. Not only did we enjoy the quiz and the food but also the presentation given by Carol Akiwumi on the work of the Bible Society." Seven churches took part and the winners were a team from St James's Church, Buckhurst Hill.

It was all right on the night! A week before three York Mystery plays were due to be staged in the church yard by assorted members of St. Mary’s, St. Anne Line and Derby Road Methodist Churches, only three of the casts were in place and the director of operations, Uncle Bob, was due to set sail for the Caribbean as an entertainer on a cruise ship! However, in true St. Mary’s spirit, we rallied round and a good time was had by all acting out roles of medieval tile thatchers, chandlers and spicers pretending to be characters from the Nativity. Naomi, just a little busy at

this time of year, and I stepped in as Second and Third Shepherds to accompany Marilyn Hawes from Derby Road Methodist Church and Shirley Lealman took over the role of Elizabeth. Graham Nunn was to double up as the Angel Gabriel in one play and Joseph in another until Peter and Bridget Webb took on the mantle (and scripts!) three days before. Kate Walker, in blue pashmina, was cast as Mary and Richard Walker made an excellent ‘master of ceremonies’ and narrator in the Visitation and Annunciation play. So there we all were in the frosty air on Monday night, standing by the War Memorial, practising earnestly for next Sunday’s performances. We were billed as ‘artisan’ but managed to attract a lively, if not very large, passing audience who stood around eating mince pies and drinking warm punch till the choir was ready to process into church for the Nine Lessons and Carols by candlelight. Jan McGown kept the actors going with hot drinks and refreshments as we took it in turns to perform each play three times in all. It was dark and cold, but mercifully still dry, by the time we finished, but the words of old rang out across the High Road to challenge both the roar of traffic passing by and supermarket tills on their busiest day of the year. The spirit of Christmas was there in force; I’m sure Julian of Norwich and all those medieval mystics would have approved. How we pulled it off at such short notice remains a mystery. Or not, for, as the story goes, at Christmas all things are possible for those who believe. It must have been 48 years since I last played a shepherd but it made a change from icing the Christmas cake and doing all those last minute tasks that could wait till another day or be cast aside for a few hours, at least! Penny Freeston

The coldest Angel Gabriel ever?

Our artisan mystery plays attracted some curious attention

The Memorial Hall Needs YOU! The Memorial Hall is that large and crumbling monstrosity which parishioners of St Mary’s scurry past on their way to church every Sunday, averting their eyes. At least, that was a fairly accurate description of my reaction in the days before Geoffrey Smith (under false pretences, but that’s another story) twisted my arm to become a trustee. My views are now very different, but if yours aren’t, do please read on, because I believe that this Grade II listed building plays a

vital part not only in the life of St Mary’s, but also for many living in the parish who never go into church. And the hall needs two more church members with the vision and wisdom to serve as its trustees, and guide it safely through the next few years. Firstly, I’d like to explain briefly why I think the hall is so important for South Woodford village life. If you don’t need persuading of this, skip the next two paragraphs. One of the main reasons why the church needs the hall is the use made of it every Sunday by Seekers and Quest, our children’s groups. We are incredibly lucky to have the storage space and room denied to many other churches. While some Sunday Schools have to make do with the front porch of their building, the space and facilities that we have mean that we can do really ambitious and worthwhile things with the children that would otherwise be impossible. The regular Sunday Friendship lunches and the receptions after weddings, funerals and baptisms are other important examples of how the Hall enriches church life. The Hall serves a much wider community, though. When I became a trustee, I was surprised to find that it is in use seven days a week, morning, afternoon and evening, by a variety of organisations, from playgroups and guides, to keep fit, dancing and pet handlers – the list is a long one. By giving these groups a relatively cheap, easily accessible and well serviced venue, the hall plays a vital part in promoting community in South Woodford, which is something that the church of course wants to support. Secondly, whom do we need to serve as trustees? At full muster, there are altogether nine trustees – the Rector (who acts as chair), the two churchwardens, four trustees appointed by the PCC and two more co-opted by the other trustees. We have lost one of the co-opted trustees through the sad death of Ian Noble, who played an incalculable role over many years in devising and guiding us through a development plan for the hall; the wonderfully refurbished fleche is a fitting memorial to this aspect of his work. Although we are still quite well off for practical building knowledge, it would be good to have someone with architectural flair and skills aboard to replace Ian. We have also lost some other trustees who have moved on for various

reasons. When Richard Wyber was a trustee, he brought invaluable experience of the financial side of running a charity business, and we would love to find someone with the right accounting skills to replace him. We also miss John Sainsbury’s business acumen. But anyone, whatever their particular skills, with an enthusiasm for assisting the hall to continue in its role of serving the parish and community of South Woodford – and to develop it still further - would be valuable as a trustee. The formal commitment is to attend the three evening meetings each year, but of course there is plenty of scope for further involvement. If you think you can help, or would like to learn more, please talk to our acting chair, Wendy Littlejohns, myself or any of the other trustees. Edmund Booth

Laura’s Baden Powell Concert As part of my Baden Powell Challenge I had to raise some money for an adventure trip, so I organized a mini music concert after the service on the 8th February writes Laura Walker. I would like to thank everyone who gave so generously. All together we raised a massive total of £188.20! I’m sure it’s fair to say that the concert was a success, and from people’s responses I hope we will be able to perform again in the near future. I would also like to

thank everyone who was involved especially the performers, Martin Seymour who accompanied on the piano, Martine James and my mum (Kate Walker) who provided the cakes, which went down very well! Since the adventure trip costs around £50-£70 I will be donating the rest of the money raised to the Sheena Booth Music Trust. This is because it is a music charity and because Edmund Booth is one of our Quest leaders. The performers were: Molly Walker, Hugo Yamaguchi, Laura Walker, Hannah James, Hannah Smith, Laura Smith.

Well done to the hard working cooks who served over 70 happy diners at the Big Breakfast in early March and raised over £350 for church funds.

Jill, Jane and Janet in the kitchen

Jessie, Emma and Hannah in charge of eggy bread

Poet or Pedant? John Green, Woodford’s answer to Humphrey Lyttelton (or Benny Green, if you go back that far) shares a few thoughts in another of his periodic missives.

The only time I have been called a pedant, I misheard my accuser and thought he said “peasant”, which leads me, strange as it may seem, to the 1901 National Census. It shows that my maternal grandfather, then aged 42, lived in the village of Castle Camps in Cambridgeshire, supporting a wife and seven daughters on whatever he could earn as a “hay trusser” – which is what appears in the column “profession or occupation”. This is confirmed by the entry in my parents’ 1921 marriage certificate: “profession of father –hay

bailer” (sic). So, OK, I’m a bit of a peasant. And he drank copious amounts of ale, so how they managed… My other grandfather was a pianoforte tuner, which is the only explanation I can offer for an almost life-long interest in jazz. In the 1930s the BBC Dance Orchestra, under Jack Payne or Henry Hall, played from 5 pm to 6 pm – very boring and sedate for the most part. But once I heard them play Tiger Rag, I was hooked. Several years ago I played jazz tapes for a few evenings in the Gwinnell Room ably assisted by Ian Noble and David Knight – “Blues for the Tower” comes to mind. My as yet unfulfilled plan is “The Three Tenors” – Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Gerry Mulligan – Heaven! In a former life I was personnel manager in an international bank. One of our 40 or so messengers had died in service, and it was my duty to attend the funeral. Telephone call to the head messenger. He replied (and this is gospel truth): “The corsage will be leaving the house at 2.30, Mr Green. That’s all I know.” And so back to being a pedant. One of my pile of bedside books is Between You and I – a little book of bad English”, foreword by John Humphrys, and I quote: “Harass, harassment. Educated speakers of British English place the stress on the first syllable. Others do not” (including the BBC) (my comment in brackets). And when and why did a railway station become a train station? And why do important people say “I have to advise you” when they are simply informing you? Pedantic? You bet! PS. There is a deliberate mistake in the above ramblings. You can point it out to me most Sundays at a couple of minutes to ten. Quietly, of course. Where can I be found? About four rows back on the port inner benches. If you have ever had anything to do with four-engined aircraft, you will know exactly where that is.

Can you help with the Bazaar? Bob and Kay Pamplin, due to increasing commitments, have had to give up organising our Christmas Bazaar. They’ve had a highly successful run but feel it is time to hand over to someone else. The bazaar is an important event in the life of St Mary’s. Without the money it generates we would not be able to help those good causes who have benefitted from it over the years. And with the economy in its

present state, this year it is more important than ever that we keep up our donations. All profits go to charity. Equally important, it’s a great social occasion when we work together putting up and manning the stalls, serving up the food, meeting our fellow Woodford residents and so on. It’s an occasion when our church family – from the Brownies to the choir – come together and enjoy each other’s company while doing a worthwhile job. Please help if you can. There’ll be a great team behind you. Geoff Jones

Relax and chat at the Lunch Club This meets on the second Sunday of each month. The group has been running for over twenty years; it was originally started by Lillian Goldsmith. For £4 a head, diners can have a two course meal and a relaxed chat. During the cold months our numbers often decline for a while with lunch clubbers returning with the better weather. There is always food available if anyone would like to just pop in and try us out. There is always a notice on the back of the notice sheet, the week before the meal with my contact details. So if anybody would like to join us either let me know prior to or take pot luck and join us on the day. We meet for coffee after church and aim to begin our meal from about 12:30. Lesley Blacker

Hopefully our lunch club won’t be like this church event: “Next month the church will host a evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.”

SWIMMING Are you an owl or lark? Well I thankfully am a lark, and why do I say ‘thankfully’? I’ll give you a clue. Who is mad enough to rise at 6.00 a.m. Monday to Friday, put a costume on and grab a sports bag and head for the swimming pool? That’s right, you have guessed, me. For me, early morning is the best part of the day and surprisingly I have become acquainted with other people who are mad enough to rise at the same time as myself and we are all there for the same reason: it keeps us fit, healthy and set up for the day ahead. Swimming is good for you, or so I have been told and as I no longer play badminton this is my daily exercise.

I have had a browse on the Internet and found that many people have tried to swim the English Channel but few succeed: in fact just about 10% and the one factor that handicaps most of the swimmers is lack of fat. The distance of 21 miles is nothing to a regular swimmer but eventually it is the cold that lets the swimmers down. Fit swimmers have a lot of muscle but often don’t have much fat which means that they get colder more quickly and hence their muscles seize up and they find it very hard to continue. Another problem to bear in mind is the number of ships that cross the Channel.

Apparently there are over 600 commercial ship movements and approximately between 80/100 ferry crossings a day between Dover and Calais and therefore it is up to the pilot boat to keep the swimmer clear of the shipping lanes. Captain Matthew Webb was the first known person to swim the English Channel in 1875 but very sadly in 1883 he drowned during an unsuccessful attempt to swim across the whirlpools and rapids under Niagara Falls. Alison Streeter is the holder of the world record of 43 successful attempts across the Channel and even she admits that each and every one of her crossings was a very difficult challenge. Of course a different type of swimming altogether is synchronized swimming. It was an exhibition sport at the Olympic Games from 1948 to 1968 then became a full medal sport in Los Angeles in 1984. It is a ‘women only’ sport with medals for two events, duet and team. Each specific routine is performed to music within a time limit and judges look for a high degree of difficulty and risk, imaginative choreography and a spotless performance. The judging for synchronised swimming is similar to figure skating. There are two panels of five judges each assessing the performance and one panel scoring for technical merit and the other for artistic impression. In both cases, judges award marks out of a possible ten.

Swimming the channel with ferry boats: Not a problem at the swimming pool

I am sure I am not the only one to have been enthralled by the swimming success in the 2008 Beijing Games but of course it needs commitment and dedication to become a top-notch swimmer. In fact any sport participation needs commitment and dedication but just think of the reward at the end. I would have loved to participate in an Olympic Games, but for now I am content with my daily leisurely swim, meeting and chatting with friends while swimming up and down the pool. In fact, I’ll let you into a secret: I often meet someone else from St. Mary’s who is also mad enough to rise at an unearthly hour and head for the pool. Frances Davies

Goodbye to our wonderful David Geoff Jones writes: We at St Mary’s have lost too many of our valued friends over the last year or so: Ian Noble, Lillian Goldsmith, Pearl Hanlon, Ken Wirdnam and John Hill, to name a few. And, just after Christmas, David Wright died after a long illness. David had been a key member of our choir, a valued friend and, crucially, church warden during a period of crisis in the

history of St Mary’s – when the church was destroyed by fire in 1968. Together with David Ward, the other church warden, and other stalwarts such as Chris Whitfield and under the inspired leadership of his close friend the rector Bob Birchnall, he made sure the family of the church stayed together during the rebuilding and also that the new structure would be something that would suit our needs and that future churchgoers could be proud of. And while all this was going on he continued his work as a committed family doctor with a busy practice and – top of David’s list of priorities – caring for Stella and bringing up his family. But we will all remember David for his quiet, unassuming presence in the choir on Sundays. Utterly dependable, he was always there. I personally regarded him as a model; he never lost his temper, always saw the goodness in others and had an unshakeable faith. I’m a better person for knowing him.

Last photo:David surrounded by family and friends at Harts

At his funeral another of his many, many friends, Chris Winward, said: No words of mine can possibly do justice to David’s life of some 85 yrs filled with so many blessings received and given. The life of a very special man indeed who attained the highest possible degree of regard in the eyes of all who knew him. There have been four essential features of David’s life: medicine, music, family and faith. He was born in 1923 in Thornton Heath, the youngest in a family of 13 children. After matriculating he joined the Fleet Air Arm in 1941 and became an observer, flying mostly in Swordfish aircraft off the decks of convoy escort vessels. Dangerous times I once said to him. “Yes they were rather”, was David’s typical understated reply. Testimony to the value of his friendship was that after 65 yrs he and his pilot still remained friends. After the war, David began medical training at The London Hospital where he met Walter Depla, with whom he set up general practice together in Mile End. Life in the East End was potentially dangerous so David used to walk around with his stethoscope around his neck for protection. David often arrived unsolicited to see how his patients were and even took in his car boot half sacks of coke to elderly patients whom he thought might be in need. It was at this time that the Salvation Army asked David to run a clinic at the Victoria Home in Whitechapel, and for many years every Friday evening after surgery he would go along to practise medicine with the homeless who were in great need. David said at the time that it was the most Christian thing that he did and Stella recently received a letter from the Territorial Commander of The Salvation Army of England commending and thanking David yet again for his work. Some years later, when the practice had grown, he felt able to leave his patients in good hands and joined Walter Depla in practice in Hainault. David’s concern as a doctor was solely the care of his patients. He stubbornly resisted attempts to involve him in administration, and computers. “If I’d wanted to be an administrator I would have trained to be one. I am a doctor and my job is to practise medicine,” he said. He retired officially aged 70 but carried on as a locum for another nine years until his by -pass operation, when the children persuaded him that he had done enough. “Dad, after this you can’t risk dropping dead with a patient. How would it look?” So, David transferred his caring skills to looking after Stella. It was after his operation that he took up walking everywhere and often used to walk to church to sing in the choir. His love of singing had been kindled as a young lad when the local choirmaster came to his school looking for new choirboys. David joined, and soon discovered an innate talent and love of music which lasted a lifetime. He joined the St Mary’s choir in the mid-70s and became a loyal and devoted chorister for over 30 years. As a measure of their regard for David, last autumn they visited him in Harts and presented him with a medal inscribed “to our friend and fellow chorister”. David was greatly touched. But David not only served his Lord in the choir but as churchwarden. In the mid 60s the then rector had asked David to be warden for just a year or so

but little did David know that the rector would have left within a year and that David and his good friend David Ward would be charged with the responsibility of running the church, appointing a new rector and being warden for the next 10 years. The bishop suggested they went to St Anne’s to observe whether the vicar there, one Bob Birchnall, was up to the mark. Bob duly came to be rector and thus began a friendship which lasted for over 30 years. On one occasion when the dustmen were on strike David arrived unsolicited to take Bob’s rubbish to the dump. When Bob returned home he was mortified of course. “What a man,” he said, “who can use his hands to help heal people and yet use those same hands to take my rubbish to the dump”. As well as singing, David often read the lesson or led prayers. Bob persuaded him to start prayers for the sick each month which continues to this day. I have spoken of David’s love of medicine and music. Now to the core of his life --his family. In the summer of 1949 he was to meet a young lady who was to become the love of his life. She had come off her motor bike and was taken to the Docklands Settlement for treatment. A young medical student was called upon to treat her. The young lady was one Stella Nunneley, the young man you can guess. And 59 years ago they were married in Barnet Parish church. And hasn’t God blessed their union! Two years later Robert arrived, then Rhoda and Sarah and after a bit of a gap, Charlotte and Ella were all welcomed into the family with great rejoicing. Subsequently the family has expanded of course with six grandchildren: Paul, Katy, Daniel, Rosanna, Libby and Lyla. David adored them all and was proud of each one of them and told them so. They of course adored him too. And David was delighted to have seen them all of late along with the most recent addition, his great grandson Ashton who arrived last year along with Lyla and his great niece Poppy. And of course there are partners and nephews and nieces and sister-in-law Beryl to all of whom David gave of his affection and they to him. In earlier years there were many happy family holidays, mostly on the Isle of Sheppey at the family bungalow. A day would be spent packing up the two family cars with kids and at least five dogs -- Chihuahuas and Labradors -- and guinea pigs etc and off they would go. David loved to take the children to the beach, to swim, or to the markets or to castle and cathedral. As long as they were happy, he was happy. Life in such a large and busy family was never dull. And yet, David always seemed to have time to be around when he was needed. He had that wonderful ability to make each of them feel that they were special and precious to him and he gave of his love unconditionally. David had a surprisingly mischievous streak as well as a dry sense of humour and often had the family in fits of laughter. But you might be surprised to learn that, despite his calm demeanour, David was a very strict disciplinarian with the children. On one occasion he arrived home to find Stella harassed and fed up with the children. “David you must talk to them and tell them off”, she said. So David lined up his somewhat surprised and apprehensive offspring

and told each of them in turn: “You’re told off. Now don’t upset your mother again.” David the disciplinarian! Another of David’s endearing qualities was his dress sense. He loved to wear bright colours but, much to the interest of the children, they were seldom coordinated. David had abundant energy. Well into his 60s he ran up the stairs two at a time. He worked long hours, yet still found time for his family. I asked the family what they thought his greatest qualities were. His kindness, they said, his patience, he never lost his temper, his selflessness and his affection. And, more recently, how typically stoic David was when coping with his illness. David touched all our lives with the quality of his and of course we are but a few of the lives that he has touched through his 50 years of practising medicine, through his singing, through his church work or most valuably through his friendship and the quiet and dignified example of character that we all saw in him. But, crucially, he did have two very important but different partners. One, of course, was Stella, his partner and enabler for nearly 60 years. The other was his good Lord. David preferred to show his faith with actions, not words. In one of the many letters and cards Stella has received, a friend said David managed to spread peace everywhere he went. But beneath that peaceful and calm demeanour lay the heart and mind of a very strong character. A character that exuded all the fruits of God’s holy spirit: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control and above all love.

Tales of a phone cleaning lady Did you know that a telephone can harbour up to 25,127 microbes per square inch? In that case, I wonder if anyone remembers Phonotas, a small City-based company that employed ladies to clean telephones across the metropolis? I remember the name well because I spent the summer of 1973 working for them. I was a student then and needed to earn some pocket money to travel to Marrakesh that September.

Founded in 1911 to sanitise telephone receivers against infection, the company was later advertised on the Underground ‘to keep your conversation clean!’ I think I saw their recruitment ad. in the Evening Standard. I was provided with a dark brown nylon overall to wear over my tee-shirt and bell-bottom jeans and a small brown attache case containing cleaning materials, disposable wipes and, of great importance, the heavy weight needed to put each phone out of action while I cleaned it. ‘Have case, will travel’ and I set off each morning, having clocked in at 8, from the office headquarters near Kings Cross, armed with a long typed list of

contracted clients. Every day was different; I was a fly on the wall in so many different places I had forgotten about till I came across an old diary recently. There were City banks, of course, with open-plan floors full of telephones to keep me busy, but often I travelled across London on the tube to Inns of Court, gentlemen’s clubs in Piccadilly and Mayfair. There were photographers’ studios in Kensington mews streets, cinemas and theatres in Soho and Covent Garden that I entered through the stage door. Working for Phonotas was an education – I had never been inside a betting shop before let alone the Playboy Club in Mayfair! I was even offered a job at Transatlantic Records that might have tempted me had I not been set on becoming a teacher. One of the most interesting places was the theatrical costumiers, Berman and Nathans, in the Strand. They were busy making costumes for television dramas including one about Elizabeth I and their work rooms were awash with slashed velvet doublets and jewelled bodices to die for. Every time I went back there they were working on something different. I crammed Victorian novels: Middlemarch, North and South and Jude the Obscure into my attache case – next term’s reading list – and lay on the grass in Lincoln’s Inn Fields or Soho Square leafing through them before returning to the office with my signed work sheet. I earned £17 a week and we were given £1.50 travel expenses and a 25p allowance to have our shoes repaired although my sturdy Swedish clogs coped well trudging the London streets. To put that into context, I noted down I spent £7.50 on a Laura Ashley dress, 25p on a tin of Biba’s own brand of coffee in their latest Kensington High Street store and 35p on a new copy of Wuthering Heights. Looking back, Phonotas opened doors I would never have entered otherwise: editorial offices on IPC magazines where journalists discussed next month’s copy, smoky Air (!) recording studios in Oxford Street the morning after, dress designers, furriers, architects, solicitors’ practices, ITN Television studios and even the Ecclesiastical Insurance Company in the Aldwych. London became a familiar, friendly place and my paperback A-Z of street names subsequently fell apart. Mission accomplished, my boyfriend, Martin, and I travelled to Marrakesh and were married the next summer. But that’s another story. Penny Freeston

A Personal Church Journey Brian Ray tells us how he came to St Mary’s. Twenty five years ago when I moved to Woodford I was what might loosely be described by others as a lapsed Christian. In my view I wasn’t – I was merely a non practicing one. I was not agnostic but needed some answers. Why had I gone away? Possibly because I was young and wanted other life experiences having been brought up in a strictly Christian family. I wanted to see if there was something else out there I didn’t consciously stop being a Church person. I drifted away, wanting to view life without it. The good times

– clubbing, partying and all the rest of it -appeared on the horizon, but didn’t produce a wife though! Probably because of a huge family tragedy – I lost both parents to cancer, Dad when I was 20 and Mum when I was 23 – I had to move from my home town of Epping to get away from the pressures of meeting family and Church friends. Today there are all types of counselling but back then there was neither counselling nor hospices to deal with family problems that arise. But there was Mary Ovendon, the vicar’s wife at St John the Baptist Epping. One Sunday morning while Mum was still alive Mary prayed with us and it was then I realised that I needed some space from the bitterness in my broken family caused by everything that had happened. Slowly but surely Mary’s efforts started to heal the differences. The pressure eased and for her last few months Mum was at peace. Well done Mary. Breaking up a family home is hard – selling the house, dealing with solicitors, removal men and deciding who has what. I also had to face starting out in employment. Not the ideal life for a young spring chicken! What still haunts me was seeing the sadness of our dog Mij as my brother and I handed him over to friends – never to see him again. Animals have a second sense of what is happening. According to Cesar Milan who is also known as “The Dog Whisperer” animals only “live in today” but they can certainly read people’s minds going forward. Once this was all over, getting on with my social life and career was eminently more important. Also the question that can never be answered of why parents should die at such a young age needed to be addressed especially as they were God fearing Christians. Epping was a closely knit place where you ran into family friends too regularly. I needed distance, which Woodford provided for some time My answer was to create a place in my mind where I could slowly accept what had happened without being hassled by others. To slowly realise that Mum and Dad had just been terribly unfortunate and that there was no easy answer. In modern day parlance it was time to move on and shut the door on the past without forgetting it Then one day in the middle of a very busy day at work I found myself asking the question: what am I doing here and isn’t there anything better in life – this obsession with money is not what I was brought up to worship. I started remembering Mary Ovenden and how she had helped me all those years ago. I was starting to question my role in life – was it just work and play as a single man still. The church door remained shut but I was on my way back. Then one day walking back to the office I noticed that the church

door at St Margaret Pattens was ajar, and I walked into a completely new way of life. A small City church tied in with City life that would give me a chance to reflect and pray during the day. An opportunity to test whether I was ready to become a regular worshipper again. It wasn’t whether I needed a “Back to Church Sunday” to get me going – I had to be ready to make the commitment, and the wilderness slowly started to disappear. The spiritual light was gradually being turned on in a small City church with a congregation of 10 to 15. I felt part of the family. Communion should always be intimate with God. And it is especially so when the priest uses Christian names as part of the celebration. I was back in the church family again in a mission church which bore some reality to the outside world, unlike the financial world which was full of high fliers, emptiness and Hooray Henrys. When I finally walked through the door here at St Mary’s I was warmly welcomed but left alone. I needed just this type of ambiance with no cloying recruiting or pressure, just a hello, kindness and plenty of smiles around the place – just as my city Church had been. Actions speak louder than words. I was back and the living testimony is that you are still having to listen to me 15 years on! So please remember when we near Back to Church Sunday again not everyone needs recruiting. Some may just need kindness and a smile.

I think that I shall never see… A sick-bed reflection

As I lie here on my bed in the nursing-home in more or less constant though only occasionally severe pain following a ‘total knee replacement’ op, I look moodily or dreamily out of the window on the second floor and my gaze falls on the most beautiful tree. There it stands, framed in one of the panes, crying out, begging to be drawn or sketched or painted. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t know which end of the pencil or brush to hold. Any effort I made would be a grotesque, almost blasphemous parody of the Corot it reminds me of; blasphemous, because this tree is a divine creation. What is it saying to me? It is January and the tree looks its finest in the

early morning or late afternoon, before ‘darkness falls from the air’. Its leafless tracery is etched delicately and subtly against an opalescent, pearly sky, that is sometimes tinged with layers of faintest mauve or palest pink, and then it stands out bravely in all its seemingly fragile beauty. But when the sun blazes out at noon (and, mirabile dictu et visu! it has done from time to time) and the sky is a cloudless azure blue, then my beloved

tree doesn’t quite pale into insignificance, but ‘loses out’ against the more strident effulgence of the sun’s light and the more sharply defined surrounding landscape. And this suggests to me that beauty (and so, if Keats is right, truth) can be found in the minor, as well as the major, episodes of life, in the plaintive adagio of a Beethoven Symphony or Haydn Quartet as in the triumphant splendour of the last movement, say, of Beethoven’s 5th. To go down another well-trodden track, it can be found in the quiet, reflective mood of a BCP Evensong as much as, or even more so, in a boisterous ‘clap-happy’ service (of praise?). It also suggests to me that if not everything has been sent or placed here for a purpose, as some believers with a simpler, perhaps less questioning faith than mine (blessed are they, perhaps?) believe, a purpose and indeed a blessing can be found in everything for those with a struggling but sufficient faith. Or is this altogether too fanciful and likely to call down upon me the scorn and contempt of Richard Dawkins and his ilk? Whatever, … when I feast my sight upon my lovely tree, I can still and do say Laus Deo… Geoff Weekes

St Mary’s book reviews “Why go to Church?” Timothy Radcliffe Continuum £7.49 Amazon

Timothy Radcliffe, Dominican friar and indeed at one time the leader of the international RC Dominican province, is a well-established and wide-ranging writer who manages to be both spiritually persuasive and sparkily interesting. He’s the sort of intelligent, grounded and creative Christian who wholly defies the currently vigorous attempts of certain atheists to portray our faith as simplistic and credulous. It’s not surprising then that Rowan Williams, arguably a sort of soul mate, should make this his Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2009 Lent choice. The book explores the celebration of Holy Communion, emphasising its role in enabling us to become more fully human by showing us who we are and who we might become through a relationship with Jesus. Early on Radcliffe says, “The unobserved

drama is in the core of our humanity”. His answer to the question he poses in the title concerns this possibility of self-discovery within the discovery of God’s presence. The truer self found in that way is, he suggests, better able to grasp the significance of pain and conflict and to relate more directly to other people who might otherwise seem strangers. Radcliffe attaches these meanings to the idea of “living

eucharistically”. This is not just for Lent late starters. Like all the best Lent books, it is never the wrong season for reading it. “Dissolution” C. J. Sansom Pan about £4 from Amazon If you enjoy a well characterised and plotted thriller that also explores serious and complex issues intelligently, try Sansom’s “Shardlake series”, which opens with this ice-bound tale of political intrigue, monastic corruption and, of course, much murder. Sansom’s memorably likeable protagonist, Andrew Shardlake, is a Tudor lawyer working rather reluctantly for the Protestant reformer Thomas Cranmer, responsible in the dangerous mid-reign of Henry 8th for stripping the monasteries and other Catholic religious communities of their assets. With an innocent young assistant he is sent to a remote abbey on the south coast in deep mid-winter to investigate the death of Cranmer’s previous commissioner. If you liked P.D. James “Death in holy orders” you’re likely to enjoy this partially similar tale set in the C16th. Shardlake is a hunchback at a time when disability was widely viewed as a curse from God, a grave social and personal as well as physical impediment. Part of the pleasure of the series is finding that he nonetheless has subtler advantages over the often amoral, powerful figures of high rank who typically but self-interestedly invoke God’s will at each turn of events. Shardlake is smarter than most of them, as the genre requires, and partly because of that he’s relatively neutral about the religious disputes around him. Most of all he displays a basic decency grounded in the painful personal experiences that have left him an unusually sensitive observer of others. The following novels in the series (“Dark Fire”, “Sovereign” and “Revelation”) maintain the pace and develop, rather than just repeat, the genre ingredients. Start here. “The Shack” William P Young Hodder and Stoughton £3.99 Amazon If you’ve heard of this American publishing phenomenon (a self-financed first novel that grew to million-seller status largely by word of mouth), you might have assumed it to be too evangelical and sentimental for most British tastes. I certainly viewed it with suspicion, nearly giving up several times before getting to the remarkable development on which the plot, the main character’s fate and the book’s theological message all turn like a hinge. After losing a child in the worst of circumstances, Mack Philips enters a period of depression that his previous, never very lively faith cannot ameliorate and that it seems unlikely to survive. Three years later a note arrives asking him to return to the site of his daughter’s death. Half-doubting his own sanity, he does so. Readers are specifically asked not to reveal what happens next, and I can see why. What can be said is that the book attends to the constant question, “Where is God in a world of intense suffering?” The picture of God’s nature that emerges will be for many throughout Christian history a new one - fundamentally based on “relationships, not rules”, implicitly universalist but also trinitarian and in that sense traditional at the same time as radical. It’s quite an achievement that this emerges through a shortish, readable novel with a touch of Arthur C. Clarke-

style science fiction to help us question our assumptions. I can’t guess who’ll enjoy this one, but as it’s on a great many minds at present it might be worth finding out. John Wiltshire

Saving the Children Rowena Rudkin writes: At the One World Day meeting and service on Children in Conflict held here in Woodford last October a number of people signed a petition in support of the campaign of Save the Children to rescue such children. The petition was sent to the minister for the United Nations, Asia and Africa. Rowena Rudkin received a reply from Julia Shand, Peacebuilding and Rule of Law Team, Conflict Group, at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, an extract from which said: “I was very interested to read about your support for the save the Children ‘Rewrite the Future’ campaign. The UK also supports the invaluable work of Non Governmental Organisations on this issue. We have provided financial support to programmes which help demobilise and reintegrate children into their communities in a number of countries around the world. The UK also provides over £170m funding for the Education without Borders campaign. This will help to ensure that education needs are met in humanitarian emergencies and provide education expertise and funding in countries affected by and emerging from conflict in Africa and Asia. The initiative includes a £20m grant to UNICEF that will also help deliver education in fragile states. We are also committed to playing an active role in international efforts to protect children affected by armed conflict as a member of the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and through the European Union. The UK also strongly supports and actively facilitates the work of international courts and tribunals which are trying the alleged perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community including those against children.”

Ursula and Sid Myers and family (including Soldier the cat) have now moved to their permanent home in Devon. With such a stunning view of their locality, who can blame them! Their new address is Pendleton, 25 Hosford Close, Staddiscombe, Plymouth, Devon, PL9 9UW. We and all their friends at St Mary’s wish them well in their new abode.

New Outreach Venture Bridget Webb writes:

We invite everyone at St Mary’s to a meal on Sunday April 19th at 12.00noon., including the young people who are part of the church family. These include children and their parents from Seekers, young people’s groups and others who have a link with us through Naomi’s (and her hard working team’s) regular summer clubs. We hope that established members of our congregation will take this opportunity to get to know better some of the younger families over a hot

meal. This is attractive to all, I hope, and sharing it together should lead to conversation. Leslie Blacker and a team of helpers will be serving meat and vegetarian meals and dishes for children. We are using the hall at the rear of the Memorial Hall, which we plan to decorate with children’s designs; it has a garden, which we can use if weather permits. Invitations are in church now, so people can take one, and come and join us on the day. Please put your reply slip in the large orangey “pie” in the foyer, to give us an idea of numbers. It is also Naomi’s last Sunday with us and it seems particularly appropriate for us to be reaching out to young families; Naomi has worked so hard with this group, We can all thank her and say goodbye together. PS It is still not too late to sign up to our food form in the foyer, if you can kindly supply a pudding or a salad for our meal. PPS We are also planning to fund raise for a better stove for the Memorial Hall (hopefully an eight burner) over the next few months. Bridget, Shirley Lealman and Valerie Geller.

Look out for the orange pie in the foyer

Emily and Jasmine Smith, granddaughters of Pat, attend the Tower Hamlets Chinese Dance School. On 1st February they performed on stage in Dean Street China Town, to celebrate Chinese New Year.

The cushion fairy strikes again Geoff Jones writes: Over the last few months a strange phenomenon has been taking place in St Mary’s. The old variegated cushions that have been donated by various uncomfortable worshippers over the years have been re-covered. One by one, they’ve been transformed into bright new things that insulate us from our notoriously unforgiving hard pews. The transformation has taken place silently, without any fuss or announcement, and totally without cost to the church. But whoever it is who has undertaken

this labour of love has asked to remain anonymous. This means that a whole generation of those of us with sensitive bottoms will have to guess who saved our skin. But I’m sure we’ll all raise a glass some cold night in thanks to Woodford’s unsung hero (or heroine) – our own cushion fairy. Long may she (or he) sew!

Norah Guppy celebrated her 90th birthday recently. She is pictured here with the flowers from St Mary’s at a tea party in her honour. Congratulations to Norah. Maybe this story is the secret of her success: Three walkers on the Fells came to a swollen torrent that they had to cross. It seemed impossible so they started praying. The first asked for the strength to get across. He was given super-human strength, so with great effort managed to get to the other side. The second prayed for the right tools to get over. He was given a boat and after much strenuous paddling he also managed to cross the river. The third prayed for sufficient intelligence to be able to cross and then looked at the map, walked a hundred yards along the river bank and crossed using the bridge. She was a woman.

And taking about pictures - a plea if you are at any church, outreach or any interesting event please remember your camera and send any publishable snaps to Geoff and Viveca for the magazine, web site, church displays etc. Think picture!

What’s going on down there? This intriguing picture was one of the many outstanding entries to the Annual Reg Fowkes Memorial Phtographic Competition. Congratulations to the winner: Tim Everett and to all the winners, and all the talented photographers out there in Woodford. And to Pat Smith for organising everything with her tireless aplomb.

Music in Hospitals 'On Tuesday the 110th March Forest School's Scholars' Strings, Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Choir gave a superb concert in aid of the charity 'Music in Hospitals'. Their chief executive, Diana Greeman, gave a talk about the value of music in therapeutic settings and was pleased to receive nearly £600 from the event. Various youngsters acted as soloists in movements from violin and viola concertos, and the group performed the entire double violin concerto by Bach (which will tax even the professional player). However, the highlight of the evening was a performance of 'La Oracion del Torero' by Turina by the string quartet which had everyone spellbound not only by the music but the incredibly high standard of playing. They had recently been coached by some professional players in Manchester and this has further improved their ensemble. In the second half of the concert the chamber choir performed Haydn's 'Little Organ Mass' along with the strings, which was super in our acoustics and the soprano soloist, Emma Lewis, proved an excellent choice for the Benedictus. It was good to see the concert well supported and there will be a number of musical events taking place in the church during this year. I am presently organising a series of organ recitals featuring international organists Martin Seymour

Some of the string players of the Forest School Orchestra (picture courtesy of Forest School)

Market Place Need a babysitter? contact

Charlotte Pamplin 0208 504 4502.

If you need any odd jobs doing nothing is too small contact Bob

Pamplin on 020 8504 4502

Brian Ray General Gardening and Odd jobs at reasonable rate 020 8504 9755 Mobile: 07949 582592 Email: brianray@btinternet.com A friendly well known St Mary’s face !

A couple of thoughts for Easter Share your spoon A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, "Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like." The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water. The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, "You have seen Hell." They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table and the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished, laughing and talking. The holy man said, "I don't understand." "It is simple" said the Lord. "It requires but one skill. You see they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves." When Jesus died on the cross, He was thinking of you. Learn to share your spoon.

Exasperated by email? Baffled by bullets? Worried about the Web? Try one to one support using your own computer Call Viveca Dutt 07855 861913

And a note about Hot Cross buns In the Middle Ages people believed that Hot Cross Buns had special powers, provided that they were baked on 'Goode Friday', so bakers and housewivesgot up very early to make them on the actual day. Some of the buns would be left in the oven on purpose to harden so that they could be kept for a whole year. Then, during the winter, a part of the bun would be grated up and put into medicines as a cure for all kinds of sickness, coughs and colds, headaches, sore feet etc. Sailors going to sea would take a hot cross bun with them to guard against them being shipwrecked. Superstition maybe, but it is good to be reminded that our Lord did die on the cross for us.

Chris Meikle

Hot cress buns—our gift to Woodford last Easter

Some Diary Dates to note

Saturday May 16th Food and Fun Day 11.00am - 3.00pm Sunday 19th April Parish Lunch 12.00noon Sunday 26th April St Mary’s Annual Meeting after 10.00am Service Tuesday 5th May Naomi’s induction at Hatfield Broad Oak June 23rd-28th Possible visit to Wintershall Life of Christ Friday 4th-Sunday September 6th Parish Retreat Pleshey Sunday September 6th Induction of the Revd Ian Tarrant 6.00pm .

Copy date for the summer magazine is 31st May. Please send material to Geoff Jones (jillian-jones@sky.com; 020 8491 6508) copied to Viveca Dutt (vivecadutt@talktalk.net; (020 8530 6051) Thank you

Holy Week and Easter Services Celebrate the resurrection of Christ

Palm Sunday 5th April Communion Services; 8.00am and 10.00am. Evening service 6.30pm Monday 6th– Holy Week Meditations 8.00pm Wednesday 8th Love Speaks From the Cross Maundy Thursday 9th April Services at 9.00am and 8.00pm followed by the stripping of the altar and vigil to midnight Good Friday 10th April Services at 10.00am and 2.00pm Children’s service 11.45am Holy Saturday 11th April Easter Vigil and first Eucharist of the Resurrection 8.00pm Easter Sunday 12th April Communion Services at 8.00am, 10.00 Choral Evensong 6.30pm

Naomi in her element, enthusing children at the Holiday Club