Friends of Gordon ChapelNEWSLETTERwww.gordonchapel.org.uk

No. 20

Charity number SCO01009

November 2013

Aberdeen International Youth Festival comes to Gordon Chapel

Gordon Chapel was treated to a wonderful concert on Monday 29 July, given as part of the extended festival venues of the Aberdeen International Youth Festival or AIYF. Two groups travelled out from Aberdeen driven by a very cheery driver, Steven, whom also videoed the concert, and they were accompanied by Irene, a friendly and efficient

Festival courier.

Arriving at 2.30pm they were given refreshments in the sunshine in the Chapel garden made possible by the kind permission of Frances and James. Then it was time for a rehearsal. La Isla Classical Guitar Ensemble from Canada consisted of eight performers and they practised snippets of their very wide programme varying from a

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Siciliana by Pergolesi to a Trinidadian Boat Song plus, of course, a homage to Scotland with a rendition of Loch Lomond. Dressed in black with different coloured ties, they looked very smart.

Meanwhile Anna Vovk and Ann Doroshenkova from Russia warmed up with the use of the clavinova. They were also given a wee shot of the organ which they were delighted about!

We had expected them to be singing

and playing the clavinova, but they both sang Russian folk songs with a CD backing along with a small amount of dance movement. They looked wonderful dressed in their national costumes. One of them also played Mozart’s Andante unaccompanied on her flute. Their songs included Leningrad Boys, Golden Domes of Moscow and Kalinka, all of course sung in Russian.

There was time for a guided tour of the Chapel and many signed the visitors book, followed by a walk around Fochabers with a visit to the ice cream shop. A meal was served in the parish room and was much appreciated with lots to choose from including quiches, sausage rolls, salads, chicken and home bakes.

The concert started at 7.30pm and any worries about a small audience due to other

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concerts on in the area were proved groundless as people poured in. Indeed, there was a moment when we thought we wouldn’t fit everyone in and we finished up with an audience of nearly ninety people not including the “Friends” team and the performers. One of our most successful concerts in the church.

The performances were all extremely accomplished and done from memory with great enthusiasm and communication which transmitted itself to the audience in an immensely refreshing way. They all seemed delighted and interested to perform in Gordon Chapel and were a credit to their respective countries.

The concert involved much organisation, time and preparation but on reflection it was definitely worth it. Shall we do it again next year?!

Fiona Gordon

Newsletter Editorial It has been a busy few months as this Newsletter will testify; we have had concerts, coffee mornings, a service for our Patronal Saint and, of course, lots of planning for the Christmas Concert (details of which have been enclosed with this edition).

In September, Gordon Chapel celebrated its Patronal Saint for the first time. When Gordon Chapel was originally dedicated it did not have a Patronal Saint. Last year, that changed when St Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, became our Patronal Saint and we were delighted to welcome the Bishop of Moray, Ross and Caithness to preside over a Eucharist to mark St Elizabeth.

I am grateful to the contributors to this edition, Fiona Gordon, Audrey Abelsmith and Mary Thomson. In fact, I’ve been lucky enough to have too much for this edition. So I am

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holding over some material until the next edition in the new year.

Peter H Reid (PHR)

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Black Douglas and the Battle of TebaA Fochabers friend who lives part of each year in Spain, told me of an interesting two day festival in the village of Teba, Granada. It is a celebration of a special event in Teba’s history with a very strong connection to Scotland. There is music, singing and dancing by the Spanish and their Scottish visitors, a visit to the Castle of the Stars and Teba Museum, lectures on the history and a parade and wreath-laying ceremony at the monument to Sir James Douglas. In the background, of all this is King Robert the Bruce.

By the Treaty of Northampton, fourteen years after Bannockburn (1314), Edward III of England recognised Scotland as an independent nation and Bruce as her King. The Bruce was not to enjoy the recognition for long. Ill-health and the acceptance of approaching death, made him realise he would be unable to keep an old vow to go on Crusade to the Holy Lands. Bruce called Sir James Douglas, nicknamed ‘The Black’ on account of great skill as a warrior, to his bedside and there Bruce made him promise to carry his heart to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. He is reported to have said: ‘Now I can die in peace for the greatest knight in my Kingdom will do for me what I cannot do for myself’.

King Robert died in June 1329 and his embalmed heart was placed in a sliver casket which Douglas thereafter wore around his neck. Bruce’s tomb is in Dunfermline Abbey. A year later, Douglas joined a crusade being led by the King of Castile against Moslems in the Castle of the Stars in Teba but the Sultan of Granada sent a relief force and the two armies engaged on the plains below. The Moslem forces feigned a retreat, drawing Douglas and his men into an ambush. Douglas started to withdraw but then rode to the rescue of St Clair of Roslyn. Surrounded by Moors, he took the casket from his neck and threw it ahead of him, shouting: ‘Pass first in fight as thou wast wont to do. Douglas will follow thee or die’. After the battle, the casket was found lying under his body. His heart was removed and the body boiled in vinegar

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so that his bones, with his heart, could be taken back to his native land, along with the King’s heart.

Today, St Bride’s Kirk, Douglas is the resting place of one of Scotland’s greatest warriors. Melrose Abbey is the resting place of one of Scotland’s greatest Kings. Margaret Forsyth

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Sixty years in Holy Orders: Canon Michael WolfeOn Sunday 29th September, we were thinking of Michael Wolfe and praying for him and his family, as this was his big ‘red letter’ day, marking 60 years in Holy Orders, and his retirement from the part-time position of Liverpool Cathedral Chaplain.

During his National Service Michael was with the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars in Germany, and in 1951 he seriously considered a career in the army. ‘It was an interesting and a good life, but something did not seem quite right for me’, he says. He was an Oxford graduate, and after National Service he went to Cuddlesdon Theological College. He was ordained in September 1953 at Bristol Cathedral, and it was in Bristol that he met and married his wife Brenda; they have now been together for 56 years.

Michael is part of the history of Gordon Chapel, because, after his curacy in Bristol, he came here in 1956, and was the first priest to live at Gordon Chapel House. Prior to this, Mrs Baxter, Mrs Brander and Miss Bruce had saved the Church from being turned into a cinema, and raised enough money to purchase it for the congregation. The building was in a poor state after being occupied by the army during the war, so it was refurbished, and the former school was made into a house for the priest. Michael says that it was a nice comfortable modern home for that time. His father Dean Wolfe was Rector of Gordon Chapel and St Margaret’s Church, Aberlour, and also Warden of the Aberlour Orphanage, where three hundred children were cared for, and Michael had been brought up there. He assisted his father at both churches, and was also Chaplain at the Orphanage. Dean Wolfe retired in 1958,

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and Michael and Brenda moved to the Diocese of Liverpool in 1959.

Michael had a special interest in ecumenism, and in later years he extended it to inter-faith work. He was a member of the Merseyside Council of Christians and Jews, and in 1985 he became co-ordinator of the newly-founded Merseyside Inter-Faith Group. One of the first things he did in this direction was to bring together the congregations of Gordon Chapel and Bellie Church in January 1958. The Gordon Chapel Communion started at 10.00am that day, and at 11.00am the congregation processed to Bellie Kirk, and joined in the service there with Revd Gavin Brown and his congregation. Michael wonders whether this was ever done again, but he knows that our Fochabers churches work together in other ways.

Besides his inter-faith work, Michael was among the first to support the ordination of women.

Since 2010 there has been an annual Abseil down the face of Liverpool Cathedral, and Michael has been one of the participants. He says he did it for a laugh, but once was enough – anything to raise funds! As a matter of interest, Justin Welby, now Archbishop of Canterbury did the Abseil when he was Dean of Liverpool.

Michael and Brenda had two sons and two daughters, and there are eleven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. On 29th September, Michael preached at the 10.30am Cathedral Eucharist, with many friends present, and afterwards the Wolfe family gathered together for a celebratory meal.

Michael came to preach at Gordon Chapel one Sunday when Susan Wiffin was our priest, and she introduced him to me before the service. He was on the mailing list

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for our magazine, and I was editor at the time, so he knew that I had a close friend at Blundellsands, Liverpool and visited her every year or so. Then he said I should get in touch with him when I was in Liverpool again, and he would entertain me to tea in the Cathedral refectory, so I met him there on three or four occasions and have the privilege of being one of his many friends.

We wish Michael and Brenda much happiness in the coming years.

Audrey Abelsmith

This photograph shows Canon Michael Wolfe after he abseiled down Liverpool Cathedral recently.

I also came across the photograph below, a rather grainy image from the Northern Scot showing Michael Wolfe (and his father Dean Wolfe on the right) at Gordon Chapel in the 1950s. together with the Bishop and the Primus and members of the congregation. (PHR)

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“The Banffshire Bethlehem”

“If you remember in the way between Auchenhalrig and Tulloch I showed you a little house, where a poor woman had lived for some time, to which Tynet proposed making an addition as a cot for his sheep, but in effect for our use, for if we may expect any humanity or sympathy they will be ashamed to put us from a sheep-cot, especially when there is incomparably better of that kind in the country. What Tynet proposed to do he has done, and the house is very near complete. His sheep have been in it for some time past, and will continue to go there some time more. We will not have such accommodation as we had in the barn, but will be considerably better than we have been these twelve months past.”

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So wrote Father John Godsman to Bishop Alexander Smith, the Vicar Apostolic of the Lowlands District around 1755. Father Godsman had served the Roman Catholics of the Enzie – the heartland of recusant of Scotland – as their priest from 1734. The Enzie had remained loyal to Rome after the Reformation principally because the Dukes of Gordon remained Catholic. Presbyterianism struggled to gain a foot-hold in both Rathven and Enzie because of the protection afforded by the House of Gordon.

The Parish Church at Rathven resolutely stuck with the Episcopal order for almost twenty-five years after the Revolution in 1688 and there were frequent riots when Presbyterian ministers were presented. In the rural hinterland of the Enzie, Roman Catholicism remained the prevailing faith. St Ninian’s at Tynet (just below Braes of Enzie) was the focus of Catholic worship and it was here, in 1728, that the 2nd Duke of Gordon’s body lay in state. His wife’s promise to bring up the children as Roman Catholics was dashed the Sunday after his death when she took them all to the Protestant church in Fochabers. Shortly afterwards, a Protestant mob virtually destroyed the old St Ninian’s. In the subsequent tumultuous years, Roman Catholics in the Enzie met in safe houses or in barns and faced great hardship and persecution as they were without the direct protection of Cosmo, 3rd Duke of Gordon, although he – who had served as an altar boy at Mass at the old St Ninian’s – was broadly sympathetic to them.

In the 1750s, Alexander Anderson of Tynet, a bonnet-laird who resided near where the Mill of Tynet is today, made the offer of a sheep cot to Father Godsman. Anderson is the ‘Tynet’ referred to in Godsman’s letter. Thus the most extraordinary church in Scotland came into being. Looking for all the world, like a humble row of cottages, the chapel (named for St Ninian like its predecessor a couple of miles to the south) was austere and bare with no ornament and the simplest table as an altar. But, it was cherished and loved by the many local Catholics who would attend Mass there early in the morning.

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With the easing of penal restrictions and the eventual Royal Assent of the Catholic Relief Act in 1793, the chapel gradually changed in character with pews, a proper altar and sanctuary rails and with the addition of unostentatious decoration. Externally, however, it did not change and its appearance today is much as it would have been when constructed two-hundred and fifty years ago. A humble row of cottages, masking an unique place of worship. The Roman Catholic author and historian Peter Anson wrote a booklet about the chapel which he entitled The Banffshire Bethlehem such is the special significance and affection for this remarkable building amongst Scottish Roman Catholics and all who know and love this little corner of Scotland.

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Mair spikkin proper……In the last edition, mention was made of the New Testament having been translated into Doric. Mary Thomson has very kindly contributed this Doric version of Psalm XXIII.

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Dates for your DiaryFriday, 20 December 2013 The Friends of Gordon Chapel Christmas Concert will be held at Johnstons of Elgin on Friday, 20 December 2013. We are immensely grateful to Johnstons for hosting this event which is one of our biggest fund-raising events of the year.

Friends’ Prize Draw winnersThe winners of the Friends of Gordon Chapel Prize Draw for September were as follows:

£100 Mrs Mary Thomson£75 Mr David Gurney£50 Mrs Hilary Vincent£25 Mrs Emily Woodward

Congratulations to the winners.

Coffee MorningGordon Chapel held a coffee morning on Saturday, 31 August at the Bellie Hall.  The event was very busy all morning and we raised over £700 for church funds.  Thanks are due to all who helped and

contributed and not least to Mary Thomson who did a superb job organising the event.

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Gordon Chapel Priest Rev Frances Forshaw 01343 829094

Sacristan Janet Philpott 01343 820196

Vestry Secretary Daphne Stevens 01343 821731

Priest’s Warden Margaret Forsyth

People’s Warden Lorna Logan

Friends’ Team Fiona Gordon, Co-ordinator 01542 833213 Inchbroom, Cairnfield, Buckie, Banffshire, AB56 5EL

Professor Peter Reid, Newsletter Editor 01542 83158617 Stewart Street, Port Gordon. Banffshire AB56 5QT

Audrey Abelsmith, Membership Secretary 01343 82068053 Mossmill Park, Mosstodloch, Fochabers, IV32 7JX

Brian Shepherd 01343 8421792 Elsher Close, Lhanbryde, Elgin IV30 8FA

James Smart 01343 820074Whiteleas, Nether Dallachy, Fochabers, IV32 7QX

Marion Bateman 01343 83047139 Forsyth Street, Hopeman, IV30 5SY

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We would appreciate items from Friends for inclusion in the next newsletter. Please send to:- Professor Peter Reid, 17 Stewart Street, Port Gordon AB56 5QT or email: newsletter@gordonchapel.org.uk

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