The Parish Magazine May 2024
Serving the communities of Charvil, Sonning & Sonning Eye since 1869
Serving the communities of Charvil, Sonning & Sonning Eye since 1869
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<strong>The</strong><br />
<strong>Parish</strong><br />
<strong>Magazine</strong><br />
<strong>Magazine</strong><br />
<strong>Parish</strong> Te<br />
155<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> 1869 <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 1<br />
YEARS<br />
Serving Charvil, Sonning and Sonning Eye<br />
<strong>2024</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong> John King Trophy and Gold Award<br />
Best <strong>Magazine</strong> of the Year 2018<br />
National <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> Awards<br />
Best Overall 2015, 2020, 2022, 2023<br />
Best Content 2016, 2021<br />
Best Editor 2019<br />
Best Print 2018<br />
Serving the communities of Charvil, Sonning & Sonning Eye since 1869<br />
<strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> — Rogation — Ascension — Pentecost — Trinity Sunday<br />
Church of St Andrew<br />
Serving Sonning, Charvil & Sonning Eye<br />
the church of st andrew, SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF<br />
CHARVIL, SONNING and sonning eye SINCE THE 7 th CENTURY
2 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> Please mention <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> when responding to this advertisement<br />
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Serving the communities of Charvil, Sonning & Sonning Eye since 1869<br />
Church of St Andrew<br />
Serving Sonning, Charvil & Sonning Eye<br />
<strong>Magazine</strong><br />
<strong>Parish</strong> Te<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> 1869 <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 1<br />
<strong>2024</strong><br />
Serving Charvil, Sonning and Sonning Eye<br />
<strong>The</strong> John King Trophy and Gold Award<br />
Best <strong>Magazine</strong> of the Year 2018<br />
National <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> Awards<br />
Best Overall 2015, 2020, 2022, 2023<br />
Best Content 2016, 2021<br />
Best Editor 2019<br />
Best Print 2018<br />
information — 1<br />
Contents <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
THE VICAR'S LETTER, 5<br />
THE PARISH NOTICEBOARD<br />
— Easter Saturday, 7<br />
— STAY, 8-9<br />
— Why I am a Christian, 10-11<br />
— Intrepid Voices, 11<br />
— For your prayers in <strong>May</strong>, 11<br />
— <strong>The</strong> Persecuted Church, 13<br />
— From the editor's desk, 13<br />
FEATURES<br />
— Christianity is for me, 15-17<br />
— April celebrations, 17<br />
— Looking for a Bible? 17<br />
— Why <strong>May</strong> is important, 19<br />
— Claude wonders about Radium, 20<br />
— RNLI 200 years, 20<br />
— Gaza aid, 21<br />
— Three in one, 21<br />
— Holy Week and Easter, 22-23<br />
—around the villages<br />
— Intrepid Voices, 24<br />
— Horticultural confidence, 24<br />
— Summer gigs for female voices, 24<br />
— School Easter bonnets, 25<br />
— Inner Wheel, 27<br />
— Scarecrow Weekend, 27<br />
— Healthier Lifestyle, 27<br />
HEALTH<br />
— Dr Simon Ruffle writes, 28-29<br />
HOME AND GARDEN<br />
— <strong>The</strong> glory of <strong>May</strong>, 29<br />
FASHION<br />
— High Street dreams, 31<br />
THE ARTS<br />
— <strong>The</strong> Stabat Mater, 33<br />
— Book Reviews, 35<br />
— Poetry Corner, 35<br />
THE SCIENCES<br />
<strong>The</strong> pain of suffering, 37<br />
Nature and science meet, 37<br />
PUZZLE PAGES, 38-39<br />
children's page, 41<br />
This ISSUE's FRONT COVER<br />
Picture: Corinne Robertson<br />
Open day in the Bell<br />
Ringing Chamber<br />
EDITORIAL DEADLINE<br />
<strong>The</strong> editorial deadline for every issue<br />
of <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> is 12 noon on<br />
the sixth day of the month prior to the<br />
date of publication.<br />
<strong>The</strong> deadline for the June<br />
issue of <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> is:<br />
Monday 6 <strong>May</strong><br />
at 12 noon<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> online<br />
<strong>The</strong> most recent issues can be viewed at:<br />
http://www.theparishmagazine.co.uk<br />
Earlier issues from 1869 onwards<br />
are stored in a secure online archive.<br />
If you wish to view these archives<br />
contact the editor:<br />
editor@theparishmagazine.co.uk<br />
From the Registers<br />
BAPTISMS<br />
<strong>The</strong><br />
<strong>Parish</strong><br />
<strong>Magazine</strong><br />
<strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> — Rogation — Ascension — Pentecost — Trinity Sunday<br />
155<br />
YEARS<br />
the church of st andrew, SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF<br />
CHARVIL, SONNING and sonning eye SINCE THE 7 th CENTURY<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 3<br />
Services at<br />
St Andrew’s<br />
6th Sunday of Easter 5 <strong>May</strong><br />
— 8.00am Holy Communion<br />
— 10.30am Family Service<br />
— 4.00pm Choral Evensong<br />
followed by Tea in <strong>The</strong> Ark<br />
7th Sunday of Easter 12 <strong>May</strong><br />
(Sunday after Ascension Day)<br />
— 8.00am Holy Communion<br />
— 10.30am <strong>Parish</strong> Eucharist with<br />
STAY and Sunday Club<br />
Pentecost 19 <strong>May</strong><br />
— 8.00am Holy Communion<br />
— 10.30am Family Communion<br />
— 3.00pm Messy Church<br />
Trinity Sunday 26 <strong>May</strong><br />
— 8.00am Holy Communion<br />
— 10. 30am <strong>Parish</strong> Eucharist with<br />
STAY and Sunday Club<br />
— 5.45pm Sunday at Six in <strong>The</strong> Ark<br />
OTHER REGULAR SERVICES<br />
Morning Prayer is held in church<br />
every Tuesday at 9.30am.<br />
Mid-week Communion in <strong>The</strong> Ark is<br />
held every Wednesday at 10.00am. Tea<br />
and coffee follows the service.<br />
Home Communion at Sonning<br />
Gardens Care Home is held on<br />
the first Monday of each month at<br />
11.00am.<br />
— Sunday 31 March, Rufus James Handley Plumb, in the River Thames<br />
— Sunday 31 March, Oliver James Preston, in the River Thames<br />
— Sunday 31 March, Panyaporn (Penny) Pruksakit, in the River Thames<br />
— Sunday 31 March, Elspeth Christine Young, in the River Thames<br />
information<br />
— Church services, 3<br />
— From the registers, 3<br />
— Local Trades and Services, 40<br />
— <strong>Parish</strong> contacts, 42<br />
— Advertisers' index, 42<br />
FUNERALS<br />
— Friday 16 March, Anthony Ercole Farnese, funeral service in St Andrew's<br />
Church followed by burial in the churchyard<br />
— Monday 18 March, Diane Stares, interment of ashes in the churchyard<br />
— Wednesday 27 March, Charles Morley, memorial service in St Andrew's Church<br />
— Wednesday 3 April, Sylvia Woodford, funeral service in St Andrew's Church
4 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> Please mention <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> when responding to this advertisement<br />
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 5<br />
<strong>The</strong> vicar's letter<br />
Dear Friends,<br />
As someone who has no interest in football, I have nonetheless been<br />
aware of a recent fuss surrounding the matter of the England team’s<br />
shirts. Apparently the cross of St George has been subjected to 'a playful<br />
update' by Nike, rendering it unrecognisable to me and looking rather<br />
like another flag that seems to be ubiquitous these days.<br />
In the general scheme of things, I suppose this is of little importance,<br />
but nonetheless, I can’t help but wonder if this 'update' is rather less<br />
than 'playful' and indicative of an erosion of the Christian heritage of<br />
our country. If this were an isolated news story I could be considered<br />
paranoid, but, coupled with so much else for those with eyes to see, one<br />
wonders.<br />
This month marks the first anniversary of His Majesty’s Coronation,<br />
and we look back on an extraordinary service in Westminster Abbey,<br />
utterly rooted in our Judeo-Christian heritage. Perhaps, to some, it<br />
seemed anachronistic, even faintly ridiculous, but the oaths, symbols,<br />
prayers and anointing all provided a bridge to both the Old and New<br />
Testaments and highlighted just how central the Christian faith has<br />
been for over 1,000 years in this Kingdom. I have long said in response<br />
to those who have called for us to leave all this in the past and adapt to<br />
becoming a secular state, with no established church, that the inevitable<br />
void this would create will not remain unfilled.<br />
To the passionate secularists I would warn that they should be very<br />
careful what they wish for. <strong>The</strong> Christian church, for all its human<br />
faults, has been a tremendous force for good since its birth, and while<br />
this is so often forgotten, the foundation of so many hospitals, hospices,<br />
adoption agencies, care homes, schools, universities, international relief<br />
charities and much else besides, came from the desire of Christians to<br />
improve their societies and to care for those in need.<br />
SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT<br />
In a small, yet significant way, our own church continues in this<br />
tradition with our flourishing work with young people and children. It is<br />
a good news story and one that should both encourage and inspire. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
were 76 teenagers at a recent STAY on Friday youth group in <strong>The</strong> Ark and<br />
so many others have been helped by Westy and Corinne in schools and<br />
elsewhere. If St Andrew’s had not invested in the creation of these posts<br />
and in housing, who else would be providing such a service to our local<br />
communities? Indeed, I venture to suggest that we are seeing young lives<br />
changed for the better, and what a privilege it was for me to baptise in<br />
the river on Easter Day, three teenagers and a young mother.<br />
MISSION AND OUTREACH<br />
<strong>The</strong> great church feast of Pentecost is approaching later this month,<br />
and we shall celebrate with Christians around the world the coming<br />
of the Holy Spirit upon the infant church. <strong>The</strong>y were a frightened and<br />
persecuted group of men and women and yet through the infusion of the<br />
power of God’s Spirit, they went out and boldly spoke of the resurrected<br />
Christ and of his life changing message. <strong>The</strong> world has never been the<br />
same since and I believe, more than at any time during my 26 year<br />
ministry, that the local church is being called to refocus itself on mission<br />
and outreach, to overcome bureaucracy, complacency or even defeatism,<br />
and tap back into that power which brought our church to life 2,000<br />
years ago.<br />
Come Holy Spirit!<br />
Warm wishes,<br />
Jamie
6 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> Please mention <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> when responding to advertisements<br />
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the parish noticeboard — 1<br />
Easter Saturday Free for All<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 7<br />
Pictures: Westy and Corinne
8 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
the parish noticeboard — 2<br />
St Andrew's Youth<br />
email or text me, Westy,<br />
for ideas, a chat or to<br />
encourage what we are doing<br />
youthminister@sonningparish.org.uk<br />
0794 622 4106<br />
Reading Youth Night<br />
<strong>The</strong> youth workers across the town held another<br />
Reading Youth Night where we welcomed the<br />
different church youth groups to gather for<br />
worship, Biblical teaching on Barabbas and how<br />
we are him in that story. We’ve been set free while<br />
Jesus was condemned. <strong>The</strong> night ended with space<br />
to respond in prayer.<br />
STAY Easter Activities<br />
During the Easter Holidays we had a great time. We<br />
went to Wokingham for a couple of games of Laser<br />
Quest! My favourite moment was when a young<br />
person named themselves God and won the game.<br />
After finishing the game they claimed — God<br />
always wins! We also took groups of STAY youth to<br />
Chessington World of Adventures and Planet Ice<br />
Skating in Basingstoke.<br />
STAY Baptisms<br />
Another three young people, and one adult, were<br />
baptised on Easter Sunday. We had another superb<br />
time welcoming new people into the church and<br />
Christian faith. (See page 23)<br />
STAY on Sunday<br />
We had three STAY on Sunday sessions on 10, 24<br />
and 31 March. On Mothering Sunday we looked<br />
at Colossians 3:12-17 and thought about how<br />
our mums are so often kind, compassionate and<br />
caring towards us. On Palm Sunday, we looked<br />
at Mark 11:1-11 and thought about Jesus riding<br />
into Jerusalem on a donkey, only to be crucified<br />
that week by the very same people who had called<br />
hosanna a week earlier. <strong>The</strong>n on Easter Sunday we<br />
thought about all the things we need forgiveness<br />
for. We held a piece of red ribbon, then took a nail,<br />
a hammer and nailed the red ribbon to a wooden<br />
cross, symbolising our part in Jesus’s death and<br />
how his blood has made us clean.<br />
STAY on Friday<br />
Our weekly Friday night youth club met on 8 and<br />
15 March, as we had the Reading Youth Night<br />
on 22 March, Good Friday on 29 March and the<br />
Easter Holidays on 5 April. Still, we had lots of fun<br />
and games with the Xbox, ps5, basketball, board<br />
games, pool table, table tennis, foosball and cookie<br />
making. <strong>The</strong> sweetest thing happened when one<br />
of the lads friends decided to sit in chairs to play<br />
table tennis because he recently had to use a wheel<br />
chair.<br />
<strong>The</strong> other highlight for all the leaders was the<br />
initiation of three young leaders. <strong>The</strong>se lads have<br />
been volunteering as part of their DofE awards<br />
and to initiate them into being full young leaders<br />
we gave them a memorable welcome, which<br />
involved kind words of affirmation and cream pies.<br />
STAY on Monday<br />
Our fortnightly Monday night group met just<br />
the once on 18 March and we looked at how we<br />
connect with God through our soul. We heard a<br />
speech from the Hollywood actor, Chris Pratt,<br />
who talked about praying and staying connected<br />
with God through our soul, these being the most<br />
important things in life, he said. We also played<br />
some hilarious games with balloons and talked<br />
about what fills our spiritual buckets by writing on<br />
a pre drawn picture of a spiritual bucket.<br />
STAY in Schools<br />
Our work in schools continued in March with<br />
assemblies, one to one mentoring sessions, prayer<br />
meetings and a day of answering key questions<br />
in Sonning school as part of the pupils RE Easter<br />
curriculum.<br />
My favourite part of the schools work was<br />
seeing two lads from one of the schools we go<br />
into getting baptised. <strong>The</strong>y said, after all those<br />
'God loves you assemblies' it finally sank in and<br />
we decided to become Christians! A real wow<br />
moment!<br />
As always, get in touch for a chat. Westy
Corinne's<br />
column<br />
<strong>The</strong> Lord has risen indeed, and<br />
we have rejoiced in his spirit<br />
here at St Andrew's this month!<br />
I’ve felt very lucky to have<br />
celebrated Messy Church with<br />
so many of our young people<br />
and families, and learning<br />
about St Patrick.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 9<br />
We talked about how St Patrick used a shamrock to<br />
explain the Holy Trinity to the people of Ireland, how<br />
he banished all the snakes (sin), and we even created<br />
some shepherd hooks to represent his time as a slave<br />
when he tended the animals.<br />
KINDNESS<br />
At Sunday Club we had the pleasure of being<br />
together on Mothering Sunday and to talk about<br />
how blessed a relationship between parent and<br />
child can be.<br />
We took a deep dive into John 3:16: 'For God so<br />
loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,<br />
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have<br />
eternal life.' We also created some lavender scent bags<br />
to give to the Mothers.<br />
PALM SUNDAY<br />
On Palm Sunday's Sunday Club, which was a<br />
gloriously sunny morning, we did just as the Bible<br />
told us people did — we took Jesus into our lives and<br />
had our own little celebration and parade.<br />
We took turns pretending our cuddly toys were<br />
Jesus and cheered them on by shouting 'Hosanna!'<br />
and 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'<br />
<strong>The</strong> next week we celebrated Easter and Jesus’s<br />
resurrection by creating the traditional Easter garden<br />
that was blessed and put on display in the church.<br />
We also played a game of musical statues, which<br />
I know as freeze dance! This caused a bit of lighthearted<br />
confusion at first.<br />
EASTER SATURDAY<br />
<strong>The</strong> Easter Saturday celebrations were enjoyed by<br />
all ages on a beautifully sunny day when there were<br />
egg and spoon races, bouncy castles, egg decorating,<br />
biscuit decorating, egg hunts, and free BBQ food!<br />
AT SCHOOL<br />
School’s work is going well. A highlight at Sonning<br />
Primary was when I had the privilege to go into the<br />
school to discuss some of their big essential questions<br />
for religious education including 'should Christian’s<br />
always forgive?' and 'how significant is it for<br />
Christian’s to believe that God intended Jesus to die?'<br />
We had some great philosophical and religious<br />
discussions and I encouraged the pupils to stay<br />
curious.
10 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
PARISH NOTICEBOARD — 3<br />
During Lent, members of the congregation replaced the sermon at the 10.30am Sunday services<br />
with a personal talk about why they are a Christian. Last month we published the first of these<br />
talks, here is the next in our series . . .<br />
Why am I a Christian?<br />
By Heather Hexter, a member of St Andrew's Church<br />
Parochial Church Council and the choir<br />
I am incredibly humbled to be asked to<br />
do this. When I started preparing my<br />
talk this poem by Vernon Thomas* came<br />
to mind:<br />
I carry a cross in my pocket,<br />
A simple reminder to me,<br />
Of the fact that I am a Christian<br />
No matter where I may be.<br />
This little cross is not magic<br />
Nor is it a good luck charm;<br />
It isn't meant to protect me<br />
From every physical harm.<br />
It is not for identification<br />
For all the world to see.<br />
It's simply an understanding<br />
Between my Saviour and me.<br />
When I put my hand in my pocket<br />
To bring out a coin or a key,<br />
<strong>The</strong> cross is there to remind me<br />
Of the price He paid for me.<br />
It reminds me too, to be thankful<br />
For my blessings day by day,<br />
And to strive to serve Him better<br />
In all that I do or say.<br />
It's also a daily reminder<br />
Of the peace and comfort I share<br />
With all who know my Master<br />
And give themselves to His care.<br />
So I carry a cross in my pocket<br />
Reminding no one but me<br />
That Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life<br />
If only I'll let Him be.<br />
*Vernon Thomas<br />
© Permission Granted by Agoro, Inc. All Rights Reserved<br />
This simple poem is why I am a Christian:<br />
and it boils down to three things which<br />
are fundamental to my faith — love,<br />
grace and prayerful worship.<br />
LOVE<br />
God loves me. It doesn’t matter what I<br />
have done or not done or what my family<br />
background is. He loves me.<br />
I have been lucky. I was brought up in a<br />
loving household. I have wonderful parents<br />
who have always been encouraging and<br />
supportive. We were not rich, but my parents<br />
Charity Jumper: Heather during a fund raising<br />
event last year.<br />
goskydive.com<br />
gave me everything. <strong>The</strong>y pushed me to do<br />
better every day, so much so, that I was the<br />
first in my family to go to university.<br />
I have been surrounded by love and know<br />
how important being told you are loved<br />
every day means. It’s what I have tried to<br />
give my kids and also those who I supported<br />
in Sunday club .<br />
It’s what, I know, that on Mothering<br />
Sunday all mums, or those who have the joy<br />
of caring for children in whatever capacity<br />
do. <strong>The</strong>y love.<br />
Love is so precious. I believe that when<br />
you find love and understand love you hold<br />
on to it, you nurture it and work hard to<br />
ensure that the love grows.<br />
As a Christian, understanding that love<br />
is precious is at the core of my faith. It is why<br />
God made the wonderful world we live in<br />
and why God gave his only son to the world.<br />
Sometimes, with what I think or don’t<br />
think or do or don’t do each day, I find it<br />
hard to still believe that he can love me —<br />
however, every day God is there, loving me.<br />
I try to remind friends and colleagues<br />
that they are loved and awesome too, that’s<br />
what God wants me to do to show his love<br />
through me. God loves me so I can love<br />
others<br />
I was christened at 6 weeks old and<br />
church was always part of my life.<br />
My mum took me to Sunday school from<br />
an early age, firstly at St Bartholomew's,<br />
then a Methodist church and finally at St<br />
Thomas, Kidsgrove. I was confirmed with<br />
my mum in 1989.<br />
GRACE<br />
Although I was confirmed and was<br />
active in my local church, I never really<br />
understood what 'grace' meant.<br />
Sometimes there is just one sermon<br />
that stands out as a turning point and for<br />
me that sermon was delivered by Rev John<br />
Tompkins at St Thomas in Kidsgrove in<br />
about 1991. It was about grace.<br />
Five words transformed my faith when<br />
he explained what the five letters which<br />
made up the word grace stand for:<br />
God's Riches At Christ's Expense.<br />
I know that I am only here because of<br />
that love God has for me that he gave his<br />
only son, and his son came and died for me.<br />
I have many blessings and I am forgiven<br />
because of that ultimate sacrifice<br />
It is so simple, grace is God's riches at<br />
Christ's expense. It is the bedrock of my<br />
faith .<br />
That is why grace is one of the middle<br />
names of my daughter, Celeste. She is a<br />
constant reminder I am only here through<br />
God's grace.<br />
It’s grace which has allowed me to see<br />
life simply and know that I am blessed.<br />
Sometimes this is in ordinary ways, perhaps<br />
food on the table or a bed to sleep on.<br />
Knowing that is important. In good<br />
times and in bad, God’s grace gives me that<br />
perspective.<br />
PRAYING . . .<br />
My faith is sustained by my third word,<br />
prayer. <strong>The</strong> prayer groups and fellowship<br />
with others in my teenage years, is now<br />
sustained in our church family at St<br />
Andrew's in this parish.<br />
When Celeste was recently poorly I<br />
can not tell you how supported she and<br />
our family felt knowing that there were<br />
churches up and down the country praying<br />
for her recovery.<br />
Once you know that God loves you, you<br />
recognise your sin and are forgiven and<br />
loved through grace and, with the help of<br />
the Holy Spirit, God asks you to share that.<br />
. . . AND MUSIC<br />
One of the ways I share my faith is<br />
through prayer and praise. When I attended<br />
Sunday School I had, from a very early age,<br />
praise and music in my life,<br />
One of my favourite Sunday school<br />
songs was God is good to me, which has<br />
the great lines:
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 11<br />
He gave me eyes to see the skies or gave me<br />
lips so I can eat fish and chips.<br />
Sometimes simplicity in faith is what you<br />
need! As a teenager, because I could play<br />
piano and sing, I was a leader in my church's<br />
worship group<br />
It was there that I learned that singing<br />
was one of the ways I could pray to God. It<br />
supports my relationship with God and has<br />
been a constant in my life .<br />
CHOIR MEMBER<br />
Now, as a member of St Andrew's Sonning<br />
choir, <strong>The</strong> Choristers Prayer is real:<br />
Bless, O Lord, us thy servants who minister in<br />
thy temple; Grant that what we sing with our lips,<br />
we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe<br />
in our hearts we may show forth in our lives;<br />
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.<br />
<strong>The</strong> words, 'I sing with my lips I believe in my<br />
heart and I show in my life' is why I can't help<br />
but smile when we sing Shine Jesus Shine<br />
It's why there are some lines in hymns<br />
which I simply cannot sing because the words<br />
mean so much:<br />
— Servant King v3: Hands that flung stars<br />
into space to cruel nails surrendered.<br />
— In Christ alone: And as he stands in<br />
victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me<br />
for I am his and he is mine, bought with the<br />
precious blood of Christ.<br />
<strong>The</strong> music is a vehicle to send my praise<br />
and prayer to God and the words are elevated<br />
by the music.<br />
I want to tell God how much I love him<br />
and how I will try harder.<br />
Its an absolute privilege to be able to<br />
look out from the choir and see a full church<br />
singing their praises to God.<br />
CHRISTIAN?<br />
So why am I a Christian? It's because I<br />
have searched my heart through my life and<br />
always come back to God. In the good times<br />
and in the difficult times when I have asked<br />
for help God has been there and answered my<br />
prayers. I have been carried.<br />
My faith is simple: I believe in love, and I<br />
I have a relationship with God through grace<br />
which I share through praise and prayer.<br />
It seems fitting to end on the words to<br />
a worship song which I first heard at Spring<br />
Harvest in 1992 and is why I am, and why I<br />
remain, a Christian<br />
I believe in Jesus.<br />
I believe he is the Son of God<br />
I believe that he died and rose again<br />
and he paid for us all.<br />
I believe that he is here now.<br />
Standing in our midst — with the power<br />
to heal and the grace to forgive.<br />
New 'Intrepid'<br />
choral singing<br />
opportunity<br />
for children<br />
By Richard Meehan MA ARCO, director<br />
of music, St Andrew's Church Sonning<br />
When I look back on my own music education, it seems to me that its greatest<br />
success was in its breadth.<br />
Learning to recognise the commonalities from the most diverse styles and<br />
the different approaches to musical learning ultimately led to something of a<br />
personal epiphany in my early 20s.<br />
However, if I was to single out one individual element that had the greatest<br />
impact on my musicianship, I can think of no other candidate that that of<br />
choral singing.<br />
This is an opportunity to learn joyfully using the primacy of the human<br />
voice to connect and commune with others present and speaking to us through<br />
music history. So we can continue to make sure that children and young people<br />
continue to benefit from this most special of opportunities, St Andrew’s will be<br />
launching a new initiative, Intrepid Voices which starts in early <strong>May</strong>.<br />
Intrepid Voices is an 8-week singing course run by St Andrew’s Church<br />
Sonning and is open to young people keen to learn about choral singing. It is<br />
designed for children in school years 5-7, although we would also accept some<br />
singers outside this range in consultation with their parents.<br />
I will be running the course, which also includes short individual singing<br />
lessons provided free of charge as part of the course by Tania Pratt, a highly<br />
experienced singing teacher in the Reading area.<br />
Rehearsals will take place in <strong>The</strong> Ark, St Andrew’s wonderful multi-purpose<br />
hall, on Thursdays from 5pm to 6pm. <strong>The</strong> course works towards a service of<br />
Choral Evensong in the historic St Andrew’s Church on Sunday 2 July at 4pm.<br />
As well as the Evensong performance, singers will also work towards<br />
achieving their Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) Voice for Life White<br />
Award, which will be presented at the service.<br />
If you know of anyone in this age range who would be interested in joining<br />
this opportunity, please contact me, music@sonningparish.org.uk for full<br />
details and an enrolment form.<br />
For your prayers in <strong>May</strong> . . .<br />
— <strong>The</strong> newly baptised<br />
— His Majesty <strong>The</strong> King<br />
— Her Royal Highness <strong>The</strong> Princess of Wales<br />
— Those taking school examinations<br />
— <strong>The</strong> work of Reading Salvation Army<br />
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12 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
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parish noticeboard —4 THE PERSECUTED CHURCH<br />
Bonded labour continues<br />
This month we focus on the plight of<br />
brick kiln workers in Pakistan, the<br />
third largest producer of bricks in<br />
South Asia, writes Colin Bailey.<br />
Pakistan's brick sector employs 4.5<br />
million people producing 45 billion<br />
bricks per year in 20,000 brick kilns<br />
(data from a 2021 report).<br />
Bonded labour was outlawed in<br />
Pakistan decades ago but the practice<br />
has continued.<br />
This form of forced labour is<br />
considered to be modern slavery.<br />
Vulnerable workers become<br />
bonded labourers by taking loans<br />
from their employer and being forced<br />
to work to repay the debt. Any crisis<br />
such as an injury or health issue can<br />
contribute to a vicious cycle of debt.<br />
TRAPPED<br />
When his wife needed urgent<br />
medical attention, Majeed — an<br />
impoverished Christian brick kiln<br />
worker — had no choice but to take<br />
out a loan from his employer to pay<br />
for her care.<br />
'<strong>The</strong> brick kiln owner started<br />
deducting money from my wages against<br />
my loan, leaving me disheartened and<br />
feeling hopeless due to the burden of<br />
debt,' said Majeed.<br />
This is the reality for thousands of<br />
low-paid Christian brick kiln workers<br />
in Pakistan.<br />
When faced with an emergency or<br />
illness, their only option is to take a<br />
loan from the brick kiln owner. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
debts then keep them bonded to the<br />
brick kiln until the debt is repaid.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y become trapped and cannot<br />
seek another job. Money is deducted<br />
from their wages to pay the interest.<br />
It becomes impossible for them to<br />
pay off the loan in full.<br />
FREE<br />
Thanks to Barnabas Aid — an<br />
international, interdenominational<br />
Christian aid agency based in<br />
Coventry, in the West Midlands,<br />
that supports Christians who face<br />
discrimination or persecution as a<br />
consequence of their faith — Majeed<br />
received funds to pay off his debt<br />
and set him and his family free.<br />
'Gratefully', says Majeed, 'thanks to<br />
Barnabas Aid, I am now released from<br />
the weight of this loan.'<br />
Katkari children work in brick kilns.<br />
Daniel Buckles, Wikipedia Commons<br />
Rafique has worked in a brick kiln<br />
for 30 years, and his two sons work<br />
with him. He says he has struggled<br />
with debt for a long time, a legacy<br />
from his father.<br />
Debts are passed on to the next<br />
generation. Rafique’s sons also had to<br />
work to help pay it off. <strong>The</strong>ir debt has<br />
also been repaid through Barnabas’s<br />
help. Rafique says, 'We found solace in<br />
Barnabas Aid. <strong>The</strong>y have helped me to<br />
finally be curse-free.'<br />
Barnabas Aid has freed a total of<br />
2,023 brick kiln workers since 2017<br />
but long to do more. In the next<br />
phases, they hope to free another 200<br />
Christian families whose debts range<br />
from £300 to £1,000.<br />
References and further reading<br />
Human Trafficking Search article<br />
‘Ending Bonded Labor in Pakistan Brick<br />
Kilns’: https://humantraffickingsearch.org/<br />
resource/ending-bonded-labor-in-pakistanbrick-kilns/<br />
Reuters article ‘From sex trafficking<br />
to forced labour, what is modern<br />
slavery?’ https://www.reuters.com/article/<br />
us-slavery-index/from-sex-traffickingto-forced-labor-what-is-modern-slaveryidUSKCN0YM1ZJ/<br />
Barnabas Aid Appeal – Free Christian<br />
families from brick kilns in Pakistan:<br />
https://www.barnabasaid.org/gb/latestneeds/free-christian-families-from-brickkilns-in-pakistan/<br />
To donate to Pakistani brick kiln<br />
workers please phone Barnabas<br />
Aid on 0179 374 4557, and mention<br />
project 41-1356, or visit: https://www.<br />
barnabasaid.org/gb/donate/?project=41-<br />
1356&utm_medium=barnabas-aid&utm_<br />
campaign=AP240405<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 13<br />
From<br />
the<br />
editor's<br />
desk<br />
<strong>The</strong> poetry of my life<br />
During my school days and throughout<br />
most of my life, poetry was never of<br />
much interest to me. This came to<br />
mind while putting this issue of the<br />
magazine together which, like many<br />
previous issues, includes poems which I<br />
hope you will enjoy.<br />
In fact, I had little interest in the<br />
study of the English language as a<br />
child, or indeed in my teens. I did,<br />
however, enjoy books, and always<br />
enjoyed visiting an uncle who had a<br />
large library of books that lined the<br />
four walls of his front room.<br />
When I was about 12 years old I<br />
bought my first book at a jumble sale, a<br />
leather bound King James Bible. I still<br />
have it today, along with nearly 150<br />
other Bibles that I have collected since!<br />
No, at school, I planned to be an<br />
engineer and work behind the scenes so<br />
science was my priority. <strong>The</strong> only arts<br />
subject I had much interest was music,<br />
not that I could sing — my music<br />
teacher threw me out of the class one<br />
day because I never sang in tune. It was<br />
an embarrassing incident that I still<br />
vividly remember and I still don't enjoy<br />
singing in public.<br />
I was also afraid of speaking in<br />
public and went out of my way not to<br />
take part in anything that required<br />
doing so. No, I was going to be an<br />
engineer working behind the scenes,<br />
although doing what, I had no idea.<br />
This is also why, in my early teens, I<br />
jumped at an opportunity to learn to<br />
play the drums — drummers are not<br />
expected to sing or speak. <strong>The</strong>y just get<br />
on with their job sat at the back!<br />
So, how, 24 years ago, did I manage<br />
to become a licensed lay minister in the<br />
Church of England to lead worship and<br />
conduct funerals, and be a journalist<br />
and editor for the past 53 years?<br />
Answer: I put my trust in God. I like<br />
to think it has worked for me, so I am<br />
certain it will work for you!
14 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> Please mention <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> when responding to advertisements<br />
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feature — 1<br />
EXPLORING<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 15<br />
Christianity is for someone like me!<br />
JMWilson<br />
Penny receives the sign of the cross<br />
Penny is baptised<br />
Penny Pruksakit, a new Christian<br />
Peter Rennie<br />
Westy<br />
By Penny Pruksakit<br />
I remember feeling nervous the first time I walked into St Andrew's with my<br />
10-month old, Dylan, strapped to my chest in the baby carrier. It was first<br />
weekend of January <strong>2024</strong> and the first time I had ever attended a church service,<br />
other than a handful of Christmas carol services. I was conscious of feeling like<br />
an interloper, saying or doing the wrong thing, or inadvertently causing offence<br />
through my complete lack of knowledge of the formalities of a church service. But<br />
the welcome from the churchwardens was warm, and the beauty and serenity of<br />
the church itself was undeniable.<br />
I signed up to the Alpha course,<br />
and St Andrew's had come up as my<br />
nearest church where it was being<br />
held via Zoom.<br />
With two children aged three<br />
and under, I could not commit to<br />
attending in-person a course which<br />
would run at the children’s bedtime,<br />
so the online course at St Andrew's<br />
was perfect.<br />
With the start of the Alpha course<br />
looming, I thought I had better pluck<br />
up the courage to attend a church<br />
service in person.<br />
Anyone who knows me well,<br />
knows that I am a resolute introvert<br />
and suffer from some social anxiety<br />
— something I am trying to improve<br />
upon! — and would not volunteer to<br />
meet a new group of people, especially<br />
without the security blanket of a close<br />
friend or family member in tow. But I<br />
felt compelled to attend and am now of<br />
course very glad that I did manage to<br />
muster up the courage to walk through<br />
those church doors that cold, frosty<br />
January morning.<br />
My 'journey' had started a<br />
few months earlier, when I began<br />
tentatively exploring Christianity<br />
via my personal favourite medium<br />
— books. I had started reading '<strong>The</strong><br />
Bible in One Year' by Nicky Gumble,<br />
the Alpha set of books, and CS Lewis’<br />
books on Christianity.<br />
I’ve lived in the UK for roughly two<br />
decades. As to why it has taken me<br />
so long to explore Christianity, I’m<br />
not entirely sure, except that perhaps<br />
the timing had just never seemed<br />
quite right, and perhaps because<br />
of a lingering feeling of 'otherness'<br />
and that Christianity was simply<br />
not for 'someone like me', with my<br />
particular cultural background. I’m<br />
originally from Thailand, and grew<br />
up in South-East Asia. Thailand is,<br />
by recent estimates, approximately<br />
92% Buddhist, 6% Muslim and<br />
1% Christian. <strong>The</strong> remaining 1%<br />
comprises of a mix of other religions<br />
and atheists.<br />
MIXED HERITAGE<br />
My family has a mixed religious<br />
heritage: my father’s family is<br />
Buddhist and my mother’s Muslim.<br />
When they married, they both, to<br />
a large extent, left their religions<br />
behind, due to the somewhat divisive<br />
nature of their union in a political<br />
backdrop of 1970's.<br />
Thailand was contending not<br />
only with some religious strife in the<br />
Southern provinces, but also with<br />
the spread of communism which saw<br />
all religions as the enemy, during the<br />
Vietnam war.<br />
To this day, there continues to<br />
be a problem of religious separatist<br />
insurgency in the Southern provinces<br />
of Thailand.<br />
<strong>The</strong> little thought I had given to<br />
religion growing up therefore was<br />
mainly as something which pulled<br />
people apart, rather than as a unifying<br />
force.<br />
MIRACLE<br />
Fast forwarding to my 30's, I was<br />
now living and working in the UK and<br />
married to an Englishman who would<br />
say that he falls somewhere between<br />
being an agnostic and a non-practising<br />
Christian.<br />
However, after the birth of our<br />
first child in 2020, he confessed that,<br />
despite being in the medical field, he<br />
could not believe that the miracle of<br />
children could be possible without the<br />
existence of some form of divinity.<br />
His mother had been baptised into<br />
the Anglican faith by her own mother,<br />
who had grown up in strict Irish<br />
Catholic household and rebelled<br />
TURN TO PAGE 17
16 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
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feature — 2<br />
FROM PAGE 15<br />
Someone like me<br />
against this upbringing, although<br />
she later came back to faith through<br />
the Church of England, and had<br />
encouraged us to do the same.<br />
SPIRITUAL HUNGER<br />
I had explored Buddhism, and<br />
although I saw great wisdom and merit<br />
in a number of the teachings, I did not<br />
feel personally connected or touched<br />
by what I discovered.<br />
I had felt for some years that a<br />
piece of the puzzle was 'missing',<br />
and, despite the great joy and love of<br />
becoming a parent, this feeling was<br />
somehow compounded by the birth of<br />
my first son.<br />
My search to satiate what I can now<br />
describe in hindsight as a 'spiritual<br />
hunger' was put on the back-burner<br />
with the shock of the global pandemic,<br />
lockdown, being a first-time parent,<br />
and then juggling being a working<br />
parent in a demanding job, along with<br />
managing a house move while heavily<br />
pregnant with our second child.<br />
THE ANSWER<br />
Somewhere in between the nightfeeds,<br />
the chaos of having two little<br />
ones under three and the end of my<br />
maternity leave fast approaching, I felt<br />
extraordinarily compelled to explore<br />
Christianity as an answer to that as<br />
yet unresolved spiritual hunger that<br />
had started gnawing away at me some<br />
years earlier.<br />
ALPHA<br />
<strong>The</strong> above is a condensed version of<br />
what first brought me to St Andrew's<br />
and to Alpha, where I found a great<br />
offering for families with the Sunday<br />
Club, the family services, Messy<br />
Church and above all, the incredibly<br />
warm welcome.<br />
I found on Alpha a group of people<br />
who were incredibly candid and honest<br />
about their own journeys and struggles<br />
with faith.<br />
I found people who had grown up<br />
in the church, left and then returned<br />
as adults on their own terms, those<br />
who had discovered Christianity as<br />
adults for the first time, and those<br />
whose faith had waxed and waned over<br />
the years, and who are still struggling<br />
to define what it means to them<br />
to believe in Jesus Christ and be a<br />
member of the Christian community.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Alpha sessions provided a<br />
welcome reprieve from the frenetic<br />
pace of the modern world— a place for<br />
religious and philosophical discussion<br />
and exploration.<br />
BEYOND DOUBT<br />
Besides being an incredible<br />
learning experience, Alpha has<br />
sparked an even greater curiosity in<br />
me, and I turned back to my favourite<br />
medium, books.<br />
<strong>The</strong> book '<strong>The</strong> Case for Christ' by<br />
Lee Strobel and other apologetics<br />
examining the historical evidence<br />
for the New Testament and Jesus’<br />
resurrection have been compelling and<br />
eye-opening.<br />
Previously I had only been aware<br />
of exclusivist and pluralist schools<br />
of thought regarding other religions.<br />
However, through the literature, I<br />
have explored the different inclusivist<br />
theories, which for me, begin to<br />
address the very personal — given my<br />
family's religious background — issue<br />
of other religions and those who have<br />
not heard the Gospel message.<br />
Through attending Alpha and the<br />
services at St Andrew's, I’ve discovered<br />
a well-founded belief in Jesus Christ,<br />
but have also discovered that to<br />
have faith, we don’t need to have<br />
the answers to every single question<br />
beyond a shred of doubt, even if the<br />
latter causes the lawyer in me to<br />
despair a bit!<br />
I also found a vicar with a warm,<br />
empathetic and self-deprecating<br />
manner, unexpectedly admitting to<br />
me that, like my husband, he too,<br />
was somewhat sceptical of organised<br />
religion.<br />
All in all, I am immensely thankful<br />
for the opportunity to be baptised<br />
into Christ on Easter Day, and to be<br />
a burgeoning member of the warm<br />
St Andrew's community where the<br />
presence of the Holy Spirit is so strong.<br />
Through the St Andrew's<br />
community, the Holy Spirit and the<br />
Bible — in particular the passage<br />
from Revelation 7:9 — I’ve come to<br />
believe that Christianity is, in fact, for<br />
'someone like me'!<br />
<strong>The</strong>re before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe,<br />
people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb… Revelation 7:9<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 17<br />
A small selection of Bibles printed in (left<br />
to right) Arabic, German, Chinese, Czech,<br />
Danish, Dutch and French languages.<br />
Timawe, dreamstime.com<br />
Looking for<br />
a Bible that's<br />
ideal for you?<br />
By Bob Peters<br />
It is estimated that there are more<br />
than 80,000 different versions of<br />
the Bible published in over 3,000<br />
different languages. This means you<br />
have very little excuse not to find<br />
one that suits your needs.<br />
It is also estimated that more than<br />
six Bibles are sold every 10 seconds,<br />
so it is not surprising that the<br />
Guinness Book of World Records says it<br />
the best-selling book in the world.<br />
<strong>The</strong> British and Foreign Bible<br />
Society suggests the total number of<br />
Bibles printed is most likely between<br />
5 and 7 billion copies.<br />
And, of course, they are widely<br />
available online digitally. For<br />
example, there are currently<br />
over 3,030 versions in over 2,011<br />
languages available on:<br />
https://bible.com<br />
A good place to start your search<br />
for a Bible that suits your needs is<br />
https://www.eden.co.uk/bible-finder.<br />
At the time of writing, they offered<br />
9,746 choices! <strong>The</strong>rea re other online<br />
suppliers.<br />
I am hoping that my wife reads this<br />
because it makes my collection of about<br />
150 different Bibles quite insignificant!<br />
— Editor<br />
Believed to be the World's smallest printed<br />
New Testament is in the Reed Rare Books<br />
Collection in Dunedin, New Zealand.<br />
Awcnz62, dreamstime.com
18 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
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feature — 3<br />
Why <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
is important<br />
for Christians<br />
For all Christians around the world,<br />
<strong>May</strong> is the most important month<br />
of <strong>2024</strong> because of four feast days<br />
that focus on the Holy Trinity of<br />
God the Father, God the Son, and<br />
God the Holy Spirit.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>May</strong> feast days this year are:<br />
Sunday 5 <strong>May</strong>, Rogation Sunday<br />
Thursday 9 <strong>May</strong>, Ascension Day<br />
Sunday 19 <strong>May</strong>, Pentecost<br />
Sunday 26 <strong>May</strong>, Trinity Sunday<br />
In the Anglican Church, Rogation<br />
is celebrated on the 5th Sunday after<br />
Easter. It is about asking God for his<br />
blessing on the seed and land for the<br />
year ahead.<br />
<strong>The</strong> practice began with the<br />
Romans, who invoked the help of<br />
their pagan gods Terminus and<br />
Ambarvalia. A crowd would move<br />
in procession around the cornfields,<br />
singing and dancing, sacrificing<br />
animals, and driving away winter<br />
with sticks. <strong>The</strong>y wanted to rid the<br />
cornfields of evil.<br />
EARTHQUAKES<br />
In about 465 the Western world<br />
was suffering from earthquake,<br />
storm and epidemic — perhaps it<br />
sounds familiar to our world today?<br />
Mamertius, Bishop of Vienne,<br />
who was aware of the popular pagan<br />
custom, ordered that prayers should<br />
be said in the ruined or neglected<br />
fields on the days leading up to<br />
Ascension Day.<br />
BEATING<br />
Rogationtide in England early in<br />
the 8th Century became a fixed and<br />
perennial time for asking God for his<br />
help.<br />
A party, led by a bishop or a<br />
priest, together with a cross bearer,<br />
would lead the people, many of<br />
whom carried wands of willow,<br />
around the boundaries of the parish.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> records confirm<br />
that it happened here.<br />
At certain points along the route<br />
such as a bridge, stile or ancient<br />
tree, the party halted and a litany,<br />
or rogation, was said, imploring God<br />
to send seasonable wealth, keep the<br />
Ascension Day tapestry, Vatican Museums, Rome<br />
corn and roots and boughs in good<br />
health, and bring them an ample<br />
harvest. At some point beer and<br />
cheese would be consumed!<br />
'Beating the bounds' was still<br />
very common as late as the reign of<br />
Queen Victoria.<br />
<strong>The</strong> season of Rogation lasts<br />
five days from Sunday to Thursday.<br />
On Thursday the Anglican Church<br />
celebrates Ascension Day, the day<br />
when Jesus returned to heaven after<br />
his resurrection on Easter Sunday.<br />
ADVOCATE<br />
Before Jesus left his disciples he<br />
promised that God the father would<br />
give them an advocate to help them<br />
and be with them forever. According<br />
to the Gospel of John, he called<br />
this advocate, '<strong>The</strong> Spirit of Truth'.<br />
Today, the advocate is better known<br />
as '<strong>The</strong> Holy Spirit' who arrived 50<br />
days after the crucifixion, hence the<br />
feast day we call Pentecost — 'pente'<br />
being Greek for 50.<br />
Many elderly folk will remember<br />
that we used to call Pentecost,<br />
Whitsun, meaning ‘White Sunday’,<br />
which took its name from when<br />
children marched to church in white<br />
on that day.<br />
CONFIDENCE<br />
<strong>The</strong> year Jesus was crucified his<br />
followers were together in an upper<br />
room in Jerusalem.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y were afraid to show their<br />
faces in case the authorities arrested<br />
them. But on the day of Passover,<br />
they had an amazing collective<br />
experience. <strong>The</strong>y described it in<br />
terms of wind and fire, a great surge<br />
of spiritual energy and confidence.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 19<br />
Preisler Dreamstime.com<br />
Afraid no longer, they burst out on<br />
to the streets where crowds were<br />
gathering for a Jewish festival, and,<br />
led by Peter, they began to tell them<br />
about Jesus and his resurrection.<br />
Although many of the people in<br />
the crowd were foreigners who spoke<br />
other languages, everyone heard<br />
them in their own tongue.<br />
Peter told them that what they<br />
were seeing was the fulfilment of an<br />
old prophecy when God would pour<br />
out his Spirit on the human race,<br />
men and women, young and old.<br />
As a result 3,000 people believed<br />
and were baptised in the name of<br />
Jesus. <strong>The</strong>y became the nucleus of<br />
what, within 100 years would be<br />
a Church that would turn history<br />
upside down.<br />
For Christians, Pentecost is thus<br />
the birthday of their Church.<br />
LARGEST<br />
Many people find the idea of the<br />
Holy Spirit mysterious and elusive,<br />
and this thought was not helped by<br />
the earlier title of ‘Holy Ghost’.<br />
Today we recognise this and use<br />
the term 'Holy Spirit' because the<br />
Spirit is not spiritually a ‘ghost’ but a<br />
precious gift from God, the father of<br />
Jesus Christ.<br />
This three-in-one relationship<br />
between Father, Son and Holy Spirit<br />
is always celebrated on the next<br />
Sunday after Pentecost, and is known<br />
as 'Trinity Sunday'. This year it falls<br />
on Sunday 26 <strong>May</strong>, making <strong>May</strong> the<br />
most important month of <strong>2024</strong> for<br />
an estimated 2.38 billion Christians<br />
who form the world's largest religion<br />
among the total population of about<br />
8 billion people.
20 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
feature — 4<br />
Claude wonders about things<br />
he should not know . . .<br />
One of my greatest pleasures is<br />
listening to audio books from my<br />
local library. Recently, I have listened<br />
to a book which was particularly<br />
interesting - '<strong>The</strong> Radium Girls' by<br />
Kate Moore.<br />
It is based on a true story which<br />
concerned young women in America<br />
who used to paint dials on watches to<br />
make them luminous.<br />
Radium was an exciting discovery<br />
which was used to make watches and<br />
navigational instruments luminous.<br />
Not much was known at the time<br />
about the devastating impact this was<br />
to have on their lives.<br />
<strong>The</strong> job of ‘dial painter’ was a<br />
lucrative one as the these young<br />
women could earn far more than<br />
their counterparts in other factories<br />
and it was a job that they enjoyed<br />
immensely.<br />
Eventually it became apparent that<br />
the work was causing serious medical<br />
problems, they suffered disease and<br />
unusual ailments; this included the<br />
loss of limbs such as fingers falling<br />
off. <strong>The</strong>y all died young with many of<br />
them never reaching the age of 30.<br />
BEATING<br />
Although it was obvious that<br />
radium was to blame, their employers<br />
were making so much money, and<br />
there was so much demand for this<br />
work, that it was unthinkable to them<br />
that this could be the case.<br />
<strong>The</strong> authorities tried to prove<br />
it was safe and it even went to the<br />
highest court in the US. <strong>The</strong> argument<br />
was that it was harmless and even<br />
that radium was beneficial!<br />
Eventually, there was enough<br />
evidence to outlaw it but sadly not in<br />
time for many of these girls.<br />
It reminded me of similar<br />
radioactivity that killed my dad. When<br />
I was on my National Service, he got<br />
a job at Aldermaston AWE. He was a<br />
metal turner making the casings for<br />
atom bombs.<br />
I remember that he brought home<br />
a little bit of uranium. It was about the<br />
size of an acorn and twice the density<br />
of lead. He put it in my hand and I was<br />
surprised of the unexpected weight of<br />
it. He told me that if you put a Geiger<br />
counter on it, it would go berserk! I<br />
didn’t live with him at the time but it<br />
was left in the lounge, on the mantel<br />
piece and he never took it back to work.<br />
<strong>May</strong>be his employers didn’t realise, but<br />
there couldn’t have been much security<br />
back then.<br />
When, in the 1960s, it became<br />
apparent in the news what was<br />
happening at Aldermaston, a<br />
newspaper columnist from <strong>The</strong> Evening<br />
Post asked if people could ring up<br />
if they knew anything about it. I<br />
rang and told them about my father,<br />
who although he had already died<br />
was involved with radioactivity. <strong>The</strong><br />
reporter wanted to know any details<br />
about his work, including his death<br />
— which I am sure was due to the<br />
proximity of uranium.<br />
<strong>The</strong> reporter never rang me back<br />
for this information the next day, and<br />
I wonder whether there was a press<br />
embargo from the government to<br />
prevent any information becoming<br />
public.<br />
It makes me wonder how many<br />
press embargoes there are that the<br />
government and authorities don’t want<br />
us to know about. How often does it<br />
happen?<br />
I do wonder.<br />
RNLI celebrates<br />
bicentennial<br />
<strong>The</strong> Royal National Lifeboat<br />
Institution (RNLI) has been<br />
saving lives at sea around the UK<br />
and Ireland for 200 years. Since<br />
the charity was founded in 1824,<br />
its volunteer lifeboat crews and<br />
lifeguards have saved an incredible<br />
146,277 lives.<br />
To mark the significant milestone<br />
a Service of Thanksgiving was held<br />
on 4 March at Westminster Abbey<br />
during which the Archbishop of<br />
Canterbury, Justin Welby, gave the<br />
sermon.<br />
His Royal Highness <strong>The</strong> Duke of<br />
Kent as President of the RNLI was<br />
present and the service was attended<br />
by representatives from every RNLI<br />
lifesaving community around the UK<br />
and Ireland.<br />
<strong>The</strong> service took place at the same<br />
time the RNLI founding papers were<br />
signed in 1824.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were also a number of<br />
events in areas where the RNLI<br />
operates and means so much to the<br />
communities it serves. Flotillas took<br />
place during the day and lifeboats<br />
were paraded through their town<br />
centres to remember past volunteers<br />
and to symbolise a time when<br />
lifeboats were hauled by horses.<br />
APPRECIATION<br />
Two special stamps from An Post,<br />
which depict the charity’s lifesaving<br />
work in Ireland, were unveiled.<br />
Dublin based artist David Rooney<br />
has created two images which show<br />
the moment of rescue between the<br />
lifeboat crew member and the person<br />
in the water.<br />
In appreciation of the RNLI and<br />
its brave volunteers across the coast,<br />
national monuments and historical<br />
buildings were lit up in yellow on<br />
the evening of Monday 4 March<br />
<strong>2024</strong>. This included the London<br />
Eye, Dover Castle, the Millennium<br />
Bridge in Newcastle and Broughty<br />
Ferry lifeboat station in Scotland.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re was a special birthday message<br />
displayed across the BT Tower.<br />
More events around the country<br />
are being planned throughout the<br />
year: https://www.rnli.org
feature — 5<br />
Maiden Erlegh Rotary Club<br />
provides urgent aid for<br />
mothers and children in Gaza<br />
<strong>The</strong> Rotary Club of Reading Maiden Erlegh has stepped forward to extend<br />
assistance towards alleviating the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.<br />
Recognizing the pressing need to aid vulnerable populations, Rotary, as a<br />
non-political organization, has committed resources to support its mission of<br />
‘Saving mothers and children’, one of its core aims, writes Tony Cornell.<br />
Amid the ongoing crisis in Gaza, where up to 1.9 million people, comprising<br />
85% of the population, are displaced, the Rotary Club of Reading Maiden Erlegh<br />
has prioritised the well-being of mothers and children, who form the majority<br />
of those affected.<br />
With many forced to seek refuge in community buildings, makeshift<br />
shelters, or even open spaces, the situation demands urgent intervention.<br />
To address this critical need, Reading Maiden Erlegh is collaborating with<br />
Shelterbox, a renowned charity founded by Rotarians in Cornwall in 2000.<br />
Shelterbox, now an independent partner to Rotary, responds to humanitarian<br />
crises worldwide, providing emergency shelter and essential aid. Gaza,<br />
undoubtedly, stands among the areas with the highest need for immediate<br />
assistance.<br />
EMERGENCY ITEMS<br />
Nesbeer, dreamstime.com<br />
Through this partnership, vital aid will be delivered to Gaza, facilitated by<br />
locally based Shelterbox employees in conjunction with the UK charity MAP<br />
(Medical Aid for Palestinians).<br />
<strong>The</strong> aid package includes emergency items such as tarpaulins and ropes to<br />
weatherproof damaged structures, blankets, mattresses, pillows, and floor mats<br />
to ensure warmth and comfort, as well as sanitary items to uphold cleanliness<br />
and hygiene standards.<br />
Richard Nicholson, president of the Rotary Club of Reading Maiden Erlegh,<br />
expressed the club's commitment to humanitarian efforts, stating, 'In the<br />
last 12 months, we have financed aid missions to Ukraine, Turkey, and Morocco. We<br />
endeavour to extend assistance wherever possible and felt compelled to act in Gaza.<br />
With our longstanding partnership with Shelterbox spanning over 20 years, we are<br />
confident that aid will reach those who truly need it'.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 21<br />
Three in one<br />
How many colours does your TV use?<br />
Answer: three ‐ red, green and blue.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se are TV’s three primary colours<br />
which, when their luminescence is<br />
fired at your eyes, give all the colours<br />
of the visible spectrum.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y are ‘additive’ colours. Mix<br />
the three together in different<br />
proportions, and your screen can offer<br />
you 16 million colours.<br />
For painted and printed colours,<br />
the sequence is: red, yellow, blue.<br />
A TV gives out light in three<br />
colours, whereas paint daubed on<br />
paper absorbs and removes some<br />
colours and so reflects a small part of<br />
the light — the colour you see.<br />
IT DOES MATTER<br />
TV's three colours illustrate the<br />
Holy Trinity. <strong>The</strong>re are three distinct<br />
persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit<br />
Take away any member of the<br />
Trinity, and you slip into theological<br />
error; take away any of the three TV<br />
colours and you need a repair engineer!<br />
It does matter that God is our<br />
Creator and Father — otherwise our<br />
whole life is a meaningless illusion.<br />
It does matter that Jesus is God<br />
the Son, otherwise his death is simply<br />
a human tragedy, with no promise of<br />
salvation or eternal life.<br />
It does matter that the Holy Spirit<br />
is with us here and now, otherwise we<br />
are disconnected from God.<br />
SONNING VILLAGE WALK<br />
<strong>The</strong> walk is on 17 <strong>May</strong> and<br />
led by Pam Szadowski from<br />
U3A. It starts at 10.00am<br />
and will incorporate places<br />
of historical interest, the<br />
Church, Mill and various<br />
houses of well known<br />
people. It is limited to 20<br />
people and there will be no<br />
charge but you will need to<br />
reserve your place by text<br />
to Heather Kay on<br />
0785 177 5467
22 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
feature — 6<br />
HOLY WEEK AND<br />
EASTER SUNDAY<br />
CELEBRATIONS!<br />
EIGHT DAYS OF WORSHIP, PRAYER AND FAMILY FUN<br />
During the 8 days of Holy Week, which began of Palm Sunday, to Easter Sunday the<br />
St Andrew's Church Sonning attendance figures totalled over 900 this year. Our,<br />
now traditional, Easter Saturday Fun Day (see page 7 of this issue) was as popular<br />
as ever, as was our main Easter Sunday service during which the Rt Rev Rt Hon<br />
Lord Carey, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, presided and<br />
preached.
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 23<br />
Pictured (left to right) after the Baptism in the<br />
River Thames are: Rufus James Handley Plumb;<br />
Westy, youth minister; Oliver James Preston; Lord<br />
Carey; Elspeth Christine Young; Panyaporn (Penny)<br />
Pruksakit; and Rev Jamie Taylor, vicar of Sonning<br />
Images by Peter Rennie, Will Jeffery and Martha Wilson
24 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
around the villages — 1<br />
Horticultural confidence has returned<br />
So, says the Twyford and Ruscombe<br />
Horticultural Association (TRHA)<br />
which reports that they are seeing<br />
an increase in both exhibitors and<br />
visitors to their shows.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Spring Show in March confirmed<br />
this trend and was a great success.<br />
Visitors and exhibitors were<br />
impressed by the number, and<br />
standard, of the exhibits especially<br />
in the arts, craft and floral art<br />
classes.<br />
Encouraged by the success of the<br />
Shows in 2023, TRHA has decided on<br />
a new look for <strong>2024</strong>.<br />
New table coverings, signs, and<br />
niches for the Floral Art displays,<br />
have been were purchased with<br />
dark colours chosen to set off the<br />
colourful blooms.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Association is now preparing<br />
for the Summer Show on 15 June in<br />
Loddon Hall. Visitors are welcome<br />
to enjoy the displays and have tea<br />
and home made cakes from 2pm.<br />
BENEFITS<br />
While exhibiting at the shows<br />
is open to all comers, membership<br />
of TRHA brings other benefits such<br />
as the opportunity to purchase<br />
horticultural goods at the store in<br />
Loddon Hall Road at competitive<br />
prices. Prospective show entrants<br />
can see the exhibition classes on:<br />
https://www.trha.org.uk<br />
St Andrew’s Church Sonning is proud to announce…<br />
INTREPID VOICES<br />
An exciting new course for anyone in<br />
School Years 5-7 who would like to take<br />
their choir singing to the next level.<br />
<strong>The</strong> course will run during <strong>May</strong> and June <strong>2024</strong> on<br />
Thursdays, from 5 — 6pm. It will be held in <strong>The</strong> Ark at<br />
St Andrew’s Church Sonning, and will finish with<br />
a joyful service of Choral Evensong in the Church<br />
at 4pm on Sunday 7July.<br />
This FREE course will be run by Richard Meehan MA,<br />
ARCO, our highly experienced Director of Music. It will<br />
also include individual singing lessons given by Tania<br />
Pratt an experienced professional singing teacher.<br />
For more details, including our safeguarding policy,<br />
and enrolment forms, please contact:<br />
music@sonningparish.org.uk<br />
A Bring and Buy plant sale is also<br />
planned for Sunday 2 June. It will<br />
be in the TRHA Store, Loddon Hall<br />
Road, Twyford, RG10 9JA during the<br />
opening hours 9.30am - 11.00am.<br />
Donations, especially of unusual<br />
plants, will be very welcome.<br />
Any surplus plants will be sold at<br />
the Summer Show on 15 June.<br />
Meanwhile, TRHA is organising<br />
a quiz evening on 10 <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> in<br />
Charvil Village Hall.<br />
<strong>The</strong> proceeds will go to local<br />
horticultural charities.<br />
For more details about TRHA<br />
contact Jenny Wager:<br />
trhamembership@gmail.com<br />
Summer gigs for<br />
female voices<br />
On Saturday 8 June from 2-4 pm<br />
in Charvil Village Hall, Suzanne<br />
Newman, a local music teacher and<br />
choir director, will be running 'Love,<br />
laughter & legends —the music of the<br />
Beatles.<br />
It will include a selection of songs<br />
by the Beatles arranged for two-part<br />
female voice choir such as:<br />
Can't buy me love, Penny Lane, Yellow<br />
submarine, Let it be and Hey Jude.<br />
A fee of £12 includes music and<br />
refreshments<br />
SMASH HITS<br />
And then on Monday 15 & 22<br />
July from 8-9.30pm in Charvil Hall,<br />
Suzanne Newman will lead Abba<br />
Smash Hits!<br />
Songs will include: Thank you for<br />
the music, Fernando and Waterloo<br />
arranged for two-part female voice<br />
choir. <strong>The</strong>se sessions, which cost £20,<br />
will also include some work on vocal<br />
technique and the music.<br />
For more details and to book a<br />
place, contact: suzanneynewman@<br />
btinternet.com / 0118 934 0589<br />
Church of St Andrew<br />
Serving Sonning, Charvil & Sonning Eye<br />
the church of st andrew, SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF<br />
CHARVIL, SONNING and sonning eye SINCE THE 7 th CENTURY<br />
Like two peas in a pod by Phil Mason
around the villages — 12<br />
Where did you get that Easter bonnet?<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 25<br />
Phil Sherwood, head teacher of<br />
Sonning Primary School, writes:<br />
As a Church of England school,<br />
Easter is an important time of year.<br />
As well as engaging in the fun<br />
and more child-focused aspects<br />
of Easter, such as egg hunts, we<br />
also focus throughout the term<br />
on the events leading up to Holy<br />
Week. Throughout our collective<br />
worship each week since January,<br />
we have learned about and discussed<br />
different parts of the Easter story,<br />
culminating in our Easter service.<br />
As part of our strong links with<br />
St Andrew’s Church, we all visited<br />
the church for a special Easter<br />
service, led by our pupils and Rev<br />
Jamie.<br />
Rev Jamie spoke about reflection<br />
and preparation at this time of year,<br />
which resonated with all of us.<br />
This term, as well as Lent and<br />
Easter, also features Ramadan, and<br />
we have enjoyed understanding<br />
more about these important events<br />
in Islam. With many Muslim<br />
pupils in the school, it has been a<br />
wonderful way to show our respect<br />
and curiosity — two of our school<br />
values — for other religions and<br />
faiths.<br />
As part of Easter and spring,<br />
we also had a farm visit us. <strong>The</strong><br />
pupils loved seeing the animals and<br />
learning about them.<br />
Finally, as a key part of our<br />
celebrations around Easter, we<br />
finished the term with our annual<br />
Easter Hat Parade, which featured<br />
a range of very creative hats! <strong>The</strong><br />
children and staff all walked our<br />
‘cat walk’ and showed off their hats<br />
to the rest of the school by dancing,<br />
strutting, bouncing and sliding down<br />
the cat walk to music! It certainly was<br />
a feel-good end to the term.<br />
We hope everyone reading this<br />
also enjoyed a relaxing and familyfilled<br />
Easter!
26 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
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around the villages— — 31<br />
Inner Wheel raises funds for<br />
<strong>The</strong> Book Bus and Cowshed<br />
<strong>The</strong> Inner Wheel Club of Reading Maiden Erlegh has been<br />
raising more funds for <strong>The</strong> Book Bus and <strong>The</strong> Cowshed.<br />
On International Women’s Day, 8 March, the club<br />
members celebrated with a soup lunch held at a member’s<br />
home. <strong>The</strong> proceeds — £205 — from voluntary donations<br />
will go to the Club’s international charity ‘<strong>The</strong> Book Bus’<br />
which operates reading schemes in Malawi and Ecuador.<br />
After lunch they gathered in the sunshine with 100<br />
tote bags (pictured below) made by them for <strong>The</strong> Cowshed,<br />
a local charity which provides support to people and<br />
children of all backgrounds in times of crisis.<br />
<strong>The</strong> bags will be filled with clothing and other items,<br />
but why 100 bags? Because ‘100 for 100’ is an initiative the<br />
club's centenary year which began in the UK in 1924 and is<br />
now one of the largest organisations for women with over<br />
100,000 members in more than 103 countries.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Inner Wheel Club of Reading Maiden Erlegh meets<br />
at Sonning Golf Club on the third Thursday evening of<br />
every month and welcomes new members to join in the<br />
fun, take part in activities, raise funds for charity and<br />
support the local community. https://www.innerwheelrme.org<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 27<br />
Butterflies and scarecrows<br />
invade Sonning . . .<br />
But don't panic! <strong>The</strong> butterflies are made from a clay-like<br />
material, and the scarecrows come in a huge variety of shapes,<br />
sizes, and materials!<br />
Sonning Art Club has been preparing for this year's Scarecrow<br />
Trail on 26 - 27 <strong>May</strong> by learning to make butterflies to enhance<br />
their scarecrow which will form part the group's<br />
popular exhibition held in the Committee Room<br />
of Pearson Hall during the Bank Holiday weekend.<br />
Jill Watkins, one of the club's members, taught the<br />
other members how to make butterflies and<br />
flowers from 'Fimo', a clay like substance which can be<br />
baked in a domestic oven for just 30 minutes.<br />
Barbara Carr, the Scarecrow Trail organiser, has asked<br />
us to pass on a big thank you to those who are opening<br />
their gardens, but she says they could do with some more.<br />
If you are willing to open your garden or help in any way<br />
please contact her at the address below.<br />
Barbara also thanks all those who recently filled<br />
Sonning Club to register their scarecrows and to offer<br />
help! However, there is still time to enter a Scarecrow if<br />
you get in touch with Barbara by Tuesday 7 <strong>May</strong>!<br />
If you have not registered your scarecrow it will not<br />
be listed in Scarecrow trail map! To register your entry<br />
or find out more contact: Barbara.carr71@hotmail.co.uk<br />
contact@sonningscarecrows.com or o118 934 5886<br />
Healthier lifestyle for everyone<br />
at Sonning Tennis Club<br />
Sonning Tennis Club is supporting a 'healthier lifestyle'<br />
for everyone. <strong>The</strong> local tennis club is introducing new<br />
fitness options that are open to non members, and to<br />
people of all levels of fitness.<br />
Walking Tennis, for example, is aimed at people who<br />
would like to stay active, but don't feel that they can<br />
cover a whole tennis court. It is tennis without running<br />
or jumping and is on a smaller court. <strong>The</strong> ball can bounce<br />
twice. It runs every Tuesday from 10.30am - 12noon, with<br />
tea ⁄coffee available. A small charge applies.<br />
One Sunday each month, the club is inviting anyone to<br />
try tennis. Sessions are free and allow everyone to simply<br />
have a go!<br />
Another choice is Cardio Tennis. <strong>The</strong>se are sessions<br />
designed for anyone to have a fun fitness class to music,<br />
based on tennis. No tennis skills are required and they are<br />
open to non members. <strong>The</strong>se sessions run from 9.30am<br />
- 10.30am Tuesdays, and 7pm Thursdays. A small charge<br />
applies.<br />
Further information can be found on the Sonning<br />
Tennis Club website:<br />
https://clubspark.lta.org.uk/SonningLawnTennisClub<br />
or for more information email:<br />
coaching@sonningtennis.com
28 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
HEALTH — 1<br />
Dr Simon Ruffle writes . . . Comparisons<br />
Recently I wrote about comparing the<br />
NHS to other healthcare services.<br />
While researching that article I<br />
fell down the USA rabbit hole of<br />
healthcare. I had some vague notions<br />
of USA healthcare but this was skewed<br />
by the bankruptcy issues caused by<br />
medical bills.<br />
Recent American Journal of Public<br />
Health figures for 2019 estimated that<br />
medical problems contributed to 66.5%<br />
of bankruptcies in the United States.<br />
I thought that the Affordable Care<br />
Act, (ACA) colloquially known as<br />
Obamacare, addressed this problem in<br />
2010. Obviously it hasn’t.<br />
ACA was introduced to cover people<br />
who couldn’t afford or weren’t given<br />
insurance as part of their employment.<br />
Opposition to the Act includes similar<br />
arguments against the NHS, although<br />
not being constitutional is not one.<br />
Stifling innovation and choice, it<br />
is overly bureaucratic and costs the<br />
consumer and tax payer as it attracts<br />
tax payment. NHS has the same<br />
finance issues.<br />
It also leaves some uncovered,<br />
which, cannot happen in the UK but<br />
variability in quality and accessibility<br />
remain in both systems, and affect<br />
deprived areas the most.<br />
INSURANCE<br />
Most Americans are covered by<br />
insurance schemes. Some are provided<br />
by employers, others by the federal<br />
government such as Medicare. This<br />
covers over 65s and disabled peopledepending<br />
on disability.<br />
Medicaid is another scheme<br />
designed to help those with low<br />
incomes and there is a Children’s<br />
program called CHIP.<br />
This is essentially gap insurance<br />
for children of those who cannot<br />
afford insurance but do not qualify for<br />
Medicaid; what about the parents?<br />
Most of these insurance policies do<br />
not allow the American — home of the<br />
free — to choose their hospital.<br />
Health Management Organisations<br />
(HMO) that provide the policies have<br />
their own network of doctors, hospitals<br />
and allied services.<br />
Similar to the NHS the patient must<br />
see their primary care physician (PCP)<br />
to obtain a referral. Again these GP-like<br />
doctors are within the HMO’s network;<br />
step out of that network and you will<br />
receive an out of pocket expense, more<br />
on that later.<br />
UK GPs, unlike USA PCPs, have<br />
their own specialist pathway for<br />
training which is more extensive and<br />
thus provide a more comprehensive<br />
service that reduces the number of<br />
referrals to secondary care. Many<br />
HMOs look to the UK model and more<br />
and more North American systems are<br />
aggressively recruiting UK GPs.<br />
UNTOLD PROBLEMS<br />
Hospitals in the States can be<br />
public, private, for profit and not for<br />
profit organisations but receive their<br />
funding from payments for activity.<br />
<strong>The</strong> drive to reduce costs is huge.<br />
Some payments are from private<br />
people and companies ‘supporting’<br />
the hospitals and there are church and<br />
charity funds. This still doesn’t create a<br />
universally covered system.<br />
Despite insurance other out-ofpocket<br />
expenses are often required.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se cause untold problems. As<br />
mentioned, out of network services<br />
occur. For example, if you need<br />
treatment or elect to have treatment<br />
in a hospital or clinic that isn’t in ‘your’<br />
network, you are liable for the cost out<br />
of your pocket.<br />
Co-insurance for some people may<br />
be part of their insurance. Essentially,<br />
the patient is gambling on not getting<br />
sick to the tune of a percentage of the<br />
cost of treatment, not dissimilar to<br />
choosing a cheaper insurance policy<br />
and a higher excess instead.<br />
Co-payments can be part of your<br />
insurance. For example a fee every<br />
time you use your policy; essentially<br />
encouraging you not to seek help.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n we come to deductables. This<br />
is the amount of payment you have to<br />
pay before your cover kicks in, again.<br />
It's a like our excess policies on car<br />
insurance. <strong>The</strong>se are often contentious<br />
as the condition and onward costs may<br />
not be covered either, as described.<br />
Like the UK there is a prescription<br />
cost to a certain percentage of the<br />
drug costs. However, in the UK this is<br />
a fixed costs per item and not a fixed<br />
percentage of the cost.<br />
In general in the UK, the patient is<br />
in a better position having a mixed cost<br />
but if you receive more than 13 monthly<br />
prescriptions a year there are schemes<br />
to pre-pay this and there is a list of<br />
conditions that exclude any payment<br />
at all: children, those in permanent<br />
education and over 60s also pay no<br />
prescription charge.<br />
MANY LAWS<br />
<strong>The</strong> charges go straight to the<br />
treasury so are a tax and not as a lot of<br />
people think that they are paying for<br />
their medication. Often the medication<br />
cost is way above the prescription fee.<br />
In the USA Annals of Internal<br />
Medicine in 2017, 'nearly 20% of new<br />
prescriptions are never filled, and<br />
approximately 50% of medications<br />
TURN TO PAGE 29
FROM PAGE 28<br />
HEALTH — 2<br />
Comparisons<br />
for chronic conditions are not taken as<br />
prescribed.'<br />
Finally, the HMO has the last way<br />
in if the treatment is covered, or they<br />
could cover one treatment rather than<br />
another.<br />
<strong>The</strong> UK also has a system to regulate<br />
this via NICE, but this doesn’t have<br />
shareholders. Although there is no<br />
specific law in the USA that forces<br />
shareholder primacy there are laws that<br />
protect investors in publicly floated<br />
companies, such as the Securities<br />
Exchange Act of 1934 which aims to<br />
protect investors and the integrity of<br />
the securities markets.<br />
Many laws applied to these<br />
companies do not protect them trading<br />
overseas.<br />
So, while the USA and the UK have<br />
different systems of funding healthcare<br />
we face the same problems of cost,<br />
accessibility, choice, fairness and<br />
political interference.<br />
Both nations need to have a grown<br />
up apolitical discussion on their<br />
futures.<br />
This is likely to be more difficult in<br />
the USA as the corporate involvement<br />
is higher than the UK, but this is<br />
changing. Our outcomes are not<br />
dissimilar but the costs to the tax payer<br />
are as follows:<br />
Per Capita:<br />
UK 2020: $4300<br />
Bankruptcy: 0% of cases<br />
USA 2020: $11582<br />
Bankruptcy: 66.5% of cases<br />
While there is no one perfect system<br />
the principles of ‘do no harm’<br />
must surely extend away from the<br />
medical issue at hand to the societal<br />
responsibilities of those in charge or<br />
those having the most influence on how<br />
the systems are run.<br />
Phil Mason<br />
HOME AND Garden<br />
<strong>The</strong> glory of <strong>May</strong><br />
Maia, Greek goddess<br />
Pinterest.co.uk<br />
with Roman numbers.<br />
Traditionally, Wisteria is one of<br />
<strong>May</strong>'s floral glories. I once spent four<br />
years coaxing a 10-year-old wisteria<br />
into flower only to be asked if I could<br />
remove half the flowers as it was too<br />
gaudy for a Cambridge university<br />
professor!<br />
Many plants have juvenile and<br />
adult growth — Ivy is a classic<br />
example — and wisteria flowers on<br />
‘adult’ spurs.<br />
To promote spurs regular pruning<br />
is required. Train main branches<br />
horizontally and tip when they reach<br />
the correct size, this will generate a<br />
flush of side shoots. Prune these side<br />
shoots back to 3/4 buds to encourage<br />
spurs and repeat annually and after<br />
flowering.<br />
Japanese wisterias (floribunda)<br />
have shorted broader racemes, and<br />
twine in a clockwise direction. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
more readily have a second flush of<br />
flowers.<br />
Chinese wisterias twine in an<br />
anticlockwise direction and have<br />
narrower longer flowers.<br />
How to control greenfly (aphids)<br />
is another question that regularly<br />
pops up in <strong>May</strong>. <strong>The</strong>y are an<br />
important food source for smaller<br />
nestlings, especially sparrows and<br />
tits. Instead of using insecticides<br />
I recommend leaving them and<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 29<br />
By Ray Puddefoot<br />
Wisteria tree<br />
Valeria Sangiovanni, dreamstime.com<br />
<strong>The</strong> first 6 months' names are associated with Roman gods except <strong>May</strong>, which<br />
is named after Maia the Greek goddess of growth and fertility. Followed by<br />
two months named after Roman emperors and four vacant waiting months<br />
APHID CONTROL<br />
accepting a few distorted flowers.<br />
Alternatively, washing them off with<br />
a soapy water or a hose with the<br />
nozzle on a jet setting.<br />
MAY TIPS<br />
— Prune early flowering shrubs like<br />
forsythia, ribes and Japanese quince.<br />
— Remove seed heads from<br />
hellebores, stake perennials and tie<br />
in climbers as required.<br />
— Apply liquid feed around spring<br />
bulbs and top dress your borders and<br />
roses with granular fertilizer.<br />
— Prepare and plant up your<br />
summer pots with summer bedding.<br />
— Always use fresh compost ideally<br />
one designed specifically for summer<br />
pots incorporating a wetting agent<br />
and water retentive granules.<br />
— Check hose pipes and fittings for<br />
leaks and if necessary, replace the<br />
washers, it is far cheaper than buying<br />
new connectors.
30 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
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FASHION BY HARRIET NELSON<br />
A girl can dream, can't she?<br />
<strong>The</strong> issue of sustainable fashion is slowly filtering down from the top fashion<br />
houses to high street shops. Global warming has increased significantly, and the<br />
fast fashion industry is currently the third largest polluter after the oil industry.<br />
Luxury Brands are facing the issue<br />
of creating fashion that isn't just<br />
made for the runway, worn once, and<br />
thrown away. <strong>The</strong>y are now turning to<br />
sustainable materials and products to<br />
reduce their environmental impact.<br />
Sales within sustainable brands<br />
and products have risen dramatically,<br />
and a great example of a fashion<br />
luxury brand addressing this issue<br />
is Stella McCartney. She is working<br />
on many sustainable collections<br />
using organic materials and is known<br />
worldwide for her sustainable work.<br />
VEGAN FAMILY<br />
Stella grew up vegan within her<br />
famous family and she naturally looked<br />
at the fashion world slightly differently<br />
from her peers. It was no surprise<br />
that she has never used animal or<br />
unsustainable materials in her designs<br />
and has continued to grow her business<br />
with sustainability at its heart.<br />
Her designs use organic cotton,<br />
vegetarian leather, recycled cashmere,<br />
and recycled nylon and polyester.<br />
I had a fantastic opportunity last<br />
year to tour the Stella McCartney store<br />
in London and received good answers<br />
to my questions. It was fascinating<br />
that Stella's clothes were not the only<br />
sustainable aspect. <strong>The</strong> shop was<br />
also constructed sustainably with<br />
collections displayed artfully using<br />
recycled materials.<br />
<strong>The</strong> walls, for example, were made<br />
from recycled materials and paper<br />
from the brand's head offices. Looking<br />
closer at the wall, I saw many different<br />
types of papers layered to create unique<br />
elements and textures within the walls,<br />
I was amazed and inspired.<br />
SUSTAINABLE<br />
McCartney has displayed all her<br />
products on sustainable furniture.<br />
Upstairs, there was a beautiful, upcycled<br />
piece of wood displaying the<br />
bags, which were made in Venice.<br />
Some sustainable high heel shoes<br />
were displayed on a red silicone<br />
material produced using sustainable<br />
silicon. It was a unique material to use<br />
to display shoes, and looked amazing.<br />
My favourite areas were the lifts and<br />
dressing rooms. Each dressing room,<br />
designed personally by Stella, was<br />
unique with a different sustainable<br />
theme. One was embroidered with<br />
brown sustainable thread with beads in<br />
the shapes of hands.<br />
SPEAKERS<br />
<strong>The</strong>re were speakers in the lifts<br />
telling you about Stella's inspiration for<br />
the collections and, as you went to try<br />
on the clothing, they told you about the<br />
sustainable materials used.<br />
Inside another dressing room was<br />
a wide mirror with quotes: 'If I can,<br />
then there is no reason not to.' - Stella<br />
McCartney.<br />
A main feature downstairs was a<br />
collection of Stella's designer shoes<br />
displayed on the wall. What stood out<br />
to me was the colourful barcode on<br />
most of them.<br />
I scanned one of the shoes, and was<br />
directed to her website which showed<br />
a page about her S-wave trainers —<br />
Stella's most sustainable sneakers.<br />
Most of the garments were from<br />
her spring and summer collections.<br />
Each part of the store had a different<br />
collection with wild and unique colours<br />
for spring.<br />
Upstairs, for example, displayed<br />
a room full of the sportswear, and<br />
downstairs showcased Stella's most<br />
popular garments that were seen on the<br />
runway and ready to wear collections.<br />
ESSENTIAL<br />
At the back of the store was a<br />
display of her sustainable skincare<br />
products. I use these and love them.<br />
I have her Essential Travel Set, which<br />
includes a Reset Cleanser (50ml), Alter-<br />
Care Serum (20ml) and Restore Cream<br />
(20ml), packaged in an eco-designed<br />
travel bag made from recycled nylon.<br />
All these products are perfect for<br />
fulfilling a sustainable beauty routine<br />
for your holiday, or at home.<br />
As you can guess, I’m a huge fan of<br />
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 31
32 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> Please mention <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> when responding to advertisements<br />
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THE ARTS — 1<br />
<strong>The</strong> Stabat Mater<br />
Rev Michael Burgess continues a series on great works of music.<br />
<strong>May</strong> is traditionally the month of Mary, the mother of<br />
Jesus. When we read of Mary in the Gospels, we sense the<br />
heartache and trial of much of her life: a teenage mother<br />
giving birth in a stable, fleeing with her new-born baby and<br />
Joseph to Egypt, losing the child Jesus while on pilgrimage<br />
to Jerusalem, following her son on his ministry but always<br />
in the background, and there at the foot of the cross as he<br />
is crucified. It is then Mary must have thought back to that<br />
occasion in the temple when Simeon took her child and told<br />
her that a sword would pierce her own soul.<br />
That sense of heartache and the sorrow it brings is poignantly<br />
expressed in a beautiful poem of the Middle Ages called Stabat<br />
Mater, which pictures Mary at Calvary and that sword of<br />
desolation and sadness that pierces her soul.<br />
We are not sure who wrote this poem. It is ascribed to<br />
Jacopone da Todi, who became a Franciscan friar on the<br />
death of his wife in the 13th Century. <strong>The</strong> contemplation<br />
of Mary’s sorrows in the Stabat Mater has inspired many<br />
composers, and there are wonderful settings by Palestrina,<br />
Rossini, Dvorak, Verdi and Poulenc.<br />
PRODIGIOUS FURY<br />
This month we focus on a very simple setting, but one<br />
that captures those searing pangs of sorrow at the heart of<br />
the poem. It is by Antonio Vivaldi, who was born in Venice in<br />
1678. In 1703 he was ordained a priest, but by then he had made<br />
his name as a skilled violinist and composer. He continued to<br />
compose throughout his life: a vast amount that includes some<br />
40 operas — though only 18 survive with 400 concertos — and<br />
over 100 choral works.<br />
In 1730 Charles de Brosses described him as ‘an old man with<br />
a prodigious fury for composition.’ For much of his life Vivaldi<br />
was music director of the Ospidale della Pieta, a music school<br />
for girls. <strong>The</strong>n, in 1740, he left Venice hoping for preferment in<br />
Vienna. That was not to be, and his final days were marked by<br />
poverty and neglect. In 1741 he ws buried in a pauper’s grave.<br />
THROBBING RHYTHMS<br />
Vivaldi is well known for the brilliance and colour of ‘<strong>The</strong><br />
Four Seasons’ and his setting of '<strong>The</strong> Gloria'. <strong>The</strong> tone is more<br />
restrained in his setting of the 'Stabat Mater'. <strong>The</strong>re is a very<br />
fine CD recording entitled ‘Vespers of Sorrow’ where the work is<br />
linked to a sonata, a psalm setting and the Magnificat for an<br />
imagined celebration of our Lady’s feast.<br />
'Stabat Mater' is a long poem and Vivaldi restricted himself<br />
to setting eight verses for contralto and strings: the solo voice<br />
standing for Mary as she sings of the despair and agony as the<br />
mother of Jesus.<br />
<strong>The</strong> opening verse, ‘At the cross her station keeping’ captures<br />
the intensity of emotion with the throbbing rhythms of the<br />
accompaniment. a mood that recurs throughout the work.<br />
And then with the verse, ‘Eja Mater, fons amoris’ (O thou<br />
Mother! Fount of love!) the violins and viola accompany without<br />
any bass instruments. It is a pivotal point in the work as the<br />
solo voice cries out ‘Mater’ across the heights and depths of the<br />
music, leading into the prayer that the love of Mary will touch<br />
all human hearts. <strong>The</strong> final verse set by Vivaldi begins ‘Make<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 33<br />
me feel as thou hast felt,’ and so Mary stands for all mothers<br />
who have lost loved ones: perhaps sons killed in Afghanistan,<br />
perhaps daughters dying through disease.<br />
Mary’s love for Jesus, her son, touches the hearts of them<br />
and of all parents. Hers was a protective, sacrificial love that<br />
led her to the foot of the cross, where Jesus gave his mother<br />
and John, the beloved disciple, into the care of each other. <strong>The</strong><br />
sacrificial love of a mother mirrored in the sacrificial offering of<br />
her son in death.<br />
MOTHERLY LOVE<br />
Wikipedia commons<br />
Julian of Norwich meditated on this motherly love in her<br />
Revelations. In chapter 60 she wrote, ‘A mother’s caring is the<br />
closest, nearest and surest for it is the truest…As we know, our own<br />
mother bore us only into pain and dying. But our true mother Jesus,<br />
who is all love, bears us into joy and endless living. Blessed may he<br />
be!’<br />
So the protective care of mother Mary cries out to us in<br />
Vivaldi’s setting of 'Stabat Mater'. <strong>The</strong> closing lines of that poem<br />
look to Christ’s maternal love like Mother Julian:<br />
‘Christ when <strong>The</strong>e shall call me hence,<br />
Be my mother, my defence,<br />
Be thy Cross of victory.’
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34 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
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THE ARTS — 2<br />
Book Reviews<br />
Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness<br />
in an Age of Totalitarian, Terror and Dysfunctional<br />
Democracies, by Tom Wright, SPCK, £12.99<br />
Tom Wright and Michael F Bird join forces to ask: How<br />
can Christians engage with the turbulent politics of our<br />
times while remaining true to the teaching of Jesus? <strong>The</strong>y<br />
argue that Christians can embody a counter-cultural witness<br />
that upholds the Biblical ideals of justice, mercy and truth<br />
and challenge believers to take a stand against tyrannical<br />
forces wherever they may appear.<br />
No Ceiling to Hope: Stories of grace from the world’s most<br />
dangerous places, by Patrick Regan and Liza Hoeksma,<br />
SPCK, £10.99<br />
Real-life stories from around the world show how<br />
Christians are helping the most vulnerable in society with<br />
God's love. In Bolivia, Christians are backing education<br />
projects to help families to find a way out of poverty. In<br />
London, XLP is mentoring young people to turn aside from<br />
violence. In Los Angeles, a new future is being offered to<br />
gang girls. In high security prisons in the UK and US, the<br />
Spirit is turning lives around. In Belfast's Shankill Road area,<br />
a group of elderly ladies is cooking meals for men who sit all<br />
day in local pubs . . . <strong>The</strong> list is extensive, and inspiring. In all<br />
circumstances, Christ is offering hope.<br />
Grandparenting for Faith: Sharing God with the children<br />
you love the most By Becky Sedgwick, BRF, £9.99<br />
Part of the joy of being a grandparent is to help your<br />
grandchildren learn to have confidence in God’s love for<br />
them. This book encourages grandparents to be a unique<br />
voice, speaking into their grandchildren’s lives, and helping<br />
to nurture them into the reality of a relationship with the<br />
God who loves them.<br />
Spiritual Growth in a Time of Change: Following God in<br />
midlife By Tony Horsfall, BRF, £9.99<br />
Our 40s and 50s are often times of personal change and<br />
emotional transition for our families, but they can also<br />
be important years for our spiritual lives. Tony Horsfall<br />
addresses a number of ‘midlife’ issues from facing up to the<br />
past, to renegotiating relationships, and how to navigate a<br />
spiritual journey, leading to deeper faith.<br />
Finding Flourishing: Time and pace for your work-life<br />
wellbeing by Naomi Aidoo, BRF, £9.99<br />
Wellbeing should be an accessible pursuit, even for the<br />
busiest of us. Naomi Aidoo presents a practical approach to<br />
helping achieve wellbeing that doesn’t require adding yet<br />
another technique to your busy schedule. It shows how to<br />
enhance mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.<br />
Neighbourhoods Reimagined – How the Beatitudes<br />
Inspire our Call to be Good Neighbours by Chris<br />
McKinney and Elizabeth McKinney, 10Publishing, £8.99<br />
Many of us drift away from our next-door neighbours,<br />
and now we’re not sure we can get back again. We are unsure<br />
of how to befriend them and how to spot opportunities of<br />
sharing God’s love with them. How can the counter-cultural<br />
values of Christianity affect them, and our neighbourhood?<br />
Poetry Corner<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 35<br />
Promised<br />
Pentecost<br />
By Steven Rolling<br />
Acts 2: 16-21 parts<br />
Tune: Down Ampney - ‘Come down, O love divine’<br />
1. Pentecost, your Spirit<br />
You promised, Lord, lives lit<br />
With your living presence, we here now you sense<br />
He comes to us empower<br />
Us daily, each hour<br />
And in human hearts pleased to make residence<br />
2. This is that prophesied<br />
By Joel, ‘Tis none beside<br />
Than Scripture’s fulfilment, the Spirit you sent<br />
Tongues, dreams, and prophecy<br />
<strong>The</strong>s things now sure shall be<br />
To show God’s glory, he works his good intent<br />
3. And too wonder above<br />
<strong>The</strong> Spirit, holy dove<br />
And signs beneath, blood, fire, and vapour of smoke<br />
Sun shall be turned to dark<br />
Moon be turned to blood, hark<br />
Before great day of the Lord come, no revoke<br />
4. It shall come to pass so<br />
That they the Lord shall know<br />
Whosoever calls on His name shall saved be<br />
Trusting your life within<br />
Us, cleanse us here from sin<br />
To go witness, that all the Saviour shall see<br />
Dove image: Kostya Pazyuk, dreamstime.com
36 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
RENDEZVOUS<br />
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THE SCIENCES<br />
'Pain that is<br />
not expressed<br />
can never be<br />
transformed'<br />
By Dr Ruth M Bancewicz, church<br />
engagement director at <strong>The</strong><br />
Faraday Institute for Science and<br />
Religion, Cambridge<br />
<strong>The</strong> question of suffering comes<br />
up regularly in discussions about<br />
science and faith. When I visited a<br />
school to speak to some of the older<br />
teenagers, one had sadly died from<br />
cancer a few weeks before and his<br />
classmates asked, 'How could God let<br />
this happen?'<br />
While questions about where God was<br />
in this situation were important, the<br />
school's chaplain gently reminded the<br />
class that their friend’s family were<br />
Christians and they were finding their<br />
experience of loss had brought them<br />
even closer to God than before.<br />
One way that grief can bring us<br />
near to God is when we share it with<br />
him by telling him exactly how we<br />
feel.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Biblical writers had no<br />
scruples about expressing themselves<br />
to God, giving vent to emotions we<br />
often hold back in a church context.<br />
As my colleague Roger Abbott,<br />
wrote in his book about unanswered<br />
prayer: 'Let us not confuse reverence<br />
with spiritual prudishness. Perhaps<br />
honesty, the way it feels, is precisely<br />
what God is waiting to hear from us.'<br />
Please remember your<br />
donations for the<br />
Woodley Food Bank<br />
Please inside remember St Andrew's your<br />
Church which is open<br />
10am - 4pm every day<br />
donations for the Woodley Food<br />
Bank and place them in the box<br />
just inside St Andrew's Church.<br />
Thank you!<br />
Jorisvo | Dreamstime.com<br />
About one third of the Psalms<br />
express some form of grief.<br />
Job is a series of responses to<br />
one man’s suffering as he loses his<br />
children, property and health in quick<br />
succession.<br />
Lamentations is also one long<br />
outpouring of sadness at what<br />
happened to Israel under the<br />
Babylonians.<br />
Some of the prophets, especially<br />
Jeremiah, express their pain at these<br />
sort of events which reflect something<br />
of God’s own feelings at the suffering<br />
of his people.<br />
Most of these Biblical authors<br />
would have had access to scriptures<br />
that encouraged them to turn to<br />
God whatever the circumstances.<br />
Emboldened by their knowledge of<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 37<br />
A stained glass window in the Cathedral of Brussels, Belgium depicts the prophet Jeremiah<br />
lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem. <strong>The</strong> Lamentations of Jeremiah in the Bible consists<br />
of five poems in the form of laments for Judah and Jerusalem when they were invaded and<br />
devastated by the Babylonians in 586 BCE for the sufferings of the population, and for the poet<br />
himself during and after the catastrophe.<br />
Jorisvo, Dreamstime.com<br />
EMBOLDENED<br />
his character and promises, these<br />
divinely inspired writers even express<br />
their anger to God about the things<br />
he lets happen, or complain that he<br />
seems to act unfairly or ignore them<br />
in their plight.<br />
Not only do these people let out all<br />
their feelings without fear of reprisal,<br />
but they also clearly expect a helpful<br />
answer.<br />
Some record a resolution to their<br />
troubles, often simply because God<br />
speaks to and comforts them. He<br />
enables them to keep going.<br />
<strong>The</strong> biblical writers demonstrated<br />
that God can handle pretty much<br />
anything — anger, blame, bitterness<br />
— if we are actively looking to him for<br />
help.<br />
As Pete Greig of the 24-7 prayer<br />
movement has written, 'pain that is<br />
not expressed can never be transformed'.<br />
Nature and science meet faith in films<br />
'God Saw That It Was Good' is a four-part film series that aims to reconnect<br />
people with the wonder of the natural world and a sense of the divine within<br />
it while inspiring a renewed vision of creation care.<br />
<strong>The</strong> short films focus on environmental issues around themes of coasts, sky,<br />
trees, and life. <strong>The</strong>y are written and presented by Rev Dr Dave Gregory, a<br />
Baptist minister and former meteorologist and climate scientist at the Met<br />
Office and European Weather Centre.<br />
He says, “In our visual age, people are captivated by stunning images of our world and<br />
cosmos seen in nature and science programmes streamed to our TVs and phones. <strong>The</strong>y are<br />
entranced by the wonder they see, yet often left with a sense of mystery and asking is there<br />
more to know?<br />
“<strong>The</strong> God Saw That It Was Good films take people deeper in the wonder and mystery of<br />
the world. <strong>The</strong>y enable viewers to encounter the wonder, playfulness, and connections in<br />
creation that science reveals, and through which God may be encountered.”
38 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
PUZZLE PAGE — 1<br />
BIBLE CROSSWORD<br />
Across<br />
1 One who owes money, goods or services (Isaiah 24:2) (6)<br />
4 ‘A good measure, pressed down — together running over’ (Luke 6:38) (6)<br />
7 Continuous dull pain (Proverbs 14:13) (4)<br />
8 This bread contains yeast (Amos 4:5) (8)<br />
9 ‘But take heart! I have — the world’ (John 16:33) (8)<br />
13 And the rest (abbrev.) (3)<br />
16 What Paul was accused of by Tertullus, the high priest’s lawyer, in his<br />
trial before Felix (Acts 24:5) (13)<br />
17 Rap (anag.) (3)<br />
19 Founder of the Jesuits in 1534 (8)<br />
24 ‘For where your — is, there your heart will be also’ (Luke 12:34) (8)<br />
25 <strong>The</strong> first word written on the wall during King Belshazzar’s great<br />
banquet (Daniel 5:25) (4)<br />
26 ‘We all, like sheep, have gone — ’ (Isaiah 53:6) (6)<br />
27 One was given in honour of Jesus in Bethany (John 12:2) (6)<br />
Down<br />
1 ‘<strong>The</strong> blind receive sight, the lame walk, the — hear, the dead are raised’<br />
(Luke 7:22) (4)<br />
2 Conduct (Colossians 1:21) (9)<br />
3 In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, the body of a saint or his<br />
belongings, venerated as holy (5)<br />
4 ‘Like a — of locusts men pounce on it’ (Isaiah 33:4) (5)<br />
5 Very old (Genesis 44:20) (4)<br />
6 In Calvinist theology one who is predestined to receive salvation (5)<br />
10 How Nicodemus addressed Jesus (John 3:2) (5)<br />
11 Sea (Psalm 148:7) (5)<br />
12 ‘I will — you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever’<br />
(Psalm 145:1) (5)<br />
13 One of the groups of philosophers that Paul met in Athens, who<br />
disagreed with his teaching about the resurrection (Acts 17:18) (9)<br />
14 Barred enclosure (Ezekiel 19:9) (4)<br />
15 ‘Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in — with the Spirit’ (Gal 5:25) (4)<br />
18 Cares (anag.) (5)<br />
20 Garish (Ezekiel 16:16) (5)<br />
21 ‘So God said to Noah, “I am going to put —to all people”’ (Gen 6:13) (2,3)<br />
22 Just (2 Corinthians 6:13) (4)<br />
23 ‘<strong>The</strong> — of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge’ (Proverbs 1:7) (4)<br />
<strong>The</strong>y Missed <strong>The</strong> Boat Verse Search by Ralph<br />
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Ralph's ‘verse search’ grid above contains the names of<br />
26 animals — including extinct and mystical creatures —<br />
whose names begin: A; 4B; C; E; F. G; I; K; L; 2M; 2P; R; 3S;<br />
2T; U; V; W; Z. If you find all 26 you will also notice that the<br />
unused letters in the grid spell out a relevant verse from<br />
the Good News Bible. You might even manage to identify<br />
the verse. Good luck, and God Bless!<br />
Write your answers here . . .<br />
ANSWERS TO LAST MONTH'S FAMOUS PEOPLE SEARCH<br />
ATTENBOROUGH<br />
CHARLEMAGNE<br />
HERODOTUS<br />
RUTHERFORD<br />
MICHELANGELO<br />
MACHIAVELLI<br />
WASHINGTON<br />
BOTTICELLI<br />
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F<br />
S<br />
K<br />
F<br />
D<br />
B<br />
O<br />
O<br />
I<br />
F<br />
F<br />
I<br />
P<br />
P<br />
CONSTABLE<br />
BROWNING<br />
HANNIBAL<br />
CROMWELL<br />
MUSSOLINI<br />
MANET<br />
NOBEL<br />
EINSTEIN<br />
R<br />
L<br />
A<br />
A<br />
O<br />
I<br />
N<br />
U<br />
A<br />
L<br />
O<br />
F<br />
P<br />
O<br />
S<br />
LEONARDO DA VINCI<br />
U<br />
D<br />
T<br />
R<br />
G<br />
O<br />
N<br />
F<br />
R<br />
E<br />
E<br />
G<br />
L<br />
D<br />
R<br />
S<br />
A<br />
E<br />
O<br />
Y<br />
E<br />
I<br />
B<br />
M<br />
O<br />
Z<br />
V<br />
T<br />
E<br />
R<br />
<strong>The</strong> hidden Bible verse was from Joshua 6:27<br />
(Good News Bible)<br />
HIS FAME SPREAD THROUGH THE WHOLE<br />
COUNTRY<br />
B<br />
T<br />
R<br />
O<br />
L<br />
L<br />
P<br />
B<br />
A<br />
N<br />
S<br />
H<br />
E<br />
E<br />
O<br />
P<br />
L<br />
E<br />
P<br />
R<br />
A<br />
C<br />
H<br />
A<br />
U<br />
N<br />
O<br />
I<br />
E<br />
C<br />
CHURCHILL<br />
BANISTER<br />
PICASSO<br />
MONET<br />
ROSSINI<br />
DEFOE<br />
RAVEL<br />
BACH
PUZZLE PAGE — 2<br />
CROSSWORD<br />
1 2 3 4 5 6 7<br />
8<br />
9 10<br />
11 12<br />
13<br />
14 15 16 17<br />
SUDOKU<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 39<br />
answers in the next issue<br />
April<br />
Solutions<br />
CROSSWORD<br />
C O D E E M B A R K E D<br />
A U M O N I U<br />
P R O T E I N T O N G S<br />
T M T T H G K<br />
A R O M A T H E R A P Y<br />
I P S O I R<br />
N Y M P H S S P O N G E<br />
S I Y T O V<br />
U N A S S A I L A B L E<br />
I I I U O R R<br />
M I M I C R A G T I M E<br />
P U A U Y D N<br />
S I M P L E S T T E X T<br />
20<br />
18 19<br />
21 22<br />
23 24<br />
Across<br />
1 - Break<br />
or burst<br />
or<br />
(4)<br />
burst (4)<br />
3<br />
-- Burns<br />
slightly<br />
slightly<br />
or chars (8)<br />
or chars (8)<br />
9<br />
-- Perennial<br />
plant with<br />
fleshy<br />
fleshy<br />
roots (7)<br />
roots (7)<br />
10<br />
-<br />
-<br />
Loop<br />
Loop<br />
with a<br />
with<br />
running<br />
a<br />
knot<br />
running<br />
(5)<br />
knot (5)<br />
11 - Completely<br />
unaware<br />
unaware<br />
of (12)<br />
of (12)<br />
14<br />
-- Acquire;<br />
obtain<br />
obtain<br />
(3)<br />
(3)<br />
16<br />
-- Show<br />
off (5)<br />
off (5)<br />
17<br />
-- Measure<br />
of length<br />
of<br />
(3)<br />
length (3)<br />
18<br />
-- Give<br />
a false<br />
a false<br />
account<br />
account<br />
of (12)<br />
of (12)<br />
21<br />
-- Place<br />
of refuge<br />
of refuge<br />
(5)<br />
(5)<br />
22<br />
- Due<br />
- Due<br />
to the<br />
to<br />
fact<br />
the<br />
that<br />
fact<br />
(7)<br />
that (7)<br />
23<br />
- - Tanks<br />
for storing<br />
for storing<br />
water (8)<br />
water (8)<br />
24<br />
- - Associate<br />
(4)<br />
(4)<br />
CODEWORD<br />
Down Down<br />
1 - Be envious of (8)<br />
1 - Be envious of (8)<br />
2 - Transmits 2 - Transmits (5) (5)<br />
4 - Fall behind 4 - Fall behind (3) (3)<br />
5 - Body of voters in a<br />
given 6 - area Enunciate (12) (7)<br />
6 - Enunciate 7 - Look for (7) (4)<br />
7 - Look for (4)<br />
8 - Persistence (12)<br />
8 - Persistence (12)<br />
12 - Furnish or supply (5)<br />
12 - Furnish or supply (5)<br />
13 - Shiny; sparkly (8)<br />
13 - Shiny; sparkly (8)<br />
15 - Robbers (7)<br />
15 - Robbers (7)<br />
19 - Be the same as 19 - Be the same as (5)<br />
20 - Stylish (4)<br />
20 - Stylish (4)<br />
22 - Round 22 - Round bread bread roll (3)<br />
2 5 6 6 25 9 22 1 13<br />
5 - Body of voters in a given area (12)<br />
14 4 15 2 4 6 14 7 9 6<br />
12 4 17 15 26 17 13<br />
12 23 4 26 4 8 9 4 11 5 4<br />
9 9 24 17 26 17<br />
26 16 6 9 26 15 12 4 23 18 9 6<br />
19 2 15 2<br />
1 4 17 4 10 9 26 22 24 25 14 17<br />
1 23 21 10 16 14<br />
3 9 20 5 4 12 26 16 5 1 12<br />
17 4 10 4 22 2 16<br />
9 6 16 12 16 14 17 15 9 8<br />
15 9 17 22 14 9 12 26 24<br />
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z<br />
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13<br />
D<br />
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26<br />
V X<br />
Each of the nine blocks has to contain all the<br />
numbers 1-9 within its squares. Each number<br />
can only appear once in a row, column or box.<br />
WORDSEARCH FOR MAY<br />
Rogation Sunday is on 5 <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong> first Sunday in <strong>May</strong> is Rogation Sunday.<br />
This is when many parishes still ‘beat<br />
the bounds’. Rogation means an asking<br />
of God for blessing on the seed and land.<br />
<strong>The</strong> practice began with the Romans, who<br />
processed around the cornfields each<br />
Spring, singing and dancing, sacrificing<br />
animals, in order to get rid of evil. About<br />
465 AD the Western world was suffering<br />
from earthquake and storm. Mamertius,<br />
Bishop of Vienne, aware of the pagan<br />
custom, ordered that prayers should be<br />
said in the ruined or neglected fields. Thus<br />
‘beating the bounds’ became a Christian<br />
ceremonial. It arrived in England early in<br />
the eighth century. Each Spring, led by the<br />
priest, a little party from the parish would<br />
set out with a Cross to trace the boundaries<br />
of the parish. <strong>The</strong>y’d implore God to keep<br />
their corn and roots and boughs in good<br />
health, and bring them to harvest. In the<br />
days when maps were scarce, ‘beating<br />
the bounds’ helped remind everyone just<br />
where the boundaries were. Do you know<br />
yours today?<br />
SUNDAY<br />
MAY<br />
ROGATION<br />
BEAT<br />
BOUNDS<br />
ASKING<br />
BLESSING<br />
SEED<br />
LAND<br />
ROMANS<br />
PROCESSED<br />
CORNFIELDS<br />
SPRING<br />
EARTHQUAKE<br />
STORM<br />
PRAYER<br />
CROSS<br />
BOUNDARIES<br />
CROPS<br />
HARVEST<br />
MAPS<br />
CODEWORD<br />
A X L E F R A G R A N T<br />
M A U E U P R<br />
B O T A N I C A L P H A<br />
I E Q K R R N<br />
T U X U O D R O P S<br />
I E N N U I V C<br />
O R S A E R<br />
U O T W A I N I<br />
S U S H I D S C O P<br />
N E O J H R T<br />
E A T E N O R I G A M I<br />
S T E I P Z O<br />
S P E N D I N G C Y A N<br />
SUDOKU<br />
WORDSEARCH APRIL<br />
BIBLE CROSSWORD
40 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong><br />
Please mention <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> when responding to advertisements<br />
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Classified Trades & Services<br />
ACG SERVICES - LOCKSMITH<br />
Locks changed, fitted, repaired and opened<br />
Door and window locks fitted, UPVC door lock expert<br />
Checkatrade member - Which Trusted Trader<br />
Call Richard Homden: 0149 168 2050 / 0771 040 9216<br />
CLARK BICKNELL LTD - PLUMBING & HEATING<br />
Qualified Plumbing and Heating Engineers Gas Safe<br />
25 years experience - local family run company<br />
Office: 0118 961 8784 - Paul: 0776 887 4440<br />
paul@clarkbicknell.co.uk<br />
MC CLEANING<br />
We are a family business with excellent references<br />
and we are fully insured<br />
All cleaning materials provided<br />
For free quote call: Maria 0779 902 7901<br />
THAMES CHIMNEY SWEEPS<br />
0779 926 8123 0162 882 8130<br />
enquiries@thameschimneysweeps.co.uk<br />
http://www.thameschimneysweeps.co.uk<br />
Member of the Guild of Master Sweeps<br />
BERKSHIRE STUMP REMOVALS<br />
Stump grinding and tree stump removal<br />
Latest narrow access machinery<br />
Contact: Mark<br />
0798 495 7334 http://www.berkshirestumpremoval<br />
HANDYMAN & DECORATING SERVICES<br />
Reliable and affordable<br />
Small jobs a speciality!<br />
Call Andy on 0795 810 0128<br />
http://www.handyman-reading.co.uk<br />
HANDY MAN & TV / SATELLITE REPAIRS<br />
Surveys on houses with a drone<br />
Most jobs undertaken<br />
Please call Phil on:<br />
0797 950 3908<br />
COMPUTER FRUSTRATIONS?<br />
For jargon free help with your computer problems<br />
PC & laptop repairs, upgrades, installations, virus removal<br />
Free advice, reasonable rates<br />
0798 012 9364 help@computerfrustrations.co.uk<br />
BIG HEART TREE CARE<br />
Reliable and friendly service for all tree care<br />
NPTC qualified — Public Liability of £10million<br />
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SMALLWOOD<br />
Landscaping, garden construction,<br />
patios, lawns, fencing, decking etc<br />
0118 969 8989 https://www.smallwoodlandscaping.co.uk/<br />
office@smallwoodlandscaping.co.uk
CHILDREN'S PAGE<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 41
42 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> Please mention <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> when replying to advertisements<br />
information — 2<br />
<strong>Parish</strong> contacts<br />
Ministry Team<br />
— <strong>The</strong> Vicar: Revd Jamie Taylor (Day off Friday)<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> Office, Thames Street, Sonning, RG4 6UR<br />
vicar@sonningparish.org.uk / 0118 969 3298<br />
— Youth Minister: Chris West (Westy)<br />
youthminister@sonningparish.org.uk / 0794 622 4106<br />
— Licensed Lay Minister: Bob Peters<br />
bob@sonningparish.org.uk / 0118 377 5887<br />
— Female Youth and Children's Worker: Corinne Robertson<br />
corinne@sonningparish.org.uk / 0118 969 3298<br />
Churchwardens<br />
— Stuart Bowman sdbowman73@aol.com / 0118 978 8414<br />
— Liz Nelson liz.nelson1@ntlworld.com / 0779 194 4270<br />
Deputy Churchwardens<br />
— Simon Darvall sdarvall@businessmoves.com / 0793 928 2535<br />
— Terry Hunt terencehunt@me.com / 0773 470 7368<br />
— Sue Peters mail@susanjpeters.com / 0118 377 5887<br />
— Ruth Jeffery, ruth@jefferyfamily.net / 0797 101 8730<br />
<strong>Parish</strong> Office Manager<br />
— Hilary Rennie, office@sonningparish.org.uk / 0118 969 3298<br />
Parochial Church Council<br />
— Secretary: Hilary Rennie 0118 969 3298<br />
— Treasurer: Jerry Wood 0118 969 3298<br />
Director of Music, Organist and Choirmaster<br />
— Richard Meehan MA ARCO<br />
music@sonningparish.org.uk<br />
Safeguarding Officer<br />
— Nicola Riley: nic.nige@sky.com / 0742 517 3359<br />
Sonning Bell Ringers<br />
— Tower Captain: Pam Elliston<br />
pam.elliston@talktalk.net / 0118 969 5967<br />
— Deputy Tower Captain: Rob Needham<br />
r06needham@gmail.com / 0118 926 7724<br />
Advertisers' index<br />
ABD Construction 6<br />
Abbeyfield Wey Valley Society 6<br />
ACG Services Locksmith 40<br />
Active Security 30<br />
AMS Water Softeners 14<br />
Barn Store Henley 6<br />
Berkshire Stump Removals 40<br />
BHR Maintenance 40<br />
Big Heart Tree Care 40<br />
Blandy & Blandy Solicitors 40<br />
Blue Moose 14<br />
Bridges Homecare Meals on Wheels 12<br />
Bull Inn 32<br />
Canon Tree Care 30<br />
Chole Lefroy Counselling 40<br />
Clark Bignall Plumbing 40<br />
Computer Frustrations 40<br />
Crosfields School 32<br />
French Horn 4<br />
Gardiners Home Care 32<br />
Good Oaks Home Care 26<br />
Great House Sonning 12<br />
Handyman and Decorating Services 40<br />
Handyman and Satellite TV repairs 40<br />
Haslams Estate Agents 2<br />
Hicks Group 18<br />
Home Stair Lifts 18<br />
Kingfisher Bathrooms 30<br />
MC Cleaning 40<br />
Mill at Sonning 44<br />
Muck & Mulch 18<br />
Reading Blue Coat School 14<br />
Richfield Flooring 16<br />
Sabella Home Furnishing 34<br />
Shiplake College 16<br />
Smallwood Landscaping 40<br />
Sonning Golf Club 16<br />
Sonning Scouts 32<br />
Studio DFP 40<br />
Thames Valley Water Softeners 40<br />
Thames Chimney Sweep 40<br />
<strong>The</strong> Abbey Nursery 43<br />
Tomalin Funerals 14<br />
Walker Funerals 12<br />
Water Softener Salt 18<br />
Window Cleaner 18<br />
St Andrew's Church <strong>Parish</strong> Website<br />
http://www.sonningparish.org.uk<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong>: http://www.theparishmagazine.co.uk<br />
— Editor: Bob Peters<br />
editor@theparishmagazine.co.uk / 0118 377 5887<br />
— Advertising: Harriet Nelson<br />
advertising@theparishmagazine.co.uk / 0770 707 7773<br />
— Print and Distribution: Gordon Nutbrown<br />
classified@theparishmagazine.co.uk / 0118 969 3282<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> is produced by St Andrew’s PCC and delivered<br />
free of charge to every home in Charvil, Sonning and Sonning Eye.<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> is printed in the United Kingdom by<br />
Sarum Graphics Ltd, Old Sarum, Salisbury SP4 6QX<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> is distributed by<br />
Abracadabra Leaflet Distribution Ltd, Reading RG7 1AW<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> template was designed in 2012 by<br />
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and David Woodward david@designforprint.org
Please mention <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> when responding to this advertisement<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> 43<br />
AB0049_<strong>The</strong>_Abbey_Little_Knellies_Ad_175x255.indd 1 06/03/<strong>2024</strong> 09:32
44 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>May</strong> <strong>2024</strong> Please mention <strong>The</strong> <strong>Parish</strong> <strong>Magazine</strong> when responding to this advertisement<br />
BOOKING NOW<br />
11 APRIL- 1 JUNE <strong>2024</strong><br />
6 JUNE- 13 JULY <strong>2024</strong><br />
THE WATERWHEEL BAR<br />
STORYTIME<br />
Open Tuesday - Sunday 11am - 5pm for Hot Bar<br />
Food, Homemade Cakes & Artisan Coffee. Come<br />
and treat yourself to a scrumptious lunch in the<br />
most beautiful setting.<br />
PLEASE FIND FULL MENU ONLINE<br />
On Wednesday Mornings, enjoy a magical<br />
experience as pre-school children are treated to<br />
a story and singing in the theatre, followed by<br />
dressing up and colouring in activities in the<br />
Waterwheel Bar. £6, book at Box Office.<br />
B O X O F F I C E : ( 0 1 1 8 ) 9 6 9 8 0 0 0<br />
millatsonning.com