Openings

A look backwards and forwards.

Openings

The door to the past is closing
And the future opens a crack
A stream of light now exposing
What was once dark and black

War without end, rockets fire
The heat rising, a wave of hot
Floods rising, people expire
Soldiers and civilians shot

Compassion, giving, being kind
Helping wounded, drying tears
There is still hope for all mankind
Despite the horrors and the fears

A New Year beckons, with new openings
We shall yet rise up on eagle wings

Adverts from Jersey Topic 1966 - Part 2

The Battle of Flowers and Miss Jersey Battle of Flowers was big then. Springfield was still a venue for these events and I remember visiting an Ideal Homes Exhibition there once.

I love the style of the clothes for children - quite old fashioned in the 1960s.

Le Lievres was still around and selling china. They also had a wedding service, where you could buy dinner sets for a wedding present (or parts thereof).

Another advert for Miss Battle of Flowers selection.

The Revere closed and is now demolished! I've never heard of Kents at Quennevais.

The Old Court House at Gorey is now flats.

An interesting advert for Le Riches (now gone) showing the beach, not the stores!

Cars back then had sharper edgeds.

I'd never heard of gas refrigerators.

British United.

British United Airways (BUA) was a private, independent British airline formed as a result of the merger of Airwork Services and Hunting-Clan Air Transport in July 1960, making it the largest wholly private airline based in the United Kingdom at the time. British and Commonwealth Shipping (B&C) was the new airline's main shareholder. At its inception, BUA assumed the aircraft and operations of its predecessors. These included a fleet of 90 assorted fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters that continued to operate mainly non-scheduled services. Gatwick became BUA's main operating base while Stansted was the main base for trooping flights until 1964. In November 1970, B&C sold BUA to the Scottish charter airline Caledonian Airways for £12 million (£197.5 million today). At that stage, it operated an all-jet fleet of 20 aircraft and employed a staff of 3,000.


And an advert from drink - prices were cheap for booze in Jersey back then. A major holiday draw. 

Still in production as Long John Special Reserve, this long-established standard blend was named after the legendary ‘Long John’ Macdonald, who founded Ben Nevis distillery. Its malt was supposedly a key ingredient, though Long John’s core later became Tormore, which began distilling in 1961.

Now owned by Pernod Ricard, and still widely drunk in France, Long John claims to contain 48 different malts. It has light, cereal notes, a distinct sweetness and a short finish. 

Thefts in Jerripedia

I see Jerripedia has again been stealing articles which I scanned and spent time and effort transcribing, partly by OCR but also by tidying the text as OCR is not 100% reliable. The author of the website, Mike Bisson, rather like Thomas Edison, never acknowledges the work of others or where he has pinched it from.

I always give the original author of the work (which Mike Bisson does), but he never acknowledges my work in transcribing it. I also track down various sources, for the articles, which also involves research.

Here are a few pieces which he has stolen from my blog in and posted up in 2022, and there are probably more.

• A history of St Paul's Church
• Edward Le Quesne's journal: Recollections of a 20th century politician
• Jersey Airport 1937-1980
• A history of All Saints Church
• A history of the Baptist church in Jersey over two centuries
• Gorey National School

I really wouldn't mind if thanks were given but it is not and instead he is parasitical on the hard work of others. I wonder how many other sites he has stolen from.

It is very disheartening when hours of work are cribbed in a matter of moments. 

This is not the first time I have cause to complain.

https://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2015/09/my-contributions-to-jerripedia-2015.html

A Generous Soul - Part 8

John Watson (3 November 1850 – 6 May 1907), was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He is remembered as an author of fiction, known by his pen name Ian Maclaren. I'm currently reading his short story collection "St Jude", but am also fascinated by his life. Here was a man who stood out against a narrowness in his creed, and who was indeed "a generous soul".

The Life of The Rev. John Watson, D.D. "Ian Maclaren"
A Generous Soul
By W. Robertson Nicoll

Watson said of the Minister:

“One thing he cannot do: criticise his people or make distinctions among them, Others, with no shepherd heart, may miss the hidden goodness: he searches for it as for fine gold. Others may judge people for faults and sins; he takes them for his own. Others may make people's foibles the subject of their raillery; the pastor cannot because he loves. “

“Does this interest on the part of one not related by blood or long friendship seem an impertinence? It ought to be pardoned, for it is the only one of the kind that is likely to be offered. Is it a sentiment? Assuredly, the same sublime devotion which has made Jesus the Good Shepherd of the soul. “

“If the pastoral instinct be crushed out of existence between the upper and lower millstones of raging sensationalism and ecclesiastical worldliness, then the Christian Church will sink into a theological club or a society for social reform: if it had full play we might see a revival of religion more spiritual and lasting than any since the Reformation.”

He divided his work as pastor into the departments of visitation and consultation, and this is how he spoke of them:

“With the true pastor, visitation is a spiritual labour, intense and arduous, beside which reading and study are light and easy. When he has been with ten families, and done his best by each, he comes home trembling in his very limbs and worn-out in soul. Consider what he has come through, what he has attempted, what, so far as it can be said of a frail human creature, this man has done."

"He has tasted joy in one home, where the husband has been restored to his wife from the dust of death; he has shared sorrow with another family where pet Marjorie has died; he has consulted with a mother about a son in some far country, whose letters till the anxious heart with dread; he has heard a letter of twelve pages of good news and over-flowing love which another son has sent to his mother; he has carried God's comfort to Darby and Joan reduced suddenly to poverty, and God's invitation to two young people beginning life together in great prosperity. He has to adjust himself to a new situation in each house, and to cast himself with utter abandonment into another experience of life."

"Before evening he has been a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a child, a friend; he has been young, middle-aged, old, lifted up, cast down, a sinner, a saint, all sorts and conditions of life. ... It is exhausting to rejoice or to sorrow, but to taste both sensations in succession is disabling; yet this man has passed through ten moods since midday, and each with all his strength. His experiences have not all been wiped out as a child's exercise from a slate; they have become strata in his soul. “

This labour of visitation was conducted in a most careful and methodical fashion. Whenever a family came to his church he obtained from them the names of the household, and the ages of all below sixteen, and also particulars about those who were communicants and had done church work. All these he wrote into a large book in which he had his congregation before him at any moment. From it he reminded himself who ought to become communicants, who ought to take part in the church work, where recruits could be found for the guilds and classes. He also made careful secret notes on the spiritual history and character of his people.

Thus his yearly visitation was no formality. The visits were brief, generally fifteen minutes. Gossip was left out, and it was understood that business had to be done. When conversation moved onward till it reached the brink of prayer, the visit culminated and completed itself in a few earnest petitions.

Whenever a message came from a house of sickness no time was lost on the way. He read to all in trouble the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. It was his experience that every man and woman wanted to hear it in great sorrow or when the shadow was falling. 

With every reading he noticed that it yielded some new revelation of the Divine Love and the Kingdom of Heaven. " If one is sinking into consciousness, and you read, * In My Father's house are many mansions,' he will come back and whisper ' mansions,' and he will wait till you finish : * where I am ye may be also,' before he dies in peace."

Arrival

This is a sequel, part four of four, of the poem cycle that I began earlier

http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2022/12/anticipations.html

http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2022/12/this-is-sequel-part-two-of-four-of-poem.html

http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2022/12/encounters.html

It's a continuation of a non-traditional advent, evoking the spirit of the Magi. This poem evokes the encounter with King Herod and Rome, encounters with naked, violent, and war like power. The imagery may well evoke Ukraine suffering under the ambitions of the Russian President Putin. That is deliberate. But it is also the universal history of mankind, of war and death, and poverty, and the tragedies that touch us and our community.

Arrival

Over the dark streets in the city
Fates are spinning silver thread
Possible futures, the if and maybe
Poor in doorways for a bed
The weather freezing, not all mild
As midwife awaiting now a child

Jupiter greets Saturn in the heavens
Signs there high for one and all
Signs there for a world unstable
Signs for when a world may fall
Streets of poor, and mean, and lowly,
Awaiting shining stars so holy.

Famine and war blighting childhood
Dictators call all to obey
Burdens great, so heavy laden
Homelessness, no place to lay
How can we live, how should we be?
Thread of goodness that we see

Fates are spinning their new pattern
Day by day, by thread it grew
We are so weak and helpless,
Tears for all who died we knew
And for others so much sadness
Where will we find hope and gladness?

The music of the spheres, a hymn
Of giving, generosity and love
Nothing is truly accidental
Singing praise in heaven above
Come now, come now, come on
For kindness never truly gone

We may live in world unstable
Where so many fall and die
Yet rise on wings, to highest heaven
Joy breaks the darkness upon high
Where like stars all shining crowned
All in white shall wait around.

Adverts from Jersey Topic 1966 - Part 1

These adverts appeared in Jersey Topic, 1966, and are an interesting mix of the UK and the local.

More on Arbuthnot Latham in Jersey can be found here

tonymusings.blogspot.com/2022/04/a-tale-of-two-jersey-banks-in-1960s.html

BMA commenced in 1964 and ceased to exist as an independent airline in 2012 when it merged into British Airways.

Smoking was advertised everywhere in those days, and no one thought of the cancer risks - the tobacco lobby, until relatively recently, held sway over the governments, and brought in a huge amount of revenue. And Jersey had cheaper cigarettes, duty free, just the thing for the tourist. Notice how glamorous it appears - and yet nicotine is a highly addictive drug which causes damage to the lungs. I can't help reflecting that if Sir Walter Raleigh had brought back cannabis rather than tobacco, it would now be tobacco that would be the dangerous illegal drug. And not as effectively, it does have some pain relieving qualities when smoked.

I have never heard of "The Place", but I love the 1960s psychedelic advert here.




Finance was only just making inroads into Jersey.



I love the 1960s style chairs - so dated now! And rather uncomfortable. No proper back support. Ergonomics was years away.



Cambrian Airways was an airline based in the United Kingdom which ran operations from Cardiff Airport and Liverpool John Lennon Airport between 1935 and 1974. It was incorporated into British Airways when BOAC, BEA, Cambrian and Northeast merged on 1 April 1974.

Tangerine Sherry?

A Generous Soul - Part 7

John Watson (3 November 1850 – 6 May 1907), was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He is remembered as an author of fiction, known by his pen name Ian Maclaren. I'm currently reading his short story collection "St Jude", but am also fascinated by his life. Here was a man who stood out against a narrowness in his creed, and who was indeed "a generous soul".

The Life of The Rev. John Watson, D.D. "Ian Maclaren"
A Generous Soul
By W. Robertson Nicoll

Dr. Watson's prayers had a dignity not often noticeable in extempore utterances, and withal a most widespread remembrance of different members of the community. He would pray not only for the sick, but for " those who wait upon them " ; for " the little children at home " ; for " the boys and girls at school " ; for " those bereft of the kindly light of reason " ; for " those who have fallen into sin, and for whom the help of man is vain " ; and continuously, and with most tender emphasis, for " lonely people" This last prayer to my knowledge endeared him greatly to many who came under that sad category, but who left the church heartened to find that they were not forgotten.

To the order of divine worship in his church Watson gave the most scrupulous care. His own prayers were largely liturgical. He made conscience of every detail, studying to make the whole service from beginning to end an impressive unity. It was a matter of grief to him that among so many of the Protestant Churches public worship without a sermon was thought to be unattractive. While, as we have seen, he gave a great place to the sermon, he yet believed that there ought to be solemn services of praise and prayer, of devout worship and communion where no sermon was needed.

Nothing called forth his great powers of sarcasm as did the degrading and debasing of public worship. He was perhaps hardly quite just to those who were trying in England to make Church life really popular. He loathed the idea of " running " a church upon modern lines. He conceived that the type of minister required for such a purpose would not be a man of learning and insight and devotion and charity. The teacher who expounded the Bible after a thorough and edifying fashion, the pastor who watched over and trained the character of his people would hardly be needed, and certainly would not be much appreciated.

“The chief demand is a sharp little man with the gifts of an impresario, a commercial traveller, and an auctioneer combined, with the slightest flavour of a peripatetic evangelist. Instead of a study lined with books of grave divinity and classical literature, let him have an office with pigeon-holes for his programmes, circulars, and endless correspondence, and cupboards for huge books with cuttings from newspapers and reports of other organisations, and a telephone ever tingling, and a set of handbooks, How to Make a Sermon in Thirty Minutes, Splinters of Ice and Scraps of Coral; or, One Thousand Racy Anecdotes from the Mission Field, The Secrets of a Happy Social, and suchlike practical works for the modern minister."

That such ways would be successful even as their promoters desired he did not believe. Christianity would not have existed if the Apostles had been " pleasing preachers " and " bright men." The Church was not a place of second-rate entertainments or a cheap business concern, but the witness to immortality, the spiritual home of souls, the servant of the poor, and the protector of the friendless.

Encounters

 

This is a sequel, part three of four, of the poem cycle that I began last week

http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2022/12/anticipations.html

http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2022/12/this-is-sequel-part-two-of-four-of-poem.html

It's a continuation of a non-traditional advent, evoking the spirit of the Magi. This poem evokes the encounter with King Herod, an encounter with naked, violent, and war like power. The imagery may well evoke Ukraine suffering under the ambitions of the Russian President Putin. That is deliberate.

Encounters

Mother night, a midnight clear
That frosty night so cold
The shadow of trees upon the earth
A darkening lust for power and gold
No peace on earth, the strife of men
Evil rulers, who would be king
Devastated lands in stillness lay
As mourners lament sing

Still through the blazing skies they come
Deaths banner is unfurled
And still the deathly music roars
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
Like a dragon taken wing
And still the crash of rocket sounds
As mourners lament sing

And yet, beneath life's crushing load,
When lanterns flicker low
We still see the starlight way
With painful steps and slow,
And now approaches midnight hours
Night owls upon the wing
We rest beside the weary road
And joyfully will sing

For the night is now fast hastening on
The moonlight growing old
And a sacred circle though the years
Shall gift a time foretold
When peace shall come over all the earth
And dawn’s new light shall bring
And the wheel turns, on goes the song
Which we will joyful sing

Victorians, here there and everywhere from “The Victorian, 1979” - Part 2

Victorians, here there and everywhere from “The Victorian, 1979”
Collated by “Dixie” Landick

Back across the ocean to Sierra Leone, where Andrew M. Cox (1963—1968) is Manager of the Buying Office in Kenema for the Diamond Corporation of West Africa Ltd. Andrew joined De Beers in London in 1969 and has been buying for that Company since 1972.

During that time, he has been responsible for diamond buying offices in Liberia, Zaire and Sierra Leone. His hobbies are shooting, sailing and gliding. Andrew recalls . . . “My fondest memory of V.C.J. is of “Barney” Barnes accidentally firing his starting pistol during College House prep. Clive Barton was the Prefect-in-charge. . .”

Webster G. McGrath has written to us from Natal, South Africa. He was at College as a Boarder from 1932 to 1938. Unfortunately, apart from a reference to a bullying incident at College House in which he claims I was the “pathetic victim”, he has sent us no news of himself or of his present occupation and interests. I hope he reads this and supplies us with the necessary information.

Tony's Supplement:

Register: 4186. McGraph, Webster Gordon, b.30.9.20, left 1938, in Natal, East Africa.

Webster Gordon McGrath was born on 30 September 1920 in St. Helier, Jersey. His father was George Payne McGrath, and his mother Mary Maxwell McCulloch.

Victorians, here there and everywhere 

Neil T. Price (1970—1972) is at present at Imperial College, London. He is in his third year and is reading Mechanical Engineering. Neil has been Cricket Captain and Vice-captain of Football and is now playing rugby. He remarks that Andrew Hall (1967—1972) was also Imperial College Cricket Captain only a few years ago.

Kenneth A. Byrne (1944—1948) studied at Bede College, Durham, and then served in the Army for three years. Since then he has been teaching Modern Languages —— French and Spanish. He is, at present, Director of Sixth Form Studies at St. George’s School, Bristol, an inner city comprehensive of 2,000 pupils. Kenneth says that he would welcome contact with any V.C.J. contemporaries, especially D. P. Hayden (1943—1951). ’

Tony's Supplement:

Register: 4727: Byrne, Kenneth Alan, b.18.6.29, left 1948
Born: St John, Jersey

Was here during the Occupation

A Generous Soul - Part 6

John Watson (3 November 1850 – 6 May 1907), was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He is remembered as an author of fiction, known by his pen name Ian Maclaren. I'm currently reading his short story collection "St Jude", but am also fascinated by his life. Here was a man who stood out against a narrowness in his creed, and who was indeed "a generous soul".

The Life of The Rev. John Watson, D.D. "Ian Maclaren"
A Generous Soul
By W. Robertson Nicoll

Watson himself had begun to live in a time when people knew what to expect and the minister said what was to be expected. He keenly realised that the atmospheric conditions had changed, and that a minister had to find truths which held him if he was to hold the people. A modern audience is sensitive and detects the difference between reality and unreality without fail.

This created difficulties, and these were increased by the fact that preachers have now to attract an audience. They cannot hope any more that people will come from a sense of duty. In Watson's view sensationalism, eccentricity, anecdotage were all to be deprecated.

"Against religious sensationalism, outre sayings, startling advertisements, profane words, and irreverent prayers, the younger ministry must make an unflinching stand, for the sake of the Church and the world, for the sake of our profession and ourselves."

But he believed that what could be done to make style and manner winsome ought to be done. The demands of the age must be met, as far as might be. The preacher had to recognise that the Gospel now addresses itself to the masses. "When tides meet there is broken water, and many are tossed in their minds as to whether the pulpit ought to give its strength to the regeneration of the individual or of society."

On this point he held that while the Church must labour to bring heaven here, that heaven is long of coming, and meanwhile the Church must comfort the oppressed, the suffering, and the beaten with the vision of the City of God. But if in any critical conflict between the poor and the rich, the minister of Jesus sides with the strongest he has broken his commission and forsaken his Master.

The preacher must acknowledge and welcome the large and solid contribution made by criticism to our knowledge of the Bible. At the same time the introduction of details of Biblical criticism into the pulpit would be tiresome and irritating as well as arid and unedifying to the last degree. What the minister should do is to give careful and systematic instruction in the literary and historical circumstances of the Bible to classes where the pupils can have the full benefit of his knowledge.

What is wanted above everything is positive preaching by men who believe with all their mind and heart in Jesus Christ. Theology has its great value, but it is only a theory of religion, and theology which has not been in the main current of letters is invariably stranded in some creek and forgotten. The minister ought to leaven his preaching with theology, and while in other departments of knowledge one must know to love, in Christian theology one must love to know.

He looked forward passionately to the glorious day when the theology of the Christian Church should rise again, having lost nothing that was good and true in the past, and be reconstructed on the double foundation of the divine Fatherhood and the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. These were the truths which he preached with surpassing power and unshaken faith.

This is a sequel, part two of four, of the poem cycle that I began last week

http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2022/12/anticipations.html

It's a continuation of a non-traditional advent, evoking the spirit of the Magi.

Journeying

Now we are gazing deeply into a well
Glimpses where reflections dwell
Stars map out a path somewhere
A royal conjunction will appear

Departing beneath the stars on high
We journey on to wisdom that we spy
To us the path of knowledge show
And teach us in its ways to go.

The heavens portent shines in might
Planets closing together ever bright
We journey following that which we saw
In all its shining majesty and awe.

Glittering skies as a royal diadem
Along that path we follow them
Over land to sea, and ocean wave
And yet there’s shadow of a grave

Star patterns rise and fall and roam
Dance goes on in their celestial home
And we follow the pattern on our road
Cross by the frontier of death's abode.

We see the bright and morning Star,
That brings us comfort from afar
As ending shadows of the night
And turn our darkness into light

Journey knowing not what to find
Pray that the cosmos will be kind
Signs that hope may never cease
And stars portend a birth of peace

Victorians, here there and everywhere from “The Victorian, 1979” - Part1

Victorians, here there and everywhere from “The Victorian, 1979”
Collated by “Dixie” Landick

a

On parade on 12 July 1955 are:
Sgt Jack Mackay, Sgt Don Wickens, Sgt Les Maisey,
Sgt Ibrahim bin Kassim, Sgt Peter Oliver,
Sgt Ian de Leschery, and others

Ian Richard de Leschery (at VC 1945—1951) spent his first year after leaving College with Barclays Bank DCO in London. He then served for three years in the Intelligence Corps, mostly in Singapore. For the next 18 years he worked with The Chartered Bank, mainly in the Far East. Since I973, he has been a Vice President of the Security Pacific National Bank at its Headquarters in Los Angeles and is responsible for worldwide correspondent banking relations and marketing. lan writes

“I am now actively involved in tennis and golf and it is ,now many years since I participated in athletics, which was my main interest at V.C.J. Occasionally, I met O.V.s in the Far East, but not since arriving in California. Recently however. we were delighted to welcome Tony Chinn (V.C.J. ’45—’51) and his family on their brief visit to Los Angeles, and my wife and I would extend a welcome to any O.V. who may be passing through California.”

Tony's supplement:

Register: 4790, De Lescherry, Ian Richard, b. 25.3.34, left 1951. Went into Overseas Banking. Field Security Sergeant, Intelligent Corps, Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China.

The 1987 Queen's Birthday honours lists were announced on 13 June 1987 and included an OBE for Ian Richard de Leschery – “For services to British commercial interests in Los Angeles.”

 Victorians, here there and everywhere

Our next letter comes from Zimbabwe Rhodesia where Wing Commander Cyril P. Chilvers. A.F.C.. now retired after 42 years of aviation. has taken up an administrative post with the Central African Power Corporation at Kariba. Cyril Chilvers entered V.C.J. Prep in 1929 and was at College from 1931 to 1937. 

On leaving he went to Rhodesia to take up farming but at the outbreak of war in 1939 was commissioned in the Rhodesian Air Force as a pilot. After operations in the Middle East, he returned to Rhodesia as a flying instructor with the Empire Air Training Scheme. Subsequently in 1944 he participated in No. 8 course of the Empire Central Flying School at Hullavington, Chippenham, Wilts, and then returned to Rhodesia to take command of his station. 

In 1948 he worked for the Lion Match Company but left in 1954 to join the Department of Civil Aviation in Salisbury as an Air Traffic Controller. In February 1962, he was posted to Kariba as Senior Air Traffic Controller/Airport Manager, where he retired on attaining his 60th birthday this year. As a part-time interest, Wing Commander Chilvers started an air rifle club at the local school in 1969 and this activity is still flourishing. He is a keen member of the Kariba Lions Club (District 412) of which he was President for the year 1976/77. “The Victorian” heartily reciprocates his best wishes.

Tony's supplement:

Register: 4114. Chilvers, Cyril Percy, b. 26.7.19, left 1937. Resident in Salisbury Southern Rhodesia.

Cyril Percy Chilvers was born on 26 July 1919 in Shanghai, China, to Rose Marguerite Mancini, age 39, and Percy Tyndale Chilvers, age 38.

Post-Independence, when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, he seems to have returned to the UK, where his death is recorded: Cyril Percy Chilvers died on 9 January 1993 when he was 73 years old at Torbay, Devon, England.

Victorians, here there and everywhere

On to Nassau in the Bahamas, where Peter W. Furzer (1955—1960) is now Vice-President of Paradise Island Ltd., a subsidiary of the US. based Resorts International. Peter writes . . .

“I am responsible for all hotel and restaurant operations adjacent to the Casino, which we also control. This is a very busy year-round resort, our hotel occupancy averaging 88 per cent. Last year our Gourmet restaurants, show-theatres, etc. did over 13 million dollars’ worth of business! I have experienced my first hurricane. Fortunately, Nassau was some distance from the centre but it still rained for ten days! Hope to be back in Jersey for a visit next year”.

Tony's supplement:

Register: 5524. Furzer, Peter William, b. 27.3.44

Peter William Furzer (age 78) is currently listed as living in Broward, Florida .

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-12-26-8503300991-story.html

John deMers. United Press International, Chicago Tribune, Dec 26, 1985:

"WRITING FROM NASSAU. — Few groups stand up better to the stress and strain of celebration than Bahamians at Junkanoo time. To hear them tell it, the secret is in the food they eat. This wild swirling carnival, most notable for its love affair with ear-shredding noise, is a test for even the most resilient of stomachs. That`s why the islanders have developed a rather exotic menu to prepare them for hours of drinking and dancing in the streets. Before every Junkanoo party, the careful Bahamian is likely to sit down to a heaping platter of boiled fish and grits."

''The dish staves off the pain caused by overdoing,'' said Peter Furzer, general manager of the Paradise Island Resort and Casino, which serves boiled fish in 3 of its 12 restaurants. ''The grits act as a stomach buffer.''

A Generous Soul - Part 5

John Watson (3 November 1850 – 6 May 1907), was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He is remembered as an author of fiction, known by his pen name Ian Maclaren. I'm currently reading his short story collection "St Jude", but am also fascinated by his life. Here was a man who stood out against a narrowness in his creed, and who was indeed "a generous soul".

The Life of The Rev. John Watson, D.D. "Ian Maclaren"
A Generous Soul
By W. Robertson Nicoll

Watson on various occasions, and particularly in his book The Cure of Souls, which contains the lectures on Practical Theology delivered by him at Yale University in 1896, has carefully explained his views on preaching. In what follows I borrow first from him; next from those who were familiar with his pulpit work

He held that the critical and influential event in the religious week is the sermon. Whenever preaching falls into low esteem, the Church becomes weak and corrupt. It is impossible to exaggerate the opportunity given to the preacher when he ascends the pulpit and faces his congregation. There his business is not so much to teach or define as to stimulate and encourage. This work cannot be done rightly without inspiration, but this inspiration only rests on the outcome of hard, honest work.

Among the elements of the work the first is Selection, and the text should select the man rather than the man the text. " As the minister was busy with study, or as he sat by the bedside of the sick, or as he walked the crowded street, or as he wandered over the purple heather, or such things have happened, the grace of God being sovereign as he endured in a Church Court, the truth, clad in a text, which is the more or less perfect dress of the Spirit, suddenly appeared and claimed his acquaintance." Such an experience means the pre-established harmony between a particular truth and the soul of a minister.

The second process is Separation, and this means that the sermon should be a monograph and not an encyclopaedia. The handling of one idea is sufficient. " He's a good preacher" a Highland gamekeeper was describing his minister," but he scatters terribly." The sermon should be like a single rifle-bullet which, if it hits, kills, not a charge of small shot which only peppers.

The next process is Illumination. It is the setting of the bare, cold, lifeless idea in the light of all he has read, has seen, has felt, has suffered. Here it is that culture comes in. The student has an invaluable advantage over the ablest Philistine. " Those mornings given to Plato, that visit to Florence where he got an insight into Italian art, that hard-won trip to Egypt, the birthplace of civilisation, his sustained acquaintance with Virgil, his by-study of physical science, his taste in music, the subtlest and most religious of the arts, all now rally to his aid."

The fourth process is Meditation. The idea must be removed from the light, where reason and imagination have their sphere, and be hidden away in the dark chambers of the soul. Many masterly sermons fail because they have never had the benefit of this process. They are clear, interesting, eloquent, but helpless. The brooding over a spiritual experience where the subject is hidden in the soul as leaven in three measures of meal till all be leavened gives preaching the greater qualities of the past, depth of experience, and an atmosphere of peace.

Then comes Elaboration, the placing, reviewing, transposing, till the way stands fair and open from Alpha to Omega a clean, straight furrow from end to end of the field. There should be no introduction ; nothing more certainly takes the edge off the appetite than the laborious preface. The latest results of the criticism on the book from which the text is taken should be severely left alone. Elaborate perorations are also to be put aside.

Anticipations

Something of a mystical turn here, and perhaps not what traditionally Advent is seen as, and I wanted to convey a sense of the Magi, of knowing something is coming, but not known quite what, only that it involved some idea of transcendence.

Anticipations

Now is the time. Strange lights in the sky
As the cosmic dance of planets and stars
Begins. Now Saturn rising, Jupiter up high
And brilliant red, the planet of war, Mars

Signs in the heavens, signs that speak out
Something will happen, the time is close
Hear music of the spheres, and no doubt
It is a melancholy air, sad and morose

Portents tell us, if we but knew how
But there’s the rub, how to read
And in the sacred space just now
We call on the elements, sip mead

We wait, expectantly, listening hard
As Jupiter, Regula and Saturn meet
And we cut the pack, and take a card
Lights come together, coalesce, greet

The Falling Tower, the Star, the Fool
Dancing in the morning, noon, night
Once more drawing nearer to Yule
Transcendence born again in light

The Victorian 1979: Reverend Philip Beuzeval

Victorians, here there and everywhere from “The Victorian, 1979”
Collated by “Dixie” Landick

The Reverend Philip Beuzeval, who was at V.C.J. from 1948—1956, paid a most welcome visit to the old school in the summer. He has now written to say that he has moved to the Cullercoats Group Ministry of the Methodist Church near North Shields. Tyne and Wear. We look forward to his next letter, which he has promised will give us more news of his present work.

Tony’s Supplement

I’ve done some extra work on finding out more on this, and here, with links, are extracts which tell us more about the Reverend Philip Beuzeval, and his Jersey connections.

https://www.wesleymem.org.uk/lib/F623981.pdf

Obituary — Philip McRoberts Beuzeval: 1937 — 2021

Philip was born in Jersey on 23rd June 1937, of Celtic forebears — French, Irish and Cornish —and parents who were Jersey Methodists and owners of a tobacconist and toyshop in St Helier.

A few days after his third birthday, the family hurriedly left Jersey for Newport, South Wales, just in time to escape the German invasion and occupation of the island. They were to remain in Wales for five years. During the air-raids, his grandfather taught Philip to play chess, and also shared with him some French songs, which Philip later discovered, to his amusement, had some quite risqué content!

In 1945 they returned to liberated Jersey and life went back to normal, with preaching for dad, Sunday-school teaching for mum, and the shop during the week. Philip finished his schooling and in due course went up to University College, London to study Law. In London, alongside his studies, he played a lot of hockey, and attended London University’s large MethSoc at Hinde Street Church, becoming President in his third year.

During the vacations, he would fill in preaching for his father, who by this time was very ill. Listeners and friends told him he ought to offer for the Ministry; and in time there followed three years of ministerial training at Wesley House, Cambridge.

Always a good linguist, his first ministerial appointment was teaching New Testament Greek as an Assistant Tutor at Richmond College, in London. He helped the less academic students through their exams, and gave them pastoral support.

During the vacation of April 1966, he met a young woman working in the Methodist Biarritz Hotel in Jersey. Their friendship flourished over games of tennis and cups of tea, and in March 1967 Sue and Philip were married. By now Philip was in Circuit in Leicester, first at Bishop Street, and then churches in Oadby and Wigston Magna; and it was during this time that they developed their wonderful partnership offering open house, fellowship, food and fun, especially to young people in the churches. It was in Leicester too that Philip’s love of gardening began.

In 1979 Philip had a call from the Methodist Church that he wasn’t seeking, to go to the North East as minister of Cullercoats, at the time one of the largest churches in the Connexion.

There had been unrest in church and circuit; and it was hoped Philip’s wide experience and wisdom would bring a calming influence.

Ten years later, Philip and Sue were invited to the Oxford Circuit, and so begin our own memories of Philip, the beloved pastor, preacher and friend; the encourager and enabler of others’ gifts; the mentor and lifelong friend of many Methodist students in the John Wesley Society.

When he retired in 2002, after thirteen years as Circuit Superintendent, and minister of Wesley Memorial, he and Sue enjoyed their new home, garden and the fellowship of Woodstock Church. There Philip enjoyed being a Sunday door steward! He continued to preach, and serve on the Queen’s Foundation Oversight Committee and the Westminster College Oxford Trust.

We shall miss his wisdom, his deep faith and his thoughtfulness. We thank God for his life, his ministry and his friendship.

Kate Dobson

https://www.wesleysoxford.org.uk/topics/john-wesley-society/michael-stewart-looks-back

Michael Stewart remembers:

“I came to Oxford as a student towards the end of the 1990s, and having been a member of my local Methodist Church made contact with Wesley Memorial and the John Wesley Society.... At this point Philip Beuzeval was the Minister, who was the first person to introduce me to the Methodist preaching tradition of ‘sixthly – and more briefly’ in his sermons. I have very fond memories of cycling out to the manse on a Sunday evening, being plied with home cooking by Sue, and occasionally noticing Philip sitting back, watching a group of noisy students and young people, and simply smiling. They opened their home to us, and gave many people a sense of belonging to the city, as well as the university.”

https://www.wesleymem.org.uk/lib/F623981.pdf

Words and Silence: for Philip

I remember our first meeting.
‘We must talk,’ you said.
How many words have I heard you speak since then?
Expressing the inexpressible in sermons,
chairing meetings, walking with the dogs.
Yet it’s not for your words that I will be most grateful.
It’s more for the open spaces in between.
It’s for the listening and the creative silence,
nurturing friendship, holding pain and faith.
Do you talk to your plants, I wonder,
or simply observe the miracle of growth?
Thank you, my friend, you’ve shown me the gentle Gardener
who held out His hand and invited me to grace.

Joanna Tulloch

https://www.familynotices.je/moreinfo/78565/beuzeval-philip-mcroberts-revd

Family Notice: BEUZEVAL, Philip McRoberts (Revd). Died Wednesday, 20 October, 2021, in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford. Devoted and much-loved husband, father, brother to David of St Helier, grandfather and uncle. If desired, donations welcome for Cancer Research or All We Can, or given Philip's love of gardening, plant a shrub. Thanksgiving service at 3 pm on Friday, 12 November at Wesley Memorial Church, Oxford, OX1 2DH.

The New Listener: A Radio 4 Review

Enjoyed listening to the Fast Show reunion. I always suspected Jazz Club was a sent up of "The Old Grey Whistle Test", and it turns out I was right. I loved Sir Geoffrey Norman MP, so many politicians in the UK and here are like that - evasive with rambling speech that says nothing. My favourite is however Ted and Ralph. Closely followed by Johnny Nice Painter - "Black, BLACK, BLACK!". We all have come across Girl Men Can't Hear and Competitive Dad.

The Fast Show: The Reunion

The first episode of BBC TV's The Fast Show in 1994 had 27 sketches in just half an hour. Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse, former writers for Harry Enfield, created a concept which re-invigorated the sketch show format and crammed it with catch-phrases. Sue MacGregor brings the cast back together to reflect on the series which launched their careers. Higson and Whitehouse recruited young stand-up comedians whose worked they liked, such as Caroline Aherne , John Thomson , Simon Day and Felix Dexter, alongside actors such as Mark Williams and Paul Shearer. This process involved each 'auditioning' their proposed character in front of the ensemble.

Competitive Dad, the obscene Suits You tailors, Jazz Club, Does My Bum Look Big in This?, and the touching repressed romance of Ted and Ralph, scored a very high strike rate for introducing catchphrases and comedy characters to schools and work places around the country. We also hear from collaborators such as Kathy Burke, Harry Enfield, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, as well as TV critic Matthew Norman who wrote a famously fierce review of the first series.

Waterloo Station: Drama

Two strangers look back on an incident that happened a couple of years ago, just before the world turned upside down. As they do so, they take stock of what's happened over the last two years.

Ray ..... Ralph Ineson; Christa. ..... Christine Bottomley
Written by Katie Hims, Directed by Mary Peate

A very touching play for two voices, but they only meet at the start and end, and in the meantime, lives are changed by Covid, lockdowns, and tragedy.

The 5000: Three plays by Sebastian Baczkiewicz about the feeding of the five thousand and the personal and political fallout from this extraordinary event.

Bread, Fish and Dancing: DramaThe 5000 Episode 1 of 3

By Sebastian Baczkiewicz

Three plays about the feeding of the five thousand and the personal and political fallout from this extraordinary event. Is it a political act? A rebellion? A festival? Five thousand people are dancing on the hillside. What do they want? How can the state deal with those who seek to threaten it? Is Rome going to react to these events? Who can make sense of the impossible?

Episode One – Bread, Fish and Dancing

In Herod’s palace suspicion is rife, young people have gone missing and Salome is in meltdown following an extraordinary murder.

An Orange with a Worm in It: DramaThe 5000 Episode 2 of 3

Five thousand people have danced down the mountain and into Tiberius City. It didn’t appear to be a riot. But there’s tension in Herod’s Palace, good people have been imprisoned and Salome is still missing. And trouble is not far from the door of Centurion Gaius.

A Shining City on the Hill: DramaThe 5000 Episode 3 of 3

The arrival of an unexpected visitor is about to surprise everyone in Tiberius City and Dan and Gaius have been sent on a mission to the Sea of Galilee.

A fascinating sideways look at the feeding of the 5000, exploring ideas of transcendence, and breaking boundaries so that part is contemporary - a character drinks a coke, for example - and Jesus - always off screen, although briefly glimpsed - is a wizard. The feeding of the 5000 is seen as an act of magic. Mr Asher, the security chief for Herod, is probably about the nastiest character I've ever come across in a  play, as he virtually runs the Palace, and even bullies Herod around. When Caligula (Caesar and named heir to the Emperor) arrives, there's an interested clash of personalities.

The Great Election Victory Conspiracy

Our parish magazine recently ran a "review of the year", a precis of various stories which occurred during the year, which had that in it. I  wrote the precis, basically taking the text of various stories and whittling it down to fit the word count When the Parish Magazine came out (today), I then received the following message by Deputy Moz Scott:

"Dear Tony. Thank you for your work on La Baguette. The difference may have only been one vote but I think this might have been worded to reflect polling order of the Deputies! Kind Regards. Moz"

Now there is a real point to follow up, and I wondered why I had the Deputies in this order. So I looked back at the September edition of the magazine and found this written about the elections

I

I could see at once what happened. In cutting down the words to fit - and remember this is a review of the entire year to September, not just the elections, I had removed the vote count, and clearly left the order the same. My method of doing the precis was to cut and past articles, end up with far too many words, and then go through each section cutting it down.

I mentioned this to Moz, saying I was pleased a perfectly rational explanation existed for the order in the precis, rather pleased for having solved the conundrum.

Whereupon she replied "I am unconvinced of an absence of bias in reporting and editing."

There's really nothing one can say to a conspiracy theorist to get them to give up their beliefs, so I finished by saying:

"Well, behind the scenes we do confer with the Secret order of the Illuminati, you know!"

And that dear reader, is where we must leave "The Great Election Victory Conspiracy".

Personally in these days of rising costs of living, difficulties in finding housing, deciding where a new hospital should be built, etc etc, I find the whole matter rather extraordinary to make such a fuss about. 

Postscript

Moz has since written: "I can see that’s as much as you and the reporter understand about order. I’ll send you both over an abacus if you like."


I think it's time to award her the Fussbudget of the Year Award!

A Generous Soul - Part 4

John Watson (3 November 1850 – 6 May 1907), was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He is remembered as an author of fiction, known by his pen name Ian Maclaren. I'm currently reading his short story collection "St Jude", but am also fascinated by his life. Here was a man who stood out against a narrowness in his creed, and who was indeed "a generous soul".

The Life of The Rev. John Watson, D.D. "Ian Maclaren"
A Generous Soul
By W. Robertson Nicoll


John Watson was anything but a trifler. He took hold of his work with strong resolutions to do his best. It is now known that during the early years of his ministry he adopted much of the Roman Catholic discipline. He observed the fasts; he aimed strenuously at self-conquest and self-knowledge as well as at knowledge of books and men. All this was done in the strictest privacy. He gave over these methods, but he always maintained that moderate asceticism as a discipline of character and as a means of training men to master themselves is of the highest value. Another conviction of a Catholic mind was that worship and adoration ought to be a far more substantial part of Christian life than is usual in Protestant Churches.

He began his preaching with an enthusiastic love for Christ, and this love kept running and gleaming through all his years like a thread of gold. He had little polemical ardour, and took small part on theological controversy, but he never at any time wavered on the central facts of Christianity.

I heard his first sermon there, from Rev. xiv. 6, " The Everlasting Gospel." There were touches in it which made me even then think that it had been preached at Logie-almond for example, he said if the Gospel ceased to be preached by its accredited representatives, the Spirit of the Lord might come upon some shepherd on the hills and send him forth to proclaim the glad tidings.

Once Mr. Watson happened to preach in the morning from Hebrews, and expressed a doubt whether Paul was the writer. In the afternoon Dr. Miller also preached from Hebrews, and gave an elaborate defence of its Pauline authorship, and closed by saying that they were but " babes and sucklings in Christ " who thought otherwise !

Watson had very little part in the Protestant controversy. With many of the Evangelical clergy, including Bishop Ryle and Bishop Chavasse, he was on terms of cordial friendship. There was in him a deep and passionate Evangelicalism, and to Evangelical teaching as shown in spiritual earnestness he always responded eagerly. His relations with the Roman Catholic priests, and to a lesser extent with the High Church clergy, were even more cordial. There was a side of his nature that turned their way. But he was also very much drawn by the literary culture, the piety, and the noble ethical teaching of the Unitarians. While he maintained the best relations with the Evangelical Nonconformists, he was for long less intimate with them than with others of the Liverpool ministers.

His strength lay in the many-sidedness of his sympathies. He could preach sermons which pleased the Evangelicals; sermons which pleased the Unitarians; sermons indicating great breadth, and sermons of such intensity and urgent appeal that they might have come from a flaming evangelist in the great revival. Thus he was able to draw round him a congregation of very various constituents. They might not be all equally well pleased on any Sunday, but very soon they heard a sermon to which they could listen with perfect satisfaction.

I need hardly say that there was not the faintest touch of insincerity or unreality in all this range of method. Watson was simply expressing his mood, and the largeness of his comprehension enabled him to understand the spiritual needs of men who in their training and in their dogmatic convictions were far apart. There were very few congregations in England made up of recruits from so many armies as Sefton Park Church. He said himself three years before his death :

" Not only have we members of every shade of Presbyterianism Scots, Irish, English, Canadian, Established Church, Free Church, and United Presbyterian, but we have had people of many nations French, Germans, Swiss, Danes, North Americans, South Americans, Russians, Greeks, Austrians, Belgians and as many creeds, high and low, narrow and broad, and no creed at all. I have taken a section of fourteen pews, and I find, so far as I know, that the following is its ecclesiastical ancestry: four Presbyterian families, six Episcopalian, four Congregationalist, three Baptist, two Welsh, two Unitarian, two German, one Swiss."

Liverpool is a large cosmopolitan world, and Watson's singular adaptability had a most congenial outlet there. Liverpool was always responsive. But there was never any doubt as to the real drift of the preaching. Watson was always a convinced Evangelical of broad sympathies which perhaps grew broader and broader. He understood them all the mystic, the Catholic, the Evangelical, the revivalist, the moralist, the sceptic, and for each as the time came round he had a living message. He said at the close of his first sermon in Sefton Park Church:

“Brethren, I feel sure that these words have made my aim as a preacher clear to you all. I shall not try to astonish you with any display of learning, nor attract you by the mere eloquence of words, but I promise by the grace of God and according to my ability to preach the Cross of Christ. The Cross as I understand it combines both the doctrine of forgiveness and the doctrine of holiness, and I trust to be able also to show that a Christ who is our sacrifice is also our ideal. Some of you may prefer one doctrine, some the other, I am sure you will all see both are necessary. If I seem unpractical, ask yourselves if the fault be altogether mine, if personal do not suppose this intentional, do not weary when I ask your faith, do not be angry when I point out duty, but always search the Scriptures and see whether these things are not so, and so we will be blessed.”

“Beloved brethren, the double responsibility of work and prayer lies on me, the responsibility of prayer lies also on you. Pray that I may be led into the truth myself, and so be able to lead you. Pray that I may be able to deal honestly with intellectual difficulties and wisely with cases of conscience. Pray that I may have grace to speak tenderly to mourners and simply to the children. Pray that I may ever be found offering a full and free Christ to sinners, and exhorting the saints to follow Him more closely. Pray I beseech you that the messenger may be lost in his message, that if any good results should come of his preaching the glory may be all given unto the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God now and for ever. Amen."