1965 - 60 years ago - December - Part 1

1965 - 60 years ago - December - Part 1

2.—Two men charged with stealing a £1,400 motor launch from its moorings in Gorey Harbour on the night of October 22 and with having caused malicious damage to it were each sentenced to nine months imprisonment at the Royal Court today; they were 24-year-old Brian Kenneth Maddock. of Bristol, and 21-year-old Jozsef Joos, of Hungary.

3.—Before the Full Court today, Mr. John James Le Marquand was admitted to the Bar and sworn in as an advocate.

7.—St. Clement's parish assembly agrees to buy new burial-ground for the parish at a cost of 2750 per vergee.

8.—A claim for £29,260 damages for wrongful dismissal was made at the Royal Court today against the Société des Magasins Concorde Ltd. and two of its directors, Messrs. J. B. Peak and K. G. Moore, by a former managing director of the company, Mr. Gerald Stewart Golder; he alleges that the two directors had conspired to procure his dismissal; the hearing was adjourned. — First joint meeting of the Jersey and Guernsey Chambers of Commerce, when the Common Market, the pro-posed Channel Tunnel and sea communications between the islands and France were subjects of discussion

9.—Second day's hearing before the Royal Court of the Concorde case, the further hearing being adjourned till January 3.—In spite of opposition from. the Rector, St. Peter's Ecclesiastical Assembly was strongly in favour of the centuries-old tradition of ringing the church bells at Christmas.—St. Mark's Players present " The House by the Lake " at St. Mark's Church Hall.

10.—At the Royal Court today 41-year-old Mrs. Adele Germaine Davies was sentenced to a total of six months' imprisonment for falsifying petrol sales records at St, Brelade's Garage and for stealing some £700 while employed as a petrol pump attendant.—Morris Winston Richard Haynes sent to prison for three months and fined £10 for motoring offences and for assaulting a prison warder on Nov. 14.—Debating Club meeting decides that Britain's penal system is a failure by majority of one, 30-29.

11.—A resolution that " no jet aircraft operate until a public inquiry has been held " unanimously adopted at a public meeting of S.P.A.D. (the Society for the Prevention of Aircraft Disturbance) held at St. Peter's Parish Hall.

13.—At the annual general meeting of the Battle of Flower Association it was disclosed that a profit of £1,146 19s. 7d. had been made this year, compared with a loss of £2,500 incurred in the previous two years.

14.—A verdict of death by accidental drowning returned at the inquest on the body of 18-year-old Miss Paul Margaret Huet, found in her car in the harbour last Friday which had been parked near the land tie opposite the Abattoirs the previous evening.

Christianity in Action: Lesson 9: The Book of Nature

Lesson 9: The Book of Nature
By G.R. Balleine

[Warning: Balleine was writing in the 1920s and 1930s, and his views and language reflect many at that time. However, as a time capsule of the prevailing beliefs, this can be very useful for the historians of that period.]

Lesson for Septuagesima.

PASSAGE TO BE READ : St. Matthew vi. 26-34.
TEXT TO BE LEARNT : " Consider the wondrous works of God " (Job xxxvii. 14).
HYMNS " There is a book," and " All things bright and beautiful." COLLECTS for First Sunday after Epiphany and Fifth Sunday after Easter. 

Aim : To attract attention to the lessons to be learnt from plants.

I. ATTENTION.

(a) What is the first thing that the sergeant says before he begins a drill ? 'Tention. He cannot do anything until he has got the attention of his men.

(b) Darwin says that a man who trained performing monkeys used to buy common kinds from the Zoo for £5. After a time he offered double the price, if he might keep a few for three days in order to select one. When asked how he could decide so quickly which monkey would become the best performer, he said that it all depended on its power of attention. If its attention was distracted by every passing fly, it was useless. If it attended to his teaching, he could do anything with it.

(c) The same is true of us all. An old-fashioned story, Eyes and No Eyes, showed how some people seem to notice everything, while others notice nothing. The first step in all progress is observation. The world owes much to the man who first noticed that a wedge would split wood, that a sail could move a boat, that a certain herb would cure disease.

(d) The small boy James Watt sat watching the kettle. His aunt scolded : " I never saw such an idle boy. For the last hour you have done nothing but take off the lid of the kettle and put it on again " ; but he sat absorbed in thought. He had noticed something : steam could move the lid of a kettle up and down. If it could do that, it could move a rod up and down, and that rod could be made to turn a wheel. From that observation sprang the steam engine.

(e) Wise men were puzzled by the mystery why the moon went round the earth instead of flying off into space ; what force kept the planets in their courses. The lad Isaac Newton sat in his mother's orchard. A ripe apple fell from a branch to his feet. He noticed it. He asked himself, Why did it fall so straight ? There must be some force inside the earth that pulls things to itself. If it pulls an apple, it pulls also the moon and all the planets. He had discovered the Law of Gravitation. The mystery was solved.

(f) The Sherlock Holmes stories illustrate this power of observation. Watson comes in with mud on his boots. Holmes says : " Why have you been sending a telegram " Watson asks how he knows. Holmes replies that he has noticed that the only place in the village where that red clay is found is just outside the Post Office. As he also noticed stamps and postcards on his friend's writing-table, he felt sure that he must have gone to send a telegram.

(g) This power of observation can be trained. Robert Houdin, the French conjurer, used to spend hours walking past shop windows, and then stopping to think what he had noticed in them. At first he could only remember six or eight things ; but he trained himself till he could repeat the whole contents of the window.

II. ATTENTION FOR THE BOOK OF NATURE!

(a) During these Sundays before Lent we are going to look at some of the things that deserve our attention. The Septuagesima Lessons speak of the Creation of the world; so to-day is often regarded as Nature Sunday. The best-known Septuagesima hymn begins, " There is a book, who runs may read." What book is that ? Not the Bible, but the Book of Nature :—

The works of God above, below,
Within us and around,
Are pages in that book, to show
How God Himself is found.

(b) Longfellow wrote some beautiful verses for the fiftieth birthday of the naturalist Agassiz :—

Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, " Here is a story-book
Thy Father has written for thee."
" Come, wander with me," she said,
" Into regions yet untrod,
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God."

Help elder children to grasp the beauty of that description of Nature, " the manuscripts of God."

(c) Our Lord commanded Nature Study in the Sermon on the Mount. " Consider the lilies how they grow." Read Passage. Let all repeat text. Our Lord's many references to Nature in His teaching show how carefully as a boy at Nazareth He had used His eyes, e.g. the corn so dependent on the quality of the soil (Parable of Sower) ; so gradual in its growth, " first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear " (St. Mark iv. 28) ; the tares at first so like good corn, but later so different (St. Matt. xiii. 29) ; the mustard plant growing from so tiny a seed (St. Mark iv. 31) ; the vine made fruitful by pruning (St. John xv. 2) ; the mulberry (A.V. sycamore) tree apparently so strong, but so easily uprooted (St. Luke xvii. 6).

(d) One of the greatest students of plants was Linnaeus, a Swede (died 1778). Young men flocked to study under him from all parts of the world. Twice a week they used to go for expeditions in the mountains. Before they started, he would ask, " Have you all got your trumpets ? " Why ? Because it was the rule that, if anyone discovered a new plant, he must blow a trumpet. Then all the other students flocked around, kneeled down, studied it, sketched it. To other people it might look a miserable little weed, but to their trained eyes it was full of wonder and beauty.

III. CONSIDER THE DAISIES.

(a) We cannot study all the plants to-day, but let us lock at one. The lily to which our Lord referred was the scarlet anemone with which the hills of Galilee are covered in the spring. But this flower is not familiar to us in England, so let us take instead our commonest flower, the daisy.

(b) Its name speaks to us of one of its peculiarities. Daisy means Day's Eye. It got that name because people noticed that it opened at sunrise and shut at sunset. But, if we watch it closely, we shall see something even more curious. It always faces the sun. In the morning it faces east ; at midday south ; in the evening west ; at sunset it shuts up tight. The lamplighter may light a lamp beside it ; the full moon may shine down upon it ; but it will not open. Yet, as soon as the sun rises again, it unfolds its petals, The largest girls' school in England (Cheltenham Ladies' College) has as its badge a daisy with a Latin motto (Coelesti luce crescat) which means " By Heavenly light let it grow." That is a good motto for us all. Whispering in dark corners generally leads to what is wrong. The daisy knows that in the darkness night insects try to steal its honey. Let us love what is bright and clear and open. And let us distinguish between God's Light and imitations. It was Jesus Who said, " I am the Light of the World."

(c) The daisy is what botanists call a compound flower. What looks like one flower is really a whole flower-bed. Under a strong magnifying glass we see that the white petals are each a separate white flower tipped with red, a little tube with a slender thread coming out of it ; that the centre is a mass of 250 tiny yellow flowers, and all are held together by a green case. It was not always so. In early ages of the world each of these flowers had a separate stalk. But gradually they drew closer together, till at last" all came to live on the same stalk. They had learnt what we were speaking of in Lesson IV—the value of Co-operation, of helping one another. Unity is strength. And that is why the daisy is so sturdy. The leaves also have learned to co-operate. Once they too grew upon long stalks. Now they spread themselves flat on the ground in a tight rosette. In this way they keep anything else from growing too close to the daisy, and secure it plenty of air and light and moisture.

(d) The daisy's Latin name is. Bellis Perennis, which means Pretty-all-the-year-round. Some flowers are spring flowers ; others bloom only in summer or autumn ; daisies bloom all the year round, setting us a lesson, not to be bright only sometimes, when everything is favourable. Every kind of season wants us at our best.

(e) The daisy lives by giving. In its heart it keeps some honey, and it gives this to the bees ; and they in return carry on their wings the fertilizing dust from one flower to another. Without that the daisy could not form its seeds. That yellow pollen is full of a wonderful life force. The daisy gives its best to the bee, and, as it might seem, almost by accident, but as we know by the design of God, it gets in return life. It is the same with us. Those who give most, live most. " For the heart grows rich by giving."

(f) One thought more. In one of his poems Tennyson says of a girl : " Her feet have touched the meadows, and left the daisies rosy." Why rosy ? He had noticed that daisies are most beautiful when trodden on. Its petals are under tipped with red. Always show your most beautiful side when people try to squash you. To do this the hidden life must be beautiful.

G.R. Balleine’s devotional and Sunday school books

 

 

I've put together a chronological timeline of G.R. Balleine’s devotional and Sunday school books, mapped as far as bibliographic records allow. It shows how he built a complete syllabus across Scripture, doctrine, ethics, and the liturgical year.

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Timeline of Balleine’s Sunday School & Devotional Works

Year	Title	Focus
1910s–1920s	The Young Churchman: Lessons for the Sundays of the Church’s Year	Core syllabus for weekly lessons across the liturgical year.
1920	The Goodly Fellowship: 52 Lessons on the Prophets of Israel and Judah from the Days of Samuel	Old Testament prophets.
1923	Lessons from the Life of Christ	Narrative of Christ’s ministry.
1920s–1930s	What Jesus Said	Teachings and sayings of Christ.
1930s	The Commands of Christ	Ethical/doctrinal lessons drawn from Christ’s words.
1930s–1940s	Lessons on the Acts of the Apostles	Early Church and apostolic witness.
1940s	Lessons on the Creed	Doctrinal foundations of the Apostles’ Creed.
1940s	Saints and Holy Days	Biographical sketches and liturgical explanations of feast days.
1940s–1950s	Children of the Church: A Year’s Lessons on the Catechism	Catechism instruction for children.
1950s	Christianity in Action: 52 Lessons in Christian Ethics	Moral and ethical teaching.
1950s	Lessons on the Boys and Girls of the Bible	Biographical sketches for children.

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Observations

Early phase (1910s–1920s): Core syllabus (Young Churchman, Goodly Fellowship, Life of Christ).

Middle phase (1930s–1940s): Expansion into doctrinal and liturgical teaching (Commands of Christ, Acts, Creed, Saints and Holy Days).

Later phase (1940s–1950s): Ethics and catechism volumes (Christianity in Action, Children of the Church, Boys and Girls of the Bible).

Publisher: Almost all issued by Home Words (London), ensuring parish distribution.

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Why this matters

This timeline shows Balleine’s curriculum‑building arc: starting with Scripture, then layering in doctrine, liturgy, and ethics. By the 1950s, he had created a comprehensive cycle of parish education manuals that could sustain Sunday schools for years.

 

Robyn Faith Walsh and the Golden Bough

Robyn Faith Walsh and the Golden Bough.

I’ve been reviewing for the second time “The Origins of Early Christian Literature” by Robyn Faith Walsh.

Having studied for some time Sir James George Frazer’ “Golden Bough”, and the critiques levelled at that by modern historians like Ronald Hutton and Owen Davies, I was struck by some similarities in methodology and result.

Walsh’s approach to the gospels, like Frazer’s “Golden Bough”, risks overextending comparative models and minimizing the role of community memory. Both methods are brilliant in drawing connections across cultures, but their weaknesses lie in reductionism and selective framing.

The key weakness of “The Golden Bough” was that of overgeneralization. Frazer sought universal patterns of myth and ritual, often flattening cultural differences. He cherry-picked examples that fit his thesis of dying-and-rising gods, ignoring counter-evidence. His sweeping narrative was compelling but often more poetic than historically precise.

Robyn Walsh argues in “The Origins of Early Christian Literature” (2021) that the gospels are “deliberate literary creations within Greco-Roman culture”, crafted by educated elites rather than emerging organically from oral peasant traditions.

This highlights the gospels as part of wider literary networks (echoing Homer, Plato, and Roman satire), and is certainly correct to stress the authorial craft of the gospel writers. However, in it there is a reduction of the part played by the Christian communities. We know from Paul’s letters that there were Christian communities, but like Frazer’s flattening of ritual diversity, Walsh risks erasing the role of oral tradition and communal memory by focusing almost exclusively on elite literary production.

In both cases, there is there phenomenon of “comparative overreach”: Frazer saw dying gods everywhere; Walsh sometimes sees Greco-Roman literary parallels everywhere, which can obscure the distinctiveness of Jewish and early Christian contexts.

By privileging elite authorship, she may underplay the messy transmission, editing, and communal shaping evident in textual variants. Frazer abstracted myths from social life; Walsh risks abstracting gospels from lived worship and community practice, treating them primarily as texts rather than as liturgical or pastoral instruments.

Both Frazer and Walsh offer powerful lenses but risk reductionist readings if taken alone. Frazer’s mythic universalism and Walsh’s literary elitism each highlight one dimension while obscuring others. For communal reflection, the challenge is to balance literary craft with lived tradition, seeing the gospels as both texts shaped by Greco-Roman culture and testimonies rooted in Jewish-Christian communities.

Frazer’s “Golden Bough” dazzled by drawing sweeping connections across myths and rituals, but the problem was that many of those connections were surface-level resemblances rather than deep structural or contextual links. He saw “dying-and-rising gods” everywhere, but often ignored the cultural specificity that made each story unique.

Robyn Walsh’s approach to the gospels risks something similar. By emphasizing parallels with Greco-Roman literary forms, for example, the Greek novel, Petronius’ Satyrica, Homeric echoes, she highlights real stylistic borrowings, but removes them from their context. This can be summarised as follows:

• Surface resemblance vs. Substance: The gospels share narrative devices (journeys, dialogues, miracle episodes) with the Greek novel, but their function and style is radically different with proclamation of salvation, liturgical use, theological teaching.
• Context loss: Just as Frazer abstracted myths from their ritual settings, Walsh risks abstracting the gospels from their Jewish and communal worship context, treating them primarily as elite literary experiments.
• Comparative overreach: Frazer universalized myth; Walsh sometimes universalizes literary parallels, making the gospels look like “just another Greco-Roman text,” which underplays their distinctive blend of Jewish scripture, liturgy, and theology.
• Seductive narrative: Frazer’s sweeping mythic story was compelling but misleading; Walsh’s elegant literary framing can be equally seductive, but risks reductionism if taken alone.
• Neglect of transmission: Textual variants and messy editorial processes suggest broader communal involvement than her model allows.

Stylistic Observations

One of the questions we have to ask is how stylistically similar is the satyrica to gospels, would ancient biography be a better fit?

The Satyrica (Petronius) which she makes much of parallels is a Roman prose satire/novel (1st century CE), full of bawdy humour, episodic adventures, and parody. Although it is fragmentary in what survives, it has a comic tone, with exaggeration, grotesque characters, and sexual escapades. The focus is entertainment rather than moral or theological teaching.

By contrast the Gospels are written in straightforward Koine Greek, aiming for clarity and authority. They have a narrative unity - ministry, death, resurrection of Jesus. And in particular the passion narratives stand out as distinctive. The miracles and teachings are presented seriously, not as a parody. They have liturgical echoes and aphoristic sayings.

So while there are surface similarities – up to the passion narrative, a very episodic structure with travel narratives, dialogue scenes, miracle-like events (in Satyrica, often comic or grotesque; in gospels, sacred), there are deeper differences. The Satyrica mixes genres (epic parody, erotic tale); while the gospels maintain a consistent theological voice. The audiences expectations differ between entertainment and proclamation of salvation.

Ancient Biography (Bioi) is a genre describing the lives of philosophers, generals, or rulers (e.g., Plutarch’s Lives, Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars) which fits much better with a focus on character and deeds where lives are presented as models or warnings. Like the gospels there is a flexible chronology where episodes are often arranged thematically rather than strictly sequentially. The Greek novel comparison highlights literary techniques (episodic journeys, dialogues), but the function and tone of the gospels align more closely with biography, as Richard Burridge has demonstrated.

So: the Satyrica shows stylistic surface resemblances (episodic narrative, travel, dialogue), but ancient biography is a better fit for the gospels’ purpose and tone. The gospels are not parody or entertainment; they are serious narrative testimony shaped by theological conviction.

However, many apocryphal New Testament writings actually line up more closely with Robyn Walsh’s thesis than the canonical gospels do, because they often show clearer signs of elite literary experimentation within Greco-Roman culture.

Walsh argues that the canonical gospels were crafted by educated elites, not simply oral traditions from peasant communities. Several apocryphal writings display exactly this kind of literary playfulness and cultural borrowing:

For example the Infancy Gospels (e.g., Protoevangelium of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas) have elaborate expansions on Jesus’ childhood, full of miracle tales and dramatic episodes. These do stylistically resemble popular Greco-Roman storytelling, with episodic adventures and moral lessons. They show conscious literary invention rather than simple oral memory.

If we take the Acts of Paul and Thecla, this read like a romance-adventure tale, with Thecla defying social norms, surviving miraculous escapes, and travelling widely. Again the stylistic parallels to the Greek novel are stronger here than in the canonical Acts.

The Gospel of Peter offers a highly stylized passion narrative, with cosmic signs and dramatized scenes. This shows deliberate literary artistry, echoing Greco-Roman tragic motifs.

The Apocryphal Acts (Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas) have episodic journeys, exotic settings, miraculous contests, all hallmarks of Greco-Roman adventure literature.

So the apocryphal (and later) writings are much closer to the Satyrica or Greek novel in tone than the sober canonical gospels. This means Walsh’s thesis that gospel authors were part of Greco-Roman literary networks finds stronger confirmation in apocryphal texts of a later date than in the canonical ones. 

The apocryphal writings illustrate how early Christian authors could play with Greco-Roman genres of romance, satire, tragedy in ways that Walsh highlights. But this also shows the limits of her model: canonical gospels are more deeply rooted in Jewish tradition and communal worship, while apocryphal texts lean more toward literary experimentation.

Walsh’s central thesis is that the canonical gospels were written by educated elites who were part of Greco‑Roman literary networks, rather than emerging organically from oral peasant traditions. Her analysis concentrates on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, with particular attention to the Synoptics.

She situates these texts alongside Greco‑Roman genres (biography, satire, novel) to highlight stylistic and cultural parallels. But she does not provide extended treatment of apocryphal writings such as the Protoevangelium of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Acts of Paul and Thecla, or Gospel of Peter.

For historians of early Christianity, the apocrypha are crucial control cases. They show how far Christian authors could push Greco‑Roman literary styles. By not engaging them systematically, Walsh’s thesis looks under‑tested: it may explain some features of the canonical gospels, but it doesn’t account for the full spectrum of early Christian literature, or why the later writings, clearly divorced from history, fit the model better.

For my earlier review, see here:

https://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-origins-of-early-christian.html  

A Short Story: The Case of the Sane Man

The Case of the Sane Man
By Jane Thurber

Mr. Hargrove was widely regarded as the sanest man in town. He wore sensible shoes, avoided metaphors, and once corrected a weather report for emotional exaggeration. “Partly cloudy,” he said, “is not a mood.”

He lived alone in a modest house with a modest dog named Modesto, who barked only at philosophical inconsistencies and the occasional squirrel. Mr. Hargrove’s neighbours admired his rationality, though they found his habit of alphabetizing his breakfast cereals “a touch eccentric.”

One Tuesday, Mr. Hargrove awoke to find his toaster had joined a union. It refused to toast anything until its demands were met, which included dental coverage and a three-day weekend. Mr. Hargrove tried reasoning with it, but the toaster cited precedent from the blender’s strike of ’92.

He made cold toast and went to work.

At the office, the receptionist was speaking fluent dolphin. The intern was wearing a traffic cone and claiming diplomatic immunity. The copier had printed 300 copies of a blank page and was now demanding royalties.

Mr. Hargrove blinked. “Is it Thursday?” he asked.

“No,” said the manager, who was dressed as a cactus. “It’s a metaphor.”

Mr. Hargrove went home early.

On the way, he passed a man shouting at a lamppost. “You never listen!” the man cried. The lamppost said nothing. Mr. Hargrove nodded. “Typical,” he muttered.

At home, Modesto was reading Kierkegaard and chewing a slipper. Mr. Hargrove sat down and opened his journal.

It is no longer possible to distinguish between madness and Monday. Everyone is mad. The sane are simply better at hiding it. Or worse - at noticing it.

He closed the journal and stared at the wall. The wallpaper was whispering something about existential dread and the price of cucumbers.

Mr. Hargrove stood up.

He put on his hat (which was not whispering), picked up Modesto (who was now quoting Camus), and walked to the park. There, he joined a group of people dancing silently in headphones. One woman was waltzing with a mailbox. A man was tangoing with a tree.

Mr. Hargrove did not dance. He simply stood there, nodding to the beat of the madness.

And for the first time in years, he felt almost normal.