30 November 2022

Repton House, a Victorian house
in Stony Stratford designed
by Edward Swinfen Harris

Repton House at 19 Wolverton Road is an interesting house in the Victorian architectural history and heritage of Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Repton House at 19 Wolverton Road is an interesting house in the Victorian architectural history and heritage of Stony Stratford, with its romantic turret, jettied gable, bargeboard, half-timbered gables, arched entrance that once led into stables, and its sash windows.

Repton House today provides supported housing for people who require assistance in all aspects of daily living skills, as a result of long-term and enduring mental health problems.

Repton House is part of Richmond Fellowship’s Supported Housing Service, which is tailored for each individual using the service with the ultimate goal of helping them to manage their accommodation and assist them with reintegration back into independent living and the wider community.

Richmond Fellowship is a national mental health charity that has been ‘Making Recovery Reality’ for over 60 years. It is part of Recovery Focus, a group of charities with the shared aim to ‘Inspire Recovery Together.’ Since 1959, its services have pioneered work with individuals, communities, and families to overcome mental ill-health and support people on their recovery journeys.

The architectural details of Repton House include a romantic turret and an arched entrance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Repton House, on the west side of Wolverton Road is Grade II listed building dating from 1883, when it was designed by the Stony Stratford-born architect, Edward Swinfen Harris (1841-1924), whose works, mainly in the Arts and Crafts style, can be seen throughout the town.

Edward Swinfen Harris was a distinguished architect with a national reputation. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, describes him as ‘the only outstanding local architect working in’ north Buckinghamshire.

Swinfen Harris worked in London as well as Stony Stratford, and many of the fine houses he designed in North Buckinghamshire are still standing today, with surviving buildings also in Dorset and Northamptonshire.

He was born on 30 July 1841 at 36 High Street, Stony Stratford. His father was the clerk to the town bench of magistrates, the Board of Guardians and other bodies, and Edward was the eldest son. The family later moved to Back Lane. He began his formal education when he was 11 at the Belvedere Academy at Old Stratford, and then went to Ullathorpe House School in Leicestershire as a boarder.

He was apprenticed to the book trade around 1858, and was then articled to an architect in London. On completing his apprenticeship, he shared an office in London with two friends, but he returned to Stony Stratford in 1868 to make additions to the vicarage of Wolverton Saint Mary on London Road, Stony Stratford, and also to Calverton Limes on London Road.

After his marriage in 1870, Swinfen Harris settled in Stony Stratford at a new house at No 15 Wolverton Road. Soon after, he designed the house at No 19 Wolverton Road for a medical practitioner, Dr TS Maguire, who was also a local magistrate. Swinfen Harris retired in 1914 and died on 30 May 1924.

The arched entrance leading into a rear courtyard is a reminder by Edward Swinfen Harris that Stony Stratford was once a coaching town (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Repton House on Wolverton Road is a two-storey, seven-bay house built in a Victorian vernacular style. It is a long, low, red-brick building with extensive rear quarters.

The left-hand bay of the house breaks forward and has a jettied gable with a bargeboard, blind tracery on studs and the date of the building of the house on the bressumer or supporting beam on the first floor of the jetty. This gable is partly hung, and it has a two-storey, four-light bay below.

There are sash windows with glazing bars in the top sash, and a continuous moulded string at sill level. The five-panel door to the left has a depressed arch over it. The central glazed door is flanked by pairs of windows.

There are stone heads on the windows on the ground floor and half-timbered gables on the first floor.

the date A.1883.D on on the bressumer or supporting beam on the first floor of the jetty marks the date Repton House was built (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

To the right, a wide, arched entrance leads into a rear courtyard that once had stables, a reminder by Swinfen Harris that his home town had once been a coaching town.

Further to the right again is a tiled, roofed turret and a single storey extension with a foiled gablet in the roof. There is a wrought iron finial over the square bay on the south-west front of the house.

Repton House has a variety of dormers over the main part of building. The tiled roof has a crested ridge and brick chimneys.

The front of the house is covered with wisteria, and the growth at the front of the house means many people probably walk by Repton House on Wolverton Road without fully appreciating its place in the architectural heritage of Stony Stratford.

Repton House is part of Richmond Fellowship’s Supported Housing Service (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral
and USPG: Wednesday 30 November 2022

Saint Andrew the Apostle … a sculpture on the west front of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

Advent began on Sunday (27 November 2022), the First Sunday of Advent. In the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship, today is the Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle (30 November 2022).

Although Saint Andrew is named among the apostles in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, it is in Saint John’s Gospel that most is learned about him. Andrew was a Galilean fisherman, mending his nets, when Jesus called him to follow him, which he promptly did. He then seems to have remained with Jesus until the end. He was there at the feeding of the 5,000 and then later, when some Greeks in Jerusalem wanted to see Jesus, Philip brought them to Andrew who told Jesus of their desire.

Tradition has him travelling on several missionary journeys and eventually being martyred by being crucified on an X-shaped cross. He became the patron saint of Scotland because of a legend that his relics had been brought there in the eighth century.

Before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

During Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, The reading suggested in the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced by Lichfield Cathedral this year;

2, praying with the Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

Saint Andrew’s Cross (centre) on a hassock in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Matthew 4: 18-22 (NRSVA):


18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake – for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Saint Andrew’s Church in Great Linford, one of the ancient churches in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar:

Reflect on what made Jesus’s disciples drop everything to follow him. Ask for grace that we may hear and see freshly and vividly what each of us is called to and how we are to follow Christ.

Collect:

Almighty God,
who gave such grace to your apostle Saint Andrew
that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ
and brought his brother with him:
call us by your holy word,
and give us grace to follow you without delay
and to tell the good news of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘World Aids Day.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a report from the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for a greater awareness of the prejudices we carry. May we be open to one another and change our way of seeing.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘The Call of the Disciples’ … a window designed by the Harry Clarke Studios in Christ Church, Spanish Point, Co Clare, depicts the ‘Calling of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew’ (see Matthew 4: 18-22) – although only one disciple is present (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

29 November 2022

The Irish-born writer who
never moved to Athens to
become Queen of Greece

‘It’s dark and it’s wet in Stony Stratford tonight’ … a reminder of why Rosina Doyle Wheeler never became the Queen of Greece (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

In last week’s rain storms and cold dark nights, I posted a photograph last week of Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford. It caught the atmosphere of how winter has closed in on this town.

But a subsequent exchange on Facebook with an American member of the Comerford family served to remind me of the story of a Victorian Irish writer, heiress and feminist who, with another twist in the chain of events, might have become the Queen of Greece over a century and a half ago.

In my caption for that photograph on Wednesday evening, I said ‘It’s dark and it’s wet in Stony Stratford tonight.’

Peter Comerford, a lawyer in Rhode Island, was quick with his response: ‘A dark and stormy night, eh? Based on everything of yours I’ve read, I wouldn’t have put you in contention for a Bulwer Lytton.’

I told him: ‘I tried to avoid quoting him, but perhaps I fell into the trap of paraphrasing him. He declined the Crown of Greece; I’m no monarchist, but I’d find it difficult to decline an invitation to being paid to live out my days in Greece.’

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), 1st Baron Lytton, was an English writer and politician. Bulwer-Lytton’s works sold and paid him well, and as well as fiction, plays and poetry he wrote a three-volume history of Athens. He coined famous phrases such as ‘the great unwashed’, the ‘pursuit of the almighty dollar’, ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, ‘dweller on the threshold’, and the opening phrase ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’

Bulwer-Lytton’s plays and great sprawling novels are now largely forgotten, but in his day he was more widely read than Charles Dickens or Sir Walter Scott. He is long gone out of fashion, and his writing style has resulted in the creation of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held each year since 1982 to seek the ‘opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels.’

But, in his day, Bulwer-Lytton was also a prominent politician. He was a Whig MP in 1831-1841 and returned as to Parliament as a Conservative MP in 1851-1866, and he was the Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1858-1859.

It is said he was offered the Crown of Greece in 1862 after King Otto abdicated. But he declined, and in 1863 the Greek National Assembly elected 17-year-old Prince William of Denmark as King of the Hellenes with the name of King George I. Instead, Bulwer-Lytton became a peer in 1866 with the title of Baron Lytton of Knebworth.

Had Bulwer-Lytton become King of Greece in 1862, would his Irish-born wife have become Queen?

‘The first mistake I made was being born at all’ … Rosina Bulwer Lytton (1802-1882) was born Rosina Doyle Wheeler in Ballywire House, on the borders of Co Limerick Co Tipperary

Rosina Bulwer Lytton (1802-1882) was an Irish writer and the author of 14 novels, a volume of essays and a volume of letters. She was born Rosina Doyle Wheeler on 4 November 1802 at Ballywire House, on the borders of Co Limerick Co Tipperary, close to Galbally and Limerick Junction. She was youngest of two surviving daughters of Francis Massy Wheeler (1776-1820), a landowner in Co Limerick and Co Tipperary, and the feminist philosopher Anna Doyle.

Her father was 19 and her mother was only 15 or 16 when they married. Francis Massy Wheeler was descended from two prominent land-owning families in Co Limerick, and a grandson of Hugh Massy, 1st Baron Massy; Anna Doyle, who was a women’s rights advocate, was the daughter of Canon Nicholas Milley Doyle, the Church of Ireland Rector of Newcastle, Co Tipperary, and the niece of Sir John Milley Doyle (1781-1856), who led British and Portuguese forces in the Peninsular War and the ‘War of the Two Brothers.’

Rosina was a beautiful but troubled writer, and today she would probably be diagnosed as bi-polar. ‘The first mistake I made was being born at all,’ Rosina once wrote. Her father had hoped for a son to inherit his family estates, but the surviving children from Anna’s six pregnancies were both girls: Rosina and her elder sister Henrietta.

Rosina’s early years in Ireland appear to have been unhappy, largely owing to her parents’ incompatibility, her father’s alcoholism, and her own indifference to her mother’s intellectual pursuits. Her parents separated in 1812, and Rosina, Henrietta and their mother moved to Guernsey to live with her great-uncle General Sir John Doyle, then Governor of Guernsey.

Rosina was educated in Guernsey by a governess and a series of masters and was brought to London after Sir John Doyle resigned. She then attended a fashionable boarding school in Kensington, and was educated in part by Frances Arabella Rowden, whose other pupils included the writers Lady Caroline Ponsonby, later Lady Caroline Lamb, and Anna Maria Fielding (Mrs SC Hall).

She later spent some time with her mother in Caen, Normandy, and with family members in Ireland, before returning to London to live with her uncle at Somerset Street.

Lively, impetuous, and attractive, Rosina became a familiar figure at London’s bohemian literary gatherings, along with her friends Lady Caroline Lamb and Laetitia Landon, and her future husband, then known simply as Edward Bulwer, who once had an affair with Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Byron’s former mistress.

Rosina and Edward first met in December 1825. They were engaged after a brief courtship, but any marriage was opposed sternly his mother, who withdrew his allowance, forcing him to work for a living. They finally married in Saint James’s, London, on 29 August 1827, and they became the parents of two children, Emily (born 1828) and Edward Robert (born 1831).

Edward Bulwer-Lytton married Rosina Doyle Wheeler in 1827

Rosina enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle and her role as a society hostess. But she was quickly disillusioned and their marriage was marred by his political campaigns, his violent temper and his infidelities.

He was first elected to Parliament in 1831. Their relationship deteriorated rapidly during a visit to Italy in 1833. By their return in early 1834 the marriage was over, and they were legally separated in April 1836.

She went back to Ireland with her Emily and Robert, but when she returned to England she lost control of the children in 1838. She did not see Emily again until shortly before she died tragically in 1848, and saw Robert again only at the time of her own death in 1882.

Edward was given the title of baronet in 1838 and, although they were separated, Rosina used the title Lady Lytton and spelled her married surname without the hyphen used by her husband.

In her novel, Cheveley, or the Man of Honour (1839), Rosina bitterly caricatured her estranged husband. This is her first novel, and the protagonist, an aggressive, bullying philanderer, is a thinly disguised portrait of her husband. Facing the first in a series of legal disputes, Rosina went to live Paris.

She was unable to live within her allowance of £400 a year, and supplemented her income through further writing. Despite Edward’s efforts to block her publication, she produced a string of novels, including The budget of the Bubble family (1840), Bianca Capello (1842), Miriam Sedley (1851), Behind the scenes (1854), and Very successful (1856).

After returning to Britain in 1847, she lived at first in London and later in Llangollen in Wales (1853) and then in Taunton, Somerset (1855).

Increasingly frustrated by her financial difficulties, she travelled to Hereford in June 1858, and on the day of her husband’s election as an MP and indignantly denounced him at a public meeting. The scene was later recalled in sarcastic verse by her son Robert:

Who came to Hertford in a chaise
And uttered anything but praise
About the author of my days?
My Mother
.

Edward’s immediate response was to have Rosina declared insane and detained under restraint in an asylum in Brentford. She was released three weeks later, due to a public outcry.

The Old Royal Palace facing onto Syntagma Square in Athens now houses the Hellenic Parliament … Edward Bulwer-Lytton was offered the throne of Greece in 1862 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Three years later, an unabashed and unashamed Edward was offered the throne of Greece after King Otho had been ousted in a coup in 1862. The Cork-born general, Sir Richard Church (1784-1873), had played a key role in an earlier attempted coup in 1843, presenting the king with an ultimatum demanding reforms or his abdication. But Otho continued to reign as a despot, and a popular revolt finally forced him to abdicate in 1862, when the throne was offered to Edward.

Had Edward ever accepted the invitation to become King of Greece, and had his marriage never broken up, would his estranged wife instead have become the Irish-born Queen of Greece?

Instead, Edward was made a peer in 1866 with the title Lord Lytton of Knebworth, and Rosina continued to denounce and attack him until he died in January 1873.

She wrote of her harsh experiences at Edward’s hands in A Blighted Life (1880). Although the book appeared after his death, it caused a rift with her son and she tried to disassociate herself from it. She spent her later years were spent as a recluse in Upper Sydenham, and she died there on 12 March 1882. Her husband had been buried in Westminster Abbey, in 1873, but she was buried in an unmarked grave.

Rosina and Edward were the parents of two children: Emily Elizabeth (1828-1848), who died in tragic circumstances, and (Edward) Robert Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (1831-1891), 1st Earl of Lytton, who was the first Viceroy of India (1876-1880). Robert too was a politician and poet, and wrote under the pseudonym Owen Meredith. While he was Viceroy of India, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. He was also the father-in-law of the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.

As a young British diplomat, Robert Bulwer-Lytton spent a brief time in Athens in 1864, two years after it is said his father had been offered the Crown of Greece in 1862. Lytton was transferred to the Greek court to advise the teenage Danish Prince William who had recently become King George I. I wonder while he was there did he ever think that he might once have become the Crown Prince of Greece.

As for his literary legacy, Edward Bulwer-Lytton is still remembered for the opening words of his novel Paul Clifford (1830): ‘It was a dark and stormy night …’ Elmore Leonard once advised writers, ‘Never open a book with weather.’ Lytton ‘s opening words help to explain why he is not widely read any more.

His legacy is found, instead, in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, an annual competition sponsored by San Jose State University in California to find a deliberately bad opening line for a new novel. Past winners have included Sue Fondrie in 2011: ‘Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.’

And yes, now that you ask, it’s dark and windy but it’s not wet in Stony Stratford tonight.

The grave in Athens of the Cork-born general Sir Richard Church (1784-1873) … he played key roles in the attempts to force the abdication of King Otho (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral
and USPG: Tuesday 29 November 2022

‘Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness’ (Advent Collect) … winter darkness at the south door in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Advent began on Sunday (27 November 2022), the First Sunday of Advent.

In the calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship, today is a Day of Intercession and Thanksgiving for the Missionary Work of the Church.

In the first chapter of Saint John’s Gospel, Saint Andrew is listed as one of the disciples of Saint John the Baptist. When Jesus walked by, Andrew followed him and then went and found his brother, Simon, saying, ‘We have found the Messiah!’ So Saint Andrew is seen as the first missionary for Christ, and the vigil of his feast day is an appropriate time for intercession and thanksgiving for the missionary work of the Church.

Today we give thanks for all those who have worked to bring the Good News to areas where it was previously unknown, in both historic and more recent times, and we respond in faith to God’s call to the Church in our own day to spread the gospel and proclaim his kingdom in the world.

Before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

During Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, The reading suggested in the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced by Lichfield Cathedral this year;

2, praying with the Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

Saint Andrew’s Cross (centre) on a hassock in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 10: 21-24 (NRSVA):


21 At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’

23 Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’

‘Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness’ (Advent Collect) … candlelight at evening in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar:

Give thanks for all who have brought the good news of Jesus Christ to us, our nation and the whole world. Pray for our own Church and our Cathedral community to witness joyfully and boldly.

Collect:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

O Lord our God,
make us watchful and keep us faithful
as we await the coming of your Son our Lord;
that, when he shall appear,
he may not find us sleeping in sin
but active in his service
and joyful in his praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
as your kingdom dawns,
turn us from the darkness of sin
to the light of holiness,
that we may be ready to meet you
in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Collect on the Eve of Andrew:

Almighty God,
who gave such grace to your apostle Saint Andrew
that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ
and brought his brother with him:
call us by your holy word,
and give us grace to follow you without delay
and to tell the good news of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘World Aids Day.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a report from the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for those researching into the spread of infectious diseases. May their learning and discovery bear fruit for the good of all life.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness’ (Advent Collect) … night colours at Timor Court in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

28 November 2022

The Fairground Organ in
Stony Stratford was not just
for the benefit of Mr Kite

The Fairground Organ of Keith Emmett & Sons at the Christmas Lights Switch-On in Stony Stratford last weekend (Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

This was my first time to experience and enjoy the Lantern Parade and the Switch-On Funday celebrations in Stony Stratford.

Christmas lights are strung across the High Street, lighting up my flat throughout the night, ranging from traditional lights in primary-colour bulbs to choir boys, Santas, snowmen, and lit-up Christmas trees in brackets on many of the façades of the shops, bars, hotels, business premises and houses .

The weekend programme, leading up to switching on the lights on the Christmas Tree in Market Square on Saturday evening included Morris dancers, street theatre, Stony Stratford’s own town crier, food and craft stalls (including mulled wine), and a spectacular Lantern Parade from York House on London Road, down the High Street, onto Church Street and into the Market Square.

I even had a Greek coffee in the Swinfen Harris Hall beside the Greek Orthodox Church on London Road.

I was overwhelmed by it all. I have seen Morris dancers many times over half a century or more, I have enjoyed Lantern Parades, including a memorable one on the River Deel in Askeaton, and now that we are into the first week in Advent I have to concede I truly enjoy the build-up to Christmas.

The Emmet organ was built by Gavioli in Waldkirch in 1903 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

For me, the most unusual or unexpected experience was hearing the Fairground Organ of Keith Emmett & Sons, who have been involved for many years in the Switch-On Funday celebrations in Stony Stratford.

Keith Emmett & Sons are based in neighbouring Cosgrove, and are funfair operators with an international reputation. They are regular sponsors of these popular celebrations in Stony Stratford, one of the few events in England to regularly showcase this beautiful and rare fairground organ.

The Emmett organ, with its distinctive sound, took pride of place at the weekend on the High Street at the top of the town, next to the junction with Wolverton Road and London Road, performing at regular intervals throughout the day.

The organ was built in 1903 as an 87 key by the Waldkirch branch of the Gavioli company in the Black Forest, and has been in England since 1986.

Gavioli & Cie made fairground organs first in Italy and later France and Germany. The firm was founded in 1806 in Cavezzo by Giacomo Gavioli (1786-1875), who moved to Modena in 1818. His son, Lodovico Gavioli (1807-1875), was an inventor who built a large orchestrion organ, the ‘Panharmonico’, for the Duke of Modena. However, the duke refused to buy it, and Ludovico took the instrument to London and to Paris.

Lodovico also designed and built Modena’s city hall, the Palazzo Comunale, the city hall. Lodovico moved to Paris in 1845, and from 1858 on he was running his own organ building company on the Rue d’Aligre. His three sons, Anselme, Henry and Claude, continued the business, establishing a branch in Waldkirch in in Baden-Württemberg and agencies in Barcelona, Manchester and New York

The Emmet organ was built in Waldkirch in 1903 and was modified in 1921 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Waldkirch is in the Black Forest, 15 km north-east of Freiburg im Breisgau. Its name translates into English as ‘Forest Church’, but the town is known as the ‘town of mechanical organs’, where fairground organs played on the streets were long manufactured by well-known, locally-based firms.

The Emmet organ was built in Waldkirch in 1903 and was modified in 1921 to play on the 89 keyless no 4 scale by Alfred Lenk. It was overhauled in 1979 by Carl Frei of Waldkirch, and in 2003 by John Page of Milton Keynes.

The 87/89 scale was the mainstay of the Gavioli firm, and is operated by pneumatics with about 200 metres of action tubing. Its instrumentation is: Pan flute, Piccolo, Violin x 3, Clarinet, Harmonic flute, Transverse flute, British flute, Trumpet, Cello, Saxophone Accompaniment, Contra Bass, Trombone Glockenspiel, Snare and bass drums.

The total number of pipes is 319, of which the largest is 4 metres long, and the smallest is a mere 3 cm.

The organ came to England from a Norwegian showman. It was known as the Lunds Tivoliorkester Gavioli until that name was painted over by its present owners, Keith Emmett & Sons. John Page of Page & Howard in Milton Keynes took on the task of maintaining the organ when it arrived in England in 1986, and carried out a full restoration in 2003.

The organ operates with cardboard book music, which runs through the keyframe mounted on the end of the organ. It operates on the keyless system, which means there are no keys in the keyframe – only a row of holes in a ‘tracker-bar’ similar to a player-piano.

Listening to the organ at the weekend brought back memories of the delight on first hearing ‘Being for the benefit of Mr Kite’ on the Beatles album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club in 1967.

John Lennon wanted the track to have a ‘carnival atmosphere’, and told producer George Martin that he wanted ‘to smell the sawdust on the floor.’ In the middle eight bars, multiple recordings of fairground organs and calliope music were spliced together to attempt to meet this request.

I can only how imagine how people of my generation, when they heard the sound of the fairground organ at the weekend, had fond nostalgic memories of the sound of funfairs years ago.

In Stony Stratford, some of those funfairs were held on what was known as ‘The Fair Field’ on Wolverton Road, on land where Breton and Ryland were later built; others were held on the Market Square. Nowadays, the Market Square is at the heart of these funday celebrations and switching on the Christmas tree lights.

The organ came to England in 1986 and John Page carried out a full restoration in 2003 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral
and USPG: Monday 28 November 2022

‘Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness’ (Advent Collect) … winter darkness in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

Advent began yesterday, the First Sunday of Advent. Before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

During Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, The reading suggested in the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced by Lichfield Cathedral this year;

2, praying with the Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

‘Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness’ (Advent Collect) … darkness and light at night on the streets of Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 8: 5-11 (NRSVA):


5 When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him 6 and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed, in terrible distress.’ 7 And he said to him, ‘I will come and cure him.’ 8 The centurion answered, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, “Go”, and he goes, and to another, “Come”, and he comes, and to my slave, “Do this”, and the slave does it.’ 10 When Jesus heard him, he was amazed and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly I tell you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. 11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.’

‘Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness’ (Advent Collect) … candlelight at Evensong in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar:

Pray for the gift of faith – a trust in God’s good purposes for ourselves and the world.

Collect:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

O Lord our God,
make us watchful and keep us faithful
as we await the coming of your Son our Lord;
that, when he shall appear,
he may not find us sleeping in sin
but active in his service
and joyful in his praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
as your kingdom dawns,
turn us from the darkness of sin
to the light of holiness,
that we may be ready to meet you
in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘World Aids Day.’ This theme was introduced yesterday with a report from the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for all those living with HIV and AIDS. May they be enabled to live a full life, free from fear.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness’ (Advent Collect) … darkness and light at night on the streets of Porto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

27 November 2022

A sermon outline with USPG for
Advent Sunday, 27 November 2022


Patrick Comerford

Advent Sunday
27 November 2022

Reading:
Matthew 24: 36-44 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 36 ‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.


The First Sunday of Advent reminds us of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, our fathers and mothers or ancestors in the community or family of faith.

Often these were people who were on the move in times of trouble, upheaval and of danger. Think of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah – often on the move, facing long journeys, but always journeying with God.

It is worth asking: ‘If a fire broke out in your house, what three possessions would you grab?’ Many rectors/vicars have asked this question as they prepared their sermons on this Gospel theme, and the answers they get are interesting.

People include their laptops, their family photographs, their phones, their keys, their wallets or purses, cash or money, plastic cards, passports ... the family pet?

What would you take?

If you were forced to leave your home, or found yourself suddenly forced to abandon all that gave you security, would they really be worth taking?

Laptops are easily damaged, phones need to be charged and don’t always work in other countries, keys to an abandoned home no longer have any use, photographs fade, cash or money from an unstable country quickly loses value.

What would you take with you?

What do we cling to?

Anyone with an interest in old banknotes knows how it became meaningless to be a millionaire or even a multimillionaire in Weimar Germany, war-time Greece or Ceausescu’s Romania. They were in circulation at times when inflation became rampant in times of crisis in Europe. Had they been spent at the time they were issued they might have bought something of value; had they been given away in their day, they might have helped the poor and the hungry.

But circumstances saw to it that those who became attached to their wealth on paper would lose all they had. The Gospel reading this morning (Matthew 24: 36-44) challenges us to think again about what we cling to and what are our true values.

When our prosperity and wealth disappear, like the fast-fading value of old banknotes, are we in danger of feeling abandoned by God?

How would we grab our faith and take it with us if we rushed to escape a crisis?

What do you take with you on a journey?

Christ reminds those who are listening of the story of Noah. What Noah took with him on the ark is a reminder not only to anticipate our own future and our own needs to ensure that security, but to think of the needs of all life, of all creation.

Seasoned travellers know how to pack their bags.

What are the essential items you pack in your case?

Is it a small bag for an overhead cabin on a budget airline flight and a short overnight stay?

Or is it a large suitcase or two for a two-week holiday, filled with towels, sun cream and swimwear?

The list of essentials grows longer and longer as we think about it: passport, toothbrush, plastic cards, phone chargers, presents for hosts and friends, and changes of clothes and sandals, laptop, more than enough reading … so much more than we ever need or use.

Do you then regret having packed too much when you find there is not enough room for them on the way back because of restrictions on overhead bags?

What do you think Mary and Joseph took with them for the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem?

Did they have enough to cope on finding there was no room for them in the inn?

Did they have enough with them when they made the next journey, from Bethlehem to Egypt?

Who helped them to find the missing necessities in Bethlehem, or in Egypt?

Mass migration is major problem in the world today. Politicians seem to want us to think it is a problem for us here. But the people who suffer most are the people on the move themselves, children, women and men.

They cannot take with them what they need, never mind what they want.

On the journey, they face many threats and dangers, from exploitation and violence to extortion and human trafficking.

Of course, if they were Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child, we would want to reach out and help to meet their needs.

USPG and the Church of North India sees the faces of Mary, Joseph and the Christ Child in the people being helped through this year’s Advent and Christmas appeal.

This is the Advent Hope and the Christmas present we can offer this year.

This sermon outline for the First Sunday of Advent, 27 November 2022, was prepared for USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) and the ‘Journey to Freedom’ appeal in Advent 2022

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral
and USPG: Sunday 27 November 2022

‘Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness’ (Advent Collect) … the West Front of Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This is the First Sunday of Advent. Later today, I hope to be present at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, and at the Advent Carol Service there later this evening.

But, before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

During Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, The reading suggested in the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced by Lichfield Cathedral this year;

2, praying with the Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

‘If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake’ (Matthew 24: 43) … sleeping at the unexpected hour in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 24: 36-44 (NRSVA):


[Jesus said:] 36 ‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’

‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’ (Matthew 24: 36) … ‘The Congregation of All Angels with Christ,’ an icon by a nun from the Monastery of Saint Irene near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar:

Ask for grace to keep Advent well – alertness to what’s going on around us, ready to see signs of God’s kingdom in people, events, in the readiness to cooperate with his will.

Collect:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

O Lord our God,
make us watchful and keep us faithful
as we await the coming of your Son our Lord;
that, when he shall appear,
he may not find us sleeping in sin
but active in his service
and joyful in his praise;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Almighty God,
as your kingdom dawns,
turn us from the darkness of sin
to the light of holiness,
that we may be ready to meet you
in our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

USPG Prayer at Lighting the Advent wreath, Candle 1 (Purple):

Lord God,
as we remember the Patriarchs and Matriarchs at the beginning of Advent,
we recall their journeys in faith.
Guard and protect all who make journeys into the unknown,
Lighten their paths,
fill them with faith and hope, and help us to respond to their needs. Amen.

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘World Aids Day.’ This theme is introduced this morning with a report from the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe:

‘The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe joined in World Aids Day 2021 with its theme ‘End Pandemic, End Inequality, End AIDS’, and continues to confront the inequalities brought about by HIV-related stigma and discrimination, by empowering those living with HIV/PLHIV to improve their household incomes and nutrition, thereby boosting adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) it further challenges the inequalities that drive the HIV and AIDS epidemic.

‘Preaching the Gospel of love and inclusivity, the Church took the opportunity at the World AIDS Day commemoration to share with the public, government officials and stakeholders its efforts to address inequalities brought about by stigma and discrimination. It continues to play a significant role in the response to HIV and the Covid-19 pandemic which disrupted gains made through its HIV programme.

‘Despite the challenges, the programme has seen positive results. More people in the Church are opening up about their HIV status, the income generating projects are empowering those with HIV as well as improving their nutrition, and the dedication of Church leaders is significantly contributing to the HIV response. With a recent upsurge of young people abusing drugs in the country and being more at risk of HIV infection, the Church is being sought to lead and give direction.’

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

O come thou Dayspring, come and cheer, our spirits by thine advent here; disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight. (based on the ancient Advent Antiphons).

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

‘Almighty God, Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness’ (The Advent Collect) … darkness falls on the streets of Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

26 November 2022

Working with USPG on
preaching and liturgical
resources for Advent

‘Journey to Freedom’ … the theme of USPG’s Advent appeal this year

Patrick Comerford

Because Christmas Day is on a Sunday this year, Advent begins on the earliest possible day this year, and tomorrow (27 November 2022) is the First Sunday of Advent.

I have been working as a volunteer in recent weeks with the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), producing resources for local churches to use in Advent and Christmas this year and in Lent next year.

I was trustee of USPG for six years until last year (2021), and over the decades I have served on a number of USPG boards, committees and working groups.

The resources for Advent, now available on line through the USPG website, include four Advent Service Guides, based on the Sunday Gospel Readings, with sermon guides or outlines for adults and children, power point presentations and suggestions for prayers and hymns.

In my introduction to these Advent resources, I write:


Introduction to Advent Service guides

There are two themes in Advent:

1, Preparing for Christ coming as the Christ Child at the Nativity. In these preparations, we are challenged to imagine ourselves looking forward to the very first Christmas in Bethlehem.

2, Preparing for Christ coming as Christ the King at his second coming. In these preparations, we are challenged to ask how prepared we are for the coming of the Kingdom, and how are values, priorities and lifestyles reflect the priorities of the Kingdom.

The story of the first Christmas is a story not only of new birth, new beginnings and new hope. The Incarnation is a story too of how God takes on our humanity, including all the problems of humanity – not just then, but now and in the future too.

It is the story of a Child born into a messy world where rulers are despotic, where foreign occupying forces impose unjust demands and taxes, where children are murdered at the command of capricious kings, where people suffer because of their religion, ethnicity, social background and lack of appropriate health care.

It is a story of people on the move: Mary and Joseph must leave Nazareth for Bethlehem, and then must leave again, crossing boundaries and continents, in fear for their child and for themselves.

But this is a story too where the Good News is first heard by a single mother, by a father-to-be facing potential gossip and scandal, by marginalised and exploited workers out in the cold at night, by the outsider, even by wise people in far-flung lands who are total outsiders and made to fear the nature of the welcome they receive.

These resources look at the Gospel readings for the four Sundays of Advent in the light of these themes, and relate them to the Anti-Human Trafficking programme in India that is the focus of USPG’s Advent and Christmas Appeal this year.

There are outlines, suggestions and ideas for sermons and all-age talks on these themes each Sunday, a prayer for lighting the candle on the Advent Wreath each Sunday, and three suggested prayers for each Sunday: an opening or bidding prayer, an prayer to include in the Sunday intercessions, and a dismissal prayer to link with the post-communion prayer or blessing.

In addition, there are three hymn suggestions for each Sunday, related to both the Gospel reading and to the USPG Advent appeal this year, the Anti-human Trafficking programme of the Diocese of Durghapur in the Church of North India.

Like Mary and Joseph with the Christ Child, who were forced to flee their home and leave behind every security they had known, many men, children and women from rural communities decide to cross the border between India and Bangladesh, looking for a better employment and a safer life.

Sadly, human trafficking is a huge problem in regions near the border of India and Bangladesh and traffickers will lie in wait for those trying to cross the border. Only those truly desperate to leave their lives at home would risk such a dangerous journey.

The life-changing Anti-Human Trafficking programme runs rescue missions for those that have gone missing and conducts awareness-raising campaigns to spread awareness about human trafficking and show local people how they can protect themselves and others from getting trapped.

Your donations will help build a network with local government and law officials and organise workshops and camps with teaching from human trafficking experts. The programme also has a focus on promoting gender equality. It highlights child marriage, which can often lead to trafficking of girls and young women, and collaborates with women’s self-help groups.

Thanks to kind donations from supporters like you, the ‘Anti-Human Trafficking’ programme can continue running. Your generous donations really will transform lives.

Please join the Diocese of Durgapur in supporting survivors of human trafficking.

Patrick Comerford,
USPG,
Advent 2022

You can find these resources at the bottom of THIS PAGE.

Praying in Ordinary Time with USPG:
Saturday 26 November 2022

‘Every man worthy of being called a son of man bears his cross and mounts his Golgotha’ (Nikos Kazantzakis) … the grave of Nikos Kazantzakis in Iraklion bears a simple cross (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This has been the final week in Ordinary Time this year in the Calendar of the Church, the week between the Feast of Christ the King last Sunday and Advent Sunday tomorrow.

Later today, the Christmas lights are being switched on in Stony Stratford, with a number of street events, including street music and a lantern parade.

Before this day gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

During this week, I have been reflecting in these ways:

1, One of the readings for the morning;

2, a reflection or thought from the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

An image in an exhibition celebrating El Greco in the Fortezza in Rethymnon … Kazantzakis addresses Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco) as his Cretan ‘grandfather’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 21: 34-36 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 34 ‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35 like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’

Kazantzakis is one of the great writers in modern Greek literature (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Nikos Kazantzakis, 6:

Last month marked the 65th anniversary of the death of the Greek writer and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis in Freiburg, Germany, on 26 October 1957.

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) is a giant of modern Greek literature, and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature on nine separate occasions. His books include Zorba the Greek, Christ Recrucified, Captain Michalis (also published as Freedom or Death), and The Last Temptation of Christ (1955). He also wrote plays, travel books, memoirs and philosophical essays such as The Saviours of God: Spiritual Exercises.

His fame spread in the English-speaking world because of the film adaptations of Zorba the Greek (1964) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).

In The Last Temptation of Christ, Kazantzakis presents a tragic Christ wrestling all his life with the conflicting claims of his divine mission and duty and his human desire to live a normal life, to love and be loved, and to have a family. In this book, Christ summarises his purpose and mission: ‘I said only one word, brought only one message: “Love. Love – nothing else”.’

Writing about this book, Kazantzakis said: ‘I am certain that every free man who reads this book, so filled as it is with love, will more than ever before, love Christ.’

I have had lunch in the past with friends in Peskesi in a restored historical mansion in Iraklion. This was once the home of Captain Polyxigkis, a Cretan freedom fighter from the 1860s who features in Freedom and Death (Ο Καπετάν Μιχάλης, Captain Michalis), the 1953 semi-historical novel by Kazantzakis.

The name of Peskesi (Πεσκέσι, ‘Gift’) is inspired by his semi-autobiographical Report to Greco («Αναφορά στον Γκρέκο»), where he addresses his Cretan ‘grandfather,’ Domenikos Theotokopoulos, El Greco:

«Μὰ εἶχες γίνει φλόγα. Ποῦ νὰ σὲ βρῶ, πῶς νὰ σὲ δῶ, τί πεσκέσι νὰ σοῦ φέρω νὰ θυμηθεῖς τὴν Κρήτη καὶ ν’ ἀνέβεις ἀπὸ τὰ μνήματα; Μονάχα ἡ φλόγα μπορεῖ νὰ βρεῖ μπροστά σου ἔλεος· ἄχ, νὰ μποροῦσα νὰ γίνω φλόγα νὰ σμίξω μαζί σου»

‘But you had turned into a flame. Where shall I find you, how shall I see you, what gift shall I bring you to make you remember Crete, to make you raise from the dead? Only the flame can be at your mercy; oh, if only I could become a flame to meet you.’

In his introduction to Report to Greco, Kazantzakis says ‘My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.’

He goes on to say: ‘Every man worthy of being called a son of man bears his cross and mounts his Golgotha. Many, indeed most, reach the first or second step, collapse pantingly in the middle of the journey, and do not attain the summit of Golgotha, in other words the summit of their duty: to be crucified, resurrected, and to save their souls. Afraid of crucifixion, they grow fainthearted; they do not know that the cross is the only path to resurrection. There is no other path.’

Later in the book, he writes: ‘Whoever climbed the Lord’s mountain had to possess clean hands and an innocent heart; otherwise the Summit would kill him. Today the doorway is deserted. Soiled hands and sinful hearts are able to pass by without fear, for the Summit kills no longer.’

And he paraphrases the Prophet Elijah: ‘Tomorrow, go forth and stand before the Lord. A great and strong wind will blow over you and rend the mountains and break in pieces the rocks, but the Lord will not be in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord will not be in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord will not be in the fire. And after the fire a gentle, cooling breeze. That is where the Lord will be. This is how the spirit comes. After the gale, the earthquake, and fire: a gentle, cooling breeze. This is how it will come in our own day as well. We are passing through the period of earthquake, the fire is approaching, and eventually (when? after how many generations?) the gentle, cool breeze will blow.’ (see I Kings 19: 11-13)

When the Church of Greece condemned Kazantzakis in 1955 and anathematised him, his response was prompt and clear: ‘You gave me a curse, Holy fathers, I give you a blessing: may your conscience be as clear as mine and may you be as moral and religious as I.’ (<<Μου δώσατε μια κατάρα, Άγιοι πατέρες, σας δίνω κι εγώ μια ευχή: Σας εύχομαι να ‘ναι η συνείδηση σας τόσο καθαρή, όσο είναι η δική μου και να ‘στε τόσο ηθικοί και θρήσκοι όσο είμαι εγώ.>>).

‘Whoever climbed the Lord’s mountain had to possess clean hands and an innocent heart’ (Nikos Kazantzakis) … looking across Iraklion and out to the Mediterranean from the grave of Kazantzakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Collect:

Eternal Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord and King:
keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of peace,
and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people;
that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works,
may by you be plenteously rewarded;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God the Father,
help us to hear the call of Christ the King
and to follow in his service,
whose kingdom has no end;
for he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, one glory.

Collect on the Eve of Advent 1:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week has been ‘Prophetic Voice of the Nation.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by Bishop Matthew Mhagama, from the Diocese of South-West Tanganyika in the Anglican Church of Tanzania.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for the revival and reformation of the Church in Tanzania.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Peskesi in a restored mansion in Iraklion that takes its name from a line in ‘Report to Greco’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

A quotation from Nikos Kazantzakis (top right) among Greek rhymes and songs, poets and poems, in a doorway in Rethymnon … Μια αστραπή η ζωη μας, μα προλαβαίνουμε, ‘Our life is a flash of lighting, but we are ahead’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford,)

25 November 2022

Milton Keynes Synagogue
celebrates 20 years in 2022,
but dates back to 1978

The Aron haKodesh or Ark and the Bimah in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue … the synagogue opened in 2002, but the community dates from 1978 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

In recent weeks, I have been getting to know Beit Echud, the Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue (MKDRS), attending some services, and public events and getting to know many of the members.

There was a mediaeval Jewish community in Newport Pagnell during the reign of Henry II.

The Revd Moses Margoliouth (1818-1881), who was the Vicar of Little Linford when he died, was, perhaps, the most controversial figure of Jewish birth to have lived in the Milton Keynes area.

He was born to Jewish parents in Suwalki in Poland and pursued Talmudic and rabbinical studies in Pryerosl, Grodno, and Kalwarya in the hope of becoming a rabbi. After converting to Christianity, he was ordained an Anglican priest in the Church of Ireland in 1844, and for a time was Vicar of Glasnevin in Dublin. His many books included Fundamental Principles of Modern Judaism Investigated (1843), The Jews in Great Britain (1846), A Pilgrimage to the Land of my Fathers (1850, 2 volumes), History of the Jews in Great Britain (1851, 3 volumes), and many Biblical commentaries and books on Hebrew poetry.

Sir Herbert Leon (1850-1926), who lived at Bletchley Park, was one of the richest and most influential Jews in Britain during his lifetime. But he was a secularist and humanist, and had no interest in fostering a Jewish community in the Milton Keynes area. It was not until World War II, when Jewish families evacuated from London to the Milton Keynes area, that Jewish communities were established in Bletchley and Haversham.

The very extensive Jewish contribution to the code-breaking activities at Bletchley Park during World War II are described in the their book by Michael A Kushner and Martin Sugarman. However, these early congregations closed around 1946-1947.

The first Shabbat Morning Service was held in Milton Keynes synagogue 20 years ago on 20 August 2002 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The present community in Milton Keynes has a more recent history. The first Shabbat Morning Service was held in the synagogue 20 years ago, on 20 August 2002, although the congregation was formed 44 years ago in 2018, and the story of the present Jewish community in Milton Keynes dates back 45 years to 1977.

Beit Echud is a small and friendly congregation based in Milton Keynes and it attracts members from a wide area in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire. MKDRS is affiliated to the Movement for Reform Judaism, although the membership represents a wide spectrum of religious observance. Some members are in mixed-faith relationships and non-Jewish partners are welcome.

The story of the community dates back to 1977, when Malcolm and Maureen Pruskin moved to Milton Keynes in 1977 and found that there was no established Jewish community here. Maureen Pruskin’s mother, Kitty Morris, wrote to the Jewish Chronicle inviting anyone in the area interested in forming a Reform Synagogue community to get in touch.

The response was impressive, and the first service was led by Rabbi Larry Tabick on 4 March 1978. Guests included representatives from the parent organisation, the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, and soon Milton Keynes Reform Synagogue was up and going. Rabbi Larry Tabick’s wife, Rabbi Jackie Tabick, was born Jacqueline Hazel Acker in Dublin in 1948 and she became Britain’s first woman rabbi in 1975.

Beit Echud … the name means ‘A House United’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Initially, services and social events were held in members’ homes but, as numbers increased, the congregation began using hired halls for events. They were given use of one of the rescued Czechoslovak scrolls for services. After World War II, about 1,500 Torah scrolls, formerly belonging to destroyed Jewish communities, were brought to London. Those that were still usable were distributed for use in small communities.

In time, the name was changed to Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue to reflect a growing membership of people from surrounding areas like Leighton Buzzard, Northampton and Bedford.

Milton Keynes Council allowed the congregation priority use of Tinkers Bridge small meeting place in 1998, and regular services and social events were held there for about 10 years. Rooms at the Open University were hired for our children’s Jewish education classes on Sunday mornings, and a small, short-lived satellite community was founded in Kettering.

At the same time, members of the synagogue became involved in interfaith matters, connecting the Jewish community with the wider community in Milton Keynes. To this day, the synagogue remains a valued and active member of the rich faith life of the city, with representatives on Milton Keynes Council of Faiths and several other community organisations.

A mezuzah fixed to a door post in the synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Rabbi William Wolff was appointed as the community rabbi In November 1990. He was the first rabbi to live in Milton Keynes and stayed for three years.

He was born in Berlin in 1927, and escaped with his family to Amsterdam in 1933 and then to London in 1939. He was ordained in 1984 and served as associate rabbi of the West London Synagogue (1984-1986), rabbi/minister, Newcastle Reform Synagogue (1986-1990), Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue (1990-1993), Reading Liberal Jewish Community (early 1990s), Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue (1993-1997) and Wimbledon and District Synagogue (1997-2002). He returned to Germany in 2002 to work with the Germany’s growing Jewish community.

When Rabbi Wolff moved from Milton Keynes, the community began fundraising for a new building so that all events could be held under the same roof. The congregation was registered as a charity on 23 September 1996.

After a brief move to Shenley Brook End Meeting Place, the dream of a new building became a reality. Under the leadership of the chair Len Sharpstone, a building committee was formed, a plot of land in Giffard Park was found under the reserve sites provision. Two years later, a 60 tonne crane and eight lorries carrying the building sections arrived at the site on Wednesday 15 May 2002.

By the end of the day, the synagogue building had taken shape and the first service took place there on Saturday 17 August 2002, with the Bar Mitzvah of Jonathon Dryer.

A Menorah traced in the brickwork of Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The dedication service of the new synagogue on Sunday 6 April 2003 was attended by many invited guests from the local community. The service was conducted by the late Rabbi William Wolff, then Regional Rabbi in North-East Germany and later honorary Chief Reform Rabbi of Germany, and Rabbi Sammy Rodrigues-Pereira, Rabbi Emeritus of Hatch End Reform Synagogue in north London.

The guests included Andrew Gilbert, chair of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain (now the Movement for Reform Judaism), the Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, the Mayor of Milton Keynes, leaders of Reform and Liberal Judaism, interfaith representatives, and other local dignitaries.

Rabbi Wolff declared: ‘How thrilled I am! I was proud of you, now veterans and your dogged determination. I had the privilege of being part of it. By comparison with your beginnings, this is a cathedral, the House of God.’

Holy books and prayer books … a book shelf in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Barry Norman, who had chaired the building committee, became the chair of the synagogue. Rabbi Aviva Kippen was persuaded to come to Milton Keynes as rabbi, but there were problems with her contract, the appointment fell through, and eventually she moved to Melbourne Jewish Community.

Rabbi Shulamit Ambalu was appointed part-time rabbi in February 2006, the synagogue’s first rabbi since the new building was completed.

She remained for 10 years before moving on to Shaarei Tsedek North London Reform Synagogue in Stoke Newington, where she is now the senior rabbi.

She also lectures in Leo Baeck College, where she was ordained in 2004 and which has trained generations of Liberal, Reform and Masorti rabbis.

Beit Echud, ‘A House United’ … a hanging in Milton Keynes Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Meanwhile, Barry Norman died in a car crash in August 2005 and he was succeeded by Sarah Friedman, who was asked by the council members in 2006 to produce some designs for an Aron haKodesh or Ark.

The community chose a new design in 2007 and the new Ark with its ‘Tree of Life’ decoration was installed in time for Rosh haShanah in 2008. The matching bimah and lectern in memory of Len Sharpstone were added in time for the 30th anniversary celebration on 22 November 2008, conducted by Rabbi Shulamit Ambalu. The community celebrated is 40th anniversary on 1 July 2018 with an open day. The synagogue building was 20 years old this year, and the anniversary was marked with a special kiddush on 20 August 2022.

At the last agm, Martin Neville and Lou Tribus became co-chairs of MKDRS when Priscilla Durrance stood down as chair and succeeded Sarah Friedman as Treasurer.

The Torah scrolls in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue include scroll No 970 (left) from Pacov in the Czech Republic (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

One of the treasures of Milton Keynes synagogue is scroll No 970 from Pacov in the Czech Republic.

During World War II, 1,564 Torah scrolls were taken by the Nazis from synagogues throughout Bohemia and Moravia. They survived the war and were stored in an old dilapidated synagogue in Prague. They were bought in 1964 and moved to Westminster Synagogue in London, where the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust was set up. The Trust repaired the scrolls and loans them out to synagogues around the world.

Today Pacov in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands has about 5,000 inhabitants today. There are no resident Jews there, but it once had a thriving Jewish community that can be traced back to the late 16th century. The first prayer room was probably in a private home. A freestanding classical synagogue was built ca 1823 and later rebuilt in the neo-Romanesque style.

The number of Jews in Pacov peaked around 1880 at over 200. Numbers slowly declined after that as many left for bigger cities, mainly Prague, or for foreign countries.

During the Holocaust, the 97 Jews then living in Pacov were transported to Theresienstadt in November 1942, and later to Auschwitz, where all but six of them were eventually murdered – the youngest victim was two-year-old Helenka Schecková, who was a two-year-old at the time. The town’s Rabbi Nathan Guttmann died in Auschwitz too; his daughter Nelly survived and now lives in Israel.

The residents of Pacov set up Tikkun Pacov, an organisation to convert the old synagogue into a museum and memorial to the Jews of Pacov. They raised money to buy the building in 2018, and are now working on repairing the building. A delegation retuned to Milton Keynes last week after visiting Pacov with the Pacov scroll. When the synagogue first received the scroll in 1985, the community was told it was written in 1927. But Rabbi Kevin Hale, a specialist scribe in Czech scrolls, informed the delegates that it was actually written before 1765, making it more that 250 years old.

I was back in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue earlier this week to hear Dr Vivi Lachs talk about her new book London Yiddishtown as part of the synagogue’s adult education programme, and I have been invited to speak next year on synagogues I have visited throughout Europe.

Shabbat Shalom

Torah crowns and mantles on the scrolls in the Aron haKodesh or Ark in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)