From the Rector –‘The Wonder of Woolies’

Alas, the article title will disappear from our TV screens in this year’s run up to Christmas.  Competing for our custom as it did in the season that is crucial to all high street retailers this erstwhile world famous store offered a veritable treasure trove of Christmas gifts to choose from.  The ‘wonder’ laid out before our eyes summed up what Christmas markets large and small are all about, namely our opportunity to identify novel gifts that would maintain the belief in the hearts of all those we buy gifts for that they really are loved.

At the editor’s invitation a significant part of this edition of “Faith Matters” will be dedicated to personal greetings which are another way of conveying to one another our care and concern for each others lives during this festive season.  Gifts, which are meant to be tokens of the ultimate gift that humankind can receive, come in all shapes, sizes and price brackets.  At least the ‘wonder of woolies’ helped keep the price to a manageable level and the proverbial question ‘what on earth can I get for Harry this year?’ at least had some financial limits.

But gifts, especially Christmas gifts in whatever form they come, are meant to be tokens or reminders of the wonder that is the coming of Christ among us to declare to us that ‘God’s cause is man’s cause’.  Put simply this means that whatever we enjoy or endure in life God is there in our life experience urging us to accept his gift to us of a life that is full of wonder.  Our lives do not always glitter and are often dulled by events and experiences that threaten to destroy our belief in anything meaningful or positive.  The terrorist, the fraudster or the exploitative speculator is capable of spreading misery if not death itself.

So what we give to one another as a token of what God has once for all given to us is important.  But its importance lies not in its economic value but in its symbolism of how prepared we are to love one another.  Our wonder at the love that humans are capable of will also lead us to wondering in this day and age about the love we need to show to our planet.  As we contemplate the range of gifts that we are capable of giving to one another before even spending one penny – love, joyfulness, patience, self-control, friendship – we might also think about and then act on the requirement laid upon us all to save ours and our children’s very existence on earth.  Giving life to our fellow humans only makes sense if there is somewhere for that life to be enjoyed.

Giving may cost more than mere money; it will cost us a change in what we have come to expect.  The universal right to warm shelter can no longer depend on plentiful fossil fuelled heating.  Conservation will involve us in re-thinking how we clothe ourselves inside our homes as well as outside.  These are the actions we can take to ensure that others have sufficient energy on which to live.  These are the Christmas gifts that are really expensive for us to give but not in monetary terms.  They cost us in love, in discipline and in commitment.  To the recipients they are invaluable.  To keep another person warm – a gift beyond price – will literally make us think about what we are to wear.  From now on that just might be ‘the wonder of woolies’.

With every blessing to you and your family this Christmas.

Peter Jones

From the Editor

Another eventful year is coming to a close that has been recorded in “Faith Matters”.  The first six months of 2009 and we were still in an interregnum, but our prayers were answered when Canon Peter Jones took up the challenge and we saw his collation and induction as the Rector of St. Faith’s on 1 June 2009 which we followed by welcoming him and his wife Tricia.

 

2009 also saw the retirement of our Verger, Vicki Mockford, the passing of Canon Derek Brown, our Rector from 1969 to 2000 and the retirement of Bishop Kenneth.

Of our properties, the Christchurch Centre was eventually leased for a nursery on 20 May 2009 and opened by the Mayor of Havant, Cllr Jackie Branson, on 29 August 2009 under the name "Bright Beginnings Nursery".  Discussions continued with the Dynamo Youth Theatre for a way to accommodate the needs of both parties with the Church Hall.  Unbudgeted maintenance and work to our properties drained our financial resources with the fire modifications for Church House and the ceiling repair in the Lady Chapel.

Successful events organised in 2009 included a “Mamma Mia” disco in March, the Snohomish County Children’s Choir from Washington State, USA in July, the Town Fair in September and a fashion show in October.

Our parishioners have travelled to many places, both in the UK and abroad and have shared their exploits; and John Bradey retired after a century of crosswords for the magazine.

In this edition you can read Judy Glenister’s Christmas card.  Judy lost her vestigial sight when she was a small girl. 

Colin Carter

 

The Card I Have Chosen for Christmas

It is a landscape depicting a domestic scene. The room is dimly lit with a background of deep cream walls. In the centre is a window with a white frame. The window is flanked by red and gold brocade curtains and a red pelmet. In the top half of the window we can see a deep blue evening sky and in the lower half a very rosy winter sunset. To the right, on higher ground, houses can be seen, their walls and windows reflecting the rosy glow. Behind them is the spire of a church. In the top right hand corner of the window, hangs a branch of creeper with a few red leaves still on it and a little robin peering in at the window or maybe his own reflection. Below the window is a large oval table covered in a green cloth. The table top takes up nearly the whole of the bottom of the picture.

At the back of the table is a white vase containing yellow and bronze chrysanthemums. In the centre of the vase is a sprig of holly which comes above the level of the window sill. Between two of the yellow blossoms are two pine cones. Lying on the table is a dark book; brown with a gold cross printed on the top. There is also a red glasses case, a pair of open scissors and some loops of untidy gold ribbon. At the extreme right of the picture stands a middle aged lady with medium brown hair and wearing a dark blue suit. She is facing the table and in front of her is a pile of envelopes and little packages ready for the post. In her left hand, she holds an envelope and we can just see her right hand fixing the stamp. Above her head is a lampshade and the lamp shines down on her head and the table.

In the opposite corner sits a little eight year old girl wearing a blue jersey. She has her blonde hair tied back in a blue band, blue eyes and her little face is full of concentration. Her right hand is holding a red pen and left hand is holding down a Christmas card. Behind her stands an eleven year old boy wearing a green jacket, hands thrust in his pockets and head turned towards his sister with a cheeky expression on his face. In front of him, we can see the head and shoulders of a yellow labrador. He has a red collar and he is looking up towards the boy. Above the boy's head is a square wooden clock with a white face showing the time to be 10 to 4. Across the red pelmet the message of Christmas is written in gold letters. The inscription inside the card reads:

If you are lonely, may Christmas bring you friendship

If you are stressed, may Christmas bring you peace of mind

If you are grieving, may you find solace at Christmas

If your heart is full of joy, may you spread it to everyone you meet.

With best wishes for Christmas and New Year from Judy and Innis.

Judy Glenister (transcribed by Rosemary Thomas)

Decoy Hayling Island

In the Second World War the success of the British in deceiving the Germans was legendary.  To deceive the enemy about the time and location of D Day, we had radio traffic coming from an imaginary invasion army in Kent, huge quantities of silver paper dropped at altitude to confuse the enemy radar that an air armada was on its way to Calais, an actor, Clifton James, impersonating General (later Field Marshal) Montgomery so that the enemy thought he was in Gibraltar when D-Day started etc., etc.  Closer to home, Portsmouth that is, what about the deception which lured enemy bombers away from the city during the blitz?

The deception was started by building two sites, one in Langstone Harbour and one on Sinah Common, Hayling Island.  They consisted of what was described as “a string of ingeniously designed and carefully positioned structures, which when lit from inside, gave the impression of lights shining through chinks in doors and windows” as if the wartime blackout was being inefficiently applied.  At each site, decoy fires were prepared in what was described as “Starfish” pattern.  The fires were of different types so that when they were lit they corresponded to the types of fires seen from the air when the city was being bombed.  They were all fuelled by oil and ignited from a control point.  Each fire could burn for four hours, with sufficient fuel to be used on two nights.  They were ignited once an air raid had started, so that oncoming waves of bombers would think that the fires below were the result of bombs falling on the city.  The incoming bombers would then drop their bombs in and around the fires.  It was recorded that one night in 1941, 140 bombers dropped over 100 tons of bombs in Langstone Harbour and Sinah Common.

Had we known about it at the time, the citizens of Portsmouth including those little girls who became Jean Uphill and Joy Bryant would have been grateful to the authorities for sparing the city from more destruction and casualties.  By now, dear reader, you are seeing another side to this story.  It was one thing to decoy aircraft to Langstone Harbour but quite another thing to bring them to Hayling Island.  As someone said at the time, “What’s Portsmouth’s loss is Hayling Island’s gain!”  To the horror of the military, word soon spread across the island that Sinah Common had been converted into a decoy bomb site!  The problem facing the military was that it was necessary to have the decoy sites close to Portsmouth Harbour and Dockyard.  Public meetings took place and the Hayling residents voiced their anger without regard to the Official Secrets Act!  Fortunately, none of this got back to the enemy and the military kept up their decoys until the end of the war.  Thankfully, air raids reduced considerably over the last three or four years of the war, so the decoys were rarely used after 1941.

As far as I know, our Lay Deacon, Dr Trevor Hopkinson, who is now a resident of Hayling Sea Front, was not living there at this time.  He was facing greater danger in the Army in the Middle East.  As for Colonel Peter Thomas, he was away from Langstone Harbour, and in more danger in the Royal Marines in the Japanese theatre of war in the Far East.  But did anyone at St Faith’s experience life near a decoy site?  I am sure our Editor would like to hear from you.

Roger Bryant

Having encouraged parishioners to write about their travels for “Faith Matters” I thought I had to do some writing myself after our cruise in the Queen Mary 2 (QM2) to the Mediterranean and give readers an insight to cruising in the Cunard flagship.

Last year, Beryl and I went on the penultimate cruise in the QE2 before she sailed to become a permanent hotel in Dubai – see the January 2009 edition of “Faith Matters”.  However, these plans are on hold due to the world economic downturn and she may sail to Cape Town to provide additional hotel accommodation for the Football World Cup in South Africa starting in June 2010.  

Having enjoyed the QE2 so much we embarked in the QM2 on 14 September 2009 for a cruise to the Mediterranean.

 Our taxi soon had us at the Ocean Cruise Terminal in Southampton – there are no restrictions on how much luggage you can take so it was nice for Beryl to be able to take lots of clothes for all occasions!  Whilst waiting to check in we met Sandra and Bob from Washington State, USA, who knew the town of Snohomish and the children’s choir that had sung so beautifully in St. Faith’s Church on 10 July.  We saw them a few times on the cruise and on one occasion we asked Bob if he was enjoying himself and he said “So much so that Sandra is e-mailing our daughter to sell the house as we are moving on to the Queen Mary 2”!  It is such a great ship so it was quite understandable how our American friends felt.  In fact, it is a floating 5-star hotel with 1,310 staterooms – the food, personnel, décor, staterooms, restaurants, organisation, shows, dancing, arrangements, and everything else, are all superb.  Onboard were 2,599 passengers (1,327 from the UK, 686 Americans, 292 Canadians, 54 Chinese and 36 other nationalities), with 1,241 crew (690 from the Philippines, 106 from the UK, 68 from India, 44 South Africans and 48 other nationalities).  It is a large ship with a lot of people but one did not get the impression at any time that it was crowded.  One of the nicest things we found was meeting and talking to people and having a laugh over trivial incidents.

We were soon on board in our stateroom (cabin) and met Adrian our steward from the Philippines.  Historically, in cruise liners, it is called a stateroom after the paddle steamers on the Mississippi who called the cabins by the names of the US States.  After emergency drills, we enjoyed the complimentary bottle of champagne on our balcony as the QM2 sailed on a warm, clear evening under the command of Commodore Bernard Warner through the Solent with a lovely view of Carisbrooke Castle.  At dinner, we met two lovely couples who would be our companions for evening meals during the cruise; Frank and Laura from Norfolk, Virginia, USA and Norma and Brian from Northampton.  We also met our waiters Albert and Clark from the Philippines and our wine waiter Krishna from India who would be looking after us.

The cruise took us to Lisbon, Gibraltar, and to four other ports, all within a contiguous day’s sailing - Civitavecchia (the port for Rome), Livorno (the main port in Tuscany for Florence and Pisa), Monte Carlo (the main port in Monaco) and Barcelona.

The 12-day cruise consisted of 6 days in port and 6 days at sea, with 5 formal nights, 3 semi-formal and 4 elegant casual.  The formal evenings coincided with a Black & White Ball, a Masquerade Ball, a Buccaneer Ball and a Royal Ascot Ball when the ladies could show off their beautiful dresses and gowns – and wear hats for Ascot!

There is always a very full programme when the ship is at sea that caters for all tastes in which one can participate or just relax on a sun bed on deck – you name it, they have it onboard, including a Spa, a gym, the largest library afloat, a Fine Art Gallery, a Flower Shop, Mayfair Shops, a Casino, a Planetarium, an Internet Centre, and much more.  There are 8 separate restaurants to meet all tastes and a typical English Pub for the likes of bangers & mash and fish & chips.  It is quite easy for your routine to revolve around meals as food is available at all times, with a white glove afternoon tea service being a favourite where one was entertained by a harpist, pianist and a string quartet.  There are also 12 separate areas for having a drink.  Apart from the gym and swimming, you can jog around the boat deck to shred all the pounds put on by eating.  Three times round is 1.1 mile (in the QE2 it was 5 times around) – there were joggers, walkers and strollers – Beryl & I were the latter!  We had some interesting speakers on astronomy; on our destinations; a QC on criminology; on the arts; and a salvage expert that gave very interesting talks on the “Loss of the Russian Submarine KURSK”.  There were performances by The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and one we particularly enjoyed was “Under Milk Wood” by Dylan Thomas.  Every evening there was a spectacular show with the Royal Cunard Singers & Dancers who would grace any west-end stage and included a ‘Tribute to Sting’ (David McLaine), a magician (Philip Hitchcock), a virtuoso flautist (Bettine Clemen), a really funny Irish comedian (Adrian Walsh), a violinist (Chris Watkins) and an opera singer (Annette Wardell).  There was Ballroom and Latin Dancing every night, separate entertainment by a string quartet, harp melodies, classical concerts, piano playing, jazz, a Caribbean band, a DJ in the nightclub and a film.  When sailing from each port there was always a ‘sail-away party’ with the Caribbean band and the QM2 orchestra on the Terrace Bar which is on the upper deck.  As one would expect from a ship that is just five years old, it caters for the disabled person and there are plenty of facilities onboard and arrangements made for coach tours and getting ashore on the tenders.  There are gentlemen escorts for ladies on their own who enjoy dancing and also a Solo Club for unaccompanied persons to meet.

There was a daily Catholic Mass onboard but sadly no Anglican service.  Apparently, Cunard has to provide a Catholic priest because of the large number of crew members from the Philippines on board.

Should you wish to participate in activities there were watercolour art classes, bridge classes, lessons in the casino games, dance classes, needlework & knitting, computer classes, scarf tying, make up and beauty classes, napkin folding, line dancing classes, book club, board games, jigsaw puzzles and cookery demonstrations, to name but a few.  There was also a Karaoke on some nights in the Golden Lion Pub where we went to support our American friend Frank who loved singing – needless to say Beryl and I did not join in!

On the second day we crossed the Bay of Biscay on a calm sea and went to the Commodore’s cocktail party in the evening.  The next morning we sailed up the River Tagus passing Christ the Redeemer to our berth.  We went ashore and walked around a very large marina with plenty of eating places.  Thursday, we anchored in Gibraltar Bay, went ashore by tender and then on to the Italian port of Civitavecchia arriving on Saturday.  We took a coach tour to Rome to get an insight to the city as we had not been there before.  The 1½ hour drive was on a fast motorway and one could not help but think of the Roman soldiers marching years ago across this pleasant countryside.  The tour pointed out many of the usual tourist attractions and we were told the historical past of the old buildings.  Our Italian guide found it strange that many countries had two embassy’s in Rome – one for Italy and one for the Vatican and the fact that the Pope was also the Bishop of Rome.  We did not toss a coin into the Fontana del Trevi, so I guess we will not be returning to Rome!

At Livorno we took a very pleasant 30-minute coach ride through avenues of umbrella pine trees toPisa where we transferred to a trolley train to the Miracle Square (Piazzodei Miracoli) to see the Baptistery (Battistero), Cathedral (Duomo) and the Leaning Tower (cathedral’s bell tower) with a knowledgeable Italian lady as our guide.

We arrived in Monte Carlo just as the sun was rising and it looked very picturesque with many yachts in the anchorage.  The yachts had taken up all the available anchorage so the QM2 had to remain underway for the day.  This was not a problem but probably expensive, as the ship has a very modern propulsion system which gives her plenty of manoeuvrability and control.  Instead of conventional propellers connected through long shafts to the engines, QM2’s propellers are driven by four pods, or electric motors attached to the underside of the hull. - the propellers are used for propulsion and steering the ship – there are no rudders.  The propellers pull the ship through the water rather than the conventional pushing.  The marina was full of expensive yachts but very little else in the way of restaurants or shops – in fact I thought the marina at Port Solent was much more pleasant!

On to Barcelona - this is a clean, modern and busy container port.  Ashore we went into the centre and soaked up the atmosphere along the wide avenues and artists.

Although passengers are not permitted on the bridge, the QM2 has a viewing area behind the bridge so you can see the modern technology there is with plenty of monitors to look at.  Even the navigation charts are computerised – a bit different to what I remember when taking a sun sight with a sextant at noon to find the ship’s position accurately and plotting it on a paper navigational chart with ruler and pencil on an open, and sometimes a very wet, bridge – no Global Positioning System (GPS) -‘satnav’ - then!  It was different in Nelson’s day too!!

We have been asked which ship we liked the most, the QE2 or the QM2.  Both were different – one an old lady of 40 years coming to the end of her service; the other a very young and modern 5 years old.  Both cruises were unique to Beryl and I and both were enjoyed exactly the same but for different reasons.  However, the QE2 did look more like a cruise ship and she had a more distinguished siren.

 Beryl and I came on the QM2 for rest and relaxation, but we were up early to see the ship enter port and went to bed way past our usual time.  Not one page of the book each of us took was read – there was so much to do and observe.

Cunard prides itself on a White Star Service in making sure that passengers are looked after and it certainly excelled itself on this voyage.               

Colin Carter