From the Rector

June is pregnant; a month full of hope and expectation.  The first cabinet meeting of a coalition government has just bounced out of number ten.  I wait nervously to hear whether it is a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ from the Gulbenkian Foundation in response to our bid for funding to resource a summer long programme that will help us re-purpose St. Faith’s so it’s fit for purpose for the years ahead.  It feels almost like a new coalition of our very own where young and old have the opportunity of co-designing a programme of hope that can address our material and spiritual deficit.

The ferry that will take us to Santander for the first proper few day’s break for the Joneses since last June departs in the next few hours after I’ve put to bed the planning for our Pentecost celebrations which could spawn ‘who knows what?’ for our church mission reinvigorated by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Rather more prosaically I await the results of a survey on Church House to see the extent of any works needed to rectify yet more damp decay.  Well, at least, we shall shortly be erecting the temporary vestry in church to save music, robes and people from the ravages of the same in the old choir vestry!

Further out in the community our secondary schoolchildren from Warblington and elsewhere plunge into exams and spend their summer confinement awaiting results which will have not a little bearing on their future lives.  Those couples we recently married in May will be embarking on their own post honeymoon lives with the nervous excitement that attends a new life together.

And all these things to contemplate having spent two nights at Douai Abbey in Berkshire, the home of one of our English Benedictine communities where clergy who had served up to a year in a new post gathered to reflect on and then plan the next steps of the developments they had each identified as being vital to the life of their respective parishes or chaplaincy work settings.  It is so encouraging to discover how every parish represented in that gathering of priests from across the dioceses of Salisbury, Winchester, Oxford, Chichester and Guildford as well as Portsmouth is in a peri-natal position preparing to give birth to a new way of being church in its community.

June is ‘busting out all over’.  Get ready to push.

Peter Jones

From the Editor

It has been a race to get this edition of “Faith Matters” to the printers on time as Beryl and I only returned from a cruise to the Canaries in the Queen Victoria – see future article - on 14 May and then on the 15^th it was a day out to Wembley with my daughter for the FA Cup Final to see Portsmouth play Chelsea.  Not the result we were hoping for but as I said to Colleen on the way home “We have been to Wembley four times in the last two years and seen Pompey win three of them.”

Many congratulations to Peter and Tricia on surviving their first year with us on 1 June.  We look forward to them being with us for many more years.

Colin Carter

Harold Larwood MBE

This is a story without parallel in sport.  It is about the breakdown of relations which almost occurred between two countries and the vengeance meted out on the professional cricketer who acted on the instructions of the English cricketing establishment, the MCC.  It is the story of Harold Larwood MBE.  Modern technology and newsreels of Larwood’s bowling have established that he was the fastest bowler of all time.  Yet he was just 5 feet 7 inches tall and only weighed 11 stone!  Quite simply, he was the greatest strike bowler in the history of cricket.  Yet no sport has treated anyone so appallingly as the English cricket establishment did Larwood.  Certainly not his enemies on the field because the Australian cricketing world welcomed him with open arms when he left England in 1950 to settle in Australia with his wife Lois and their five daughters.  Only one journalist took the trouble to see him off at Tilbury and that was the “radio voice of cricket” John Arlott.  The man who helped him most to start a new life in Australia was the fine cricketer and journalist Jack Fingleton who opened the batting for Australia in what became to be known as the Bodyline series.  My introduction to Larwood was in 1946 when, as a schoolboy, I bought a book by Jack Fingleton called “Bodyline Crisis”

But let’s start at the beginning.  Larwood escaped going into the coal mines and joined Nottinghamshire.  When he first played for them his captain was Arthur Carr who was noted for his heavy drinking.  Carr used to fuel Larwood and his fast bowling partner, for Nottinghamshire and England, Bill Voce with four pints of beer each before they took the field.  The drinks were smuggled into the Nottinghamshire dressing room and when they were fielding, beer was hidden by soft drinks when the tray was taken out for the drinks break.  Larwood could not cope with the drinking in his early days.  On one occasion, he said to the umpire, “Where’s the batsman?”  To which he replied, “On his way back to the pavilion.  You’ve just bowled him!”  Larwood then started his run up, only to be stopped by the umpire.  “Harold.  I think you should wait for the batsman to reach the crease!”

Larwood made his debut for England, championed by the great batsman Jack Hobbs, in his second season.  He appeared in two tests taking 9 wickets for an average of 28 runs.  Overall that season he took 137 wickets with an average of 18 runs.  He played regularly for England before the fateful tour of Australia in 1932/33.  The England captain for the tour was Douglas Jardine, who was determined to win the series.  The problem was how to deal with Don Bradman, acknowledged to this day as the greatest batsman in the history of the great game.  Bodyline was the answer.  Fast bowlers bowling at the batsman’s body with a packed leg side of fielders to make catches when the batsman fended balls off his body.  Only a great fast bowler like Larwood had the speed and accuracy to succeed with bodyline, although he was given great help by Voce.  There were terrible incidents during the tour which led to the Australian Cricket Board sending the following cable to the MCC.  “Body-line bowling has assumed such proportions as to menace the best interests of the game, making protection of the body by the batsmen the main consideration.  This is causing intensely bitter feeling between players as well as injury.  In our opinion it is unsportsmanlike.  Unless stopped at once it is likely to upset the friendly relations existing between Australia and England.”  As we will see in next month’s “Faith Matters”, the principal victim of bodyline was Harold Larwood MBE.

Roger Bryant

Mr & Mrs Rob Cheesman – Wedding Day

Hazel and Rob were married on 8 May 2010.  They met online after both sets of parents encouraged them to sign up!  They have been together nearly 4 years and Rob says ‘Hazel is the best thing he got from the Internet.’

The service at St. Faith’s had lots of bell ringing as Hazel is the daughter of our Tower captain and steeple keeper.  The bells were rung before the service as the Bride arrived by Havant’s own ringers.  Hand bells were rung during the signing of the register and a quarter peal was rung in their honour as they left the church under an arch of pitchforks.

Hazel, a Therapy Radiographer and Rob, a Farm Worker, honeymooned in Rome, Italy. 

Barbara Skilleter, Rob, Hazel and Bill Skilleter

Some Further Notes on Northumbria

The article on St. Hilda by Sheilah Legg in the March ‘Faith Matters’ was very interesting for me, being a Northumbrian myself.  The history of those far off days is rather complicated.  Northumbria began as two separate kingdoms, Deira in the south, from the Humber to the River Tees, roughly the modern Yorkshire; and Bernicia, from the River Tees to the River Tweed, the modern counties of Durham and Northumberland.

When King Aella of Deira died in 588, King Aethelric of Bernicia annexed Deira, and ruled over both kingdoms.  The rightful heir, Aella’s son Edwin, fled into exile in East Anglia.  Aethleric’s son, Aethelfrith the Fierce, succeeded his father in 593, his reign lasting till 616.  His first wife was called Bebba, and she gave her name to the capital, formerly Dunguedi, which changed its name to Bebba’s burgh (town), the later Bamburgh of today.  They had a son Eanfrith, a later king.  On Bebba’s death, Aethelfrith married the daughter of the late King Aella of Deira, Acha, and their son was Oswald.  A third son was Oswy, perhaps Acha’s, or maybe from a third wife – the records are unclear on the point.

Edwin returned from exile in 616, with King Redwald of East Anglia, and an army.  Aethelfrith was killed, and his sons went into exile in Iona, in Scotland.  Edwin became king of a united country of Northumbria, and extended its boundaries into Scotland, where he established a town, Edwin’s burgh, the present Edinburgh.  He married the Princess Ethelburga of Kent, a Christian.  As a heathen, Edwin had to give an undertaking to allow her to continue in her faith before the marriage was allowed to take place.  She brought with her to Northumbria a priest called Paulinus, who became Bishop of York.  Within a few years the example of Ethelburga and the preaching of Paulinus resulted in King Edwin embracing the Christian faith, and he, some of his courtiers, and his great niece Hilda, the later Abbess and Saint, were baptised in a little wooden church dedicated to St. Peter, which had been built for the occasion in York.  York Minster, also dedicated to St. Peter, now stands on the same site.

In 633 Edwin was killed in battle, and his eldest son Eanfrith became king, only to be killed a year later in battle.  His half-brother Oswald returned from exile and claimed his throne.  Being a Christian, from his time in Iona, he sent there for a priest, and Aidan came in response.  As a result of his work, supported by King Oswald, Christianity spread widely in Northumbria.  There is a charming tale of how, one Easter Day, Oswald and Aidan were dining when a servant came in to report that a crowd of the poor and needy were at the gate asking for alms.  King Oswald immediately sent his own food out to them, with orders that the silver plate was to be broken up and distributed among them.  Bishop Aidan was so impressed by this act of Christian generosity and compassion that he took the king’s right hand, held it up, and said, ‘May this hand never wither with age.’  Bede, writing his history many years later reported that the hand and arm remained uncorrupted, and were preserved in a silver casket in St. Peter’s Church in Bamburgh.  Oswald died in 641, and was succeeded by his brother/half-brother Oswy, who reigned for the next 29 years.

It was Oswy who presided over the Synod of Whitby in 664, called to determine the correct method of calculating the date of Easter.  The Celtic Church, which prevailed in Ireland, Scotland, and Northumbria, favoured one method, whilst the Roman Church, widespread throughout Europe, kept to another.  Working out this date is a complicated process, involving the dates of the Jewish Passover and Sabbath, and the full moon.  The fact that Jewish days ran from sunset to sunset, while Christian reckoning was from midnight to midnight, didn’t help, nor that the Christians kept Sunday, the first day of the week as their holy day, rather than the Jews’ seventh day Sabbath.  After both sides had outlined their case, it was found that the Celtic Church had not heard of certain points which St. Peter had decreed should be taken into the calculations, so the Roman method, already the most widespread, was chosen.

A simple ‘rule-of-thumb’ we can use nowadays is that Easter Day falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Vernal Equinox on 21^st March.

Trevor Hopkinson

 

Rachel Phillips

The Reverend Rachel Phillips, who is at present Assistant Curate at St Lawrence, Eastcote, has been appointed Priest in Charge of St Thomas a Becket, Northaw with St Andrew, Cuffley (Hertfordshire).  Interestingly, she was appointed by the Bishop of St Albans, who has himself been appointed our Bishop of Portsmouth.

(Rachel is the niece of Alan Hakim whose training was reported in “Faith Matters” in a monthly newsletter from her during 2005 and 2006.  You may remember that Rachel preached in St. Faith’s on 8 October 2006 – Ed.)

Our Walsingham Pilgrimage

This year our Pilgrimage group numbered 15, with 9 coming from St. Faith’s and the remainder coming from St. Alban, St. Clare, St. Francis and St. John’s, Rowlands Castle.

We boarded the coach at 7.45am on Friday 9^th April in St. Alban’s car park and joined our fellow 18 pilgrims from St. George’s Waterlooville, who were already on board.

After a stop at a motorway service station and a break for one and half hours for lunch in Ely, we arrived at Walsingham at about 3.30pm.  After unloading our bags we went straight to the Shrine Church for the first visit to the Holy House which sets the mood for the rest of the Pilgrimage.  We then met with the administration staff and found our accommodation, which everyone seemed to find to be comfortable with no problems.

Our first Mass was in the Barn Chapel at 5.15pm, taken by Fr. Mike Sheffield from St. George’s, assisted by Fr. Tymon Singh.  The Barn Chapel is small and, as the name suggests, is a converted barn.  It’s now a beautiful building, although rather full with 33 pilgrims there.

We then split into two Pilgrimage groups, with our group going to the Holy House for Intercessions, ably led by Sandra Haggan based on the petitions we had all submitted beforehand.

Following this, we rejoined the St. George’s Pilgrims for Compline by candlelight in the Guild Chapel, which rounded off our first day.

Saturday morning started with breakfast at 8.00 - the food at Walsingham is excellent and very plentiful!  We continued with Stations of the Cross at 10.00, walking around the Shrine grounds singing a verse of a hymn between each station.  In the background we could hear many different hymns being sung, as other groups of Pilgrims started their Stations at 15 minute intervals.

Following the Stations we set off, some on foot and some by coach, to visit the Roman Catholic Shrine at the Slipper Chapel, which is approx. one mile from the Anglican shrine.  Historically this was the place where Pilgrims would remove their shoes to complete the final walk – this is not very common these days!

On Saturday afternoon the Pilgrims have time at leisure, to do as they wish.  I took several people on a visit to the local churches including the Russian Orthodox, the beautiful Roman Catholic and the Parish Church of St. Mary.  We also went around the 16 chapels within the Shrine Church, which made a very pleasant way of spending two hours in the beautiful warm sunshine.

At 6.00pm Mass was held in the Shrine Church for all Pilgrims conducted by Bishop Lindsay Urwin, the Shrine Administrator, ably assisted by all the clergy from the different Pilgrim groups.

After supper we returned to the Shrine Church for the address, outside procession and Benediction.  The procession includes the image of Our Lady being taken by candlelight through the Shrine grounds and back to the Church.

On Sunday morning our first service was at 9.30 preceded by the Stations of the Resurrection, which led us in procession to the Barn Chapel.  During this Mass, Fr. Mike blessed all the gifts we had purchased in Walsingham.

At 1.30pm after a lovely lunch, we loaded our bags back onto the coach, and at 2.30pm we started our final service with Sprinkling and Anointing which included the Ministry of Healing.  This involved all the clergy and also the nuns from Walsingham convent, who assisted with the Healing.  There was just time for a short break for tea, before we were back again for the procession of the Blessed Sacrament around the grounds, singing hymns as we walked.  This was followed by the Final Visit, a very emotional time where we reflected on our Pilgrimage and what it means to each of us.

The coach picked us up at 4.45pm for our journey home, arriving back at St. Alban’s Car Park at about 10.45pm.

I think I can speak for all the pilgrims when I say that the whole weekend was a wonderful experience.  It was a time of spiritual renewal and fellowship, leaving us all looking forward to the year ahead of us and to next year’s Pilgrimage.

Peter Elmes

Chopin Bicentenary

Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982) one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, and a fellow countryman of Chopin wrote, “When the first notes of Chopin sound through the concert hall there is a happy sign of recognition.  All over the world men and women know his music.  They love it.  They are moved by it.  When I play Chopin I know I speak directly to the hearts of people.”

This year marks the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of the world’s greatest composer-pianists, Fryderyk (Frederic) Chopin (1810-1849).  He wrote almost exclusively for the piano.  In his relatively short life he wrote 4 ballades, 27 etudes, 4 impromptus, 59 mazurkas, 21 nocturnes, 2 piano concertos, 17 polonaises, 27 preludes, 5 rondos, 4 scherzos, 4 sonatas, and 20 waltzes.  In addition to this he wrote songs, and some chamber works that included a piano trio and a sonata for cello and piano.  His music is popular not only with concert artists but with amateur pianists of all levels of ability.

Chopin was born near Warsaw of a French father and a Polish mother, and it was here that he spent the first twenty-one years of his life.  There is some controversy as to the date of his birth.  Chopin’s family always celebrated his birthday on the 1^st March, however, the date that appears in the baptismal register is the 22^nd of February.  There is no satisfactory explanation for this but it has been suggested that it was an error on the part of the priest!  Chopin was given piano lessons from a very early age and it quickly became apparent that he had an exceptional talent.  He was soon in demand by the aristocracy of Warsaw and at the age of fifteen played for the Tsar, head of the Russian empire.  By the age of eight he had given his first public performance and at fifteen his first published composition appeared.  Chopin studied at the Warsaw Conservatory and graduated in 1829.  His tutor described him as a musical genius.  At first he gave concerts mainly in Warsaw where he performed the premiere of his two piano concertos.  These are virtuoso showpieces that range in emotion from the poignant to the thrilling and are a remarkable achievement for someone who had not yet reached his 21^st birthday.  The following year Chopin visited Vienna, which was then the musical capital of Europe, where he stayed for eight months.

In 1831 an event took place that was to change the course of his career.  The Polish people revolted in a failed attempt to overthrow their Russian rulers.  Chopin never saw his homeland again.  Like many of his compatriots he sought refuge in France, and settled in Paris.  It was during this period that he wrote some of his greatest works.  By 1833 his music was being published not only in France but also in England and Germany.  Chopin’s skilful playing and his beautiful compositions ensured his popularity at fashionable social gatherings attended by members of the aristocracy.  This in turn enabled him to make an extremely good living as a teacher.  Among the prominent artists, writers and musicians that Chopin met at this time was the flamboyant woman novelist George Sand with whom he started a relationship that was to last eleven years. Sand was six years older than Chopin and had two children by a former marriage.  She attracted notoriety not only because she supported the emancipation of women but also because she wore men’s clothing and smoked cigars!

In 1838 Chopin’s health began to deteriorate seriously.  They decided to visit the Mediterranean island of Majorca and rented rooms at a Carthusian monastery in the mountain village of Valldemossa set among olive and almond trees.  It was here that Chopin completed his twenty-four preludes.  Unfortunately the weather was cold and wet and this exacerbated his tuberculosis.  Today the rooms occupied by Chopin and Sand house a museum where it is possible to see Chopin’s piano and some of his manuscripts.  From 1839 to 1845 Chopin spent the summers at Sand’s country house at Nohant, in Central France.  It was here that he composed many of his works.  His relationship with Sand finally ended in 1847.

Chopin composed more than two hundred works during his lifetime.  His compositions, some of which are among the most technically demanding, are considered to be amongst the pinnacles of the piano repertoire.  They mark a new development in both keyboard composition and technique.

Thoughts of Poland were never far from Chopin’s mind and the folk songs and dances of his homeland were an influence throughout his music.  This is particularly apparent in the ballades, a genre which he invented, and that are considered to be among his most important works.  Examples can also be seen in the mazurkas and polonaises.  The etudes, mazurkas, nocturnes and waltzes he took to a greater level of sophistication.  Chopin’s music ranged from the simple and gentle to the fiery and exciting.  This is even more remarkable when one considers that it was composed on his favourite Pleyel piano that only had a keyboard span of six octaves.  He admired Bach and Mozart and studied the operas of Bellini.  Chopin was a virtuoso performer noted for his beautiful and sensitive playing, and he made his reputation through playing his own music, using the piano to re-create the gracefulness of the singing voice – Bellini’s influence.

In 1848 a revolution broke out in Paris and the monarchy of King Louis Philippe was overthrown.  Concerts ceased and many of Chopin’s aristocratic pupils fled the city.  As a consequence he was left without a livelihood.  Jane Stirling - a devoted pupil and the daughter of a wealthy Scottish landowner - arranged for him to visit England and Scotland.  Chopin took up residence at 48 Dover Street, Piccadilly, in the heart of fashionable London.  Here he installed his favourite Pleyel piano on which he gave his last Paris concert.  From the time Chopin arrived in Paris in 1832 until his death in 1849 he preferred instruments made by the Parisian manufacturer Pleyel.  Sometimes however he occasionally played an Erard.  Erard had factories both in Paris and London.  Chopin also chose, on the recommendation of Pleyel, three instruments from Broadwoods factory, one for his lodgings, one which was shipped to Scotland, and one for his public performances, which included the last recital of his life at London’s Guildhall on 16^th November 1848.  Henry Broadwood, head of the famous piano firm, became a close friend of Chopin and arranged concerts for him in London, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh.  Among the most outstanding concerts he gave was that at Lancaster House, St. James’s, London when he played before Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  Other famous people he met included the Duke of Wellington, Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle.  However the travelling, the concerts and the social engagements took their toll and Chopin’s health rapidly declined.  His last public appearance was at a Gala event held on 16^th November at London’s Guildhall in aid of Polish refugees.  He returned to Paris on 23^rd November and died on 17^th October 1849.  The funeral service, at which Mozart’s Requiem was performed, was held at the Church of the Madeleine, and attended by a congregation of many thousands.  Chopin was buried in Pere-Lachaise cemetery, next to his friend Bellini.  On the day Chopin left Poland, nearly twenty years before, he was given a silver casket containing Polish soil.  This was opened and the soil sprinkled on his coffin.  At his request his heart was removed placed in a crystal urn and sent to Warsaw where it rests in The Church of the Holy Cross.  A memorial bears the inscription “Here rests the heart of Frederick Chopin.”

Pianos owned or associated with Chopin, including that used by him at London’s Guildhall now form part of the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands Park near Guildford, Surrey.  The collection contains thirty-seven historic keyboard instruments, twelve of which were actually owned or almost certainly played by famous composers.  They are all maintained in playing order and are used for concerts thus enabling musicians and audiences to hear the sound the composers would have heard.  Throughout this year the Chopin Society are giving a series of concerts entitled “In the Footsteps of Chopin.”  These are being held at venues associated with Chopin’s stay in London.  The final Gala Concert, supported by the Polish Cultural Institute, will be given at the London Guildhall where Chopin gave his last concert.  The piano to be used will be the Broadwood he played for most of his London Concerts.

Many pianists have established their careers playing Chopin.  The Frederic Chopin International Piano Competition, held in Warsaw, was established in 1927 and is one of the oldest and most prestigious music competitions in the world.  It is also among the small group of piano competitions dedicated to the performance of music by one composer.  Past prizewinners who have gained worldwide recognition include Vladimir Ashkenazy 1955, Maurizio Pollini 1960 and Martha Argerich 1965.  The last winner, in 2005, was Rafal Blechacz from Poland.  The third prizewinner in our own prestigious Leeds International Pianoforte Competition held last year was Alessandro Taverna from Italy who performed Chopin’s Concerto no. 1 in E minor.

Chopin’s popularity has never waned and his works are regularly performed in concert halls throughout the world.  In this the year which marks the two hundredth anniversary of Chopin’s birth it seems appropriate to remember the words that his friend and fellow composer Robert Schumann wrote when reviewing Chopin’s Variations Opus 2 –

“Hats off, gentlemen – a genius!”