# Lockdown 2.0 Sunday Pilgrimages All Saints' Day




In the normal course of things in the Coltishall Group of Parishes, All Saint's Sunday would be celebrated with  Holy Communion at All Saints, Horstead. Not so this year! Horstead Church has yet to open after #Lockdown 1.0.  So this year Horstead folk joined the saints across the River Bure at Coltishall for their 11 a.m. service.

Hot footing it from Coltishall,  we arrived in Horstead churchyard by 12.15 p.m.. The church sits on a slight rise above the river as it has done for 1000 years or so.

The rusting gates were given in memory of two saintly, pioneering Anglo-Catholic priests of the 19th Century, Lincoln Wainwright and Gamber Lowe. "For all the saints who from their labours rest" there's have been a fair few buried in this churchyard over the years.  On this All Saints day with half a mind to All Souls, we were here to pay our respects to family and Church family members who now worship on another shore. Among them



My in-laws, Bob and Kaye





My very first curate when I first came to be Rector of Horstead in the late 1970s - Herman Daniel Speakman -  Father Denis to one and all.  One time chaplain to the Recruiting Sergeant. He was a man who took his chaplaincy duties seriously rarely missing a visit at luch time! He wore a Cure D'ars hat whenever the weather was inclement.





Peggy and Noel - the organist - Chambers.  Peggy would have me point out they were cousins and in no way an item! Noel was faithful, willing to try his hand at the new fangled hymns that young Vicar kept on finding but hankered for the old days when the church had been full and the choir stalls overflowing.
For the patronal festival he'd have "For all the saints" and I'd have, "I sing a song of the saints of God." I expect there's a fenced off bit of the hereafter where they have nothing but the English Hymnal. That'd suit Noel, as well as Vyner Gilbert the former rector and friend of Vaughn Williams who taught Noel to play, not to mention  Frs. Denis, Wainwright, Gamber.

We had a happy half hour,  walking among the graves with fond memories -  Mrs. Grogan and Mrs. Pettit; Nora Lamb and Bubbles who used to babysit for our young kids. Then there was Mrs. Hall, her daughter Nora, a Reader in the Church had been at Coltishall earlier when we talked and remembered the lady who had been her Sunday School teacher.

Marjorie Kerrison, was fiecely pro Horstead and anti-Coltishall! What she would have made of the Horstead folk celebrating All Saints' in Coltishall church,  one can only guess  On one well remembered occassion, in a 1980s PCC meeting, when the possibility of joining with Coltishall was suggested, her considered opinion was, "Over my dead body!" You knew where you were with Majorie!  But, as you can see ,she too worships on another shore!
Also among the saints in the Horstead churchyard are a good crop of Salvationists who'd loved me as a Brother-in-Christ. The worship of the Church Triumphant will have some brass instruments and hearty singing that's for sure.

  







And by the hedge, I found Arthur Wright's stone. Arthur had been the funeral director for Norgates back in the day - a wise and helpful friend as I remember.


Arthur must have planted many of the dead in this churchyard. I hope he'll be there to see them rise from the dead at the end of time.










 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Day of the Rest of My Life

Image
 I have not posted much of late. I have been struggling. Between completing the pioneering work on a possible Withburga Way between Holkham and Dereham in the summer of 2022 and today my health has gone downhill in alarming way. I'll never walk the route in a couple of days, nor yet in 3.  I'll never walk it.  The rapid onset Pulmonary Fibrosis has left me struggling for breath putting my boots on let alone walking.  Yesterday, I went to St. Benet's Abbey , ate my picnic lunch in the car park and set myself the challenge of walking from the car park to the Abbey ruins. It is 0.35 miles and uphill all the way from from the Gate House to the old rugged cross that marks the site of the high altar at the summit. The hill looked quite daunting -  "Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?" I sang under by breath. Stopping often to catch my breath, slowly one foot in front of the other, I got closer to the summit. There before the cross, wind in my hair, it felt as if the b
Read more

North Elmham

Image
I’d come to North Elmham pursuing a mystery. Did the Bishops of Elmham from Bedwinus in the 7th century to Herfast in the 11th have their cathedral in Norfolk or  Suffolk?  North or South Elmham? I’d followed a circular walk I’d found in the  Norfolk Health Heritage and Conservations Walks  leaflet (You can get hold of one from Norfolk County Council or on-line at www.countrysideaccess.norfolk.gov.uk .)  It took me through parkland,  along quiet lanes and ended up at the parish church  (Well worth a visit in its own right!) My final destination was indicated by a brown tourist sign. Uncompromisingly it asserts “Saxon Cathedral”! But when you get to the ruins and read English Heritage’s helpful interpretation boards there’s no certainty at all.  What you see are earthworks and  ruins of a castle built by Henry Despencer,  the fighting Bishop of Norwich. He was famous for putting down the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. A man not without enemies, Henry had obviously felt the need of
Read more

Buckenham Rook Roost

Image
Beneath a winter sky the sun sinks slowly in the west . Wrapped against the cold -  and rapt by the beauty - I pondered on the generations before me who had stood and watched as day turned to night. Millions of sunsets and millions upon millions of the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve .  I found myself signing with the Psalmist: You appointed the moon to mark the seasons and the sun knows the time of its setting, You make darkness that it may be night in which the beasts of the forest creep forth (Psalm 104) Across the darkening marsh the whistles and murmuring of widgeon quietened, a thin mist rose and deer emerge from the woodland  to graze beneath a reddening sky.  All this was but the overture to the evening’s main event. I had come to see a wild life spectacular which is repeated every night during the winter period and the station platform was the grandstand from which to view it. From far and wide streamed “ in a countless host” each as black a clergyman’s cassock and eac
Read more