You have to be a certain age to remember this.

Clue - do you remember the days when every bus had a conductor as well as a driver?

Before the days of ticket machines, the conductor carried a range of bus tickets which were kept in this wooden ticket holder. The strong clips held the tickets in place.

Most people either wouldn’t know this or have forgotten this. This object is a piece of history.

Some pieces of history die out like the ticket holder and others are created.

Interestingly, Harvest Festival has not always been a church festival. The Reverend Robert Hawker, a vicar at Morwenstow, Cornwall, introduced the idea of having a harvest festival in church in 1843, with hymns giving thanks for the bounty of the fields and orchards. Whilst many festivals of the church date back hundreds of years, Harvest has only been around for less than 200 years. Since then the Harvest Festival Service has spread throughout the church.

Harvest is a time to give thanks to God for the food we get from the land and from the sea and to give thanks for the pickers, packers and drivers who

produce the food we buy in our shops. Harvest is also a time to remember those who are less fortunate than ourselves, so we bring gifts of food which in Sheringham will go to the Food Bank.

In addition to this we are being invited to give money to Acts 435, a charity which supports people in need. Please do look at the display at the back of the church.

But let us return to the first reason for having a Harvest Festival to give thanks to God for his wonderful creation and let us pray that we may use his creation wisely.

Andrew SSL