Carry On, Brave NationA single bell tolls the depth of our loss,as we are drawn to silent prayer,A moment of remembrance, respect and reflection.A chime echoes our mourning,Counting the heartbeats as we stand apart and as one.A chime that binds us together,As we keep watch at cold memorialsOr pause in our work to pray.Beyond the fading bell,The ocean waves thrash against the cliffs.A van rolls by, a siren wails,Squeals of laughter rise up,As children return to play.Carry on brave nation and let us not forget video featuring Ryhope Choir can be viewed on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DtuCPzhFeoM?si=cUWILHrE9g397h9H
Today marks 100 years since the war memorial was installed at Ryhope village green. The memorial takes the form of a Doric Cross, in grey Cornish granite, standing over thirty feet in height on stepped bases of octagonal form. The bronze tablets, which are all cut and hand worked by London craftsmen, carry the names of all regiments or units with their badges and names. It was unveiled on Saturday, October 11th 1924.The inscription on the base reads:To the Glory of God, and in honoured memory of those who at the call of King and Country left all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger, and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of self-sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom.Let their names be not forgotten.------------------------ Information and images of the War Memorial are from the book:St Paul’s Church Ryhope, Sunderland: A Sesquicentenary History 1870-2020 by Dr Robert Barry Shepherd.
Moments of Inspiration A brief story of Polycarp.He was a follower of John and knew Paul, he was Bishop of Smyrna. He was a humble man not very learned. His knowledge of the scriptures was not as good as some, but his belief was unshakable. He was martyred in AD 155. He preached that to deny Christ had come in the flesh is to be the antichrist, to deny the evidenced of the cross was to be of the Devil. To say there is no resurrection or judgement is to be the son of Satan. His whereabouts was revealed by a houseboy who had been tortured. When he was brought before the governor, he was asked to swear to the luck of causer to save himself. However, he replied was that he could not blaspheme his King and Saviour. His final prayer was to bless God for giving him this day and hour that he may be numbered among the martyred and rise again, to everlasting life. As his prayer ended, they lit the fire, but it formed the shape of a hollow chamber around him. He was like a loaf of bread baking in the oven. When they saw that his body would not be destroyed, they stabbed him as they did, a dove and blood gushed out and put out the flames. Polycarp’s bravery and complete faith has filled me with wonder and awe. It is amazing that he had such faith and trust in the Lord. I pray that l might be as brave if l were persecuted or had to face death for my faith. Mission to India A while ago l partnered myself with Mission to India. Their aim to save souls. Their faith once they accept Jesus as their saviour is amazing. One occasion comes to mind. A Christian man’s son was murdered, his killer was sent to jail. Because of this his family were left without their breadwinner. Eventually they were so desperate they came to the village and threw themselves on the mercy of the man whose son had been killed. Instead of condemning them, they took them in and cared for them. The killer heard of this and requested to see them and thank them. Eventually he himself became a Christian. When he was released, he came to the village. Knelt before the man and the whole village and confessed his guilt and also gave testimony to the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. How many of us would show that kind of love and forgiveness? Mission to India has set up bible schools, where children as young as six are saved from hard slave labour and forced marriage. They also help their families and teach them a better way of life in Jesus. The girls receive education as girls are not allowed to be educated in India if of a lower cast. The bible schools help many and bring them to Christ. This is only the beginning of their journey as they will be persecuted by both Muslims and Hindus. They also have people called planters who are sent out to set up new churches much as the early Christians did after the rising up to heaven of our Lord Jesus Christ. They are spreading the gospel to India. They need our prayers and any help we are able to give them. Praise God for all they do in his name. For more information please visit: https://missionindia.org.uk/ By June Davis
At the end of August popular Ryhopean author Glenda Young visited St Paul’s S.H.O.P. and generously donated sixty of her books in honour of her 60th birthday that week. I spoke to her afterwards. Why did you choose to write about Ryhope in particular? When I first got a literary agent she said my novels will need a strong sense of place. I thought I can only write about Sunderland as it’s all I know but then I thought I’d narrow it down and thought about Ryhope - I started looking at the history of Ryhope and how productive it was with two different sets of people, the miners and the farmers, and I thought that is perfect, almost like a soap opera setting with the village and the mine. I thought I’d concentrate on the lives of the women especially. There were so many pubs back then too. It was shop, pub, shop, pub along the street. I researched the history of the pubs going back to when they opened in the 1860s, to service the pit and miners. During the World Wars the names above the door were women. The men were away and the women ran the pubs. They would not shrink from violence which you could get in pubs - they’d really have to have something about them. You said it was like a soap opera and you are a big fan of Coronation Street. Do you have an affinity to those sort of stories? I do yes. Before I wrote novels, I wrote books about characters in Coronation Street. I realised then I really wanted to create my own fiction and strong women especially. I started my short stories then my novels. It has all come from Ena Sharples! My books are very soapy. They are very dramatic, there are cliff-hangers and the women drive the stories. The books are very much rooted in Ryhope’s history. Like a short miner’s strike in 1921 which I have included in one book. Most are set in the pubs. The Guide Post and the Albion feature in The Paper mill girl and Belle of the Back Streets. The family live in the Guide Post but work at Hendon paper mill. It takes a couple of months to pull all the research together. I love it - that’s my favourite part of the whole thing. Why did you choose that time period? Many books are set around World War Two but in Ryhope industry like mining was at its peak around the First World War and life was a lot different like there were no indoor lights and outside toilets. There is potential for more drama. There weren’t really cars - if you had a car you were well off. There are class wars in my novels and of course the women always come out on top. I focus on women’s stories as it’s women’s fiction but there are some great men in them too. At that time a lot of men were away fighting although coal mining was a protected profession, so the miners didn’t have to leave to go to war. Women were keeping Ryhope running. They looked after the miners and farmers, had coal fires burning 24/7 to get water boiled to wash the miners and feed the family. Everything was on the women. What career did you have before writing? I worked in universities in admin and really enjoyed it making great friends and working for some amazing people. I worked down in London at UCL for ten years. But all of the time I was writing in my spare time. It was my dream. But then I turned 50 and didn’t realise what it was at the time, but it turned out to be the menopause - I was making silly mistakes at work I’d have never made before and younger girls in the office were not very supportive. Hopefully things are a bit better nowadays. Nobody tells you what it will be like. Ultimately it led to me leaving work. It was horrible and a shock and I thought I’d just be on sick leave for a few days, but I never went back. I thought I have to do something, and I had always wanted to write. I was already writing for Coronation Street so knew I could do it. I went to the library and took a book out called “How to write and sell short stories”. I followed it to the letter, and it was amazing. I sent the author a bouquet of flowers it was so good. I started sending stories off to women’s magazines and they started taking them and paying for them. But it was a real learning curve writing different stories for different magazines finding out if they wanted fast and pacy with young people or older and slower. Then People’s Friend magazine, the world’s longest running women’s magazine, got in touch. They said the readers love your stories and they love the Coronation Street connection, so they offered me a weekly soap opera, Riverside, for the magazine. That was 2016 and today is episode 400, coinciding with my 60th birthday. Riverside is how I got an agent. I sent it to her and said it’ll be a good novel and she disagreed because there’s a cliff-hanger after every thousand words. But she loved the style and said it’d lend itself well to an historical saga. I didn’t know anything about them at that time. I hadn’t read Catherine Cookson or anything like that at all. When Covid and lockdown hit I had to turn to crime - cosy crime novels! I set them in Scarborough because it’s my happy place. I wrote it as a comedy novel really with a murder to solve. But the publisher loved it and asked for a series, so I have been alternating between historical and cosy crime and now I’ve decided to do a book set in the toffee factory in Chester le Street. This is the first in a trilogy. I may return to writing books about Ryhope in the future but now I’ve travelled wider with my stories I’m interested in that. There are references to characters in the Ryhope books though.Is this your dream job? Definitely. I’m living the dream. Growing up in Ryhope in the 1970s I used to spend a lot of time in the library up the bank. I loved Agatha Christie and Famous Five. Any excuse to go to the library. There were no opportunities back then. I stuck at writing in school and loved English. When you love something, you become good at it. I still can’t do maths, but I loved writing. I left school at 15, worked until my mid 30s and then went to Sunderland university to do a degree in journalism as a very mature student. I only did that course because there was a creative writing module in the second year. It taught me the discipline of writing. Have you had help from the church and community with research? Reverend Chadwick has been a great help researching the history the village. I was at a christening and talked to him afterwards. I told him I was researching a novel set in World War One and he asked if I had heard of Canon Knight and invited me to the vicarage to tell me all about him. He lent me a book about him too. Canon Knight was a complete maverick, but he wanted to bring the two sides of Ryhope, miners and farmers, together. He saw some miners walking by one day and called to them that he hadn’t seen them in church a while. One miner replied that he had more chance of knocking him out than getting him in church on Sunday. So, Canon Knight knocked him out. The canon also got involved in trying to break up a fight which led to him leading the following Sunday service with a black eye. I’ve included a vicar in my books called Reverend Daye as a nod to him. My book Pearl of Pit Lane is about a girl escaping the pressure to work selling her body on the streets. I asked Reverend Chadwick if I could see the places a young girl may have gone to hide in the church when running away from home. He said he sometimes used them to hide himself! He showed me the children’s corner which may have been comforting to her but also let me up inside the bell tower as she may hide there. I could then write about the cold and the smells there were there but ultimately how comforting it was inside the church. He put me in touch with the man who wrote the history of St Paul’s church, Rob Shepherd. He helped with a lot of the books especially the information about the paper mills. For heritage open days I do a walk around my book locations in Ryhope. I made sure they coincided with the MacMillan coffee mornings in the church so people can go into the church and have a look around while it is open and in use. St Paul’s church is a real focal point of the village as well as my books. I love coming to the church fayres and seeing a lot of people who knew my mum and dad. I love the fayres at St Paul’s the most. I make sure it’s there in my diary as a priority. It really means a lot. My dad died before all of this, so he doesn’t know about my books and my mum is in a care home so doesn’t know anything about them either. So, people who knew them say how proud they would be of you. You just need to hear that sometimes. Sadly, since this interview Glenda’s mother has passed away. The Ryhope Views team send their condolences to Glenda and her family at this sad time. Find out more about Glenda at her website: www.glendayoungbooks.com Or follow her on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/GlendaYoungAuthor
