Toilets play a surprisingly essential role in the life of St Mary's.  One of our biggest events each year happens when we open up our church hall to host supporters of London Marathon.  There is always much gratitude for the refreshments and a warm place to sit and rest for a while, but the lions share of gratitude is directed towards our provision of toilet facilities, which provide great relief!

However, as with many an older building, it can be a struggle to keep the toilets fully functioning, and it is a lesser known part of our incumbent's duties to be ready with a plunger or to lever up the manhole covers outside the hall to remove blockages.

Bearing all of this in mind, we are still immensely grateful that we are fortunate enough to live in a country with a (generally) excellent sanitation system.  

In the knowledge that many others are not so lucky, this year we set out with our Lent appeal to raise money to twin the toilets in our church hall with a toilet in the developing world.  We were able to raise enough to twin all of our toilets and to make a donation on top of that, donating £500 to Tearfund. The certificate confirming that our toilets are now twinned with a toilet in Cote d'Ivoire has been hung proudly on the wall beside the toilets for all to see.