NEWS
The Revd Dimitri Theulings has been appointed Rector of Beccles with Worlingham, North Cove & Barnby. He will be licensed by the Right Revd Dr Mike Harrison, Bishop of Dunwich, on Monday 22nd April at St Michael's. Revd Dimitri is currently Assistant Curate at Ipswich St Matthew with Triangle & All Saints.
On Candlemas Sunday candles were held by all for the singing of the Candlemas hymn and the service closed with the reciting of the Candlemas Responsery.
The new LED lighting in the nave is now installed, along with LED bulbs fitted in the chancel spotlights. Many thanks to Malcolm for taking the initiative on this project and for overseeing its implementation.
The Spring Equinox is on Wednesday 20th March and, weather permitting, the illumination of the rood will be visible on the 19th, 20th and 21st March at about 5.15pm. The event will be informal this year: no formal talk and no refreshments, but people are more than welcome to come and experience the event for themselves.
The January sales table, furnished with delicious home produce and plants, was organised by Sarah Jane and raised a very useful £100.00. At the time of writing, August and November in the current year are in need of sales table organisers. If you can help, please add your name to the list at the back of the church.
172 items were donated to the Food Bank in January. As well as thanking us for our donations, the Revd Pam Bayliss has written to say the Food Bank would be particularly grateful for: small tins of meat, tins of hotdogs, tinned fish, tins of baked beans, and baked beans with sausages, long life fruit juice, shampoo and plastic bags.
The refugee charity Care4Calais (care4calais.org), has asked for help with donations to support their work. Items needed are men’s hoodies, T-shirts, joggers and jeans, men’s coats and jackets, new underwear and socks (for men, women & children), men’s toiletries, and backpacks. The nearest drop-off point for donations is 4A Bardolph Road, Bungay, and items can be dropped there on Mondays only from 10am to 11am and 4pm to 5pm, or leave them in the front porch 10am-5pm.
FORWARD PLANNING
There will be a Service of Baptism and Confirmation on Sunday 17th March at which David Ulph of our congregation will be baptised and confirmed. The Right Revd Norman Banks, Bishop of Richborough, will be the celebrant, visiting us for the final time before his retirement at Easter. We are most appreciative of the support he has given Holy Trinity Barsham & we wish him a long and fulfilling retirement.
SNIPPETS – Barsham connections in a wider world
In November I was contacted by a history researcher in Canada, wanting to know if there is a monument to Captain Maurice Suckling RN in Holy Trinity, Barsham. The principal subject of his research, he told me, was Captain James Cook RN, but he had become interested in Maurice Suckling (1725-1778) because the latter was Comptroller of the Navy (from 1775 to 1778) at the time of Cook's later voyages of discovery. The Comptroller of the Navy was the head of the Navy Board, responsible for all warship construction and upkeep as well as dockyards, and was therefore a vital sponsor in the preparation and support of Cook’s voyages. On his voyage of 1776-1779, Cook charted for the first time almost the entire north-west coastline of North America and, searching for the North-West Passage in 1778, he sailed through the Bering Strait and established the extent of Alaska. Cook named a feature on the Alaskan coastline ‘Cape Suckling’ in honour of Maurice. The Suckling Hills, some two miles inland, take their name from the Cape.
Maurice was born at Barsham Rectory, the son of the Revd Dr Maurice Suckling DD and his wife Anne. As well as his responsibilities at the Admiralty, Maurice was briefly MP for Portsmouth, but earlier in his career he had distinguished himself in the Seven Years War as captain of a warship. He was the patron of the young Horatio Nelson, his nephew, overseeing his early experience in the Royal Navy and enabling his early promotion. The burial register indicates that Captain Maurice was buried with his parents in the chancel at Barsham, but unlike his parents and his brother William, he has no ledger stone. He is, however, commemorated on the Trafalgar window, installed in the nave in 1905, 127 years after his death.
There is a second Cape Suckling, this one on the coast of Central Province, Papua New Guinea, and also a Mount Suckling, the highest peak of the Goropu Mountains in the Owen Stanley Range of south-east Papua New Guinea. At 3,676m (12,060ft), Mount Suckling is not especially high, but it is sufficiently inaccessible that it wasn’t explored or climbed by westerners until the 1970s.
This Cape Suckling and Mount Suckling were named in 1849 for a Barsham-born naval officer of a different generation, Captain Robert William Suckling RN (1810-1881). On a voyage of 1846-1850 he served as First Lieutenant on the Royal Navy survey ship HMS Rattlesnake under Captain Owen Stanley RN. Their mission was to
chart a safe passage through the Great Barrier Reef and the gap between the northern tip of Australia and Papua New Guinea, the goal being to open up the new antipodean colonies to the East Indies trade. Rattlesnake’s naturalists and marine artists created some of the earliest depictions of Papua New Guinea.
Like Captain Maurice, Robert William Suckling was born in the Rectory at Barsham (the son of the Revd Horace Suckling and his wife Catherine) and like Maurice, his only memorial here is in stained glass – the Trafalgar window, commemorating two men who went out from this place and left their mark on a wider world.
MARCH DIARY
Sunday 3rd March – Third Sunday in Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Jonathan Olanczuk.
Sunday 10th March – Fourth Sunday in Lent. Mothering Sunday. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP) with distribution of flowers. Revd Canon John Fellows.
Sunday 17th March – Passion Sunday. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP) with Service of Baptism & Confirmation. The Right Revd Norman Banks, Bishop of Richborough & Revd Josh Bailey.
Sunday 24th March – Palm Sunday. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.
Thursday 28th March – Maundy Thursday. 7.30pm at Holy Trinity Bungay, Holy Communion with Footwashing.
Friday 29th March – Good Friday.
10.30am Walk of witness in Bungay, starting at Emmanuel Church.
12 noon at Holy Trinity Bungay, 6th hour service of prayer & meditation.
2pm at Holy Trinity Barsham, 9th hour service of prayer & meditation.
Saturday 30th March – 9pm Easter Compline & Vigil, Holy Trinity Bungay.
Sunday 31st March – Easter Sunday.
6am Sunrise Service, Outney Common, Bungay.
11am Sung Eucharist, Holy Trinity Barsham (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.
Wednesdays at 8.45am – Matins at Barsham.
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, [email protected]