NEWS
At Harvest Festival Evensong on the 2nd October we were delighted to welcome as our preacher the Rev Martin Bailey, father of our own Rev Josh. The church was looking beautiful, thanks to the flower arrangers, who excelled as always in creating spectacular displays of seasonal flowers (front cover) in addition to Colin and Margaret’s Turk’s turban squashes and their fantastic ornamental gourds. This year we were invited to bring tins of food for the Beccles Food Bank and these were duly blessed and subsequently dispatched.
Harvest Supper that evening at the village hall was another welcome and successful collaboration between Barsham church and village hall. It was attended by 45 guests, who enjoyed excellent company and a choice of magnificent dishes. Huge thanks to all those who prepared the delicious food and provided the drinks, and those who decorated and laid the tables so beautifully and, likewise, to those who washed up and cleaned the following morning.
On Wednesday 12th October the U3A History Walking Group enjoyed one of Barsham’s celebrated church teas, kindly provided by the ladies of the church. The U3A group had spent the afternoon looking at aspects of past and present landscape use, exploring evidence for the continuity of settlement in Barsham from the Mesolithic through the Bronze Age, Iron Age, the Roman period, and the Middle Ages up to modern times; and then hearing a little about the history of Barsham Hall and some of its former owners.
Our congregation donated 143 items to the Foodbank in September and the generous gifts given at Harvest Festival on 2nd October will be reported in the next edition of the Newsletter. Warmest thanks to all who continue to support this vital service at a time when more people are struggling in the current economic climate. The Waveney Foodbank website says the most needed items at present are UHT fruit juice and instant mash, though other foods are equally welcome.
Collections at Sunday services in September amounted to £1,163 and the sales tableorganised by Jenny raised a splendid £110.
Thanks to the efforts of those who gamely took part, the total raised through Ride and Stride was £869, to be shared equally between the Suffolk Historic Churches Trust and Barsham. The Harvest Supper yielded £525, and the tea provided for the U3A history walkers brought in a further £80.
FORWARD PLANNING
Barsham Village Hall Curry Night, 29th October at 7pm in the village hall. All are welcome and tickets are available from Carol and Zane Blanchard (01502 711394, [email protected])
Service of Remembrance at the Village Hall, Friday 11th November. The hall will be open from 10.30am and the service will start at 10.50am, with the Last Post, two-minute silence and Reveille starting at 11am. Wreaths will be laid at the village war memorial outside and the names of Barsham’s First World War dead will be called (there were none in the Second World War), as will the names of the American airmen killed when their aircraft was shot down at Barsham in 1944 (see below).
Marking Remembrance-tide, on Saturday 12th November at 7.30pm in St Michael’s Church, Beccles the Beccles Choral Society with the Kingfisher Sinfonietta will be performing The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Karl Jenkins. The programme also includes George Butterworth’s The Banks of Green Willow and war poems read by Paul Heiney. Butterworth, who wrote his Idyll The Banks of Green Willow in 1913, was killed in action three years later in the Battle of the Somme. Tickets for the concert cost £20 each and are available through Cheryl ([email protected]) and Beccles Bookshop.
The second Barsham Church Light Show will take place on Friday 18th and Saturday 19th November from 5.30 to 8.00pm. Free of charge, this art installation exhibition by artist William Lindley is a repeating display of digital artwork projections inside the church and includes projection of historic photographs of the local area. Do drop in at any time between 5.30 and 8.00pm. All ages, no booking and no tickets required, donations appreciated. Ample parking. Refreshments available. Holy Trinity Church, Barsham, Suffolk, NR34 8HA.
SNIPPETS - The Barsham B-24 Liberator and a new American Connection
With Remembrance Day approaching, readers will, I am sure, remember the story of the American B-24 Liberator aircraft that fell to earth just opposite the village hall on the night of 22nd April 1944, killing seven members of the crew, just 12 days after flying their first mission. The aircraft was returning to its base at Rackheath, near Norwich after a raid on Hamm in Germany when it was attacked and shot down by one or possibly two German Me 410 intruders. That night the intruders
destroyed 14 returning USAAF Liberators with the loss of 60 airmen (for further reading see Night of the Intruders by Ian MacLachlan, published by Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1994, ISBN 1 85260450 6). Thanks to the efforts of former church warden Denis Sporle, the crew of the Barsham B-24 are commemorated at the war memorial beside the village hall, and they will be remembered by name at the Remembrance Day service.
I mention this because I was contacted earlier this year by Professor Al Claiborne, who is related through his mother to the wife of 2nd Lt Glen Ferguson, the aircraft’s navigator. Ferguson and his wife Helen had married just three weeks before he was deployed to England and three months before he was killed at Barsham. Now retired, Al has been involved in a good deal of historical research, including the stories of several relatives who came to England with the USAAF in the Second World War. He lives in North Carolina, where he was for 22 years Professor of Biochemistry at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. To further his research and add colour to his understanding of events, he has suggested that he might make a trip to England and to Barsham next year – in which case I am sure we shall have the opportunity of meeting him.
NOVEMBER DIARY
Sunday 30th October – All Saints. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Josh Bailey.
Sunday 30th October – All Saints. 6.30pm Benefice Choral Evensong, Holy Trinity, Bungay. Rev Josh Bailey.
Sunday 6th November – Third Sunday before Advent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). RevJonathan Olanczuk.
Sunday 13th November – Second Sunday before Advent. Remembrance Sunday. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Priest TBC.
Sunday 20th November – Christ the King. Safeguarding Sunday. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Josh Bailey.
Sunday 27th November – First Sunday of Advent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Rev Josh Bailey.
Every Wednesday at 8.45am – Matins at Barsham
Every Wednesday at 10am – Holy Communion (CW) at Holy Trinity, Bungay.
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, [email protected]