NEWSThe Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich has announced that ‘The Revd Josh Bailey, currently Priest in Charge of the benefice of Bungay, is now Rector of the benefice. He is to be instituted and inducted as Rector by the Archdeacon of Suffolk on Sunday 16th June’. Congratulations Josh!We are delighted that Fr Desmond Banister now has Permission to Officiate at Barsham and after Easter we will be welcoming him as celebrant on the third Sunday of the month. Due to his commitment to an earlier service elsewhere, the Sunday service on 21st April, 19thMay and 16th June will start at 11.15am. Congratulations to David Ulph on his Baptism and Confirmation on Sunday 17thMarch. David was one of three confirmands from the benefice. The service of Baptism and Confirmation was the final service celebrated at Barsham by the Right Revd Norman Banks, Bishop of Richborough before his retirement at Easter. We are most appreciative of the support he has given Holy Trinity Barsham, and we wish him a long and fulfilling retirement.On Mothering Sunday, 10th March, a beautiful display of polyanthus primroses was blessed during the processional hymn by The Revd Canon John Fellows, whose sermon included an explanation of the origins of Mothering Sunday. The flowers were later distributed to all members of the congregation in honour of the mothers present, and indeed all of our mothers. The APCM (Annual Parochial Church Meeting) and Annual Meeting of Parishioners will take place in the church at 2pm on Thursday 18th April. Anybody can attend and those entered on the Church Electoral Roll for this parish and those entered on the register of local government electors for this parish may vote at the election of parochial representatives of the laity (ie churchwardens, members of the PCC etc). If you cannot attend and would like copies of the audited financial statements, please contact Dominique (dominique.bacon@gmail.com).Holy Trinity Barsham has recently joined the Prayer Book Society, an organisation that seeks to defend and promote the use of the Book of Common Prayer. The Society holds a variety of branch and national events every year, including an annual conference, and publishes two regular high-quality magazines, The Prayer Book Today and the more scholarly Faith & Worship. These will be made available at the back of the church. You can find more detail at www.pbs.org.uk.Cheryl will be leading a walk around Barsham on Sunday 28th April with the Hempnall Walking Group, and she welcomes participation from members of the Barsham congregation. The walk will start at the church at 2pm and be roughly four miles in length, finishing back at the church for tea at 4pm. Dominique is currently investigating the possibility of installing swift boxes in the church belfry. Swifts are in decline, in part due to a lack of nesting sites. If anyone would like to learn more about the project or to offer funding, do talk to Dominique. One kind sponsor has already offered some funds, but more is needed.Thanks to David Miller of Grange Farm, Barsham for work he has done to clear the ditches across the Rectory paddock, the ditch below the east end of the churchyard and the culvert under the church drive. The greater frequency and intensity of rain lately had begun to cause flooding. The charity Christians Against Poverty is looking for people to train as ‘debt befrienders’ who can work alongside skilled ‘debt coaches’ to support people in debt. Anyone interested in helping should see Josh for further information. The sales table organised by Margaret raised a useful £100.00.Thank you for the 180 items donated to the Food Bank in February. We have been asked for now to focus our donations on toiletries and tinned food.The Passion of Christ is depicted in the eastern-most stained glass window of the side chapel at Barsham (front page picture), showing (left to right) Christ crowned with thorns, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. An Easter message from The Revd Josh“For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now also we may live new lives.” (Romans 6:4)Beautiful and broken. We’re surrounded by constant reminders of this stubborn fact of our existence. Our bodies don’t keep. Our work is frustrating as often as fulfilling. Our relationships can be heavenly and hellish. Even the greatest joys we experience are tinged with sadness.And Jesus enters into ALL of it. But even in his weak, decaying existence from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, He gives us whispers of another world. His connection with the creation as a sinless, blessed human is the stuff of our dreams. When he speaks to the wind, it listens. When he wants food for people, the creation just delivers it up at his request. When he’s stuck on the wrong side of a lake in a storm, he just walks to where he wants to go - and invites Peter to share in treading the waves. When confronted with dysfunction in human bodies and souls that has endured for decades, He calmly tells it to get lost - and it’s gone. Cells restructured. Minds made whole. Souls at peace and given joy where there was only darkness.All the time He’s pointing us to something our minds can barely grasp: defeat of the shadow that hangs over us. The spectre of meaninglessness cast over everything by death. The removal of the curse that has dogged the very ground we walk on.When Easter finally comes after that long Saturday, all our assumptions about our existence can be torn up and thrown away. There’s no more shrugging at suffering. The life that Jesus reveals in his physical, immortal body is unlike anything the universe has ever known before. A life made perfect BY death, rather than the half-life we know; always on the verge of being swallowed up by death. Jesus has faced down the monster that spoils everything and destroyed its power. Almost anything wonderful that we can imagine can happen now. And one day it will, because His tomb is empty. The life we rejoice in at Easter is our life. New. Immortal. Full of possibility. Giving suffering a purpose. Giving hope to anyone who knows they need it. Totally real! Almost too real for Jesus’ bewildered mourners to comprehend.I love Easter because I love the new life of Jesus. When pessimism and despair lurk in my mind, Jesus declares a different future. If Christ has been raised from the dead — AND HE HAS — my wildest hopes and longings are only the warm-up act for all the new creation will bring. And the chocolate’s nice too.APRIL DIARYSunday 7th April – Second Sunday of Easter. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Jonathan Olanczuk.Sunday 14th April – Third Sunday of Easter. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Canon John Fellows.Sunday 21st April – Fourth Sunday of Easter. 11.15am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Desmond Banister.Sunday 28th April – Fifth Sunday of Easter. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.Wednesdays at 8.45am – Matins at Barsham, but no Matins on 24th April. Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, robert.bacon@yahoo.co.uk
NEWSThe 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 PLANNINGThere 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 worldIn 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 tochart 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 DIARYSunday 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, robert.bacon@yahoo.co.uk
NEWSGlorious music, familiar Christmas readings and a full nave, beautified with elegant floral decorations and candle light, made for a magnificent Carol Service on 21st December. Sarah Emes released the magic with a beautifully rendered solo first verse of Once in Royal, before the choir processed under the spectacular, candle-lit candelabra to their stalls. The choir sang the anthem Still, Still, Still and led the singing splendidly, their descants rising majestically over the hearty singing of the congregation. Many thanks particularly to Sarah and to organist David Blunkell for the preparation of the music. After the service the draw took place for the two amazing hampers (filled by generous donations), and the delicious and beautifully decorated cake made by Jean Cooksley. This raised a record £315.00 for church funds. This memorable evening was rounded off with mulled wine, spiced apple juice, mince pies and hot sausage rolls. We were delighted to welcome the Very Revd Joe Hawes, Dean of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, to preside at Eucharist on Christmas Eve. Having travelled from windowsill to windowsill down the nave over the Christmas period, the figurines of the three Magi arrived at the crib in time for 6th January and Epiphany, the feast celebrating the visit of the Magi to the new-born Jesus, having been led by the star to Bethlehem. The event is depicted in stained glass in the left-hand window of the side chapel (see Snippets). New lighting will be fitted in the nave on 2nd February which, appropriately, is the day of Candlemas. These LED lamps will provide an improved quality of light and be more efficient in terms of electricity consumption and longevity. Funded from the sale of the Learner teddy bears, this project offers a neat symmetry since it was Mike Learner who installed the electrics after the fire of 1979. The visitors book contains 112 entries for the year 2023, representing 219 people (83 entries and 131 people in 2022), including groups such as the Hempnall Walking Group, the U3A, the Wensum Ramblers and a Salvation Army group from Chelmsford. Not all visitors sign, of course. Overseas visitors came from Finland, Canada, and four States of the USA (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Wisconsin and Florida). Closer to home, there were visitors from Northern Ireland, London and 17 English counties. Two thirds of entries were made by people from Norfolk and Suffolk, and a quarter of these were from Beccles. The rectors who went to such lengths to beautify this church in the later 19th and early 20th centuries would be gratified by the appreciative remarks of today’s visitors – adjectives springing from the pages of the visitors book include: ‘heavenly’, ‘divine’, ‘very special’, ‘beautiful’, ‘superb’, ‘delightful’, ‘splendid’, ‘stunning’, ‘amazing’, ‘wonderful’, ‘magnificent’. Many thanks for your donations towards post-service refreshments, which totalled £338.00 over the past year. Christmas card tree donations raised £125.00 for Water Aid. Food Bank donations in December amounted to 233 items. Amy reports that donations for the whole of the year 2023 amounted to 2,346 items – a very similar quantity to the previous year (2,352 in 2022). Many thanks to Amy for continuing to administer this service and to everyone who contributes. FORWARD PLANNINGThere will be a Service of Confirmation on Sunday 17th March celebrated by the Right Revd Norman Banks, Bishop of Richborough. SNIPPETS – Edward & Agnes Finlay: chapel benefactors When the present chapel of St Catherine was built in 1908 a number of benefactors provided the means for its beautification, including Colonel William Churchman (The Madonna Sewing) and the Revd Edward Bullock Finlay and his wife Agnes Maria Finlay, who are remembered in an inscription on the Epiphany window: In pious memory of Edward B Finlay, priest: who died at Salisbury January 13th 1896 and Agnes Maria his wife who died October 27th1908: wherefore may God propitiate their souls. Three items in the chapel are associated with the Finlays. The Epiphany window, the trompe d’oeil and an old oak reading desk, originally from the library of Merton College, Oxford and donated in 1896, the year Edward died. The trompe d’oeil was painted in 1909, the year after Agnes died, and the memorial window was installed in 1916, both paid for with a £50.00 Finlay gift, which may have been a legacy left by Agnes: the Rector, Allan Coates, was one of two people granted probate in December 1908 after Agnes died. Both the trompe d’oeil and the window were designed by Frederick Eden, designer of stained glass and church fittings, who specialized in Anglo-Catholic interior embellishments.The Finlays’ only link with Barsham appears to have been their connection with Allan Coates, and the nature of that connection remains obscure, though it is tempting to wonder if Edward Finlay was an Anglo-Catholic priest, like Coates. Only a sketchy record of Edward Finlay’s life remains. He graduated from Worcester College, Oxford in 1849 and next appears in the record as Second Master at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Dedham from 1853 to 1854. In the latter year he was ordained deacon, and priest in 1855 in the Diocese of Norwich. There followed a restless string of curacies, at Stratford St Mary (1854-1857), Frittenden, Kent (1857-1859), Gazeley with Kentford, near Newmarket (1859-1861) and Lavington, Sussex (1863-1864). His ministry then appears to come to a halt and he is described in the 1871 and 1881 census returns as ‘priest without cure of souls’, living respectively in Folkestone and Beaconsfield, and by 1891 he was living in Avebury, Wiltshire. I wonder if his wandering curacies and his apparently truncated ministry were the result of the persecution of Anglo-Catholic priests by the ecclesiastical and political establishments of the time. Edward’s wife Agnes was the daughter of an Indian woman recorded only as ‘Culoo’ and Gerald Wellesley (1790-1833), the East India Company Resident in the Indian State of Indore, whose own father was Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, Governor-General of India from 1798 to 1805. Gerald Wellesley had three children with Culoo, who was his mistress, but in 1830 he decided that he and his children would return to England. He travelled separately from his children, who were put in the care of guardians, given the name Fitzgerald and described as Wellesley’s ‘adopted children and protégés’. Culoo does not appear to have come to England, so perhaps she died or was simply abandoned in India by Wellesley, who himself died in 1833. By this time Agnes was only eight years old and was brought up by guardians, eventually marrying Edward Finlay in Dedham in 1856 at the age of 31. It seems Edward and Agnes did not have children. FEBRUARY DIARYSunday 4th February – Second Sunday before Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). RevdJonathan Olanczuk.Sunday 11th February – Sunday before Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.Wednesday 14th February – Ash Wednesday. 10am Holy Communion, Holy Trinity, Bungay. Revd Josh Bailey.7pm Holy Communion, All Saints, Mettingham. Sunday 18th February – First Sunday of Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.Sunday 25th February – Second Sunday of Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.No Service of Matins on Wednesday mornings in February. Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, robert.bacon@yahoo.co.uk
NEWSThe Christmas card tree in the side chapel is for those who wish to place on it a Christmas greeting to the whole church family, rather than sending individual cards. If you would like to make a charitable donation with the money thus saved, please use the box provided and the proceeds will be forwarded to WaterAid. Many thanks to Sarah Jane for organising this. After morning service on Sunday 10th December Sarah Jane was presented with a Christmas hamper by the PCC as a mark of its appreciation for the considerable initiative, effort and perseverance she has shown over the last two and a half years raising funds through the sale of the Learners’ legacy teddy bears. Sarah Jane added her thanks to Doreen Springall and Amy Hogan for their help in manning sales stalls at various events. There are now just 33 bears left from the original 1,300 and the cumulative total of legacy bear sales now stands at £3,108.00, which is a remarkable achievement. This money is to be spent on modernising and improving the church lighting: an appropriate use of these funds since it was Mike Learner who installed the electrics during the post-fire restoration work of 1979-1982. Many thanks to those who contributed items for the Christmas hamper, and to Jean Cooksley who made the Christmas cake. Both are to be raffled after the Service of Carols and Readings. Sunday collections in November amounted to £1,231.00. The sales table organised by Chris Bardsley raised a record-breaking £285.00, largely as a result of her highly desirable and beautiful festive greeting cards.Barsham PCC acknowledges with deep gratitude a very generous donation of £1,000.00. Many thanks also to Beccles Lions for funding the cost of love box carriage, which amounted to £429.00.Thank you for the144 items donated to the Foodbank in November, as always fully appreciated by the Revd Pam Bayliss and her team. As the calendar year comes to an end and a new one begins, the PCC would like to thankeveryone who has contributed to the life of our church through the year: in worship, at special events, in the upkeep and beautification of the church and churchyard, and in the support of charitable causes. By the same token, we should also acknowledge the commitment shown by members of the PCC in the essential and varied tasks that keep the church functioning.Best wishes for Christmas and a happy New Year!FORWARD PLANNINGThe Service of Carols & Readings will be on Thursday 21st December at 6.30pm.Mulled wine, mince pies and sausage rolls will be served after the service. The Revd Canon Philip Banks, Canon Precentor at St Edmundsbury Cathedral, will be our visiting celebrant and preacher at morning service on Sunday 24th December. There will be a service of Sung Eucharist at 10.30am on Christmas Day (no refreshments after the service).There will be no Wednesday morning services of Matins throughout the cold months of January and February. SNIPPETS – Christmas 1909 and the Madonna SewingThe large painting of the Madonna Sewing in the side chapel (photo, front cover) is eye-catching and frequently attracts the attention of visitors. It was a gift to the church from Colonel William Churchman (later Colonel Sir William Churchman, 1st Baronet, JP, DL) on Christmas Day 1909. Colonel Churchman spent most of his life in the Ipswich area and was Mayor of Ipswich in 1899/1900, but he lived for a brief period in Barsham as tenant of Ashmans Hall. He was a partner with his brother in the family tobacco firm of W A & A C Churchman, with branches in Ipswich and Norwich. In 1896 in the early days of ‘white cigarettes’, the firm installed one of the first cigarette-making machines, which could produce 20,000 cigarettes an hour, and Churchman’s No.1 became one of the most famous brands of the day.The side chapel was built in 1908, replacing an earlier one that had been demolished in 1785, and the Madonna Sewing was one of several gifts made at the time to furnish and beautify the new chapel. Thought to be early 19th century, the painting gifted by Colonel Churchman is a copy of a 17th century fresco in the Chapel of the Annunciation at the Quirinale Palace in Rome. It is the same size as the original, which is one part of a series of frescos around the walls of the chapel, depicting episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary, starting with the Archangel Gabriel’s announcement to her father Joachim, finishing with the Virgin meeting God the Father in heaven and featuring an altar piece portraying the Annunciation. The Chapel was built on the orders of Pope Paul V, who employed Guido Reni, one of the great masters of the time, to paint the frescos in 1610. The Chapel was dedicated to the devotion of the Virgin Mary. It was Paul V’s private – and secret – chapel, hidden behind a mirrored door in the Tapestries Room of the Quirinale, but was nonetheless one of the great repositories of artistic treasures of the age. The painting portrays a largely domestic scene, though the arches at top right (now only dimly visible) hint at a temple and Mary’s faith, and the two angels helping her in her sewing task point to her connection with God. The meaning of the scene is clarified by the inscriptions on the scrolls, which are in Italian on the original fresco in Rome, but in Latin on the Barsham copy. The first scroll translates as, ‘He who calls her, called her from the beginning’ and refers to the divine plan of predestination for Mary as the Mother of Christ. The second scroll quotes part of a verse from Isaiah and refers to Mary’s Immaculate Conception: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son’. Originally a papal palace, the Quirinale later became the residence of the King of Italy, and since 1946 it has been the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic. These days it is open to the public and it is possible to visit the chapel.January DiarySunday 31st December – First Sunday after Christmas. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.Sunday 7th January – First Sunday of Epiphany. Baptism of Christ. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Jonathan Olanczuk.Sunday 14th January – Second Sunday of Epiphany. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Canon John Fellows.Sunday 21st January – Third Sunday of Epiphany. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.Sunday 28th January – Candlemas. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Josh Bailey.Sunday 4th February – Second Sunday before Lent. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). RevdJonathan Olanczuk.No Service of Matins on Wednesday mornings in January and February. Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, robert.bacon@yahoo.co.uk
