Blog

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Handel's Messiah

The performance of Handel’s Messiah last Saturday evening in St Mary’s Church is undoubtably going to remain memorable for many of the people there, if the reaction over the days since is anything to go by. The Purbeck Arts Choir and Orche…
Friday, December 7, 2018

A Very Special Christingle Service

Yesterday (Thursday) twenty-five children, from St Mark’s Church of England Primary School in Swanage, travelled with staff and parents to Salisbury Cathedral for a very special Christingle service. They were with pupils from church school…
Tuesday, December 4, 2018

An Advent Session of Children's Activity

Last Saturday, in preparation for the beginning of Advent, children and their parents descended on St Mary’s Church for a special session of Explore. They made Advent Calendars, cunningly designed from egg-boxes, made cards and bit by bit …
Friday, November 30, 2018

Advent Calendars

St Andrew’s Day and almost Advent; the Studland Churchyard shed, demolished by a fallen tree in a recent storm, is to be replaced today, and it is the calm before a storm of a different kind, as clogged diaries herald a busy few weeks ahead…
Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Marking time.

There is a decidedly damp feel to today, and it seems to have been almost dark from early afternoon, but we are in late November….. Just a few days now until the beginning of Advent, and the time draws on to Advent calendars, candles and…
Friday, November 23, 2018

Lucy Menzies 1882-1954

At morning prayer in St Mary’s we are in the habit of reading a little of the person being commemorated that day. Everyone there always seems to enjoy this delve into the Church’s past, and a reminder of the saints and martyrs through hist…
Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Feeling "through-other"

There is a commonly used Ulster expression or, better, I suppose, compound word, which is spoken across the community, as someone is described as ‘through-other’. It means looking a bit disheveled in physical appearance, and/or a little di…
Friday, November 16, 2018

The rectory garden turns towards winter

The garden is starting to look a little sorry for itself with most of the leaves down and the now limp summer growth hanging onto the herbaceous plants like a sodden blanket. There is work to do and, if the weather is kind, over the next f…
Tuesday, November 13, 2018

A tree falls

The high winds last week brought a change over just a few days to the look of the countryside, as millions of leaves were blown off the trees and have settled in corners and gutters, drifted in through our front doors and the entrances to t…
Friday, November 9, 2018

Young People of Swanage Remember

Today the children and young people of the schools of Swanage made their particular Act of Remembrance and walked from St Mary’s Church to the War Memorial. In the church, three year nine pupils from The Swanage School read poetry that the…
Tuesday, November 6, 2018

War, Faith and Reconciliation

Tomorrow there is to be an important 6th Form Conference to be held in Salisbury Cathedral. It is linked by date to these days of Remembrance leading up to Sunday’s commemoration of those who lost their lives in conflict, and the centenary…
Friday, November 2, 2018

99 Poppies

99 Metal Poppies Yesterday morning 99 metal poppies were installed in the grounds of St Mary’s Church. They have been made individually, from donated steel, at the Veterans’ Forge at Knitson, and then painted. The installation has take…
Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Home, Memory and Remembrance

In the autumn issue of The Poetry Review, the Journal of the Poetry Society, the editorial lays out the theme, which is the concept of ‘home’. This is not just a complex thought to which poets often return, but a matter of great importance…
Saturday, October 27, 2018

Gridlock

One of the joys of living in Swanage is that most things are in walking distance from St Mary’s Church, beside which we live. But having just driven back from London, I am reminded that most people are faced with some form of transport - c…
Tuesday, October 23, 2018

A lovely autumn day

This morning, walking over to All Saints’ Church for Morning Prayer, I passed a number of people with cameras looking out to sea, enjoying the sight of the light on the water. The sun was rising behind thin layers of distant cloud, but all…
Friday, October 19, 2018

Judith

Tomorrow, at Morning Prayer, we conclude our reading of the Second Book of Kings that has been on the daily lectionary menu for the past three weeks. It has many difficult names for readers to trip over at 8.00 a.m. and some wonderful mome…
Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Preparing for Remembrance

Helen is still picking runner beans and the brambly apples are continuing to fall, whether the wind blows or not, though they are nearly all down now. I weighed one a couple of days ago and it was 1lb 2oz - which I think is the record for …
Friday, October 12, 2018

Fanny Alexander

It was on this day in 1895 that Cecil Frances (Fanny) Alexander died, writer of “All things bright and beautiful” and other popular hymns including “There is a green hill far away” and “Once in royal David’s city”. She wrote “All things br…
Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Remembering Thomas Traherne

The weather has been beautiful in Swanage and the garden is crying out for attention, but much of it will have to wait, though we are enjoying the last few tomatoes, runner beans, courgettes and roses as well as the cyclamen and dahlias. T…
Friday, October 5, 2018

Remembering a famous climb

Two hundred years ago on Sunday, 7th October 1818, the diarist and poet Dorothy Wordsworth, sister to fellow poet William Wordsworth, with a friend, Mary Barker climbed England's highest peak Scafell Pike. Dorothy was 46 at the time and Ma…
Tuesday, October 2, 2018

“Another thought on Harvest Thanksgiving”

I am excited about the thought that the “Come and Sing” Choral Evensong in St Mary’s for October is on Harvest Festival Sunday, and we have the prospect of a large number of singers for all the wonderful and popular harvest music.
Friday, September 28, 2018

Approaching Harvest Festival

Approaching Harvest Festival brings a warm kind of feeling, doesn’t it? Is it the mellowness, or the colours changing, or the readiness to see completion and achievement?
Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Random Acts of Kindness...

I missed last Tuesday’s All Things Bright and Beautiful because I was unwell, and, suffering from a tummy bug, I was not going to go near a gathering in Church. I have to say I was feeling neither bright nor beautiful! Thank you Anthony f…
Friday, September 21, 2018

Canon Peter Burtwell's 60th Anniversary...

Thinking about Peter Burtwell’s 60th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood today made me do a little research as to where his priesting happened:
Tuesday, September 18, 2018

The autumn rectory garden

The rectory garden is in one of its transitional phases as the tomatoes are gathered - most of them green now - for ripening on shelves in the utility room - though, as Helen says, there is always green tomato chutney to be made. As for th…
Friday, September 14, 2018

School class assemblies at St Mark’s Church

Yesterday began what we hope will be a regular Thursday morning assembly from St Mark’s School in the Church. Year 3 arrived at 11.00 a.m. and had their opening act of worship, thinking of generosity and how it is expressed or withheld. T…
Tuesday, September 11, 2018

'Ride and Stride' and the Swanage Folk Festival

Saturday morning, last weekend and Helen and I were leaving the rectory to see how many churches we could visit in the day, supporting the Dorset Historic Churches Trust. We began with St Mary’s and Swanage Methodist, both of which were ta…
Friday, September 7, 2018

Early Autumn at Anvil Point

A book that I was given on leaving Belfast a year ago is Portrait of Dorset by Ralph Wightman. The author died almost fifty years ago and had been well-known as a broadcaster with the BBC from the late 1930s and as a writer on the countrys…
Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Anniversaries

Anniversaries have a deep hold on many of us. Memories both sad and happy flood back when a date appears on the calendar that is of significance. One way or another we mark them publicly, or silently remember, quietly alone. In the past w…
Friday, August 31, 2018

A day of music and sunshine

The Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival 2018 is well underway and two events have taken place in the churches of the Swanage and Studland Team today. This morning, in St Nicholas’ Studland, there was a most interesting concert, de…
Tuesday, August 28, 2018

One memory to another....

A few spikes of Autumn Lady’s-tresses orchids have appeared in the grass in St Mary’s churchyard, not for the first time, I gather. It is mysterious isn’t is how after such a long dry spell earlier in the summer, through mowing, and the gr…
Friday, August 24, 2018

Time, contrasts, life.

A gorgeous autumn-feeling dawn this morning belies the fact that there is light rain spreading from the north-west today, “by lunchtime” if one is to believe the voice of Radio 4. There are quite a few visitors in Swanage gathering for the…
Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Lifeboat Week

The twenty-first of August - and eleven months in post now - I am still experiencing annual events for the first time. Last week it was Lifeboat Week, concluding, as it does, with the Lifeboat service, this year held at the Lifeboat statio…
Friday, August 17, 2018

Newly hatched!

The Mill Pond is only a few yards from the Rectory front door and at one time it could have been seen from the gate, but the weeping willow, enjoying having its roots firmly placed where it has them, at the upper end of the pond, is very la…
Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Only a bus-ride away...

Last Saturday, taking a day off, Helen and I took the number 50 bus, the Purbeck Breezer, said by some to be the finest bus-route in England, via the Sandbanks ferry to touch the edge of Poole and onwards to central Bournemouth. It is an h…
Friday, August 10, 2018

The Spreading Flame

The Epistle to the Hebrews popped up twice for me yesterday. Not amidst the lectionary readings but from two books that I was dipping into. The first was by way of a throwback to the 1970s when, as I was studying for a primary degree in div…
Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Goings and Comings

This the fiftieth blog on this website comes with a thought or two of how the summer is unfolding here in Swanage. Carnival week is over; in fact it ended with fireworks on Saturday evening, which, this time, we watched from the rectory ga…
Friday, August 3, 2018

Beholding and Reflecting

Carnival Week in Swanage, we had been told by everyone, was like no other few days of the year in the town, and so it is proving to be. On Wednesday evening just past, Helen and I were invited, very kindly indeed, to view the midweek firew…
Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Swanage Carnival

Last Sunday the weather caused the Carnival Praise Churches Together service to be moved from the open air into All Saints’ Church, but the forecast was that the rain would ease in the afternoon, which it did. So the Swanage Carnival Proce…
Thursday, July 26, 2018

Beans climb high as the drought persists

The on-going lack of rain is starting to have that habitual sense of security that comes with never needing to think of taking a waterproof on a walk. And, so, a few rumbles of thunder late afternoon yesterday, an arc of rainbow over the s…
Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Pimms and Hymns

Helen and I eschewed Choral Evensong at St Mary’s last Sunday and walked over Ballard Down to Studland for Pimms and Hymns, the once a month mix of hymn favourites, elements of Evensong, a thought for the week and, afterwards, a retiring to…
Saturday, July 21, 2018

The calm before the storm

A heavy shower late yesterday evening has freshened the air considerably this morning, but the weather is fine as I write this at 7.30 a.m. It is going to be sunny for the Fete, I think. Preparation is to start at 8.30 a.m. and the openi…
Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Seeds and stony ground

Between a school assembly and a meeting yesterday I nipped into the Holme Garden Centre, having been diverted at Corfe Castle through Church Knowle, Steeple and Creech because the police had closed the road on the Norden side of Corfe. Win…
Friday, July 13, 2018

David Poulter's Organ Recital

David Poulter, successively organist at Coventry, Chester and Liverpool Cathedrals played a superb recital on the organ of St Mary's Church last night.....
Tuesday, July 10, 2018

All Things Bright and Beautiful

All Things Bright and Beautiful, our Tuesday afternoon service for those with dementia and memory loss, was well attended again today, and we thought a little (from last Sunday’s Gospel) of the disciples being sent out in pairs, because tha…
Friday, July 6, 2018

Dry ground, blue skies!

Picking something up from the Post Office in Swanage this morning was not without incident, as the swifts were flying in close formation low over the houses, shops and road. At times they were screeching just a few feet - it felt like inc…
Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Looking down

Flying over to Belfast yesterday was quite a joy, once we escaped the clutches of Gatwick Airport and the disorientating effects of thousands of people milling “relaxing and shopping” - except it was lunchtime and everyone was looking for f…
Saturday, June 30, 2018

Remembering Achill Island

Two reminders of one of my favourite poets came to mind today as I heard a message from Achill Island, way over in the west of Ireland, the birthplace of John F. Deane, a wonderful Irish writer who has produced many fine books, including a …
Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Nine months can seem longer or shorter!

Nine months can seem longer or shorter! A few days ago Helen and I passed our nine-month mark in Swanage. That is a bit of a staging point, as it is nearly the whole of an academic year and has taken in all the major Church festivals. …
Tuesday, June 19, 2018

A Few More Discoveries...

A few more discoveries…. Inheriting a new garden is a bit like a lucky dip, you never know what is going to appear. The Rec-tory garden is full of interesting plants - some are less so, especially the masses of ivy - but I think that th…
Tuesday, June 19, 2018

All Things Bright & Beautiful

All Things Bright and Beautiful All Things Bright and Beautiful, the service designed especially to be easily accessible to people with memory loss or dementia, which takes place on a Tuesday afternoon every week in St Mary’s at 2.30 p.m…
Friday, June 15, 2018

We Meet You, O Christ...

We Meet You, O Christ - An Anthem by Simon Lole to the words of Fred Kaan Last Sunday in St Mary’s we heard sung by the choir a new anthem for sopranos, altos and men by Simon Lole. He speaks of it in his musical musings on the St Mary…
Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Flowers of the Field

Standing by a grave at Godlingston cemetery yesterday morning, we laid to rest Grace Ellis, 92 years of age; 92 years resident in Swanage. Twelve days ago I conducted the funeral of Irene Dimarco, 92 years of age; 92 years (except about fo…
Friday, June 8, 2018

Prayer for Swanage and Studland

About every six months Swanage and Studland comes up on the Diocesan Cycle of Prayer. We are the subject of everyone’s prayer this month again, on Thursday 28th June. I am contacted by the Diocese of Salisbury about eight or ten weeks bef…
Tuesday, June 5, 2018

A little gentle gardening

The men’s gardening group, organised by Andrew Fleming (its reputation goes before it!) met earlier today to undertake a the clearing of some undergrowth in what had been a “gardener’s garden” some years ago, but due to frailty was now badl…
Friday, June 1, 2018

Time to wait and watch

There are ten ducklings in the river below St Mary’s Church; ten very fluffy young creatures that are going to take some keeping together over the next few weeks. I wonder whether or not they will all survive. We shall be counting them da…
Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Reading the Psalms

Yesterday, in the daily lectionary, we began the Psalter afresh, with Psalm 1, and will once again read them all through day by day before reaching Psalm 150 on 14th July. There are blips where some are taken slightly out of order and chan…
Friday, May 25, 2018

The healing nature of gardens

The highlights of the Chelsea Flower Show last night included quite a bit on the healing nature of gardening, and of being in gardens generally. Rachel De Thame spoke movingly of her experience of living with breast cancer and how, whilst …
Tuesday, May 22, 2018

The Countryside in May

Longer days give more opportunity for walking our lovely Dorset countryside, even with the busyness of parish life. From Swanage there are many and varied footpaths and, one by one, Helen and I are discovering them. Last week we walked up …
Friday, May 18, 2018

Pentecost and a Royal Wedding!

I have landed myself with a bit of a conundrum for tomorrow. There is a session of “Explore” in St Mary’s Church, just before the Royal Wedding. Hatty and the team have been working very hard, and I think that we are likely to get quite a…
Tuesday, May 15, 2018

St Mary's icon, part two

Sunday week ago, when the children were looking at the St Mary’s icon, they were asked (by me) to look at Mary’s eyes and describe how they thought she was feeling. They came up with a few thoughts around sadness, and yet tenderness too. …
Friday, May 11, 2018

The lost will be found!

I was heading over to Studland to meet Tony Higgins last Tuesday and couldn’t find the car keys. This doesn’t happen very often as they nearly always go back in the same place, but, having searched everywhere I was staring to think that ma…
Tuesday, May 8, 2018

The St Mary's icon (part one)

The icon the is on the wall of the vestry in St Mary’s Church and is brought out into the Church for festivals of the Blessed Virgin Mary and at Christmas, was looked at by us all last Sunday during the Family Communion. It is twelve years…
Friday, May 4, 2018

"It's good to be back!"

“It’s good to be back”, we often say as we arrive in Swanage from being away for while. Having needed to be in Stratford-upon-Avon for a night it was once more our reaction. In just twenty-four hours there were changes in the garden too:…
Tuesday, May 1, 2018

The Dream of Gerontius

The experience of listening to Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius last Saturday evening in Poole’s Lighthouse is one that will remain with many of us for a long time. The sheer work involved for the choirs will assure that for each memb…
Friday, April 27, 2018

Swanage from a new angle

We hadn’t meant to go so far, but on Wednesday morning early Helen and I walked northwards through Swanage and onto the shore path, past the beach huts, the sun shining brightly on the sea, slightly behind us to our right. It was, perhaps …
Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Personality reflected

It’s not often that we are celebrating the birth of a new prince or princess, so it is special, though I wasn’t quite ready for the drip feeding of information during the course of yesterday. Such is the interest of much of the nation that…
Friday, April 20, 2018

Getting things in order....

We are working towards some new things at the moment and my mind is flitting from one to another, so, let me sort them into order for myself and then, perhaps, they will make some sense to everyone......
Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Comings and goings

A few days have made such a difference to the countryside. Walking Washpond Lane yesterday, all the signs of nature catching up after such a cold start to Spring are there, simply bursting out with what reads as a collective and expressive…
Sunday, April 15, 2018

A damp retreat!

A few days in an Irish monastery have been my retreat this year, and I got back last night. The Holy Cross Monastery in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains is a place of peace and reconciliation - and silence! No conversation in corrido…
Monday, April 9, 2018

A visit to Lambeth Palace

For someone born in London, I have a great reluctance to go into the centre of this great city. I feel energy draining from me from the very moment of stepping off the train, and being swept along by the tide of humanity that swirls around …
Friday, April 6, 2018

What's in a memory?

I am reading an anthology based on “Memory” - which is such a powerful part of our lives, and something that we often reflect on, probably without realising it. Recently there was a meeting in St Mary’s to discuss the formation of a weekda…
Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Tuesday of Easter Week

A damp and cool Easter with some dry weather, but the picture of Swanage visitors with hats and gloves on and coats done up to their necks is the abiding memory. That, and the sadness over the accident on the seafront, and the death of a m…
Friday, March 30, 2018

Good Friday

Last night we left St Mary’s Church having experienced about two minutes of complete darkness after the Maundy Thursday Eucharist and the stripping of the altars to the plainsong of Psalm 22.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Holy Week and Easter in Five Objects

A single school assembly in Holy Week presents us with a problem of choice. There is so much to tell; there is every opportunity to confuse - especially young children. I imagine that clergy and others leading collective worship in school…
Friday, March 23, 2018

Journeying into Holy Week

The weeks of Lent seem to disappear so quickly and here we are on the verge of Holy Week. It is at the point of tiptoeing into the Palm Sunday weekend that fills me with the thought of needing to take things a day at a time.....
Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Paul and Corinth, and our Holy Communion in the open air.

Unlike our day in Athens, the hours we spent in Corinth were quiet, and we were largely on our own. We found a beautiful spot to celebrate Holy Communion in the open air, and read from Acts 18 of Paul’s ministry with Priscilla and Aquila, …
Sunday, March 18, 2018

St Paul and the Areopagus

The day that we spent in Athens yesterday relocated our pilgrimage to Paul’s second missionary journey. He had needed to leave Beroea and he travelled to Athens by ship, before moving on to Corinth. Most people think primarily of Paul’s p…
Saturday, March 17, 2018

En route to Athens

Yesterday was a day of travelling through Greece from the town of Kalambaka just below the Meteora rocks all the way to Athens. St Paul moved from Beroea to Athens by sea; we drove for six and a half hours by luxury air-conditioned coach, …
Thursday, March 15, 2018

The wonderful Meteora

Rising above the town of Kalambaka the majestic rock formations of the Meteora have been the home of many Greek Orthodox Monasteries since the fourteenth century. Six remain, and all can be visited, some by many steps, others more easily..…
Thursday, March 15, 2018

St Paul at Beroea and an Orthodox Monastery

A short way from the hotel is the place where Paul preached at the synagogue in Beroea to those “more noble than those in Thessalonica” and including “not a few women of high standing as well as men”. They are pictured at the spot today in…
Wednesday, March 14, 2018

With St Paul at Philippi

We travelled yesterday from Kavala (Neapolis) following the route that St Paul would have take from the coast to Philippi along the Egnatian Way. We visited the beautiful area of the stream where Paul met Lydia on the Sabbath day and spoke…
Tuesday, March 13, 2018

St Paul's call to Macedonia

Travelling to Greece in the footsteps of St Paul is an interesting pilgrimage taking in both the early missionary journey of the Apostle into Europe and spending time learning something of the Greek Orthodox Church and the history of this r…
Friday, March 9, 2018

What a difference a week makes!

What a difference a week makes! Last Friday morning it took me twenty minutes to reach St Mary’s Church as I, and others, inched their way with shovel and salt down the few yards of Church Hill and encountered a sheet of ice. Today Spring…
Wednesday, March 7, 2018

A lovely clear sky

A lovely clear sky this morning heralding what is bound to be a beautiful day. The new team web-site should be going live on this day too, thanks to the work of Andy Mutter and the representatives of the four churches making their essential…
Monday, March 5, 2018

What a morning for ice

What a morning for ice! I couldn’t reach the Church for Morning Prayer until I had cleared a path-way across the road with salt and spade to hand, inching a safe route. But people always come together in adversity and, in the snow and ice, …
Thursday, February 22, 2018

New website, new blog

For three and a half years I wrote a twice-weekly blog for the St Anne’s Cathedral website. In it I reflected on things that were happening in the cathedral, and anything else that took my fancy from a few lines of poetry to some amazing si…