What is a real bonus, however, is the renewed energy and interest I feel on our return home. It seems to have taken half the time to do routine jobs – and sermon writing has been a positive joy (writing two sermons a week can sometimes be rather hard!)

Of course, the secret is the complete change and the chance to recharge batteries -the chance to have time just to be and not to do.

It reminds me of Lent. Lent is a time for change. It is often thought of as a gloomy time – a time of denial and a time for wrestling with spiritual difficulties – and of course that is part of Lent. It seems to me, though, that in order to wrestle anything effectively we need to be strong and I certainly feel stronger both physically and spiritually for taking a rest, for having time to take a walk, to look at the countryside and to read – and not just the weekend papers!

Lent this year begins on 21^st February, with our usual Ash Wednesday service at 8.00pm. How will you keep Lent? Perhaps there is some ‘busy – ness’ that you could replace with time for quiet and reflection. Perhaps you could choose to read a different sort of book – and if you would like suggestions for Lent reading let me know. Perhaps you could give time to come to the shared study groups with Turvey Abbey. In Lent, many try to give up something they enjoy – the denial bit. This year, I am suggesting we might give some of that most precious commodity of all – time – so that we are physically and spiritually refreshed to face the rigours of Holy Week and the joy of Easter.

I think, too, that time spent quietly with God - wherever we find Him best, in music, in words, in the fresh air - time set apart for Him, will also make Lent a joyful time.

Yours in Christ

Jo

grace to keep Lent well

the Fair Trade organisation and all who benefit from their work

all who work in the village.

Syd Brawn

June White

Elliott Gordon Drury

There will again be a joint Lent Bible Study shared with our friends at Turvey Abbey. We shall meet on Tuesdays in the afternoon and in the evening. We intend to look at the events in the last week of Jesus life and at the Resurrection. Details and lists to sign are at the back of the church.

Rehearsals are well underway for the next in the cycle of Tony Harrison’s Mystery Plays, The Passion. The performance dates are 23^rd and 24^th March – so put this date in your diary! In the meantime, we have been asked to do a very short extract from the plays in St Alban’s Abbey as part of the Vision for Action Celebration on Saturday 24^th February, which starts at 10.00am Tickets are available for this free of charge, if you would like to come, please put your name on the list at the back of church.

I am hoping to start confirmation classes in the New Year both for adults and for young people. If you are a regular member of the church and have not yet been confirmed, come and talk! Please telephone if you are interested – and don’t be upset if I approach you! You can say no, but it may be good at least to find out what is involved!

Jo

The next coffee morning is to be held at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday 10^th February at Highfields, the Green by kind permission of Russell and Glen De Ville. There will be a raffle and bring-and-buy stall for which contributions, especially cakes would be very welcome. Last months coffee morning raised £221. A big thank you to Colin and Keeley Bootman for hosting the first coffee morning of the year and to everyone who helped and supported the event. If you would like to host a coffee morning later in the year please contact Anne Claypole White 881661 or Gill Betts 720615.

Turvey Village Hall Fair is on Saturday 17^th February. As last year, we are hoping to have a ‘Lucky Parcel’ stall. It would be helpful if you could wrap up something and either give it to Gill Betts or to me, or leave it in the box at the back of the church. Parcels for children would be especially welcome; please mark on it if the parcel you leave is suitable for a child. These are then sold at £1 a time and the recipient may get something he/she really likes – or not!! It was great fun last year and we made a lot for the village Hall – it is good for us to be able to support the village in general.

Many thanks. Jo Spray

A reminder that The Borough Council is organising Energy efficient Surgeries to help residents with advice on energy saving measures in their homes. So put Wednesday the 31^st January in your diary 1:30-3:30p.m. This will be a marvellous opportunity for all that need help especially the elderly and retired people of the village. Celia Hanbury and David Reedman will attend.

The new branch will be launched on the 18^th March 2007, mothering Sunday. The Bishop of Bedford will enrol the first members of the new branch as well as renewing membership for existing members during a service of evensong at St. Peters Church Sharnbrook at 4:00 p.m. A celebratory tea will be provided after the service. There will be a preparatory meeting on Thursday 1^st February in St. Peter’s room to go through the service, explain enrolment and to consider speakers. Caroline Evens hopes that you will be able to come. Please contact Betty Hewett if you need more information on 881738.

The theme is Change Today, Choose Fair Trade. With over 2,000 Fair-trade certified products now available, it’s easier than ever to change what you eat, drink and wear to Fair-trade, and make a positive change today for the lives of millions and also the farmers in developing countries. Take part in this Fair-trade Fortnight. Our theme for Sunday 25^th February will be Fair-trade. We hope families will come and take part at the morning service when we shall have a Fair-trade Stall, special interest for children and items to sample and buy. All Saints Turvey signed up to give our support several years ago and this is one way we can continue to remind members of this very worthwhile way of supporting the needs of the poor in developing countries.

Thank you very much to all who supported the carol singers that sang around the village on two evenings the week before Christmas, raising £328.20 for the Children’s Society. Apologies for those in parts of the village the singers didn’t reach; we do try to vary the route from year to year. The collection taken at the Christingle was added to the carol singing money to make a grand total of £420, which was sent to the Children’s Society.

The future of your local post office depends on YOU, use us or lose us, that’s the message. Fighting and campaigning retrospectively to save your post office after it has closed is a bit like ‘shutting the gate after the horse has bolted’. The message is simple, please be proactive and keep on using and supporting the Post Office.

Jack Russell’s (JR’s) come many shapes and sizes, white ones with brown or black patches, or a mixture of both, wire-haired or smooth-haired, long legged or short legged. I have heard many adjectives used to describe them, cheeky or perky, but the words I would use are "game", and above all fun.

For over fifty years I had the pleasure of owning a succession of JR’s and to me they are simply the greatest. If I am strictly honest they also have a downside. When you take them for a walk round hedges and woods they will often find a decaying carcass and roll all over it. They then come trotting back to you wagging their tail and grinning. The resulting perfume is not at all like channel no 5. Before ‘her indoors’ will permit entry to the house for the dog, a good scrubbing is required. JR’s are also very greedy.

On occasions I have fed the dog and cat at the same time. The dog will scoff it’s food in 10 seconds flat then stand behind the cat and bark loudly, frightening it away and proceed to devour the cats’ rations as well. When the birds had pecked the top of a milk bottle on several occasions I found my JR sitting innocently near but with an incriminating ring of cream round its snout.

I have always referred to my JR as my VDO or my vermin destruction operative. It will make short work of rats and mice but rabbits are more difficult. It’s quite funny to watch a JR set off across the field after one with its short legs going like pistons. After 100 yards the rabbit will have gained a 50-yard lead and the dog will despair and come trotting slowly back. At certain times of the year my J R. used to spend many hours sitting on the tractor with me. On one occasion I was ploughing on the edge of a wood when a rabbit came out, the dog immediately leapt out of the window and went down a burrow. Fortunately no harm was done; however I estimate that this is equal to us leaping of a 3-story house.

Years ago, before we had a combine harvester, we used to cut our crops with a binder and stack the sheaves into ricks near the farm. In the winter months a threshing drum would come and we would thresh out the corn. The stacks would usually contain many rats and mice when my J R. would really come into it’s own, dispatching this vermin with great rapidity. However I have known the dog to be so worn out by the end of the day, that it just lay down and let the vermin run (in those days a bylaw stated that a fine wire mesh must be erected around the stacks to prevent any escapees).

Some years ago the Kennel Club started to register J R’s. I view this with some apprehension. I do hope that the wide diversity of the types that we have will not disappear in favour of one uniform type. But whatever happens I do not believe that the twinkle in the eye of these little characters will ever vanish.

Submitted by a member of the choir.

Imagine you and the Lord Jesus are walking down the road together. For much of the way, the Lord’s footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying the pace. But your footprints are a disorganised stream of zigzags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures and returns. For much of the way it seems to go like this, but gradually your footprints come more in line with the Lord’s soon paralleling His consistently. You and Jesus are walking as true friends!

This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens: Your footprints that once etched the sand next to Jesus’ are now walking precisely in His steps. Inside His larger footprints are your smaller ones, you and Jesus are becoming one.

This goes on for many miles, but gradually you notice another change. The footprints inside the large footprints seem to grow larger. Eventually they disappear altogether. There is only one set of footprints. They have become one.

This goes on for a long time, but suddenly the second set of footprints is back. This time it seems even worse! Zigzags all over the place. Stops. Starts. Gashes in the sand. A variable mess of prints. You are amazed and shocked. Your dream ends. Now you pray; "Lord I understand the first scene, with zigzags and fits. I was a new Christian; I was just learning but you walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with You."

"That is correct."

"And when the smaller footprints were inside of Yours, I was actually learning to walk in your steps, following You very closely."

"Very good..You have understood everything so far." When the smaller footprints grew and filled in Yours, I suppose I was becoming like You in every way."

"Precisely." "So Lord, was there a regression or something? The footprints separated, and this time it was worse than at first." There is a pause as the Lord answers, with a smile in His voice. " You didn’t know/it was then that we danced.

Dave Hilson

Profile by Cindy Woods

Dave was born at number six Ladybridge Terrace, Turvey in 1932 and has lived in the village the whole of his life. He went to Turvey infant’s school and then onto big school (now the village Hall) before going to Harrold School at the age of eleven.

My word, David has a very large complicated family tree and I could not possibly record it all so I have just taken notes on some of them. David’s Father worked on the village roads and his Mother, who was a Wooding was a laundress, working with her Grandmother who kept a laundry in Ladybridge Terrace, yes you heard right Ladybridge Terrace. His Grandmother who used to wash and starch the surpluses was one of five children, only one left the village. His Fathers family farmed at Picts Hill and so did his Grandfather. David’s auntie Mabel was sister-in-law to the late Enid Wadsworth. The Wooding side of the family lived in Mill Green. For such a large family it is surprising that Dave was an only child.

After leaving School he went on to become an apprentice carpenter with G.B. Warren & Son, a family firm located in Norfolk Road. His first job lasted about five years (the houses were built in batches) and it was to do all the carpentry in the houses at Tandy’s Close. After his apprenticeship Dave worked on some of the houses in Bamfords Lane before going to work in Bedford. In the latter years Dave worked for the council and now works part time self employed.

Dave met Beryl at a Turvey dance one Easter Monday and had three years courtship. Beryl lived in Stagsden, she came from a family who attended the Bunyan meeting Chapel and they commuted by bicycle to court. He tells me his future father in law used to chuck him out at 10:00 p.m. prompt and he had to cycle home in the dark, he tells me he hated the dark and still does. Dave says that Beryl was courting someone else when they met and he was cheeky enough to win her over. They have now been married for fifty-five years and had four girls. Not to go without bringing up boys as when sadly their daughter Susie died of cancer, the boys father moved to Scotland leaving them to bring up the two boys, Ben and Robert who were then only nine and eleven. They now have nine grandchildren, the first seven were boys and Dave was secretly hoping that they would play football but it turns out that one of the last two girls is the only one that plays football. Dave and Beryl are expecting their first great grand child about Easter time. Despite four daughters to bring up and two grandchildren Beryl found time to work at Turvey House and still does when she is needed.

At the beginning of their married life they lived in Vine row with the three eldest and then moved to Tandy’s Close but did not like it, as it was too noisy at that time. So another move to number one Carlton Road where the youngest was born, and then on to number nine Carlton Road where they lived for over thirty years. Just over four years ago they moved to their present home, the Lodge next to the Three Cranes and they both say it was a good move and they are very happy there. For someone who has never lived outside the village he has sure moved a lot of times.

Dave said when he was a youngster of about 10 he joined the choir like everyone else at that time and also if you were in the choir you were expected to bell ring as well so at the age of eleven he learnt to ring. During the war years the bells were silenced to ensure that the ringing practice still went ahead because if the bells were heard it signified an invasion. Dave taught the boys at Carlton reformatory to ring, but secretly he thought they came to meet the girls rather than learn to ring. During his family life Dave did not have time to ring as he was working most weekends to earn money for the family so he had a gap of about thirty years before coming back to ring some six years ago. His Uncle John rang bells and was a churchwarden and his Great Grandfather was Churchwarden and another relative Charlie Wadsworth, a bellringer was captain of the Bell Tower. Not one to be idle David’s hobbies include woodturning and reading and he used to do a lot of Judo.

If you think God seems a long way off, guess who moved?