Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless<
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

John Keats is one of my favourite poets and I cannot approach Autumn without reciting this first verse of his poem ‘Ode to Autumn’ over and over to myself – I love it; especially the bit about the bees and the warm days and the clammy cells – I can almost smell the honey!

There haven’t been many warm days this summer – and now the first two or three days of Autumn feel more like winter. I wonder how much honey the bees have managed this year? I gather that the fruit harvest should be good though – certainly we had a good crop of peaches on our tree in France, probably all the rain we had there too. The tree might, of course, have heard the threat of ‘He Who Hacks’ that it would have to go if it didn’t do anything this year! The rain and floods are no joke, however, crops in some parts of the country were totally decimated and we are all threatened with higher prices throughout the winter. Except for the farmers, of course. Having just about survived the worst summer weather for decades now they have the problems of recurrent Foot and Mouth and Blue Tongue disease – as one of our parish commented last weekend ‘It will be a thin harvest for the hill sheep farmers this year’

So we approach our Harvest Thanksgiving with mixed feelings – I quote an extract written by the Bishop of Exeter

"The first outbreak of Foot and Mouth in Surrey was worrying enough for farmers but the latest one could not have come at a worse time. Farmers left with animals that should have gone to market, short of both feed and money. Others uncertain about the condition of the stock they need to buy in for the coming year,"

However, we are still fortunate in this country. Most of our farmers are totally dedicated to the work that they do in feeding us, despite their treatment by officialdom and big business.

As we celebrate Harvest – with all the joy this season brings – it is essential that we not only give thanks to God for his goodness to us, but that we give thanks for our farming community who put the food on our tables – and for those involved in getting it there.

Yours in Christ

Jo Spray.

Our farmers and all involved in food production

All affected by natural disaster

All who are hungry

The next coffee morning will be at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday, 13th October at The Old Rectory, High Street, by kind invitation of Hans and Katie Knowles. There will be a raffle and a bring-and-buy stall for which contributions especially of cakes would be much appreciated. Last month’s coffee morning raised £168 towards church funds. Many thanks to Julie Hughes for hosting the event and to all those who helped with and supported it.

If you asked God for one thing and received another TRUST.

Have you looked at the patch of ground beside the South Porch recently? It has been transformed from a patch of untidy wasteland into a lovely area to sit and read, or think, or just to sit and be! We have been given a beautiful bench in memory of Enid Wadsworth – if you are new to the village, Enid was organist and choir mistress here for over forty years – Enid’s birdbath has also been given to us and is now in place in the garden. Another great friend has given the shrubs, which will hide the dustbins from view. When the paving slabs actually arrive, the area to house the bins will be slabbed over. Best of all, the labour to produce this lovely space has all been given. We say a big ‘Thank you’ to all who have worked so hard and given lovely gifts to make this a real haven of rest.

3.00pm – 4.30pm. There will be activities for children of all ages and a drama workshop for those aged 6 – 10. Pre-school children, please bring an adult prepared to stay with you

11.00am Parish Eucharist for families

6.00pm Choral Evensong

Tuesday 9th October: Turvey Lower School Harvest in Church at 10.30am

Wednesday 10th October: Harvest Auction in the Three Cranes starting at 8:00pm

Friday 12th October: Harvest Supper in the Village hall starting at 7.30pm. Tickets from Sandra Nightingale (01234 881453)

All this world is God’s own field,
Fruit unto his praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown,
Unto joy or sorrow grown;
First the blade and then the ear,
Then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of the harvest, grant that we
Wholesome grain and pure may be.

Amazingly Paul was born in Turvey at number 1 Tinkers Cottage (next to the central stores) He attended the local village school which back then was on the High Street next to the Village Hall. On leaving there he went to Harrold on the local Bailey’s coach, the coach house being on the Carlton Road (this probably started his lifelong interest in coaches and buses) but more of this later. At the age of nine he went as a boarder in the City of London and attended St. Paul's Cathedral as a chorister. During his time at choir school he also learnt to play the piano. He came back after four and a half years to finish his schooling at Bedford Modern.

Paul has one younger brother, Nick, who also went to Bedford Modern. Nick teaches the violin as a local peripatetic teacher. Paul's Father worked at Allen’s in Bedford and bicycled to work every day; he changed career in his forties and taught Maths and Science until he had to retire due to ill health. Paul's Mum (who now lives in Oakley) has always been, and still is, a piano and cello teacher. A love of music and teaching music must run in the family.

After leaving school he worked on the railway in Bedford and then moved to Peterborough to be a lay clerk (singing man in Cathedral choir) and really loved his job and stayed again for four and a half years. In the mid 80’s Paul decided to try his luck at becoming a freelance musician and started doing piano and theory teaching and playing organ for weddings and funerals (he still does) to help financially. Paul was self-taught on the organ, beginning with Great Barford Church for four and a half years during his school days and then he did have some tuition in his time at Peterborough from the Cathedral organist. In 1985 he learnt coach driving and since then has done this as a regular part time job and for the last 22 years has worked for Barfordian.

Paul has been organist and choirmaster at various other churches in Beds and Northants. He was seven years at St. Paul's in Bedford and six and a half years at All Saints Kempston. I asked Paul how he came to end up in Turvey and he said that even though it was a great wrench to leave Kempston, where he was very happy and contented, the opportunity to play such a splendid organ as we have in Turvey was too good to miss. Unbelievably Paul is only the 5th organist to play here since 1855. This must surely be a record.

Apparently there is such a shortage of organists these days that Paul gets opportunities to play in many other churches for weddings and funerals and as he says it is useful income for something he enjoys doing. Paul says after bus driving he comes fresh to take 2 choirs a week, and sing in 2 choirs a week, he says he enjoys singing in them even more than taking them.

Paul has numerous hobbies and in no particular order:<
Cricket
Genealogy
Natural History
Railways (perhaps from having to take a train to the sports field during his time in London)
Church Architecture
Coach and Bus History
Composing church and organ music

But he says his main hobby is belonging to a society that keeps the history of buses and coaches.

He also enjoys other sorts of music besides work and listens to lots of orchestral and chamber music and he says that Bach is the greatest composer ever to have lived. Paul admitted he has never got into opera. Paul for someone who enjoys so much other music you don’t know what you are missing, opera is wonderful as well. Paul says—Ah, but I do!! Singing in a foreign language with far too much vibrato! - for hours on end!

I have been so heartened by the number of people who have spoken to me about my article in last month’s newsletter (Cuthbert H. Cronk) that I thought a follow-up might also prove of interest. It concerns the BENEDICITE—in full, Benedicite Omnia Opera, or "O all ye works of the Lord", the alternative canticle to the Te Deum Laudamus at Matins, and customarily sung in Advent and Lent. The setting we use here at Turvey was composed by the Revd. S.W. Goldsmith, and published in 1908 by the long-ceased Ambrose Abbott & Co. London. It was the copies of this work that I was seeking when I came upon "Cronk in D" (see last month)!

Again, Goldsmith’s name and history was unknown to me, and indeed his published works are very few, a second Benedicite, this time in G (ours is in D) dated 1921, and a short Communion Service in F, 1911. Again, I had recourse to the Ancestry Library facility available in our public libraries, and you may well imagine my delight and surprise on finding that he was born in Bedford! His father, George Goldsmith, was a medical practitioner of 43 Harpur Street, and a qualified surgeon. Sidney Willmer Goldsmith was born on the 20th February 1869, educated at Bedford School and Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. in 1892 and M.A. in 1896. In 1893 he was made Deacon, and in 1894 Priest, serving a curacy at Whitwell (Derbyshire) returning two years later to his home town of Bedford where he was Curate of St. Paul’s! He married there in the summer of 1899, in which year he moved with his young wife Annie to Torquay, where for five years he was Curate of St. John’s Tormoham, a spectacular mid-Victorian church with a strong musical tradition. Goldsmith then moved to Aldeburgh, Suffolk, where he was vicar for 20 years, followed by 5 years on the staff of Bury St. Edmunds Cathedral, and finally 6 years as Curate of Fressing-field also in Suffolk. He retired in 1935 and came to live in Vicar’s Close, Biddenham, but died when on a visit to London, 24th February, 1939.

The Benedicite is a great favourite with the choir here, and I am told that Tina and Steve Machan had it sung at their wedding in Sheffield! It made equal impact on the Lay Reader Mr. Christopher Dawe who came to take Matins here on one of the "Benedicite Sundays". He said in his sermon that he had not sung the Benedicite for nearly 60 years, and how much he had enjoyed it. Imagine to my astonishment when, at Evensong the same day, where we both happened to be on duty together again, he presented me with a fine photograph of the grave of the Revd. S.W. Goldsmith in Biddenham Churchyard, literally across the road from Mr. Dawe’s house. Whether this particular setting of the Benedicite (out of scores and scores which once were available) has been sung here because of its composer’s local connections is debatable; after all, he was a vicar on the Suffolk coast when it was published in 1908. I prefer to think it is one of those "God-incidences" with which our Heavenly Father from time to time delights and astounds us.

After 99 years of use, the set of copies has become decidedly worn out, and we have just purchased brand new ones to celebrate the work’s centenary in a few month’s time. It was a great surprise to find that it is still in print, available from Novello, who appear to have taken over the Ambrose Abbott stocklist in 1941. This is a good sign, as it must mean that other churches do still sing the Benedicite—for (sadly) few music publishers are philanthropic, nor do they have an artistic or historic conscience. This is all because I am so keen that the composer should not just be a name on a printed copy. It is always interesting to learn more about the man who thought of and wrote down the notes which we sing to enrich our worship. As a p.s. to last month, I have been told that the surname "Cronk" (also found as Cranke, etc) means "Lusty, vigorous, in high spirits, merry" - many thanks to the kind lady who looked into this. I had envisaged Cuthbert H.Cronk as a Private Godfrey-like figure, living quietly with his spinster sisters and keeping faithfully to the same job for many years (cf. "Dad’s Army") Perhaps his surname gives the lie to this? All part of the fun!

(*) Isaiah 41, v.7

The church will be decorated for Harvest Festival on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th October. If you would like to help please contact Anne Claypole White (881661). We would be grateful for any flowers, autumn foliage and produce you could spare from your gardens. Contributions can be left at the back of the church from the Thursday of that week. Thank you.

We are still short of volunteers for doing the flowers at the altar and Lady chapel in October and November. If you are willing to help, please sign up on the rota in the church porch.

If you wish to participate in having the travelling crib this year, please contact Betty Hewett before 31st October 881738.

Baptism: 2nd September. Oliver William David Spray. Oliver is the first child of Dominic and Lucy, he lives in Kingston-upon-Thames with his mummy and Daddy and Tigger the cat. It was a great joy for Revd. Jo to baptise her third grandson and to give thanks for the birth of Eleanor Mary Morgan Spray, third child of Jonathan and Judith, who was baptised earlier this year in Wales

RIP: 25th September. The funeral took place of Jeremy Edwards who died on 11th September. Jeremy and Araminta moved into the new house at the top of Mill Lane about eighteen months ago, since then they have become involved in many different areas of parish life. Jeremy was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the summer but his death was a great shock to us all. We send our deepest sympathies to Araminta and all the family.

TRUE LOVE

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80’s arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 a.m. I took his vital signs and had him take a seat knowing it would be over an hour before someone would be able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. While taking care of his wound I asked him if he had another doctor’s appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I inquired as to her health, he told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer’s disease. I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late, he replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognised him in five years now. I was surprised and asked him, " And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?" He smiled as he patted my hand and said "She doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is". I had to hold back the tears as I left, I had goose bumps on my arm, and thought, that is the kind of love I want in my life. True love is neither physical nor romantic, true love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be and will not be. Oh, by the way, peace is seeing a sunset and knowing who to thank. The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.

A passenger in a taxi leaned over to ask the driver a question and tapped him on the shoulder. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb and stopped just inches from a large plate glass window. For a few moments everything was silent in the cab, when the shaking driver said "I’m sorry but you scared the daylights out of me". The frightened passenger apologised to the driver and said he didn’t realize a mere tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much. The driver replied, "No, no, I’m sorry, it’s entirely my fault, today is my first day driving a cab, I’ve been driving a hearse for the last 25 years."