Oh dear! What happened to summer? The long hot days we were promised in April haven’t quite managed to arrive – and now it’s time for the children to go back to school. It would be lovely to think we were going to have a golden autumn, but it always seems sad to me that the children don’t have the benefit of those lovely long hot summer days I seem to remember from my childhood – maybe I only remember the good bits!

However good the summer was, though, I always looked forward to going back to school. I liked learning and I still do – that is why I am always interested in the great number of leaflets that come through my door offering courses in anything ranging from The Prophets of the Old Testament through the Christian Art of Nicholas Poussin to a full blown opportunity to achieve a Certificate in Theology accredited by the University of Cambridge. All these courses are open to anyone and I always put the leaflets at the back of church.

It also means I still thoroughly enjoy my work with people seeking ordination and especially with my Confirmation classes – for really effective learning, I think, is best done with others. That is why I want to run a short ‘Autumn Refresher Course’ where we might look again at the basis of our faith – and try to make sense of the twenty first century from a Christian point of view. It would also be good to provide opportunity for people to learn more about patterns of liturgy – or put more simply, why our services are as they are! I don’t expect this to be didactic – or stodgy! More an opportunity to share some of the ideas and inspirations that have informed our Christian lives to date, to explore some of the issues that we do not understand and to learn from other people. It might also be an opportunity for new comers to join us, especially if they are questioning or anxious to learn more.

I propose to start early in October, initially for eight sessions to take us to the beginning of Advent. If you are interested, please sign the list at the back of church and indicate what times would suit you. It may obviously not be possible to suit everyone, but if this proves to be popular, we can always do another course in the spring!

I wish you a warm, golden - and thoughtful autumn!

Yours in Christ

Jo Spray

On 14th July

James Tailby, first child of Lloyd and Victoria who live in Rushden. Lloyd and Victoria (nee Till) were married in Turvey two years ago. James was baptised by their neighbour, the Revd. Roy Hubbard.

On 15th July

Elliott Drury, first child of Vanessa Elliott and Michael Drury. Vanessa needs no introduction, she has sung in the choir since she was not much older than her son! Elliott is already a regular member of our congregation, often sitting with his grandmother, Georgina Elliott, so that Nessie can sing!

On 19th August

Archie and Billy Thompson, twin sons of Nicky and David and brothers to Daisy. The family lives at Station End and all the children are regular worshippers at Little Lights.

On 11th August

The marriage of Martin Page with Katie Darrington. Katie sang in our choir for many years and is still on our church Electoral Roll. It was a lovely sunny day when they were married and the day had a feel of real village celebration. The couple will make their home in London.

On 22nd August

A Thanksgiving for the Life of Martin Crowther. Martin lived latterly in Newton Blossomville but was a well known figure in Turvey, where he had spent much of his life. He will be missed by his many friends here – our sympathies go to all his family.

On 24th August

A little girl called Mabel for proud parents Penelope and Barnaby Meredith, granddaughter for Cindy and niece for George and Victoria.

Life is like a game of tennis, you can only win if you serve well.

A Vicar suffering from acute depression, phones Heaven Direct. An answering voice says: If you wish to speak to St Peter, press 1. For advice from the Virgin Mary, press 2. For Jesus, press 3, And for the Almighty God, press 4."

The Vicar, who considers his depression warrants the highest consideration, presses 4. A voice says: "Thank you for phoning Heaven Direct. We do value your call. However, we must point out that, at this moment you are last in a queue of 30 million."

At the family Eucharist in August, I said that we were hoping to buy a new hymn book with some different hymns for use at the family service. Paul Edwards, our organist, has suggested that we buy the BBC publication ‘Come and Praise’, which he has used in other parishes. After the service, someone said that they were hoping to give a gift to the church and would like to give the new hymn books. I have today ordered enough music and words copies for the choir, and seventy words only for the congregation. I would like to thank the donor on all our behalf for the most generous gift. It is lovely to see the whole family of the church together at least on one Sunday of the month. It would be invidious to guess at the ages of some of our more senior ‘regulars’, but I would guess the congregation ranges in age from the very newborn to those in their eighties! I know the new books will enrich our worship together. If you have been hesitant to try the Family Eucharist do come and share with us on the fourth Sunday of the month at 9:45 a.m. I am always profoundly moved to think that worship of Our Lord is one thing that all can share on equal terms, regardless of age or state. Jo Spray

This year the coffee morning will incorporate with the Michaelmas market at Hall Farm Turvey. There will be our usual coffee morning stall and items from the McMillan Catalogue for sale. Donations of cakes and unwanted gifts etc. for the stall would be most welcome. Please do come and support us. For further details phone Janet 881419 or Gill 720615.

Those of our parish who are sick – especially those receiving treatment.

Children and young people returning to schools and colleges, especially those going away from home for the first time.

All who are depressed and feel overwhelmed by their daily work.

Saturday 6th October Children’s Harvest Workshop

Sunday 7th October: Harvest Sunday

Tuesday 9th October: Turvey Lower School Harvest in Church

Wednesday 10th October: Harvest Auction in the Three Cranes

Friday 12th October: Harvest Supper in the Village hall

Times will appear in next month’s Newsletter. We are expecting to run a Drama activity at the Harvest Workshop, together with the usual activities. This will be for the older children – of school age.

After the August break, the next coffee morning will be at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday 8th September at 1 Grove Court, by kind invitation of Julie Hughes. There will be a raffle and bring-and-buy stall for which contributions especially of cakes and produce would be much appreciated.

Pip was 12 years old when she decided to be confirmed. Jo told her mother that they were doing confirmation classes and would Pip like to join them. So Pip said she would go along and see what it was like. Pip said the hour classes passed quickly and tied in with the Christianity classes that she was doing at school. She is glad that she has been confirmed and can now take part in the communion, although she did say she does not like the taste of the wine!

I was baptised as a child and attended church on occasions, often hidden behind my music and trumpet! But I hadn’t ever really considered confirmation until Jo casually mentioned her confirmation class and she would like some new recruits. At first I questioned why? I’d attended church in Harrold with Maria before we married as the vicar at Harrold church community had made Sunday services so enjoyable. After getting married along came the children (all 6 of them !! ) and family services at All Saints became a looked forward to occasion We particularly enjoy the fellowship of the church community. Our children participated more and questioned more, and were all baptised together and I felt they knew more than I did. So time for action, off to confirmation classes. What fun we had !!. We learnt so much and shared so much together and I had a whole hour talking to adults! I now feel more confident within the church community and more prepared to help guide my own family.

I have lived in Turvey for over 10 years and though I believed in God, I did not attend church until after the christening of my daughter in 2004. I have always had a demanding career and, with my family too, this didn’t seem to allow me the "time" to put my faith as a priority on my life. As I began attending church my faith was renewed, strengthened, and my priorities began to change. As I looked at those things in my life which might help to guide me to live the way I wish to, I realised that my faith was the most important. Choosing to be confirmed is a personal journey. For me it was seen as a confirmation of my beliefs, becoming a member of the Turvey Christian community, and choosing to live a better life as a Christian. In the words of the Blessing at my confirmation " God….give you joy and peace in your faith" is true for me. It is an ongoing journey which has only just begun.

My decision to be confirmed was long overdue and as I approach the next big ‘O’ I realised I had ‘left undone things that ought to be done’, the main one of which was to be confirmed. I did experience different reactions to my decision ranging from "You have left it a bit late", "Why now?" and a suggestion I read a scientific tome which would prove my belief was misguided! I also had many more who gave me love and support . All the above remain close friends.

Anyone may be confirmed who has been baptised, who is old enough to answer responsibly for themselves, and who has received appropriate preparation. The purpose of confirmation preparation is to ensure that those who are confirmed have a proper understanding of what it means to live as a disciple of Christ within the life of the Church of England. So don’t be shy, if you would like to be considered for confirmation please have a chat with Jo.

How should I pray? 10 minutes a day,

Sink deep into silence with God.

Ease tension away, before I can pray:

Before me - "Christ Jesus is Lord".

Distractions and noise, drown out the Lord’s voice,

Keep saying—"Christ Jesus is Lord".

Then, when I am still, say thank you to God,

For something that happened today,

And go on saying thank you for all his good gifts,

That’s how I should start to pray.

Next start overflowing in asking God’s help

For all of the people I know:

And not just the nice ones, the nasty ones too,

The cocky, the awkward, the slow.

And soon I shall see, that the ones I paint black,

Have good points I wouldn’t allow:

And I, painted white, am not really so bright:

So what does God think of me now?

He loves me of course, this One who’s the source,

Of everything good in this life;

And it hurts Him to know, that beneath what I show,

It’s "I" that’s the cause of all strife.

But when my talks done, with this wonderful One,

Will I leave Him behind with Amen?

No! I promise this day and in every way,

I shall look for the Christ in all me.

Invite you and your friends to our 7th Michaelmas Market on Friday 28th September, 2007 from 11am until 7pm at Hall Farm, Turvey, Nr. Bedford, MK43 8AB. (Signposted off from centre of village, turning to Newton Blossomville).

In aid of The Army Benevolent Fund, Brooke Hospital for Animals and All Saints’ Church, Turvey.

About 40 stalls with a panoply of foods, locally sourced, unusual plants, gardening equipment and wreathes ,bee balm and honey, beautiful clothes from India, Kenya and Argentina for children and adults, jewellery, dog coats, hand painted porcelain, poultry pottery, antiques, oriental rugs, kikoys, alpaca, bedspreads, hobby horses, walking sticks, cards, photograph frames and much more….

Jeremy Musson , architectural editor of Country Life and presenter of BBC2’s ‘Curious House Guest’ will be here signing his new book ‘How to Read a Country House’.

Refreshments throughout the day.

Entrance £2-50 Raffle

A service is held annually at Sidmouth on Sunday morning for the supporters who are attending donkey week. In the past it has been held in a marquee, joined by about six donkeys, who stood quietly cropping the grass. At Sidmouth parish church, again joined by two donkeys standing quietly in the porch.

For the last few years the service has been in the church, at Tedburn St Mary, a moorland village, where the sanctuary has one of its farms. The first year I walked from the coach to the village, a beautiful May morning on a narrow and rising Devonshire lane, I now go all the way by coach and walk through the churchyard to the sound of bells.

This year it rained and it rained, the churchyard was too wet and muddy to walk through. The bells rang! The sanctuary has a chaplain, a retired local vicar. It is a short service with three hymns, prayers, a reading, a short address and also a poem written by Dr. Elizabeth Suesen. The rain had finished by the end of the service, and we had refreshments which are provided by the church ladies. Individual salads, trifles, sandwiches etc. and a variety of cakes. Also tea and coffee. During the afternoon we spend time with the donkeys, grooming, walking and generally making a fuss of them. There are tractor and trailer rides around the farm that has views over the moors. At 3:00 p.m. we start the journey back to Sidmouth with more rain!

A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. After explaining the commandment to honour thy father and mother, she asked "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?" Without missing a beat one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill".

Looking ahead—the church will be decorated for Harvest Festival on Friday and Saturday 5th and 6th October. If you can help with the decorations, please let Anne Claypole White know well in advance. (881661) We would welcome any produce, flowers or Autumn foliage that you can spare from your gardens. Contributions can be left at the back of the church, thank you.

Flower rota—we still need helpers for both the altar and Lady Chapel flowers from now until Advent. Please look at the rota in the church porch and sign up if you would like to be involved, preferably for two weeks at a time. Your help would be much appreciated.

By Paul Edwards

This all began when my great friends James and Sarah Stephenson, parents of my godson and members of St. Paul's Church, Bedford, where I was organist in the 1990s, showed me a copy of their parish magazine a couple of years ago. In this had been reprinted the services and music list from 100 years previously. The Choir was to sing the Communion Service to "CRONK IN D". Now, I have always had a liking for unusual names, not to mention a great interest in composers of church and organ music of times past, but the name Cronk was quite unknown to me in either aspect. I consulted my directories, and found Livesey Carrott, Harry Crackel, Edwin A. Crusha, even Oliphant Chuckerbutty - but no Cronk. As a last resort I consulted the 62-volume British Library Catalogue, and found to my delight the name Cuthbert H.Cronk and ten works listed, including the Communion Service in D, opus 1, 1894. I had no knowledge of his dates or his whereabouts, so the next step was the Ancestry Library facility. Sure enough, Cuthbert was there, with his seven unmarried sisters, the only son of Henry Hickman Cronk, Architect and sometime Mayor of Tunbridge Wells. I then discovered a few references to Cronk, either H.B. or E.E., in Pevsner's The Buildings of England - mainly in Kent. The next step was to have a look at some of his published music in the British Library.

Rules in the British Library are strict. Pencils only - no cameras or photo copying - so I wrote out four movements of the Communion in D so that at least I could play his music to my friends - the copies in St. Paul's Choir library having long since disappeared. There the matter rested, as none of his works were available from publishers, no archive copy having survived, and apart from ascertaining Cuthbert's dates - 1867-1944 - the trail went cold.

Earlier this year, I was looking in the choir library room in Turvey Church for copies of the Benedicite (which we sing at Mattins in Lent). At eye level, in the first cupboard I opened, was a brown paper parcel, tied with string. To my astonishment, what should it be but a set of copies of CRONK IN D Communion! This is an extraordinary chance, as there are literally hundreds of settings by Victorian composers. Most of them much more famous, and the parcel - dated October 1923 - was duly taken out at the next choir practice and ceremoniously unwrapped by the junior choir-girls. I asked the choir if they would sing through the Agnus Dei, and we found it to be absolutely beautiful. I determined that we would perform it on Good Friday evening, and we invited the Stephensons to join us.

On my next visit to the British Library, I wrote out a short anthem by Cronk, to the words of John Newton, "May the grace of Christ our Saviour" which we have sung a few times already. Spurred on by this, David Nightingale and I decided that we would go to Tunbridge Wells on a Cronk Pilgrimage, to find out more about this otherwise unknown musician and his family. So it was that on 8th August we made the journey by train - and a very pleasant one it was, changing at London Bridge. First stop was the town centre parish church of St. John's, where we were made very welcome by the lady in the church office. She gave us a copy of the church guide, and leaflets about the organ and the stained glass, and showed us round the building. It is a fine Victorian building, ordered for a more modern evangelical style of worship, but still retaining a large 3-manual organ. Affixed to this we found a brass plaque to our hero, who served as Organist there for exactly 50 years, from 1893 to the year before his death. The guide book made mention of his skills as a choir-trainer. There was also a plaque to his uncle, the wondrously named Egbert Cronk, who was Churchwarden for 30 years, and was in partnership with Henry H. as an architect. The latter designed the splendid tower, with stair-turret, which was added to St. John's in the 1890s. We also found a photograph of John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had consecrated the original church in 1858 - more of him later. Cuthbert H. Cronk had written a festival anthem for the church's jubilee in 1908, which was highly admired.

Our second port-of-call - having paused to view the street "Mount Ephraim" where the Cronks lived all their lives - was the only church to have been designed entirely by Henry H. Cronk - St. Peter's (1874-5). This is quite some way from the town centre and as we stopped at a junction to consult the map, a man on a bicycle stopped on the other side of the road and called across to us. Quite how he guessed that we were bound for the church I shall never know, but having told us that the Vicar was away but that he had a key to the church, he cycled on ahead, and when we arrived sure enough the man was there tidying the lawn. St. Peter's has a very tall spire but a fairly ordinary exterior otherwise. Inside, we found a very tall nave, without aisles, and a tremendous roof of black-painted carved beams and white panels. We got chatting with the man, and in course of conversation found that he had lived in Bedford in his childhood, being an orphan in war-time, and growing up in the Dr. Barnardo's Home in Cardington Road. He was keen to show David the bell-tower, and to bewail the fact that they have only 5 ringers, although 8 bells. In the meantime, David had found another brass plaque, this time to Sydney Bevan (1838-1901). Nothing apparently remarkable, you might think however, his only published composition was a Psalm-chant in A flat, named 'Trent" after his family's home near Cockfosters (of Underground Railways fame) which we sing regularly at Turvey, to the Venite or Magnificat. He was the eldest of 16, and it appears that he lived in Tunbridge Wells for the last decade of his life, and worshipped regularly at St. Peter's.

As if these coincidences were not enough, at the last road-junction before the station on our way back what should be the name of the Pub on the corner but "THE BEDFORD". Now for the most amazing part of all. James Stephenson and his younger son both have as one of their Christian names "Sumner". They are directly descended from Charles Richard Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, and brother of the above-mentioned Archbishop by whom Cronk's church was dedicated. We returned on a late afternoon train, somewhat bemused by the astonishing sequence of apparent coincidences which we had witnessed. A priest friend of mine calls these things "God-incidences", and certainly the sequence of events which I have related above do seem to go far beyond mere chance. Last but not least, had the Communion Service back in 1904 or 1905 at St. Paul's been by someone with an ordinary sort name, none of this would have come about. At least now we can ensure that Cronk’s name and music is not forgotten entirely.