October 2007
VICAR: The Revd. Martin Fredriksen Tel: 694109
PARISH OFFICE (Mondays to Fridays 9.30am – Noon) Tel: 697641
FROM THE VICAR: Back in the last century, when I was a young curate, we had three hospitals in the Parish and used to visit all the patients once a week. The older men used to like to talk about their service in the War – for them that was the 1914-18 Great War. They told of the horrors of that war which was considered to the 'the war to end all wars' - if only that were a reality! Just twenty one years later, it all happened again. My own father, who was a p.o.w. never spoke to me about his experiences – it was only when he told his two grandsons, that I had some idea of what he had been through.
Feeling very much out of it on Remembrance Sunday, I officiated or assisted at many services – thinking in those early years, that by the time I approached retirement, there would no longer be any need for this annual event. How my thoughts have changed!
There are so many servicemen and women who have lost their lives comparatively recently in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world – families grieve and other wait anxiously, hoping for the safe return of their loved ones.
With the new National Memorial opened by the Queen this year, we can see something of the magnitude of all that has happened since World War II. It is right that we should remember, but terribly sad that we don’t seem ever to learn from the tragic mistakes of the past.
Martin Fredriksen
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