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Just a short message this time, I read the latest from ‘Aforgetfulsoul’ and she expresses very clearly what it really means to follow Jesus. So if you want some good, wholesome, thought-provoking wisdom, look no further. Here’s a brief extract…
I am excited to think that my life as a believer is not a matter of rigid scheduling of ‘religious’ activities, but is a pattern woven by my Father according to his purposes, where he asks for my yielding, my desire to be attuned to his promptings, my availability to be ‘interrupted’ and to recognise in the smallest event some sign that God is at work and asking me to share it.
But do read the whole article. This is exactly the way I feel about my own life, it’s one of the reasons I often add a tiny, ‘throw-away’ remark in my articles whatever the major topic, drawing attention to spiritual aspects of the everyday things I notice or am involved in. If he’s worth following (and he is) Jesus will be in every little part of my life. Often partly hidden – but there.
We often make things far too complicated. Too structured. Too organised.
The abbey’s construction was a huge project continuing throughout the 12th century. To fund the ambitious project, Henry I and his successors, Henry II and Richard I, granted the abbey revenues and privileges, such as exemption from tolls, access to commerce, and timber and stone for construction.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click images to enlarge
In medieval times there was an Augustinian Abbey in Cirencester. Like so many abbeys and monasteries in the United Kingdom it was dissolved during the reign of King Henry VIII and afterwards demolished. The outline of the walls is marked in the Abbey Grounds with small, square paving slabs, and a few of the column bases are visible too, but that is all that remains above ground where the Abbey once stood. There are some additional carved stones and other items in the Corinium Museum.
The photo shows a Lego model of the Abbey, currently on display in the Parish Church. You can see a Lego tree in the garden within the cloisters, and part of the nave of the Abbey church. The model is complete with its tower although this doesn’t appear in the main photo, but it’s there in the image below.
Construction and history
The Abbey and tower
Some of the political and practical history of the founding and later dissolution of the abbey are well described in blog articles published by the Corinium Museum. These articles, and the Wikipedia article are well worth reading. They are linked below.
Long before the Abbey was built the land where it later stood was part of the Roman City of Corinium Dobunnorum; the River Churn (in those times named Kern, Kerin or Corin) had been divided into two, one part outside the city walls as a defensive feature, the other part within the city as a source of water for drinking, washing, for industry, building and so forth. The Saxons, moving West into the still Romano-British part of what is now South-West England, took control of the area, but had no use for a derelict Roman city. However, there was a Roman church building in the area where the abbey would later be founded, and a Saxon church was built over the Roman church.
Early in the 12th century, King Henry I founded St Mary’s Abbey, building the chancel on the site of the Roman and Saxon churches. About 1130, Abbot Serlo arrived with a community of canons to set up residence .
The abbey’s construction was a massive project continuing throughout the 12th century. To fund the ambitious undertaking, Henry I and his successors, Henry II and Richard I, granted the abbey revenues and privileges, such as exemption from tolls, access to commerce, and timber and stone for construction. Henry II allowed the abbey the revenues and control of the town (or ‘vill’) of Cirencester around 1155, initiating centuries of friction with the local townspeople. The abbey church was consecrated in 1176 in the presence of King Henry II and several bishops, but building work on the cloisters, refectory, dormitories, and the abbot’s house continued for many more years.
The result of all this effort was the most wealthy and influential Augustinian abbey in the Kingdom. The abbey flourished through its ownership of very large estates in the Cotswolds and an important role in the very profitable medieval wool trade.
Dissolution
The townspeople repeatedly asked the Crown to grant them a borough charter, but this was consistently and strongly opposed by the abbots. In the end, Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries ended with the destruction of the abbey and the confiscation of much of its wealth and property. A Royal Commisioner, Robert Southwell arrived in the town on 19th December 1539 to receive the surrender from the last abbot, John Blake. There was no resistance, and the abbot and monks received pensions, but the buildings were torn down and everything of value was sold off.
Religion or faith?
As with so many JHM articles, as I write I am deeply struck by the huge gulf between religion (usually a very worldly affair as in the history of Cirencester Abbey) and faith (with its basis not so much in what we think as in who we are and how we live.) The distinction is essential if we are to live full lives, discovering who Jesus is and why he matters so much.
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The UK is a rich mix of people from many cultural backgrounds. That’s why the title is not ‘Christmas Greetings’. Please accept the greetings and replace the word ‘Season’ with whatever you like.
This great cross hangs from the high ceiling between the nave and the chancel of Cirencester Parish Church of St John Baptist.
Click to enlarge
This cross was carved and carefully gilded by craftsmen from Cirencester’s past. It hangs on stout iron chains from the heavy timbers of the chancel roof and for centuries has been the focal point for worshippers sitting in the pews of the nave. At first glance it almost seems to have been studded with jewels, but in fact it’s plain wood with gilded ornamentation.
In the centre of the cross is a lamb carrying a banner marked with the cross of St George. This lamb represents Jesus, the sacrificial ‘lamb of God’. At the top of the upright timber is a winged St Matthew, author of Matthew’s Gospel, at the extreme left of the cross beam is St Mark portrayed as a winged lion and at the right hand end St Luke as a winged ox wearing a crown. Right at the bottom of the upright timber is St John, shown here as an eagle.
More about those images
The lamb with the banner of St. George represents the Agnus Dei (the Lamb of God), symbolising Jesus Christ, and later iconography mixes symbols of sacrifice and victory. Jesus Christ was seen as both sacrificial (the lamb) and a victorious king (the banner).
The winged man represents St. Matthew because his gospel emphasises Christ’s human nature. His account begins with a genealogy of Jesus’ descent from Abraham highlighting his human, earthly origins. The winged aspect signifies divine inspiration of the gospel message and the angelic wings refer to Matthew’s task as a messenger of God’s word.
St. Mark is shown as a winged lion because his gospel starts with the roaring voice of John the Baptist in the wilderness, (roaring like a lion) while the wings refer to the four winged creatures described in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation. The lion represents the strength of Mark’s message and the resurrection of Christ, the wings speak of the four evangelists being guardians of the throne of God.
St. Luke the Evangelist is traditionally symbolized by a winged ox (or bull or calf). The symbol is derived from the four living creatures in the Book of Ezekiel and Revelation, which early Christian tradition associated with the four Gospel writers. The ox was chosen for St. Luke because it was an animal of sacrifice in the Old Testament, representing the sacrificial aspect of Jesus’ ministry, which Luke emphasizes in his Gospel by beginning with the priestly duties of Zechariah. The wings signify that the Gospel message is to be spread throughout the world.
St. John is shown as an eagle because it’s his symbol as one of the four evangelists. His gospel is seen as soaring into theological heights, also true of his visionary writings in the Book of Revelation. And the eagle is associated with divine power, heavenly vision, and spiritual insight as seen in the book of Revelation.
These medieval traditions are all very well, but the carved, gilded cross is also a distraction from the dreadful truth that a wooden cross was an instrument of torture and death. It’s easy to get wrapped up in traditions and forget that Jesus died to provide the opportunity for us to turn back from the brink. The heavy timbers to which Jesus was nailed to die were not ornate or gilded, and there were no traditions portrayed on them. Jesus (Yeshua, Isa) came in simplicity offering a simple opportunity and sharing simple truth. You don’t need a degree in history or theology to follow him, just an open, willing mind and a light touch from his spirit of love and truth.
In that vein, here’s something I add every year, I’ll offer it up to you again now. The UK is a rich mix of people from many cultural backgrounds. That’s why the title is not ‘Christmas Greetings’. Please accept the greetings and replace the word ‘Season’ with whatever you like. If you’re Hindu you could choose Pancha Ganapati, or Jewish friends might go with Hannukah in December, if you’re Muslim you might look forward to the start of the holy month of Rajab; Buddhists might consider Bodhi Day, and there are more groups of people I haven’t mentioned specifically. But whatever you celebrate, please take my greetings as a blessing for the whole of next year – spring, summer, autumn and winter. I’m not here to press you into a new and different tradition. I’m here to dismiss tradition in its entirety and offer love, peace and grace in its place. The teachings of Jesus are simple and there are thoughts about them throughout the articles on this website.
PS – If you like the photo, click the thumbnail for the full size version. Print it out, put it in a frame and hang it on the wall. Give a copy to friends if you think they’d like it; or send them a link to this message.
Unlike life, death is stable. It’s not often that you see a dead body come alive again. That would be resurrection, it’s not something that we expect to see happening regularly (or at all)!
I’m writing about these three topics in obedience to a prompting from the Holy Spirit. I need to say that at the outset. And I think I’m going to need to create two versions, one for people who are following Jesus, and another for people who have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m going get stuck right in, please bear with me; my hope and prayer is that there’ll be something here for everyone.
For those who have no idea
We all know what life is, or at least, we think we do. Life is a metastable state. Let’s define ‘metastable’ – Imagine a pencil lying near the centre of a table; if you push it a little it will move across the surface but it won’t fall over. It can’t! (unless you push it so far that it reaches beyond the edge of the table it is always fully supported on the table’s surface. That pencil is a stable object.
Now take the pencil and stand it up on it’s point. Let it go and it will fall over. A pencil standing on its point is unstable.
Now take the pencil and stand it on the table with its point uppermost. If the pencil has a good, flat end and the table surface is even and horizontal, you will be able to do this with a little care. Now push the pencil point sideways a tiny amount and then release it, it’ll wobble a bit but then remain standing and settle down. But push it beyond a certain amount and it will fall over. That’s metastable, the pencil can cope with a tiny movement, but push it too far and it’ll fall over.
Life is like that, it’s a metastable condition. Most of the time we live day after day as the weather changes, sometimes warmer, sometimes cooler, sometimes wet, sometimes dry. Put us in a place too hot, too cold, too dry (a desert), or too wet (an ocean) and we will die. Not immediately, perhaps, but push us too far, and like the point-up pencil, we’ll fall. Life is metastable. All of us will die eventually, if not of overheating or drowning, then eventually of old age. It’s not normal to live for ever.
Unlike life, death is stable. It’s not often that you see a dead body come alive again. That would be resurrection, it’s not something that we expect to see happening regularly (or at all)!
That’s about all there is to say to the ‘No idea’ group.
For those following Jesus (or might like to)
Jesus had some really interesting things to say about life. He reminded people that life is metastable, but without using that term. He claimed that there is a different kind of life, a spiritual life parallel to biological life, a life that is stable rather than metastable, a life that has the potential to be stable as either permanent life or permanent death. And he further explained that we can choose either permanent condition.
These claims don’t make sense, do they? I’ve stated them as simply and straightforwardly as I can. I should add that these deep truths cannot be grasped by intellect or understood by logic. They are, I suspect, completely distinct from the physical world and from the rationality of mind and brain. These things are unmeasurable and indescribable, available only through faith, hope, and love.
So if you want to explore further, faith, hope and love are the tools you will need to do so. Faith is a mysterious idea, quite hard to pin down or explain. Hope is something we all have, though perhaps we all hope for slightly different things. But love is the most important and the strongest of the three, it’s the one key you truly need to unlock resurrection (a return to life) and to grasp the enormous benefit of permanent life and the desperate state of permanent death. So take love as the starting point. If you are new to all this, Henry Drummond is a good guide and companion on the exciting journey that lies ahead.
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All the booster engines lit correctly and stage separation was successful. The boostback burn was good too, but the landing burn failed and Superheavy was lost.
SpaceX’s Starship programme is an attempt to build space launch and transport equipment to open up the Solar System for travel and cargo delivery at greatly reduced cost, and increased capacity and frequency. It seems a good time to collect the details together in one place because SpaceX is now almost ready to put Starship into orbit and launch Starlink satellites from it. That’s a very significant development.
Progress so far can be divided into three major phases that SpaceX terms ‘Blocks’. Think of them as versions. Block Zero began the development of early forms of hardware, Block One continued this to test all aspects of flight and landing, and Block Two has just ended with the very successful Flight 11, and now Block Three has begun. Three kinds of hardware are being developed for each block- Stage Zero is the ground launch equipment, the launch mounts, fuel storage and loading facilities, and the launch control and monitoring equipment. Stage One is the Superheavy Booster that places the Starship orbital vehicle into flight above the bulk of the atmosphere, while Stage Two is Starship itself which accelerates to orbital velocity or beyond. Specialised versions of Stage Two will act as orbital fuel tankers, and eventually land on the Moon, Mars and perhaps other destinations. I list below, only flights regarded as at least partially successful. Let’s step though them in sequence. It’s also well worth watching Scott Manley’s video overview of the entire Starship test program.
Block Zero
Flight0A (3rd April 2019) (There are no videos) – The first flight used Starhopper, a reduced size, single-engined, test vehicle with an early version of the Raptor engine burning liquid methane and liquid oxygen. It was a tethered hop and reached the giddy height of 0.3 m. But this was enough to prove the engine and its control systems were performing correctly.
Flight 0B (5th April 2019) (There are no videos) -Starhopper’s second flight, tethered again and reaching a height of 1 m. SpaceX had no Flight number designations for these tethered hops.
Flight 1 (25th July 2019) (There are no videos)- This time Starhopper flew untethered, reached a height of 20 m, and landed safely. This proved engine gimballing was adequate for a controlled ascent and descent.
Flight 2 (27th August 2019) (Video) – This was Starhopper’s final flight, reaching 150 m and travelling horizontally before safely landing proving horizontal movements could be well-controlled. It was retired after this flight.
Flight 3 (4th August 2020) (Video) – The first flight of a full size Starship (SN5), another 150 m hop, the payload section was absent and a steel mass simulator was carried instead, still using just a single Raptor engine. Once again, the proven flight envelope was increased, this time with a vehicle of similar size and weight to a Starship returning from orbit.
Flight 4 (3rd September 2020) (Video) – 150 m hop, Starship (SN6), a similar flight to SN5.
Flight 5 (9th December 2020) (Video) – 12.5 km, Starship (SN8) had a successful launch and flight but failed landing. The mass simulator was replaced by a nose cone and control flaps this time, and three Raptor engines were installed. The new belly flop and flip manoevres succeeded on their first attempt, but the landing failed. This flight climbed to the same altitude as the highest passenger planes.
Flight 6 (3rd March 2021) (Video) – 10 km, Starship (SN9) Similar success and failure to Flight 5.
Flight 7 (3rd March 2021) (Video) – 10 km, Starship (SN10). This was the first successful landing, though it was a very heavy landing and the damaged ship exploded soon after landing.
Flight 8 (30th March 2021) (Video) – 10 km, Starship (SN11). The vehicle exploded during descent.
Flight 9 (5th May 2021) (Video) – 10 km Starship (SN15). This was the first completely successful flight and landing. There was a fire in the engine compartment after landing, but this was eventually extinguished and the landed Starship survived. So now SpaceX had a design that could could complete the horizontal descent, flip to a vertical position at low altitude, and land.
Block One
Block One flights began in April 2023, the objective was to move to flying both the Superheavy booster and the Starship orbital vehicle together, having already mastered the horizontal fall of Starship and the flip manoevre needed to bring it back for a landing. It’s worth looking at Scott Manley’s excellent video summary of the Block One series of flights.
Integrated Flight Test 1 (20th April 2023) (Video) (Scott Manley’s analysis) – Orbital test fight, the combined craft managed to take off with twice the thrust of the Saturn 5 Moon rocket, though five of the thirty-three booster engines failed and the Starship failed to separate from the booster. So most of the flight objectives were met. This represented a huge step forward for Starship; SpaceX now had a system that could lift off and reach the upper atmosphere. Unfortunately the launch all but destroyed the launch pad (stage 0).
Integrated Flight Test 2 (18th November 2023) (Video) – This time all the booster engines lit correctly and stage separation was successful. But both stages were lost. Stage separation was another large step forward for Starship.
Integrated Flight Test 3 (14th March 2024) (Video) – This time all the booster engines lit correctly and fired for the full intended flight duration. Stage separation was successful too and Starship could have achieved orbit had its six engines been allowed to fire just a little longer. However, the ship failed during its brutal re-entry.
Integrated Flight Test 4 (18th November 2023) (Video) – This time all the booster engines lit correctly and stage separation was successful. The boostback burn was good too, but the landing burn failed and Superheavy was lost shortly before it was expected to land. Meanwhile, Starship fired all six engines for stage separation and the boost to almost orbital velocity. For safety reasons there was again no attempt to reach full orbit on this flight. but the Starship started to re-enter the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean before reaching Australia. The Pez dispenser cargo door opened, but failed to close fully. Starship re-entered under control of the flaps but didn’t attempt a landing burn. This flight took the project forward just as far as intended, so a good result and an excellent preparation for following flights. SpaceX had demonstrated atmospheric re-entry under flap control.
Flight Test 5 (13th October 2024) (Video) (Scott Manley’s analysis) – The Superheavy Booster delivered Starship to the upper atmosphere correctly, returned to the launch site, and was successfully caught for the first time, another huge step forward. Starship made a safe atmospheric re-entry and splash down in the Indian Ocean on target and under control. This was the first time both the booster and Starship completed a full mission.
Flight Test 6 (19th November 2024) (Video) – The Superheavy Booster was diverted from a catch attempt and landed in the ocean because the catch mechanism on the tower signalled it was unready. Starship re-lit one of its Raptor engines in flight and splashed down successfully and on target in the Indian Ocean. The re-light is important because it builds confidence that a fully orbital Starship would be able to deorbit in a properly planned way and not come down unpredictably, endangering people and property on the ground.
Block Two
Block Two flights began with flight test 7. The Block Two Superheavy Booster and Block Two Starship are redesigns based on lessons learned from flying the Block One versions.
Flight Test 7 (16th January 2025) (Video) (Scott Manley’s analysis) – The Superheavy Booster flew nearly perfectly and was caught successfully by the arms on the launch tower as with Flight Test 5. However, Starship suffered some engine failures and was destroyed before performing the engine relight and other tests it was flown to perform.
Flight Test 8 (6th March 2025) (Video) (Scott Manley’s analysis) – The Superheavy Booster performed well again and was caught by the tower arms. But Starship lost control and was destroyed again. At this point SpaceX have a successful booster design but the ship is still not reliable.
Flight Test 9 (27th May 2025) (Video) (Scott Manley’s analysis) – This time, the Superheavy Booster flew flawlessly but was deliberately not caught on this flight. It was brought back at an experimentally higher angle of attack. Starship fired all six engines for the full time expected and then shut them down cleanly.
Flight Test 10 (26th August 2025) (Video) (Scott Manley’s analysis)- One of Superheavy’s centre engines was deliberately disabled and it used an off-centre to complete a successful landing burn over the Gulf of Mexico. There was no attempt to catch Superheavy, but the test showed that it could have been caught even using the off-centre engine. Starship fired a single engine briefly to demonstrate it could have been safely de-orbited if required, and some dummy Starlink satellites were deployed successfully as well. Despite an unexpected explosion during re-entry, the vehicle survived, performed the landing flip manoevre and touched down successfully and on target in the Indian Ocean.
Flight Test 11 (13th October 2025) (Video) (Scott Manley’s analysis)- This was the most successful test flight so far. Both the Booster and the Ship performed flawlessly and met all objectives. The dummy satellites were released, an engine was re-lit in space and the ocean landing was perfect as well.
Block three
The first Block Three flight is expected early in 2026. Stages 0, 1 and 2 will all be fresh designs and we expect further advances including orbital flights releasing a new version of the Starlink satellites, more booster catches, and the first Starship catches as well. There may be tests of fuel transfer between ships, tests of Moon landing hardware, and the first launches of Starships to Mars, possibly with a crew of robots. Get ready for an exciting time.
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I was admitted and given a CT scan of my head. This seemed to show a very small, superficial bleed in the brain, but the detail was not well resolved so an MRI scan was also ordered.
Last Thursday, I was at home and Donna was at work tutoring maths GCSE or A level (she teaches both). I had the strangest experience. First, my left leg became weak and limp, then shortly afterwards I suffered numbness in parts of my left leg and left side of my head. It was a sensation exactly like the novocaine numbing induced by the dentist when they need to drill your teeth. Both the weakness and the numbness disappeared again after a few minutes and everything seemed normal again. About an hour later the weakness and numbness returned and resolved, once again within a few minutes. At this point I dialled 111 and after answering some questions they called an ambulance for me, thinking I might have had a temporary ischaemic attack (TIA). There were few ambulances available and the wait would be very long, so when Donna arrived home she drove to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH) and we went into A&E. After some basic tests – blood pressure, ECG, and answering some questions about my symptoms, I was admitted and given a CT scan of my head. This seemed to show a very small, superficial bleed in the brain, but the detail was not well resolved so an MRI scan was also ordered. I remained in hospital for further tests and a lot more thinking by the team looking after me.
An astonishing revelation
I was amazed to learn from the hospital specialists that I’d had an earlier, much more significant stroke on the left side of my brain, they pointed it out to me on the CT scan and it was clearly there. It might have occurred years or even decades ago and I’d known nothing about it! There was a significant region of damage but it had clearly had no effect that I was aware of at the time or since. The team also consider that I may have a couple of other, underlying conditions.
So now we know that my strange symptoms had something to do with a rather small bleed on the right side of my brain. The symptoms appeared in the left side of my body because of the curious fact that the right brain manages the left side of the body while the left brain manages the right side of the body. But the symptoms are not typical for this type of brain damage; nausea, vomiting and very painful headache are common, but I’ve had none of these effects, with sometimes a temporary, very mild headache after some (but not all) of the events so far. It seems that large strokes cause the classic symptoms, while tiny ones may result in episodic but minor issues like mine.
A knowledgable and helpful daughter
My daughter, Beth, just happens to be a Professor of Psychology at York University. Both she and the medical team here at GRH independently considered that my symptoms are atypical, but that small bleeds like mine cause episodic electrical activity that might explain my situation. The returning muscle weakness and the numbness are probably caused by the electrical activity, not by repeated subarachnoid haemorrhages. This makes a lot of sense to me. The consultant suggested that anti epilepsy drugs might suppress my symptoms as well, so we’re giving that a try. I had a small dose the evening and following morning before discharge from hospital with possible signs that it might be helping. They gave me a month’s supply to take home and after two weeks I can double the dose.
I’m home again now and starting to live a more normal life, though there are some things I can’t do now, like walking steadily for long periods of time, and driving the car.
Gallery Ward 1
I can’t finish without a word about the ward I am in and the other patients and the staff. Everyone has been so kind and helpful. The ward staff are kept very busy, taking regular blood pressure readings and responding to calls from the patients. There are only four beds in this bay of the ward, but lots of time spent on us every day.
The food is adequate, not cordon bleu, more like school meals I’d say, but hospital budgets are limited and the cloth has to be cut accordingly. I have no complaints whatsoever.
My three room mates are a mixed bag. R is in his nineties but the years rest lightly on him, he soldiers on and is really friendly, E across the other side of the ward, is hard to understand when he speaks, but is a really nice guy, incredibly fond of his daughter and grandson. They are regular visitors, his daughter is visibly distressed at times and clearly really fond of her Dad. It seems to me to be a great privilege to see these interactions. D is feeling sorry for himself and tends to become anxious and sometimes agitated if he doesn’t get the attention he thinks he needs. Like any community we’re a mixed bag, but it’s clear that we want the best for one another and want to be as encouraging as possible.
And finally, what a blessing the NHS is, one of the advantages of living in the UK, expert help when and where it’s needed, and paid for by the government through National Insurance payments and taxation.
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Entering the long gone wooden gate you would have seen the potting shed on the left and beds edged with lightweight breeze blocks and filled with crushed clinker on the right. This was the standing area for the Alpine plants propagated at Watermoor. (1940)
July 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
Click pics to enlarge
Book cover
I was invited to share some material from my short book ‘Jesus, Disciple, Misson, Church’ (JDMC) with the Small Group I meet with on Tuesday evenings. This is a discussion group belonging to Cirencester Baptist Church (CBC). On 1st July we worked through the first two sections of the introduction, ‘Working together in six ways’. And the following week we worked through the third and fourth parts. Everyone seemed to think this was a useful exercise and I found it most encouraging.
Most weeks, Donna and I visited our neighbour, George, in Dursley Hospital. We also took Donna’s Mum, Isobel, for a four-day break at a Warners Hotel near Hereford (Holme Lacy House Hotel). And we bought a second-hand electric car which we’re calling ‘Erik’. All our cars get a name, and because this one is a Nissan Leaf the connection is ‘Leif Erikson‘.
Thames
We went for a walk along the Thames near Lechlade, starting from Buscot Weir. It was a pleasant stroll on a really nice day. Not an adventure or a long walk, but a lovely ramble. The river meanders a lot here, and so does the footpath as it stays close to the river all the way.
JHM: I wrote on the apostolic gift; and an old house in Cirencester. World events: Israeli aircraft struck the Presidential Palace and the General Staff headquarters in Syria; and a strong earthquake off the coast of Kamchatka, triggered tsunami warnings in Japan and Hawaii.
One day, walking into Cirencester along the busy Gloucester Road, we spotted this cinnabar moth having a rest on the footpath. It had no idea how much danger it was in. We might easily have stepped on it, so we moved it on and it fluttered around and settled on a nearby lime tree where it would be safe.
This was the moth’s second danger recently. It seems to have brushed against a spider’s web. The grey mass behind its head looks like tangled, sticky spider silk, so perhaps two lucky escapes in one day.
The Old Prison
We took Donna’s Mum out for coffee and a light meal at The Old Prison at Northleach. And we met Paul and Vanessa at Frampton on Severn for a circular walk. Their two black Labradors, Marple and Maizi are too old to join in these days, but they’re OK to be left sleeping at home for a few hours.
And at the end of the month we took Isobel to a hospital appointment in Gloucester and while she was waiting Donna and I visited Gloucester Docks nearby.
I had my flu and COVID jab early this month. We drove to Nottingham for Roger Owen’s 80th birthday party, Roger and Carolyn are good friends from our time in St Neots. There were many old friends from the Small Group that they ran and it was fun to meet everyone again.
It was disppointing to hear that the Internet Archive went down because of a denial of service attack. Why would anybody do that? it soon returned for searches, but it was a few weeks before data could be uploaded again. Our gas heating boiler failed towards the end of the month and would have cost almost £1000 to repair so we decided to buy a heat pump instead as there’s still a good government grant available.
Rafflesia in flower
Beth and Paz came down for an overnight visit, lovely to see them as always. At the end of the month we spent a day in Oxford, and, the Oxford Botanic Garden had a Rafflesia in flower ‘Stinking corpse flower’, though thankfully it was not in its stinking phase. The only other time I’ve seen one of these was during a forest walk in Thailand.
JHM: I wrote about the Spelga Dam in the Mountains of Mourne; and the need to go out and deep as Jesus did. World events: Iran attacked Israel with ballistic missiles; and The Europa Clipper spacecraft was launched to investigate Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter.
I started walking regularly with two friends, Al and Phil, in part this was an exercise (no pun intended) to help Al improve his fitness. On 19th we walked near Miserden in pouring rain and muddy conditions, but thoroughly enjoyed it.
Mop fair
The annual Mop fair came to Cirencester as it does every October, the streets in and around the Market Place are filled with rides, stalls, people, noise and colour as well as the familiar and evocative aroma of diesel generators, candy floss and close-packed crowds. I remember Mop as a child when warmth from the thousands of incandescent light bulbs was tangible. The name ‘Mop’ goes back to the days long ago when it was the annual hiring fair. It would have been the time and place to engage domestic servants or staff for businesses; and people would have gathered to look for work.
Donna’s Uncle Ken died this month after a long battle with Parkinsons. This left Donna’s Mum with only two remaining close family members, her daughter (Donna) and her son (Paul).
Paul and Vanessa went to Bath for a weekend break so we drove down to Weston-super-Mare with Isobel to look after the two dogs. Maizi and Marple were young in 2020 and were very ambitious in picking up sticks to carry home. As they aged later in their lives they chose smaller and smaller sticks, eventually seeming perfectly happy with a short twig.
Walking with Phil and Judith
We drove to Bibury and met our friends Phil and Judith for a short walk. We followed a stone track to Oxhill Wood, then turned right to come out near Bibury Court Hotel. Afterwards we had coffee and a bite to eat at the tent restaurant by the trout farm. COVID is getting more manageable, for example the possibility of walking with friends and eating out in well ventilated places. Businesses are beginning to explore way of working with the remaining restrictions in place.
There was a heavy hailstorm on 28th October, some of the hailstones were the largest I’ve ever seen.
Peter and Dadka were living in our spare bedroom, sharing our kitchen and shower. They were both Slovakian and had been struggling financially and in other ways as well. But things brightened for them a bit as Peter had just obtained a job driving a ready-mix cement wagon. It was hard work, but it was a secure job and reasonably well paid too. Hopefully it seemed their financial position might start to improve and they could look for a bed-sit or a small flat of their own.
East Anglia Regiment
On 20th October, the East Anglia Regiment visited St Neots to receive the freedom of the town; the band and a small group of soldiers marched with rifles and fixed bayonets from Huntingdon Street and along the High Street into the Market Square for the ceremony. I took some photos on my phone and there was cheering and clapping from the townsfolk.
JHM: I posted an article on Stone Ivy. World events: A series of suicide bombings killed at least 100 people at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey; and Hurricane Patricia became the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.
Donna and I went along to some of the meetings at The Father’s Heart Conference at the King’s Arms Church in Bedford. There were some good things, but overall I didn’t find it particularly useful. It reminded me once more about the difficulties faced by ‘big’ church and the events that people get excited about. But life is not so much about big events as it is about the humbler things in life. All sorts of things fit this humbler category, including the very tiny garden snail moving along a matchstick in the photo with a £2 coin for scale. Click the image for a larger view, so amazing!
Meeting friends at Cornerstone
At the third Cornerstone Directors Meeting, there was a lot of talk about high costs and food wastage, and about staff requirements. Paul was rather defensive, promising that several requirements were in the pipeline but not yet fully achieved. Most of us felt everything was a bit out of control.
I helped some friends from New Zealand move house in Southgate, London. They’ve been in the UK for quite some time now and plan to return soon, some older, grown up, children live in New Zealand but a younger son and daughter are here in the UK.
We visited Southwold on the Suffolk coast. It’s a lovely little town and our friends Ken and Gayna had a house not far away in the village of Yoxford (though they lived at the time in Perry, not very far from St Neots). Athough Southwold is a delightful little seaside town with some lovely features, I always feel a little disoriented on the east coast; being western born and bred I expect the sun to set over the sea, not rise over it in the mornings!
Intranet site archives
At Unilever Colworth, I was busy archiving all the Web Team’s servers as everything was being migrated to new systems that we would not be managing ourselves. It seemed a good precaution to capture everything on long term storage first, so if there were any issues we could easily repair them. I don’t think we ever needed those archive disks.
We dropped in to see my Mum and Dad on our way to visit Beth and Paz who were living in Axbridge at the time. Paz and I went out to look around Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve where there’s a replica section of the Sweet Track and some Iron Age buildings.
Iron Age roundhouse
An Iron Age roundhouse was easy to build but very effective in Britain’s wet, temperate climate. A series of stout poles inserted into the soil supported the walls and roof, the walls were woven from willow or hazel and then plastered with mud and straw, and smoke from the central firepit escaped through the thatch (you can see this in the photo, click the thumbnail for a clearer view).
World events: Mass demonstrations in Belgrade led to Slobodan Milošević‘s resignation; and an Intercity 225 express train derailed in Hatfield, killing four and injuring many others.
Judy was facing several issues. She was clearly retaining fluids and her feet were swollen and puffy. She was receiving great care from her GP at Yatton Surgery (today, Mendip Vale Medical Practice). I was beginning to feel she needed someone around more of the time so was planning to ask for more time away from work. Our 25th wedding anniversary fell on 3rd so we had visits from both sets of parents. Paul, Jenny, Tony and Faith came to visit too and we talked about Alan and Dorothy joining us on 6th to pray for Judy and anoint her with oil. In the end they didn’t appear, but did so at a later date.
On 12th, Judy began taking small doses of morphine to help her sleep more comfortably and there were signs of her liver struggling a bit, blood albumin levels were low as a result.
Things were difficult in the LARS Computing Section too. We were overworked, needing to get Windows 95 out to the users and working correctly with the NT server. The Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR), of which Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) was a part, wanted to take control of our computing facilities; but LARS was also the Department of Agriculture of Bristol University, and they were offering us a different route for our networking needs.
World events: The discovery was announced of the planet 51 Pegasi b, the first confirmed extrasolar planet around an ordinary main-sequence star; and O. J. Simpson was found not guilty of double murder in a criminal trial.
Mum and Dad drove to Yatton to visit us for the day, bringing four nieces and nephews with them (Gavin, Rebecca, Dan and Rosie). We went with them to Bristol’s Museum of Transport and enjoyed a good look around, inside and out. The weather was reasonable too and it was a great day out together.
Cleaning the run
But life is not all museum visits with friends and family, there are always chores to be done as well. Debbie and Beth were always very good about this aspect of having pets. We all did our bit; Guinea pigs (Debbie and Beth), hamsters (Beth), cockatiel (Beth), budgies (Judy and me), cat – mostly feeding and grooming (Judy, Debbie, Beth). In the second photo Beth is cleaning out the guinea pig run.
World events: Tim Berners-Lee began building the World Wide Web; and the first McDonald’s restaurant in Mainland China opened in Shenzhen.
The event of the month, if not of the entire year, was Princess Anne’s visit to Long Ashton Research Station (LARS) to officially open the new Hirst Laboratory. I had an office in this building as Microcomputing Manager towards the end of my time at LARS. The photo shows an equerry or some other functionary, Princess Anne, and Professor Hirst, the retired Director after whom the Lab was named. His replacement, Professor Treharne, was out of the shot further to the right.
Part of the crowd
The second photo shows onlookers, a mix of LARS staff and their families as well as some people from the village. Debbie and Beth are in this shot too.
World events: The cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked in the Mediterranean by Palestinian terrorists; and NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis flew for the first time.
Mum and Dad bought a painting by Adrian Hill, these days it hangs in Beth and Paz’s home in York; unfortunately I don’t have a good photo of it to use here, but I do have a copy of the receipt so I can say that they bought it in October 1980 in Chedworth and this is the business card of the supplier.
I have very little material for this month. Judy and I were living at 22 Rectory Drive, Yatton. Debbie was five and Beth was two. Judy was at home with the girls on weekdays and I was researching pollen and pollen tube growth at Long Ashton Research Station. As I recall, we had no car at this stage and I was cycling or motor cycling to work during the week.
World events:Jim Callaghan announced his resignation as leader of the Labour Party; and the most recent atmospheric nuclear weapons test to date was conducted by China.
We visited Mum and Dad in Cirencester a little after our fifth wedding anniversary and I took a little time out to walk around the town with my camera. This is the front of the old Cirencester Workhouse, no longer in use at that time, of course. Today it’s used as the District Council offices. The photo dates to 26th October 1975 and is one of a stereo pair.
Judy and Mary
Our next door neighbours in the end-of-terrace house next to us were Mike and Mary Low, In the photo Judy and Mary are looking through some photos together.
Our wedding went well on 3rd October; I regret not being able to share a photo or two, I have them safely somewhere but I’m quite unable to locate them at present.
I can share a funny story from that day, however. We had avoided getting our car ‘decorated’ by our college friends by parking it some distance away and getting Judy’s Dad to drive us to the car after the reception. So we were already heading off for our honeymoon well before anyone was able to locate the car. With confetti down our necks and scattered all around, it seemed like a good idea to pop in to Churnside in Cirencester, let ourselves in (everyone was still in Cheltenham), get rid of the confetti, and then continue to Bournemouth where we planned to stay for a week. Unfortunately I forgot to pick up my car keys as we left the house.
I borrowed a ladder from Brian Bennett at Bennett’s Garage just a few steps along the road, got back into the house through my bedroom window, picked up the keys, returned the ladder, and we were back on the road in short order.
There was no need to book in advance in those days. We simply drove into Bournemouth until we spotted a guest house we liked the look of with a ‘Vacancies’ sign displayed. We went in, they showed us a room and gave us a price, we asked what their best price would be if we took the room for a week, and that was it. Simple! It wouldn’t work today, would it?
Corfe Castle
We explored Bournemouth fairly thoroughly, visited the famous Beaulieu car museum, spent a day on the Isle of Wight (Judy took the photo above while I was driving our car onto the ferry), and looked at Corfe Castle.
I had a message during the week to phone Long Ashton Research Station and they offered me a job in the willow department; starting on the following Monday, that was an enormous relief. So after our honeymoon, we drove to Bristol (visiting Salisbury and Avebury on the way) and visited Long Ashton on the Sunday evening. I rang the bell of the house where I’d lived with a bunch of other students during my industrial sandwich period in 1969. My old landlady opened the door and gave me a big smile when she saw who it was, but she also told me that they’d stopped taking guests. However, she kindly offered to give us a room for a few days while we looked for a bedsit in Bristol. Another big relief!
I began my first full-time job on Monday morning, while Judy took the car into Bristol to start looking for a bedsit. After drawing a series of blanks, an agency in Park Street said they had a suitable place up on the Downs, it was a big, three story house on Linden Road, number 59 I think. It was two rooms on the first floor with a bathroom and loo shared with a similar pair of rooms on the same floor. It was vacant so we took it and were able to move over from Long Ashton right away. I still remember the landlord, a Mr Bird; he came to collect the rent once a week. We had a furnished bedroom and sitting room, a big cupboard that opened out to reveal a tiny kitchen, a car, and I had a monthly salary. We felt great, and excited for the future.
Within a few days Judy had found a temporary job working at one of the Broadmead department stores, either Lewis’s or Jones’s. They needed extra staff over Christmas and the New Year period. The extra income made a big difference to our finances and we began saving, knowing that we would need a deposit for a mortgage eventually. During the next few weeks she began looking for a job as a newly graduated biochemist and soon found work as a lab assistant at Bristol University Biochemisty Department in Woodland Road to start in the spring term. Dr Tanner (Mike Tanner) was studying one of the proteins in the human erythrocyte membrane.
World events: A Khmer Republic was proclaimed in Cambodia, escalating the Civil War ; and the Soviet Union launched the Zond 8 lunar probe.
I was in the lower sixth form at Cirencester Grammar School (CGS) and it was interesting to make a start on Chemistry, Physics, and Biology A levels. I had not been able to cover Biology at O level so had some catching up to do, Physics became more mathematical than I’d expected, and Organic Chemistry was way harder than the inorganic studies at O level. But my teachers were good, especially ‘Pop’ Green who taught us Biology. He stood no nonsense, but he was a lot of fun and very helpful to anyone who wanted to learn and showed a real interest in the subject. I took these photos in 1966, but everything looked just the same in 1965.
My sister Cindy turned 14-years-old at the beginning of the month, Ruth and Rachael were 9 and 8 respectively, and I was already 17 and taking my first steps in learning to drive. It was easy in those days, I applied for a provisional driving licence and received it quite quickly, then we put L plates on the car and Dad took me out to the disused Chedworth Airfield to learn the first steps of clutch, accelerator, footbrake and steering and once he felt I was safe enough, he took me on quiet roads to get used to traffic. Meanwhile I studied the Highway Code to learn the theory aspects, the meanings of various road signs, stopping distances and their relationship to road speed and so forth.
CGS Sports Field
Judy and I continued to grow closer and spent a lot of time in free periods talking about every imaginable topic, in cold weather we would lean on one of the radiators in the Wooden Corridor to stay warm while we talked. We didn’t hold the same views on everything, but that just made it more interesting. I was also reading about science, buying the monthly magazine ‘Science Journal’ which was a UK publication similar in many ways to the American magazine ‘Scientific American’. I was very interested in electronics and the early computers, also the American and Russian space programs as well as European efforts to build a launcher. The European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) was trying to cobble together the British Blue Streak ballistic missile, the French Coralie as the second stage, and a smaller German vehicle as the third stage to reach low Earth orbit (LEO). This programme proved unsuccessful.
Judy introduced me to classical music, something that had passed me by before we met. When I was younger, Dad was into jazz, particularly the piano solos of Jelly Roll Morton, Earl Hines and most of all, those of Fats Waller. He played many of them rather well on the upright piano we had at home. And Mum liked much of the popular music of the day, especially anything by Danny Kaye. But neither of them had been into classical stuff. Judy and I both enjoyed some of the popular groups (not ‘bands’ in the 1960s) of our own day. I was very much into The Shadows and, to be perfectly honest, I still am.
World events: Fidel Castro announced that Che Guevara had resigned and left Cuba; and the 7 Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and Red Crescent were adopted at the XX International Conference in Vienna, Austria.
This was the start of my second year at Cirencester Grammar School, my sisters were younger than me and still at junior school. The exercise book was from my first year, carries the Grammar School Crest, and the book’s been initialled by my maths teacher to show it’s full; the school office issued new books, but only if they’d been initialled by a teacher. Click the image for a closer look.
The exercise books were coloured to indicate the subject, this one is green for maths, rough books were dark blue, geography was orange, history was a dark maroon and so on.
World events:Nigeria became independent from the United Kingdom and the 99th member of the UN; and a large rocket exploded on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, killing at least 92 staff of the Soviet space program.
My sister, Cindy, turned four at the beginning of the month, and at seven-years-old I had already begun my third year at Junior school. We were advancing to more challenging tasks, taking dictation was one of these and although the vocabulary remained simple, there were potential pitfalls. I remember being puzzled when having been careful to use a capital E for a person’s name, it was crossed out as being wrong. The sentence was something like, ‘The fair was coming to town and he had thought of little Else all day.’ Surely if her name was ‘Else’ she deserved a capital?
Jill’s message
The images show the front and back of a postcard from my cousin (also my godmother), Jill. She was grown up, about 18 or so at this time, and was teaching English to the daughter of a French family in Morocco. They were visiting Paris and she thoughtfully sent me the postcard. (Click the images to enlarge them.) (I have no images from October, the card is probably from August.)
World events:Sun Myung Moon was released from prison in South Korea; and 70-mm film was introduced for cinema projection, with the release of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical, Oklahoma!.
This photo is from the Facebook ‘Old Ciren’ group (it’s definitely October and must be a year not far from 1950). Local people, especially children and young adults, look forward to the fair and certainly have a good time. As you can see, Mop takes over the entire Market Place. My memories of Mop as a child include the sound of diesel generators, warmth from the many light bulbs in use, the mixture of smells (diesel fumes, candy floss, fried onions and so on, the noise of the crowds and the shouts of the people managing the attractions (Roll up, roll up).
I probably didn’t witness Mop in 1950, I was only 2¼ years old, but I might have been carried down or taken in the pram by Mum and Dad.
World events: China began the process of annexing Tibet, beginning by invading across the Jinsha River and seizing the border town of Chamdo; and the USA’s FCC issued the first license to broadcast television in colour.
Mike received inoculations and then visited Bombay (Mumbai) with some friends and was emphatically unimpressed. He met a sergeant he’d known from his time at Ballinderry in Northern Ireland. The toing and froing of letters with Lilias and with Dad’s family in Cirencester continued, and he had photos taken at a booth in the bazaar and sent one to Lilias.
On 10th he had a bad headache, felt rotten on 11th, and reported sick on 12th. By 14th he was feeling normal apart from some mouth ulcers that persisted for several days. He left hospital on 18th despite a temperature of 100 F (37.8 C).
Santa Cruz
On the 19th he was given work as a lorry driver – Driver Mechanical Transport (DMT). Then on 21st he was posted to Santa Cruz, a nearby RAF airfield where he met someone he knew from Ashton Keynes as well as someone from Stroud and a man from Sampson’s Nurseries! He was seeing films at the station cinema, and practising cricket while waiting to start his new role. His first driving practice was taking a 3-ton Chevrolet around the airfield perimeter track on a meals run. By the end of the month he was driving quite regularly and teaching himself to change down to a lower gear correctly.
So that was a fairly slow-paced start to Dad’s RAF service in India, and a strange way to employ an experienced radar operator!
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Dad’s diaries start in January 1943, so for January 1940 to December 1942 I’ll write about things I know, or draw on dated photos and documents. Sometimes I might use a photo or document with a guessed date.
Continuing the nursery theme, this time I’ll describe Watermoor Nursery. When I was growing up Watermoor was the place where Dad spent most of his time, he was the foreman at Watermoor during those years, before taking on responsibility for all of the nurseries in due course. What do I remember about Watermoor in those days? I suspect it had changed very little from 1940 until the 1950s when I first remember it.
Perhaps the first thing to say is that before Cirencester’s ring road was built in the 1980s, Watermoor Road used to continue along what is now Watermoor End, heading south-east towards Cricklade and, eventually Swindon and Marlborough. This was the line of the old Roman Ermin Street. If you visit Watermoor End and walk right down to the Ring Road (Bristol Road at this point) you’ll notice the old pub on the right at the end stands at a strange angle (it’s marked on the map as ‘The Horse & Drill’). Cricklade Road, now the other side of Bristol Road, continues along the line of the Roman Road and you can follow it, straight as a die, past Tesco Extra and on beyond Tesco where it’s fenced off. It’s still a footpath so walk through the fence and continue. All of this was once known as the Swindon Road. You can see the details on the map.
Returning to that old pub at an odd angle, it was built to respect the line of Watermoor Road, a junction to the right off what is now Watermoor End. You can follow the old Watermoor Road from the southern side of Bristol Road, and when you reach Rose Way on your left you are more or less at the old entrance to what was once Watermoor Nursery. Entering the long-gone wooden gate you would have seen the potting shed on the left and beds edged with lightweight breeze blocks and filled with crushed clinker on the right. This was the standing area for the Alpine plants propagated at Watermoor. The main track ran ahead from the gate to the Swindon Road gate at the far end. Both sides of this track (especially the left hand side) were filled with row after row of herbaceous perennials which would be lifted and split in the winter months, packed in moist soil and straw for insulation, wrapped in sacking, and sold as bare-rooted plants to be collected from the nursery or despatched by road, rail or post to distant customers, or delivered by van along with other plants, cut flowers, wreaths, seeds, garden sundries and chemicals in Cirencester and the local villages, often by my Dad.
On the left of the track, at the Swindon Road end, was the carter’s cottage. Up until the end of the Second World War a horse and cart were used for local deliveries. The Horse was stabled at Tower Street Nursery. There was a story that the carter sometimes stopped at a pub for refreshment on his long delivery round, and that if he drank too much he would doze off afterwards while driving, but the horse knew the customary route and would plod along without any need for guidance. Companies like Tesla and Waymo are trying to perfect vehicles than can drive themselves, perhaps they just need a well-trained horse! I suppose you’d need a different horse for each route, so that might be an insurmountable issue. The carter’s cottage was still there when I moved back to Cirencester in 2016; it’s since been demolished to make way for several new houses. The carter’s vegetable garden made it a reasonable-sized building plot. You can see the cottage and its garden on the map, in the northern corner of the nursery.
I remember Miss Brown (Rosemary, I think) who was Dad’s assistant at Watermoor. And in the calm, warm days of summer time I remember thousands of butterflies making the most of the flowers on the herbaceous stock plants. The air seemed to shimmer with them – large and small tortoiseshells, painted ladies, red admirals, peacocks and much, much more. In the summer, our house always had vases of flowers, cut at Watermoor and brought home by Dad.
You can view the map in full online, the area was surveyed and mapped by Ordnance Survey between 1892 and 1947.
Siddington in 2021
World events: Adolf Hitler made a Berlin Sportpalast speech declaring that Germany would make retaliatory night air raids on British cities and threatening invasion; the Blitz began on 7th September and although tough for civilians and ruinous to cities, it probably saved the RAF from collapse and an invasion of Britain never became feasible.
Anything that appears in this section will have some connection with the 1930’s but may extend beyond the decade to follow a meaningful topic more fully.
This time I thought I might take a more general look at the Jefferies family living in Cirencester in the 1930s. The family hub was ‘Churnside’, an Edwardian semi-detatched property at 37 Victoria Road. My grandparentswere Mr and Mrs Edward Arthur Jefferies, my grandmother was born Norah Monger and had two sisters. They had the house built, probably shortly before they were married, living in the right hand part and renting out the left half. I remember Mrs Morgan who lived there when I was a child, and later Mr and Mrs Handy and their family. I believe the house was built on land once belonging to Cirencester Abbey which owned a good deal of agricultural land around the town. It might later have been owned by the Chestermaster family and/or the Bathurst estate before being sold for town expansion. Before New Road was built (later renamed Victoria Road) the land was probably used as grazing for sheep, cattle, and perhaps horses. It was low lying land with the River Churn running along the eastern edge (hence the name ‘Churnside’). When Purley Road was built in the 1920s or ’30s, the fact that ‘Churnside’ was beside the River Churn became a great deal less obvious, but the name stuck. As far as I know, this semi-detached pair of homes was one of the first properties built on this side of New Road. My grandfather, Ted or the Guv’ner, and my grandmother Nor, were quite well off. I remember they had a black Wolsley car and a chauffer, Cooper, to drive it. They also had a live-in maid to help with the household chores and not only did they have a reasonably large garden, but also a further plot, the ‘Lower Garden’ in Purley Road was purchased for use as tennis courts and later, during World War 2, a chicken run and then finally a fruit and vegetable garden. I remember helping Grandpa feed the chickens. That gives you some idea of the Jefferies family and their lifestyle in the 1930s.
Cleaning the office
The business hub was at 2 Castle Street, now the Vodafone shop in the Market Place. The phone number was Cirencester 2 (Cirencester 1 was the Post Office, also in Castle Street), with private extensions to each of the nurseries. At this time the post office was happy to provide external extensions like this for any business that asked for them. When I was a child there was a small automatic exchange in the company’s main office. Previously, one of the office staff would have connected the extensions manually. The building housed a florist’s and garden shop downstairs with storage below in the cellar, there were offices upstairs, and on the second storey the landscape design department with enormous garden plans rolled up or pinned out on drawing boards. I don’t have a photo of the shop in the 1930s, but this one shows it being cleaned in the summer of 1962.
Dad was born in 1926, almost an afterthought following his older brothers born in 1907, 1910 and 1912. During the second world war John and Robert (Bob) joined the army while Richard (Dick) signed up for the navy. All three joined as officers. Mike signed up for the RAF as soon as he was old enough (in 1944). So towards the end of the 1930s running the family business fell entirely to my grandfather.
World events (October 1935): The Turkish government abolished all Masonic lodges in the country. (October 1930): The British airship R101, the world’s largest flying craft, crashed in France en route to India, 48 lives were lost.
As with the 1930s material, everything in this section will have a connection of some kind with these two decades.
Probably few people reading this will know that there was another branch of the Jefferies family, also running a nursery business, but in Lancashire. As far as I’m aware there was no connection between the two businesses, but there is a family connection.
John Edward Jefferies was born in October 1886 and ran his nursery business in the Stockport area. His second son, also John Jefferies continued running the business though the rest of the family went into teaching, the British Gas accounts department, and research (first with Glaxo-Welcome and later at Salford University’s Chemistry Department.
The John Jefferies of Somerford Keynes and later, Cirencester, had a brother. His name was Bradford Jefferies and he was a few years older than John. Bradford had two sons also called Bradford, though one died in infancy. The surviving Bradford’s uncle was therefore the John Jefferies from Cirencester. With me so far? It is a bit convoluted.
This Bradford Jefferies had several children, and one of them (Edward) is the one who ran a nursery business near Stockport. He married and their children were born in the 1920s, one of these, John Anthony Jefferies, continued to run the business . The business was still going in 2022 but I can’t find a recent website for them. They do have an entry on Facebook, however, and various listings on other business directories, though nothing seems to be being updated. I left a message on the Facebook page and had a reply from a member of staff so the company survives. It’s lasted a good deal longer its Cirencester equivalent.
World events(October 1925): John Logie Baird successfully transmitted the first television pictures with a greyscale image. (October 1920): The Polish army captured the Soviet cities of Tarnopol, Dubno, Minsk and Dryssa. (October 1915): In WW1 France, Russia and Italy declared war on Bulgaria. (October 1910):Infra-red photographs were first published. (October 1900): Quantum mechanics began when Max Planck put forward his law of black-body radiation.
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Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has sometimes been described as the constitution of the church, but that’s not strictly correct. Paul didn’t write Ephesians to define what church is and is not, so it contains much more than the bare bones of a definition. Constitutions are (relatively) brief but very clearly lay out the essence and limits of something, be it an organisation like a business, a charity, or indeed a nation. They also spell out definitions of terms as well as the concept being defined, as clearly as possible. So if we want a constitution for the church, we must think in terms of something succinct, crystal clear, and complete but not providing unnecessary additional detail.
Why have a constitution?
The church has never truly had a constitution, some might argue it doesn’t need one. But recently I’ve begun to feel it does. Almost every denomination imposes customs and requirements on their adherents, over and above anything that Jesus taught. There are paid leaders and managers, forms of infant baptism, doctrine, so much encrusted over the basics. So much that can be seen as unnecessary when we compare it to the earliest forms of church or to what we learn from the New Testament. Some form of declarative constitution might bring much needed clarity to the confusion.
Over the centuries there have been repeated reforms and corrections, but generally these have resulted in yet more varieties of belief and practice. A constitution might help, we should at least make an attempt to form one.
So first of all, why would we even want a church constitution? There are probably as many definitions as there are denominations, and that’s quite a large number; a constitution provides clarity and a reference point. The Bible, and even just the New Testament is far too detailed to be a definition; yet it contains everything we need to know and does not support the additions and concretions of the last two millenia.
The essentials, but no more
What else can we say about constitutions in general? The key point, I think, is that a constitution should contain everything essential but nothing beyond that. A definition brings clarity and focus. Constitutions are usually amendable both for corrections and for additions or deletions. There is normally an agreed process for amending a constitution.
So where would we begin for the church? As always, we must begin with our source – Jesus himself.
A good start would be to state that church is defined by everything that Jesus is and does and teaches and by nothing beyond that. Having leaders of a particular flavour or style and how we name those leaders are not fundamental. Whether you have a priest, a vicar, a pastor, elders or deacons, those are all secondary features of church life and practice. They cannot form part of the definition.
Let’s begin by saying church is a group of people striving to follow Jesus. I don’t think we can start in any better way.
We’ll make that our primary clause.
Making a start
1 – Church is a group of people striving to follow Jesus as fully as possible.
Let’s check this statement. It’s a group so we’re defining the minimum size to be two. One person alone following Jesus therefore falls outside our definition. And another point in that first statement is that complete success in following Jesus is not an essential of church either, so two or more people doing their best to follow Jesus becomes our initial attempt at defining what church is. We can adjust our primary clause to make this explicit.
1 – Church is a group of two or more people striving to follow Jesus.
Perhaps we need to clarify the relationship between the people that make up church. They are a community, interacting with one another, and cooperating in following Jesus. Let’s add that in as well. And we need to include the idea of making progress, so…
1 – Church is a community of two or more people striving together to follow Jesus ever more closely.
Let’s add some support from the New Testament. Matthew 4:18-21 shows that people are chosen, called, and follow. Also, I now begin to see that there needs to be some statement before this one, declaring that Jesus is our source and foundation. So let’s renumber our clause as 2 to leave room for a new number 1 to be written later. So now we have…
2 – Church is a community of two or more people striving together to follow Jesus ever more closely. (Matthew 4:18-21)
I’ve linked to Bible Gateway for convenience. The link is not part of the constitution, but the Bible verses themselves are.
For now I’d like to adopt that as the first stab at a constitution for the church. We’ll need to expand it by adding further clauses later. Some of these additions will extend the definition while others will limit it. I plan to revisit this topic repeatedly. But for now I’d love to hear suggestions for improvement as well as objections to this initial statement. How should we extend it? What else do you think we should include? What should we leave out? What might future clauses cover?
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Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch… How long does it take for the grass to die?
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
Trees provide shade, most welcome on a hot day, and they provide shelter when it rains (though this may be unwise during thunderstorms).
But notice the absence of grass beneath these conifers. Shade and shelter are exactly what other plants don’t need; they depend on plenty of light and water to enable them to grow. Light is essential as it provides the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and water is essential as the raw material for this process. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen is bonded with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make energy-storing sugars for use at night and to build cellulose, the main support molecule that gives stems, branches and tree trunks their strength.
The lack of light and water under tree canopies creates a kind of local desert. You can see this clearly in the photo from the presence and absence of grass. So how do the trees survive? That’s a great question! Their roots spread out widely and deep, far enough to reach moist soil and deep ground water. In persistent rain, water drips from the drenched leaves above. And root, trunk and branch all contain stores of water so a tree can cope with a long, dry summer far better than the grass can.
Light
Here’s an experiment anyone can do. Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch. See how long it takes for the grass to turn yellow. How long does it take for the grass to die?
For plants, light is essential. There are some animals that live in dark caves or underground, with no light. Earthworms are a good example, but like all animals they get their food by consuming plants and other animals. But for most creatures, including us humans, light is essential nonetheless. Whether we are plant eaters (like cows and sheep) or meat eaters (like lions and wolves) or omnivores eating either or both (like humans and rats) we still need light to see in order to find and identify the things we must eat to stay alive.
Water
For plants, water is part of their ‘food’, it’s needed to make sugars. For animals water is of no value as food, but it’s essential to prevent dangerous dehydration. All animals know when they’re thirsty and they’ll find water and drink to keep themselves alive. Think of a man lost in a desert, the cartoons have him croaking out, ‘Water.. Water..’ Imagine someone unable to find water, they’d die of thirst long, long before they died of hunger. Most of us would be in danger after a few days without drinking, but we could live for several weeks with nothing to eat. And of course, if you are a fish too little water would mean you couldn’t breathe, and if you were a land animal too much would mean you would drown.
Spiritual (not religious)
The idea of essentials has been carried over into spiritual ideas too. Light and water (and food) are so clearly necessary for life that they make good analogies and illustrations. What did Jesus mean when he said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’? Or when he explained to the Samaritan woman at the well that he would provide water that never runs out, or when he told his followers, ‘I am the bread of life’ or ‘I am the light of the world’?
He was simply saying, I am essential, you can’t live without me. I’m necessary for life. Just as in the physical world, how would it feel to live in the dark, without water and without sustenance? How long would you last? How long would I last?
Many people today feel sure there is no spiritual aspect to life at all, it’s just about living your life in the here and now and then dying from accident, illness, or just old age. Others think there’s much more to life than that. At the very least there are moral and philosophical truths to consider. We should care for one another, help one another, and cooperate in helpful and kind ways.
Food for thought. Let me know below how you think about the essentials of life. Do you have any thoughts to share on this?
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Journeys of Heart and Mind 
