We have a character and a nature as well as a lifetime of learning and practice based on those things. My behaviour, and your behaviour (what we do) is based on our characters and our experiences (who we are).
A steel girder structure (Click images to enlarge)
We’ve thought now about the foundations of church and we’ve considered things that are often seen as foundational, yet are not. These are important distinctions. This time we’ll start to consider what follows from this.
The most import thing that follows is recognising we are not here to tell one another what to do or how to go about it. I do what he calls me to do, and you do what he calls you to do. There are no hierarchies in church life. We all have a place and a function, but we don’t tell one another what to do, or when, or how. This doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it, encourager is a ministry gift and we’d struggle without it sometimes. But there are no people managers in church life, or rather, there is only one and his name is Jesus.
First I need to explain what I mean by ‘who we are’ on the one hand, and ‘what we do’ on the other. Basically, all people can be defined by who they are and by what they do. But to me, being is fundamental, doing much less so; I believe that’s true for all people because what we do springs ultimately from who we are.
If you want an example, look no further than Donald Trump. He bullies people and nations, he often seems to act or speak before thinking things through, and he’s always looking for ‘a deal’ that will benefit him, or the USA in some way. Why does he behave like this? Because it’s in his nature, and his lived experience is based on his nature as well, so what he does is natural but is also amplified and reinforced by a long life of living that way. Think about Claude Monet, Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Isambard Kingdom Brunel or Charles Dickens; their actions sprang from their personalities and natures; they began with character and their behaviour found its source there.
We’re all fundamentally like that. We have a character and a nature as well as a lifetime of learning and practice based on those things. My behaviour, and yours (what we do) is based on our characters and our experiences (who we are). I might be better than you at creating websites or conducting biological experiments. You will undoubtedly be better than me in other areas of life and ability, our abilities and actions spring from our natures and characters. What we do, and indeed what we can do comes from who we are, supported by much practice.
Who am I and what do I do in church?
Am I defined by what I do or by who I am? What makes me significant in church life? It’s no different than any other aspect of my life. I am defined by who I am.
I’m a child of my Father in heaven, I’m a brother (or a sister) of Jesus, I’ve been filled with his Spirit. I’m much more now than just a biological specimen in an organic body that will eventually fail. This is why I’m significant. If I matter to Papa, and to Jesus, and contain their Holy Spirit, and will live eternally in them and without the necessity of a physical body, what can I add to that by what I do?
So let’s look at the detail; what do I do? I continue for a little while longer in this frail, physical body. I read and study the Bible, I write blog posts that I hope may open up a new world for some of my readers, I care about my daughters and their families, I try to be a blessing and a guide and a help to my friends, to the people I meet as I live my life, I do my best to be kind and helpful to others. Is my significance in any of these things, or even all of it taken together? No, I don’t think it is. I do these things because of the significance I have in Christ. He is my source and my destination. He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, I can do all things in him (Phil 4:13), and apart from him I can do nothing whatsoever (John 15:5).
Just as in the rest of life I’m defined by who I am, not by what I do. But over the two millennia between Jesus walking this Earth and my doing so, something fundamental has shifted. Jesus always taught that we’re defined by who we are. So did Paul, so did the other apostles. Paul wrote that he was laying foundations and that the only possible foundation is Christ (1 Cor 3:11). None of them said anything about studying the Bible, reading it every day, having clearly defined leaders, meeting in special buildings, or celebrating special days; all of that was invented by people who thought what we do matters and that right activity should be the guiding principle. But the people who had met with Jesus and been deeply changed by those encounters knew better! ‘I’m a son, a daughter, a much-loved child of Papa in Heaven. That’s the only thing that truly matters. That’s who I am, and I’ve been filled with the Spirit for my daily guidance, the Spirit of Christ is in me. Every day the Holy Spirit turns me to point in the right direction, and all I have to do is take a step. Tomorrow he’ll adjust the direction and I’ll take another step. I don’t need more detail than that, I don’t have to plan (though he does), but I just step out daily in faith.
Writing things down can clarify our thinking, it can be helpful and satisfying. That’s what’s happened here for me, I think. I’ve been making a conscious effort over the last few weeks to dig as deep as I can into this topic and try to come up with observations and understanding that will help me (and my readers) stand on the only foundation (Jesus) that is strong enough to provide his people with everything they need to grow and thrive and live in newness and freshness every single day. What we do can never support us in this, the best we can do will never be enough. we’re going to need the best that Jesus offers. Then, and only then, can church function as he intends it to. This, for me, is a statement of faith, I’ll go on standing on the only foundation worth choosing, that is… Jesus and when I finally leave this world, I will still stand on him and continue to draw from his strength and direction.
I don’t want to live my life according to tasks that need to be done (though there are always plenty of those!) I want to live my life out of Who I am in Christ. Isn’t that why John writes that ‘without Christ I can do … nothing’? And also Paul, that ‘I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me’?
I really do feel that this is essential for all my brothers and sisters also, but that it’s somehow been squeezed out of much of the teaching of the churches almost everywhere because doing the right things seems more important and more fundamental; in truth what we do is empty, it’s only as good as our own abilities and strengths and choices. I am not interested in programmes because I know that when I’m walking with Jesus, programmes are unhelpful. I believe, deep down, I’ve been called to recognise the difference between being and doing and share it whenever possible (not necessarily with words but perhaps more by behaviour). And I feel that as believers we are called to community so that we can listen to Jesus and the Spirit together and share what we are hearing and seeing day by day. And for that reason I greatly miss meetings where there are no leaders, and everyone present is waiting to hear what Jesus has to say about things and speak, sing, dance in whatever way will express what he is saying to his gathered body. Without us he is just a head, we are his body turning his thoughts and purposes into action. What future does a headless body have? None at all! No sense of direction, no sense of purpose, and quite unable to grow in the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity (or faithfulness), gentleness, and self control.
So for the next few weeks I plan to continue digging into this stuff as deeply as I can, sticking close to Jesus along the way. I’m going to live in the presence as fully as possible and make notes on anything I hear or see so I can revisit them later. Will you join me in standing on the one, true foundation who is Jesus? We can live this adventure together in him!
I pray for abundant grace and peace to all my readers here on Journeys of Heart and Mind. And I urge you all to pay more attention to who you are, and a whole lot less on your activities. You just need to know that there is someone in charge and that you are part of a team, you don’t need to understand the overall strategy, you do need to let yourself be turned to the right direction and then step out for today. And you need a very simple faith that expects the one in charge to adjust your direction again tomorrow so that you can take one more step. You don’t need to plan, you don’t need to understand, you don’t need to be aware of your role or the big picture.
A question
Ask yourself, ‘Who am I?’ (Don’t ask, ‘What am I doing?’) Also, ask Jesus, ‘Who am I?’ He knows the answer better than you. If you ask him, ‘What should I be doing?’ he’ll say , ‘Don’t worry about that, Papa will make sure you know when the time comes. Meanwhile you are my sister, my brother, we have the same Father. He guides me with a little nudge here and a word there. You know what it’s like when you listen to a piece of music on Spotify or iTunes. You click Start or press the button and nothing happens – until it does! There’s an opening chord, a drumbeat, and the melody begins. And you recognise it instantly and join in singing at the top of your voice. It’s the old, old song of love, joy and peace, patience, kindness, overwelming goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, the great and familiar song you remember so well from Galatians 5:22-23! You were not being asked to do something difficult or learn something new! You are learning, quite simply, to be obedient.
A dream?
One night a few weeks ago I had a dream, I rarely wake up remembering a dream, but this was an exception. I was living in Cirencester during the Second World War (I’m not that old, but in the dream it was during the war). I was working with a construction crew on a specialised site of some kind, we were building several structures out of steel girders according to a plan we’d been given. We had no idea what they were for. When these objects were finished we had to move them to Stamford in Lincolnshire.
I don’t know how well you know Stamford, but Donna and I had friends there when we lived in St Neots so we know the town well. It’s like a Cotswold town in many ways as it lies on the same band of oolitic limestone that is so familiar here in the Cotswolds. I have no idea how we moved these building-sized steel structures from Cirencester to Stamford! But it didn’t seem to be a problem in the dream.
But when we arrived we found a site already prepared where they were a perfect fit and a team of workers who were expecting them to arrive and knew exactly what to do with them. That was all we needed to know and we just travelled back to Cirencester understanding that there was a designer somewhere who’d done the planning and had made all the necessary arrangements.
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He’s the alpha and omega, first and last, top and bottom; the church begins in him and ends in him. He saves us and now supports us but he also commands us; we are complete in him, but without him we are – nothing.
In the last part, we looked at the foundations of church, and the purpose of those foundations. We paid some attention to Paul’s teaching about Christ himself being the only possible and dependable foundation, this time we’ll look at some alternatives that have been tried over the last couple of thousand years, and why they haven’t worked.
Two thousand years ago
It’s worth noting, in passing, that although we don’t have precise dates, it’s now almost exactly 2000 years since Jesus began calling his first disciples from among the families of fishermen along the shores of Galilee. 2028, 2029 and 2030 will likely be 2000 years since he was walking in Galilee or Judea with his twelve closest followers, healing the sick, teaching the crowds, and dining with tax collectors or pharisees. What a thought!
Six months ago I wrote about the apostolic gift and how one of the main tasks and gifts of an apostle is to go out into the world to tell people about Jesus, explain his nature and character, call them to follow him, and show them how to meet together as a church and how to relate to church in other places. It’s a call to create networks of people following Jesus and communicating from group to group within the network. The foundation and the building standing on it are intimately connected; the church is structurally and functionally part of Christ.
Other possible foundations?
Paul tells us Christ is the only possible foundation, so the foundation can’t be anything that’s not a person. it cannot be faith, for example. it can’t be the bible. it can’t be doctrine, or teaching. Jesus himself is the way, the truth and the life, so these are also attributes of the foundation and therefore of church. Yet faith, doctrine and teaching have often been regarded as foundational. Well, they are not.
Nor can we regard praise or worship or prayer as the foundations of church. they are essential parts of what church does, but they don’t sustain us or provide us with any sort of support. No kind of activity can replace Christ, not bible reading or study, not the apostolic gift, not prophecy, not mission, not the work of a shepherd or of a teacher. All of these are useful, indeed I’d say essential, but they are not the foundation of church, merely useful outcomes and practices that will be found to be present wherever church is standing solidly on Christ.
Love, faith, and hope remain, so these are the only plausible candidates. but the greatest of these is love. Of these, only one is a person. We are told ‘God is love’. But Jesus and the father are one. Jesus said, ‘If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father’. so Jesus is the foundation, or Papa is, take your pick. Or the spirit is the foundation because he’s the spirit of Christ. Build on any other foundation at your peril! Anything else is merely shifting sand, not solid, reliable, load-bearing rock.
Think also about the foundation stone, the cornerstone. having laid a foundation first, the corner stone is large, heavy and sets the position and direction of all the other stones or bricks. all of these must sit centrally on the foundation, anything that veers off line will not be supported properly and will fail eventually. The cornerstone marks the position of the corner itself and the direction of two of the sides. It remains visible when the foundations themselves become hidden underground. And the cornerstone may have a carved inscription saying when it was laid and by whom. What are the words on the cornerstone of the church? Probably they would be along the lines of:
This stone was laid at the death and resurrection of Yahshua ha-Mashiach*. It stands upon the corner of the foundation and is the first visible evidence of the church being built from the living stones of his people. It will stand for all time.
*Yahshua ha-Mashiach, usually written Jeshua ha-Mashiach is Hebrew and translates into English as Jesus the Messiah or Jesus Christ or Jesus the Anointed One. The names Yahoshua (Hebrew) or Jeshua (Aramaic) literally mean Yahweh saves or Jehovah saves. Jesus is far more than just the foundation, he’s also the head of the body, head of the church. He’s the alpha and omega, first and last, top and bottom; the church begins in him and ends in him. He saves us and now supports us but he also commands us; we are complete in him, but without him we are – nothing.
Over the two millennia since Jesus’ time in a human body, church has repeatedly turned away from him and attempted to stand on almost anything else. How he must long for us to stop doing that!
Nor is church built on leadership of any kind other than that of Jesus himself. Yes, there have been great leaders in church history, but they have always pointed to Christ first and last; there is no room for emperors or kings, no need for governors or great statesmen.
Truly, as Paul taught, there is only one possible foundation – Jesus the anointed one. The only person who has ever been fully human yet at the same time also fully God.
Please note, I am not suggesting that Bible study or the gift of evangelist or various kinds of leaders are not useful, or unhelpful or wrong; I’m simply arguing that they are not in themselves foundational. If we use these things as foundations, the structure of church will crumble and everything we build will fall. And that is precisely as it ought to be.
Chain blog or a series?
I’m still hoping other writers will join me here in sharing their thoughts on What does Jesus mean to me and how do I respond to him? This is my third contribution and I’m not sure what to do for the best. Perhaps I’ll invite a further batch of possible contributors, perhaps I’ll also spin off my three contributions as a series on the topic Church foundations or something similar. Meanwhile don’t be shy, read the chain blog instructions and just start writing. You’ll help me out enormously! Thanks.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
In the process of standing on Christ we will see a revelation of who we are because who we are matters, far more than we sometimes think … There are no ifs and buts here. We live because he lives, we love because he first loved us.
Six months ago I wrote about the apostolic gift and how one of the main giftings of an apostle was to go out into the world to tell people about Jesus, teach them about his nature and character, call them to follow Jesus, and show them how to meet together as a church and how to relate to church in other places. It’s a call to create networks of people following Jesus and communicating from group to group within the network. Paul is one of the finest examples we have of an apostle at work in this way, but the best example of all is, of course, Jesus himself. He travelled much further than Paul to start his building work. He came all the way from sitting beside his Father in heaven, to call, teach and eventually die here on this little planet called Earth. Then he returned in order to send his spirit, his Holy Spirit, back here to be with his followers. The Holy Spirit began working in and through the disciples in Jerusalem, and a little later made himself known to Paul as he was travelling to Damascus. He called Paul as an apostle to go on spreading the message about Jesus further and further around the Mediterranean.
Paul not only took out the message about Jesus, he also understood much about being an apostle and how apostolic people are all called to continue this work. And Paul also understood a lot more about church life and the gifts of prophet, evangelist, shepherd and teacher and how these different giftings work together. He also understood clearly that the first part of building something involves foundations. A lot of his letters are about this work of church building, guiding people in the difficult work of getting along together, discovering their giftings, and allowing the Holy Spirit to draw them deeper and further in works of service. All of this was important then – but it’s just as important today in the places we live our lives.
I want to look at this process in much more detail. We are not Jesus, we are not even Paul, is this something we dare to attempt? Is there any chance of success for you or me if we’re called to embark on this process? If you are called to reveal people to Christ, then yes, there’s every chance of success, if you are called to some other ministry gift then you’d be barking up the wrong tree! We must all do whatever we are called to do. But there is not one single Christian alive today who has no work to do and not a single one of us lacking the gifting with which to do it. Unfortunately, because of the way we tend to build church today, we rarely think about foundations and it’s not hard to find people who do not feel or act as if they have work to do and the gifting necessary to accomplish it. For such people, church may feel like a social group, a place for study, or a weekly sing-along. But it’s not supposed to be like that. It is supposed to be a building site where something very special is being raised up on an even more special foundation. It should be a place busy with cement mixers, cranes for heavy lifting, and skilled workers well practised in all the necessary skills.
I might come back to the topic of callings and giftings later, but I feel I should address the idea of foundations first, so the rest of this post will be devoted to that topic. So what is a foundation for?
The purpose of foundations
When we talk about foundations, we are talking about digging holes in the ground and filling them with somethig solid and capable of bearing a heavy load without shifting or giving way.
Modern foundations are dug by a powered excavator and filled with freshly mixed concrete. But in Roman times, the trenches were dug by hand and for massive structures like temples and amphitheatres large blocks of stone were placed in the trench to support the structure that would be built on top. For smaller houses and shops, rubble foundations would suffice (like those in the photo). The foundation stones were normally larger than the stones that would be used for the building as it rose above the ground surface. It wasn’t much of an issue if the walls were built of smaller material, but if the foundation layer shifted during or after construction the building might collapse. A foundation needs to be seriously strong, deep and firm – unyielding.
There’s an old hymn that I remember from childhood, it was sometimes used during school assembly, but was also used on Sunday services at church. Here’s the first verse.
The church's one foundation Is Jesus Christ her Lord; She is his new creation By water and the Word: From heav'n he came and sought her To be his holy bride; With his own blood he bought her, And for her life he died.
You can hear this grand old hymn sung with all the words on YouTube if you wish:
The first two lines are straight from Paul.
In 1 Corinthians 3:10-11 he tells us clearly that the only foundation is Jesus and in verses 12 to 14 he warns us to use only the best materials if we are called to build. The build quality will be tested by fire. And in verses 16 and 17 he says we ourselves are Yahweh’s Temple, a holy place. Another way to put this is that we ourselves are the church, it’s not a structure of mere bricks, but a structure of living stones – his people. We are bonded together like the stonework of any strong building and we stand together on the strong foundation of Christ himself. Read the whole chapter (it’s quite short), try to apply what Paul is saying to your own life, imagine sitting down with him over a coffee and discussing it.
We are to be built up together in love for we are to be like Jesus who is in turn like the Father. What is the substance of the church? It is love. the Father is love at its source, at its root. Jesus is love sent from heaven and expressed in his life. Read any of the gospels and you’ll find him loving his followers and the crowds who gathered in very real and practical ways. We are to continue his work, building in love, loving one another and loving the other people around us in this world. Nothing else matters more than this!
Another way of saying that we are living stones would be to say we are loving stones. We should be fervent lovers of Papa, of Jesus, of one another, of the worldly people around us, and even fervent lovers of our enemies. That is the only way of sharing Jesus; to be taken seriously we must be like him in every way. I, you, we, must all become accurate impersonators of Jesus. If we have no love, we have…nothing!
Until we begin living this new life we’ve been granted, loving everyone we meet, we’ll remain failed imitators of Christ and church will remain just an inorganic structure – rigid, cold, hard, unyielding and utterly unattractive to people in our communities who need to be loved. So let’s get to it! What are we waiting for?
But remember, it starts with the foundation of a loving Saviour, Jesus himself. Let’s stand on him, feel his love for us individually and together, and share his love for the confused, the unloved and the unlovable. Then, and only then, will we begin to see real growth. This will be growth of our own character, growth of the living stones around us, and growth of the church as others are drawn in by a love they have never previously seen or expected.
Do you see why foundations are so important? We become like the foundation we stand upon. If we don’t stand on Jesus we cannot expect to stand at all. In the process of standing on Christ we will see a revelation of who we are because who we are matters, far more than we sometimes think. If you’re a chip off the block of Jesus you’ll find yourself loving as he loves, building as he builds, dying as he died, yet living eternally as he lives. There are no ifs and buts here. We live because he lives, we love because he first loved us.
Who are you? Who am I? We are little pieces of him – that’s what ‘Christian’ means; it was a derogatory term applied to followers of Christ by the Greek and Roman pagans in the early years of the church. We are ‘little Christs’, no more, no less. This is our future, our inheritance, to be like the Master. Everything else comes out of who I am, who you are.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
I was admitted to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH) for six days of investigation including CT and MRI scans. I started off on a trolley in a corner of Acute Medical until they could find space in a ward (2025).
October 2025 (3 months before publishing this article)
Click pics to enlarge
View from my hospital trolley
This was an unusual month during which I suffered a small bleed in my brain (a subarachnoid haemorrhage). The effects were weird and quite sudden, I began having seizures, in my case quite mild symptoms of muscle weakness in my left leg and numbness in parts of my left leg and head; curiously my left arm was not affected. These symptoms lasted for a few minutes and then faded away. This happened three or four times a day to begin with but quickly reduced in frequency.
After nine hours in A&E I was admitted to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH) for six days of investigation including CT and MRI scans. I started off on a trolley in a corner of Acute Medical until they could find space in a ward. And much of my time was spent in Gallery Wing, Ward 1C. I was interested to see that all the medical and ward staff used their staff badges to log in to any hospital computer to see their own desktop with all the icons and applications they needed to do their work. Efficient and well-thought-out. The computer in the photo is displaying the login screen.
My symptoms were mild and were completely suppressed by low doses of Levetiracetam prescribed by my consultant. And my GP here in Cirencester can see the consultant’s notes as well as her own. I’ve had no seizures at all since 1st November. No surgery was required, but until I have six months clear of seizures, I’m not allowed to drive. There are more details in an article I wrote at the time.
From 4th to 7th we took Donna’s Mum, Isobel, for a short holiday at a Warners Hotel near Hereford. We visited Great Malvern and struggled to get the wheelchair up and down some of the very steep footpaths in the town.
The Small Group I meet with on Tuesday evenings gave me an opportunity to work through part of JDMC with them. This was encouraging and successful enough that Al suggested we work through some more of it next week.
In our back garden I added some more turf to a path I’m rerouting. We visited our neighbour George who’s in hospital in Dursley.
JHM: I wrote about the apostolic gift; and about the complex water flows in Cirencester. World events: The International Court of Justice ruled that countries can sue each other over historical emissions of greenhouse gases and the effects of climate change; and clashes erupted in southern Syria between armed Druze and Bedouin groups.
I walked out in the evening twilight and took this photo near the footbridge from The Beeches to Cricklade Road opposite Aldi. In the south-western sky you can see a waxing crescent Moon and the planet Venus near the top of the image. You may need to click the image to enlarge it to see Venus.
Moon and Venus again
Here they are again the following evening (3rd January) seen from Stratton north of Cirencester, see how far the Moon has moved along its orbit in just a little under 24 hours!
Chimney repair
The builders came to fix our leaking chimney, it was good to have that job done. In the bad old days when I was young the builders would have nonchalantly walked over the roof as if it was at ground level. But these days scaffolding is a must as the safety standards have been changed. It costs a little more, but it reduces the risks considerably.
JHM: I wrote about Knightstone Causeway; and my breakfast. World events: Bulgaria and Romania removed their EU land border controls having joined the Schengen Area; while Ukraine halted the flow of Russian gas following the expiration of a five-year transit deal and became a state party in the International Criminal Court.
After a great deal of effort and trying several different ways, I was finally able to get the Paul Young videos live on YouTube from the House2House meetings CDs. I then wrote to my friends, the Dales, who hold the copyright to the recorded sessions from the meetings back in 2008.
Having got that task done I was then able to group them into a playlist and anyone can now watch them online. The video titles are Grace, Tradition and Soul; together they explain how Paul came to write The Shack, how he came to understand the grace of God working in people’s lives including his own, and the shame-based fear so many people face in our Western culture and just how crippling it can be. Paul wrote the book for his children and its amazing success as a book in 2007 and as a film in 2017 has changed the trajectories of so many lives ever since. The book remains available as a paperback and an ebook from Google Play, Amazon, and others, and the film is still available to view on YouTube, Amazon and elsewhere (here’s the trailer). The three talks Paul Young gave at the House2House conference must have been one of the first times he spoke about it publicly to a large audience, and they’re still well worth watching.
Two of them have been seen by the Small Group that I meet with most weeks, we really should try to see the third one too in the coming year.
This was the view from our window on 24th January! A relatively heavy fall of snow and still coming down when I took the photo.
A newish Moon
Earlier in the month, on 15th, I was able to get a lovely photo of the crescent Moon, just a day or two after New Moon. The sun had recently set below and to the right of this image. There was still enough light in the sky to prevent the sunlit side of the Moon from flaring and there’s enough contrast to just see the nightime part of the Moon, sometimes poetically described as ‘the old Moon in the New Moon’s arms’.
Stratton Meadows
The later part of the month was wet and the River Churn broke its banks and flooded fields and meadows in low lying areas. the final image for this month shows Stratton meadows inundated. The village of Stratton is on the higher ground beyond the flooded area. This land, now used to graze cattle in the summer was used to grow willow rods 150 years ago. They would have been harvested in the autumn and bound into bundles for local basket making businesses.
World events: Supporters of US President Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol; and the global death toll from COVID-19 passed 2 million.
We had daffodils in flower by the end of January, surprisingly early and evidence that global warming was already beginning to have practical effects. The photo shows a row of them along the roadside in St Neots. We welcome them in springtime, but in January I’m not sure they are quite as welcome, though very lovely.
One of my friends from the coffee shop Bible study group, Kevin, was suicidal, I took him to A&E at the hospital in Huntingdon and stayed with him until he could be seen. It seemed a wise and necessary precaution.
We had Peter and Dadka staying with us as they were unable to afford anywhere of their own. They were both from Slovakia. Peter received a message on 9th to say that his parents had been involved in a road accident and his father had died in the collision. He flew back home to be with the family for a week or two and help make the necessary arrangements. This must have been a terrible shock for him.
On 30th I enjoyed a coffee and a great chat with a friend, David Pacini.
World events: The IAEA announced that Iran has adequately dismantled its nuclear weapons program, allowing the UN to lift sanctions; and the WHO announced an outbreak of the Zika virus.
In the garden the snowdrops were in flower and our rhubarb was beginning to grow with buds bursting and the first, crinkled leaves beginning to unfold. We bought a new HP LaserJet colour printer to replace our old Samsung laser printer.
I was involved in several different meetings at this time. There was the Open Door Small Group once a week on Tuesdays, I was meeting with the coffee shop crew at least once a week and quite separately with Jim, Sean and Kevin on Thursday evenings. On Thursday mornings I met with Roger and Ruth at their home in Offord d’Arcy. With the coffee shop group we discussed ideas around not going to church because we are the church, and how our focus should be to plant Jesus, plant disciples, and plant the gospel.
On 7th we had a sixth Cornerstone Meeting, not just directors this time, but staff as well. Paul has written off the setup costs of £81k and planned to run on a break-even basis in future. He also thought he might move to fried food and reduced prices. Paul declared that there would be no directors from now on, just a management team. Some of us foresaw problems, mainly because Paul wanted things all his own way and some of his ideas were somewhat controversial; but he was putting up all the money, and if he didn’t want ideas and thoughts from others, that was, of course, his choice to make.
Following Mum’s death at Cheltenham General Hospital on 1st January, Dad was pretty busy getting the news out to friends and relatives and making initial arrangements for the funeral. I worked up an initial draft for the service sheet, and I discussed it with Dad and my three sisters before revising it.
Debbie sent me a scan of her unborn baby, and I felt sad that Mum would not see the birth of two great-grandchildren (Beth was also expecting a baby, probably a little before her sister, Debbie).
Gayna, Donna and Ken
Towards the end of the month, we enjoyed visiting the National Trust’s Anglesey Abbey with our friends Ken and Gayna. It was a lovely, sunny day and the gardens at Anglesey are always a delight at any time of the year.
World events:A panicking crowd during the Stoning of the Devil ritual on the last day of the Hajj in Saudi Arabia, killed at least 362 pilgrims; and NASA launched the first interplanetary spacecraft to Pluto, New Horizons.
I began redecorating the stairs, hall, and landing. I fitted an electrical box with wiring for an extractor fan in the bathroom, repaired the plasterwork where necessary, and painted emulsion on the walls and gloss on the woodwork. It was quite a long job, but we got it completed in the end.
Conservatory
We decided to buy a conservatory, our garden was large enough to take one and it would extend our living space quite a bit. Also, we thought it would fit well against the long brick wall of the kitchen, airing cupboard and the old laundry room and we could easily replace the dining room window with a small bi-fold opening using the existing lintel; so just a matter of cutting through the lower brickwork, making good, a bit of plastering and decorating.
We began visiting conservatory suppliers to look at what they had to offer and get some idea of price. The one in the photo was the sort of shape and size we thought might work well for us.
A further improvement at home was the removal of the very old bathroon suite and its replacement with a new bath, shower, loo and sink in white to replace the worn out avocado bath, loo and sink. Times had moved on with bathroom colours!
Colworth badge
And finally at Unilever Research Colworth, we all received brand new security badges which opened gates and doors automatically for all the areas each member of staff had access to.
World events: Greece became the 12th country to join the Eurozone; and Apple launched iTunes, software that acted as both a media player and a media library.
on 1st January Beth, Paul, Jenny and I went to see Apollo 13 at the cinema in Weston-super-Mare. It seems a strange thing to have done just after losing Judy, but at the time it seemed to make perfect sense. Debbie, would, I think have been preparing to go back to study for her teaching qualification at Newport in south Wales. I certainly enjoyed watching the film.
I returned to work at Long Ashton on 3rd and started to pick up the threads that had been temporarily abandoned, or taken over by Pete Moody or Mike Truman while I’d been away. Peter Shewry invited me to join the Computing Strategy Review Meeting, and I continued developing the Microscopy web pages in the evenings at home.
Judy’s funeral was on 5th January and the day did not begin well. I woke up in the morning to the sound of dripping water and found it coming through the top of the bedroom doorframe. An emergency plumber came out and soon got things sorted for me. When the house was built, the overflow pipe was never connected so instead of a pipe dripping outside the house, the system was dripping inside! That lost me two hours at the start of a rather busy day, but everything else went well.
About 160 turned up which was astonishing, Judy was much loved not only by the extended family but by her pupils and colleagues at Cotham Grammar School, and many LARS staff had come along too. Bev was great, he said all the right things and was appreciated by everyone, I think. But only around 80 to 90 came to the buffet afterwards at Horsecastle chapel, so we had far too much food and donated what was left to the Horsecastle youth groups.
Rachael and Neil witnessed a horrendous event on their way back to Rugby later that day. A man jumped from a motorway bridge just as Rachael was approaching it. She had managed to swerve and miss him, but two cars behind her were unable to avoid him and caught him full on. Neil and another man had made their way back to the area of the incident and saw what happened.
World events: Serious fighting broke out on 9th January between Russian soldiers and rebel fighters in Chechnya; and France undertook its last nuclear weapons test.
We visited Nana and Grandad (Judy’s parents) at their home at 14 Belland Drive, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham. The photo shows Nana, Beth and Debbie playing a game on the dining table, perhaps one of Beth’s Christmas presents.
Cleaning the guinea pig run
On 13th we were back at home in Yatton, Debbie and Beth were out in the cold cleaning out the guinea pig run. When it was particularly cold we used to bring the guinea pigs into the house for protection, but they were quite good at managing cold days, the three of them would huddle together to keep warm.
World events: The US Congress authorised the use of force to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait; and in South Africa, Nelson Mandela and Mangosuthu Buthelezi agreed to end the violence between the ANC and Inkatha.
I was busy at LARS constructing a user-friendly menu system for the EDAX X-ray microanalysis software on the scanning electron microscope (SEM). I also produced a series of step-by-step instructions for using the SEM. The instrument in the photo is similar to the one we had at Long Ashton, but with a different X-ray microanalysis system.
Debbie and Beth remained at school in Yatton and we were living at 80 Stowey Road.
World events: Spain and Portugal joined the European Community; while the United Kingdom and France announced plans to construct the Channel Tunnel.
I couldn’t find anything for January 1981. Debbie would have been five-years-old, turning six in March. Beth was two and would become three in May.
John Jefferies and Son would have been clearing surplus stock from the shop in the January sales but would also have been starting to consider how best to dispose of the business since the four brothers were approaching or beyond retiring age. My cousin, Tim, was young enough to carry on for some time but it was far too much for one person to manage. My Dad would be able to help out a lot but for relatively few years. The options would have been to shrink the business very considerably by selling off much of the land, or finding a buyer to continue it as a going concern. I suspect a decision was made to sell and hope to keep Tim employed by the new owners. There would have been no great urgency at this stage, but the clock was certainly ticking and something would need to be done.
World events: Greece joined the European Economic Community; and Iran released the remaining 52 American hostages, minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President, ending the Iran hostage crisis.
The photo is from February 1976 as I could find nothing for January. It shows Cindy with Gavin and Rebecca walking towards the front door at Churnside.
Debbie was 10 months old in January and we were regularly meeting our friends Tony and Faith for prayer and to explore ways to go deeper in our knowledge and experience of meeting and living non-denominationally. Others were beginning to join us too, but just in ones and twos at this stage. Judy and I were still regularly at Horsecastle Chapel on Sundays too. There was a certain tension about this as the Horsecastle elders worried that we might come off the rails meeting without oversight with all these other odd people (from their point of view).
Judy’s temporary Christmas job at a Bristol department store came to an end once the January sales finished. She began her new job as a lab assistant in the Woodland Road Biochemistry Lab at Bristol University. I think the photo shows the same building in 2008, though I can’t be certain. She worked for Dr Mike Tanner who was doing research on a human erythrocyte membrane protein. They used out of date donated blood from Bristol Royal Infirmary, prepared erythrocyte ghosts (empty cell membranes) and extracted the proteins. I think they were studying Protein D as it was then called, and assembling amino acid sequences. It involved a lot of acrylamide gel chromatography although the lab was the proud owner of an early amino acid sequencer that could analyse short peptides automatically. The short sequences had to be manually matched and assembled into longer sequence maps.
Our bed-sit was cramped and very basic, but it was home. We still had our first car, ‘Pumpkin’, a Ford 100E sidevalve engine with a 3-speed gearbox. In the mornings I’d drive to the top of Park Street and drop Judy off near the Wills Building, then drive to Long Ashton. I forget what the evening arrangement was, probably I parked on Woodland Road and we drove from there to the bed-sit at 59 Linden Road. We were saving money now and starting to look at the possibility of an unfurnished flat and we might have made the move later in the year.
World events: In the Ibrox disaster, 66 people died and over 200 were injured in Glasgow during a spectator crush at a football match; and the Aswan High Dam was officially opened in Egypt.
The Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard, one of the local newpapers in the area, published a story on 7th January about The Corals, a local pop group who hired Cirencester’s Corn Hall on New Year’s Eve to attempt a world record of playing popular music without repeating a tune. They played for 11½ hours so did indeed smash the previous record of 10 hours.
What was not reported (because nobody knew) was that the drummer, Colin Flooks, would later become world famous as Cozy Powell, playing with bands like Black Sabbath as well as with Brian May and other famous performers. Colin was in my class (1B) when we started at Cirencester Grammar School in 1959.
World events:Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister of India and was sworn in on January 24; and the Radio Caroline ship Mi Amigo ran aground on the beach at Frinton-on-Sea.
I was studying a range of subjects in Class 2B, including Latin for a second year. The photo shows the cover of one of my exercise books. We began in years 1 and 2 with a wide range of subjects, but these changed after the second year, I was not doing well with Latin so discontinued it at the end of the summer term in 1962.
The third year of my time at Querns School continued into its second term. Christmas and New year were already done and we were starting to look forward to Easter, and beyond it the long summer holiday.
I was in the third year at Querns School (my junior school). I was excited as I was seven-years-old now and feeling much more confident with school work, the environment and my fellow pupils. But it was still good to go home at the end of the school day to eat a meal with Mum, Dad and Cindy (we called it tea, dinner was the midday meal). Sometimes before bedtime we’d have a cup of hot chocolate or Ovaltine as a bit of a treat. If you had something to eat in the evening it would be supper. Perhaps if we’d been out all day we might have fish and chips in newspaper. Now that was a treat!
Whirlybirds
Fridays were special because they were followed by Saturday and Sunday when there was no school at all. All day to play in the garden with Linda and Graham Watts from next door, or walk to the little shop near the Golden Farmer pub to buy bacon or a loaf of bread for Mum and perhaps some sweets. Mr and Mrs Watts had a TV and often we’d go round to watch Whirlybirds or The Lone Ranger. Click on the link, choose an episode, and watch!
The Korean War was in full swing, and I remember Dad getting his RAF kitbag out of the loft and going away to Kent for a week or two to train on the latest Radar systems. I don’t know when this happened, of course or even if it was in 1951. The Korean War ran from June 1950 to July 1953 and it seems to me that Dad’s absence for training was before Cindy was born in October 1951. It makes sense that if they were going to retrain people they’d have done it early during the war.
In January, Dad was receiving tobacco from Lilias as well as from Bob and Betty (Mike’s brother and sister-in-law). His Uncle Herbert (his Father’s brother) had left him a £50 legacy in his will. He had a bad dream about Lilias on 3rd/4th.
On 7th he had a second flight in the Avro Anson and photographed the runways from the air. By 10th he was worried because he’d had no recent letters from Lilias, a letter came on 11th to say she’d been ill. He had a further hour in the Anson and this time was given a chance to try the controls (he would have so loved that!) On 16th he heard that his friends Joe and Dorothy were engaged to be married. He watched quite a few films during January as well. Mike also took photos of the Anson, a Stirling, and his garry (lorry).
World events: The first meeting of the United Nations was held, at Methodist Central Hall Westminster in London; and Project Diana bounced radar waves off the Moon, measuring the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, and proving that communication is possible between Earth and outer space.
There’s not enough information to write something for every month in the 1940s. Mike’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.
US Embassy in Japan, 1931
Mike would have been 15 and still at school, possibly at Cirencester Grammar School or perhaps already at Rendcomb College just north of Cirencester. His older brothers were all serving with British forces in the Second World War. His father was managing the family business (John Jefferies & Son Ltd) on his own with help from some paid staff, but even these would have been in short supply due to the need for fighting men. It must have been a difficult time.
World events: Australian and British troops defeated Italian forces at the Battle of Bardia in Libya; and the US ambassador to Japan, reported to Washington a rumour overheard at a diplomatic reception, concerning a planned surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
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.
Cirencester traditionally had a town carnival every August. These petered out and were discontinued, I think in the 1970s. The photo shows the Carnival Queen and her attendants in the 1939 Carnival.
The Carnival procession made its way through the Market Place and along Dyer Street and then Victoria Road to a field at Watermoor where there would be tents, amusements and fairground rides.
This photo taken 95 years later in December 2025 is seen from the same angle. I thought there’d have been no mill here in the 1930s, but the photo was made from a footbridge that’s still there and is in daily use as part of Riverside Walk. There is no mill here today, though, so there’s a fuller story to discover if and when anyone has the time and inclination to dig a bit deeper.
World events (January 1931): The cyclotron was invented (used to accelerate sub-atomic particles to study nuclear physics). (January 1936):Radium E (bismuth-210) became the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.
As with the 1930s material, everything in this section will have a connection of some kind with these two decades.
Ted and Mike
Mike (my father) was born on 4th June 1926. The photo shows him with his father, my grandpa, Ted. The album holding this photo probably belonged to Mike’s older brother, Dick and this page is clearly marked 1927. The trees in the photo are leafless, so we can date the photo to wintertime which would put Mike at around 18 months old.
At Churnside
The second photo was on the same page so is also from 1927. It might have been a warm day in October, perhaps, and was taken in the back garden of Churnside, 37 Victoria Road.
This month I thought I’d provide a pen picture of Alice Freeth (later Jefferies) who married John Jefferies . Alice was born in 1810 in the village of Minety and baptised on 5th August 1810, her parents were Robert and Elizabeth Freeth. I do have some photos of her, but can’t find them right at this moment. I’ll add one later as and when.
Family connections
Parents – Robert and Elizabeth Freeth of Minety
Born – July/August 1810 (baptised 12th Aug 1810)
Died – 29th December 1893
Married, around 1842 or 1843) – John Jefferies of Somerford Keynes
Siblings – Unknown
Children – William John (1844), John Edwin (1845), Alice Mary (1847), Edward (1849), Julia Anne (1851), Henrietta (1854), Agnes Henrietta (1855)
John and Alice moved to Cirencester, perhaps when John took over the Gregory Nursery business or maybe before that while he was still employed by Richard Gregory. In any case, the census for 1881 records them as living at Minerva Villa in Cirencester. Although we don’t have a marriage date, Alice and John’s first child was born in June 1844 so it’s likely they married in 1842 or 1843 when Alice was in her early thirties and John about 30. Henrietta died as an infant aged just one month, so that would have been a time of great difficulty and sadness for them both.
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Journeys of Heart and Mind 
