BENEFICE BULLETIN – 13th Sunday after Trinity (Proper 17) – 2nd September

Caedmon, Father of English Sacred Song   Caedmon was a humble herdsman at Whitby Abbey during the time that St Hild was the Abbess. His miraculous story was recorded by the Venerable Bede, the 8th century historian.   After the meal on feast nights everyone at the Abbey would be invited to recite a poem, [...]

Continue reading about Apropos Ronnie’s Word from Wormingford

  Ronald Blythe resists the temptation to sit outside and read   I AM surrounded by tyes and teys. Nedging Tye, Marks Tey, Bulmer Tye, Cuckoo Tye, where father came from. They are native to north Essex and westSuffolk, and they began as pastures that were a good way from the main village, but which [...]

Continue reading about word from Wormingford 22nd August

  Gravestones should be indecipherable, says Ronald Blythe   “FOR, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone,” Brian reads, bringing me up with a start, for these are the words I had carved on John Nash’s tombstone. But lichen is eating them up. Not that the artist would have minded. His [...]

Continue reading about word from Wormingford 17th August

  Ronald Blythe wanders in a forest and thinks of earlier picknickers   NOT far from the Suffolkcoast there stands the fragment of an Augustinian priory, on whose walls hang 36 stone shields, which, hundreds of years ago, were full of knightly information. But rains and winds, and burning suns, have erased it, so that [...]

Continue reading about word from Wormingford 10th August

  Ronald Blythe spends a pleasant evening in the Patron’s chair   THE Friends of St Andrew’s meet by the river. TheStourfingers its way through the secret reeds. The day has been hot, and now the evening isMediterranean, with a cobalt sky in which a Chagall moon lies on its back. Unbeknown to most of [...]

Continue reading about word from Wormingford August 3rd