Category Archives: St Mark’s Church

News Releases, St Mark's Church

Emily needs a little more help

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Emily the organ is asking for help.

Emily, the 107-year-old organ in St Mark’s, has just been restored following several years of fundraising, but in the course of that restoration some new problems emerged. We have already raised £23,000 for the organ, and now need to find a further £2,000 to pay for the extra work.

Lesley Crawley explains the problem: “When the restorers took Emily apart they found some leatherwork which had perished. It seems to be the original leatherwork so is over 100 years old, and if we hadn’t replaced it, the organ would have soon failed.

“The restorers have kindly trusted us to raise the extra money but we need the help to do so, so we are asking the community to give us a hand with this. We are very fond of Emily and she is a real community asset which we are very lucky to have – not many churches have an instrument of such character and appeal. That character and the love people have for her was clearly demonstrated at the concert we held to celebrate in July. We are also lucky to have such willing and entertaining musicians to play her and we look forward to many more concerts as well as being able to use Emily in worship. Added to this, she is now a fine instrument for people to use when learning to play the organ.”

There is more than one way to help raise the £2,000. It is possible to sponsor a pipe – there are 524 of them – and sponsorship starts at £15. Click here to find out more.

Or you can make a donation via our JustGiving page by clicking here. Anyone who donates at least £10 will be invited to an organ concert at St Mark’s in December to hear this wonderful old instrument played by highly skilled and entertaining musicians.

But if you want to come to the concert, please don’t be shy – give your name on the JustGiving page, then email admin@badshotleaandhale.org and you will receive an invitation to the concert in December.

If you prefer, you can send a cheque to The Rectory at 25 Upper Hale Road, Farnham,  GU9 0NX, made payable to The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale, and again, if you want to come to the concert, add your name and contact details.

Pictured top: Emily the organ. Photo by George Britton.
georgebrittonphotography@gmail.com Instagram – @g3xrg3

Young Phoebe is already learning the organ.
Photo by George Britton.
Picture by Bob Skinner.
Dean the restorer at work. Picture by Bob Skinner.
Shawn the restorer at work. Photo by George Britton.
Dean fixes a problem.
Social Events, St Mark's Church

Emily’s ready! Come hear the music play

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She’s suited, she’s booted and she’s definitely not muted! Emily the organ is playing again at St Mark’s Church on Saturday, July 20, from 7.30pm at a free concert to which everyone is invited.

Emily the pipe organ, named after her benefactor and noted woman of Hale, Emily Mangles, is more than 100 years old and, as befitted her age (she was installed in 1912) needed an overhaul. She has now been completely restored to her former glory by organ specialists FH Browne and Sons and you can hear her play at Saturday’s free concert where performances by members of the North Hampshire Organists’ Association (NHOA) will demonstrate just how good she can sound with a varied programme of work from Gershwin to Bach, with Schubert, Morricone, Grieg and others in between.

Alongside the music there will be a bit about the history of the organ and an interview with none other than Emily Mangles herself…. In fact, we will have the original Emily’s great-great-great niece with us, who is also called Emily Mangles.

All this and cheese and wine too!

The concert is free but there will be an appeal during the evening. Unfortunately, when she was being restored some further problems emerged. This means that we have to raise some more money – another £2,000 is our target – and the restorers have kindly trusted us to do so and finished the job.

The organ is, in the words of Frances Whewell, one of the main people working to ensure that Emily could be restored: “a most marvellous present to St Mark’s which will enhance our worship and all the community events”. She most certainly is.

So come along, listen to Emily and enjoy a special evening on Saturday at 7.30pm at St Mark’s, Alma Lane,  Farnham, GU9 0LT.

Picture by George Britton:
georgebrittonphotography@gmail.com
Instagram – @g3xrg3

 

 

 

Events, Social Events, St Mark's Church

What a Shindig!

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Come to the Music and Art Shindig at St Mark’s, Hale, this Saturday (June 8) from 1.30pm to around 7.30pm.

The event is part of the Farnham Flash Festival 2019 and is open to all.  There will be a wide selection of music all day, starting with a more classical orientation with piano and a trio singing a selection of light music, and ending with a rock and blues jam session in the evening.

There is a very special choir coming – Kindred Spirits, which is a forum for people with breast cancer to come together for support and friendship. They will be singing a fantastic set and then there will be South American guitar, instrumental electric guitar, electric blues and a peformance of folk roots music by Cajun Boogaloo.

It all takes place at St Mark’s, Alma Lane, GU9 0LT. Doors open at 1.15pm; cash bar and café in the afternoon; barbecue at 5.30pm. The Amazing Mr McDonut will provide uproarious entertainment at 5pm.

Entry is free so you can come and go as you please, and the layout is informal, café-style.

There will be the opportunity to make donations to the charity Mary’s Meals (marysmeals.org.uk) which works in 18 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean to provide meals for school children who would otherwise go hungry.

Events, St Mark's Church

Christian Aid games afternoon cancelled

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Unfortunately the Christian Aid games afternoon at St Mark’s, Hale, tomorrow (Thursday) has had to be cancelled. Our apologies.
However, there is still loads you can do to help Christian Aid which this year is focusing on providing maternity healthcare in Sierra Leone, the world’s most dangerous place to become a mother – every day 10 women die from giving birth. Christian Aid is helping support maternity healthcare in the country to reduce the numbers of women dying in childbirth.
Visit http://www.christianaid.org.uk to find out more.
Events, St Mark's Church

Favourite jazz for two of Farnham’s favourites: Jean and Ted Parratt

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St Mark’s Church, Hale, was packed earlier this month for an evening of jazz music and memories of two of Farnham’s best-known residents – the late Jean and Ted Parratt.

Jean and Ted’s daughter Wendy Edwards put on Caravan Jazz in memory of her parents and the music which they would listen to in the early years of her life when the family was living in a series of caravans in Lincolnshire.

Wendy was joined by Teddy’s Café Bar Jazzmen and vocalists Melissa Heathcote and Mike Twiddy to sing songs by jazz greats including Django Reinhardt, Gershwin, Glenn Miller, and Rodgers and Hart. In between, she showed pictures of her family and talked about the early years of her life between 1956 and 1962. Ted was away during the week on his National Service, so Jean was often alone caring for the three children in a small caravan in Lincolnshire.  Weekends were precious when Ted came home and played jazz on his guitar. These were what Jean later described as the ‘hungry years’ when there was little money and she often made potato soup with very few potatoes, but she also recalled them as among the happiest years in their lives.

The large audience was grouped around café-style tables, with refreshments, while they listened to the music which Jean and Ted had loved, and looked at family photos projected onto a screen.

Afterwards Wendy Edwards said: “A huge thank-you to everyone who helped in any way to make Caravan Jazz the great success it was. I thoroughly enjoyed singing with the talented Teddy’s Café Bar Jazzmen and vocalists Melissa Heathcote and Mike Twiddy.  I could not have managed this event without the help of so many people who willingly gave their time, talents and money. Many thanks to you all.”

The event raised £900 for the Kitty Milroy Murals appeal to restore and protect a series of important murals painted a century ago.

Frances Whewell

 

Bluebird caravan 1957

 

Top: Jean and Ted Parratt in a field in 1956;
Above: The Bluebird Caravan in which the family lived in 1957 at Mere Road Caravan Site, Waddington, Lincolnshire.
St George's Church, St Mark's Church

Saints, cadets and cake

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St George’s and St Mark’s Churches are both holding celebrations this Sunday (April 28) in honour of the saints they are named after.

April 23 was St George’s Day and April 25 was St Mark’s Day so both churches are holding their patronal festivals that day.

At St Mark’s at 11am, the congregation will learn about the journey that St Mark made from being a young follower of Jesus (perhaps the young man who runs away naked at the end of the Gospel of Mark) to a mature disciple who, tradition has it, founded the church in Alexandria, Egypt, but with all too human problems on the way. After the service there will be cake in celebration of St Mark’s Day.

At St George’s there will be two services which remember England’s patron saint (who was probably born in what is now Turkey). The 10am service will be augmented by a parade by Farnham, Fleet & Aldershot Sea Cadets who meet just up the road from the church. As well as parading they will read the New Testament lesson. The celebrations will then continue at St George’s with Worship for All at 11.30am.

Come and join us at either church on Sunday.

 

Pictured above are Farnham, Fleet & Aldershot Sea Cadets.
News Releases, St Mark's Church

Moon finds resting place in Hale

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A Hale woman who was used as a model for one of the murals in St Mark’s Church has found her final resting place back in the village.

Joyce Helen Taman, née Eglington, whose ashes were interred in Hale Cemetery on April 5, was born in 1926, and was the model for the figure of Moon when one part of the murals was renovated and repainted in 1946.

Joyce was the youngest of three children and grew up in Vicarage Lane in Hale. She was educated at Hale School where she excelled at maths, and on leaving at the age of 14 was employed in the accounts department at Kinghams, a grocery distribution warehouse in Farnham’s West Street. She married Alexander Mitchell, a member of the military police based at the prisoner-of-war camp in Crookham village whom she met at a dance.

It is not clear how she was chosen to be the model for Moon, but she was always very proud of what she jokingly called her ‘muriel’. By the 1940s, some of the murals which had been painted by Kitty Milroy between 1911 and 1920 required renovation. A fundraising appeal was launched after Easter 1946 and among the fundraisers was the well-known soprano Joan Coxon who put on a concert which raised more than £13, around £500 in today’s money.

The paintings which needed restoring were to the left of the altar where damp had affected them and local painter Evelyn Caesar carried out the restoration, choosing Joyce to sit for Moon. Next to Moon is ‘Clouds’, a male figure, and his identity is still a mystery, as are the identities of many of the figures whom Kitty Milroy painted.

Moon was identified by two of Joyce’s daughters, Jeannette and Wendy-Rae, who came into the church last year while on a nostalgic trip around the area where they grew up. Joyce and Alexander (Alec) settled in Folly Lane North and brought up four children who attended St Mark’s and two even sang in the choir, beneath the picture of their mother.

In later life Joyce remarried and moved to the Midlands and in January this year died in Bournedale House care home in Birmingham at the age of 92. The family and friends returned to St Mark’s this month to celebrate Joyce’s life and her ashes were interred in the cemetery close to others in her family. At the service to celebrate her life, her son-in-law Roger stood beneath the picture of Joyce as Moon and played Blue Moon on his saxophone, a fitting tribute to a much-loved Hale lady.

If anyone has any information on who ‘Clouds’ might be, or any of the other figures in the murals please let us know. You can contact us here or email news@badshotleaandhale.org

Pictured top is Joyce Eglington on her 21st birthday, shortly after she was the model for Moon.

 

Moon

Moon, modelled by Joyce Eglington.

Clouds

Who is Clouds?
Easter, News Releases, Services, St George's Church, St John's Church, St Mark's Church

Vigils, solemn services and the message of Easter hope

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The week before Easter is known as Holy Week and will be marked with meditations, vigils and solemn services in the parish.

There will be a series of meditations for Holy Week at St John’s on Monday to Wednesday, April 15-17, at 7.30pm. On April 18, a day known in the Christian calendar as Maundy Thursday, there will be services at 7.30pm both at St John’s and at St George’s, with Holy Communion and a vigil, and the altar will be stripped of all coverings. At St John’s there will also be a ceremony of foot-washing as a reminder of the act of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet at the meal he shared with them on the night before he died.

Lesley Crawley explained why the churches are doing this: “Maundy Thursday derives its name from a Latin word ‘mandatum’ which means command. Jesus was executed at the time of the Jewish Passover celebrations and he and his disciples shared a meal together at which he washed their feet in an act of humility and service. It is reported in the Bible that he told his disciples: ‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.’ (The Gospel of John, chapter 13, verse 34).”

The following day is known as ‘Good Friday’ and commemorates the day that Jesus was executed by being nailed to a cross. There will be several services in the parish, starting with a silent vigil at St John’s Church at 8.30am and a service at 9.30am, while at St George’s there will be a Good Friday service at 2-3pm, with 3pm marking the time when it is traditionally thought that Jesus died. At St Mark’s in Upper Hale, there will be Easter activities for children ages five to 11 from 9.30am, followed by a service at 11am and hot cross buns (to book a place on the Easter activities, contact Hannah Moore on 01252 659267 or revd.hannah@badshotleaandhale.org).

Lesley continued: “Good Friday commemorates the darkness of Jesus’ death, but on Easter Sunday we celebrate the joy of his resurrection. Death could not hold him and in rising from the dead he showed that the God of love is stronger than anything that the world can throw at us.”

On Easter Sunday there will be services at St John’s at 9.30am, St George’s at 10am and 11.30am, and at St Mark’s at 11am. Both the 11.30am service at St George’s and the 11am service at St Mark’s will include an Easter egg hunt.

Lesley added: “Everyone is welcome at any or all of our services. Do come and explore with us the message of hope that Easter offers to us all.”

 

News Releases, St George's Church, St Mark's Church

Follow the donkey to church

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There will be donkeys at church this coming Sunday (April 14) in celebration of Palm Sunday.

Palm Sunday recalls the Biblical account of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, with crowds placing palms in front of him and greeting him as a king. Churches around the world will mark the date, and at St Mark’s, Hale, at 11am, and St George’s, Badshot Lea, at 11.30am, the congregations will be joined by donkeys, courtesy of Folly Oak Donkeys.

Rev’d Lesley Crawley said: “When we recall that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey it reminds us that he is a king who comes in peace, not as a conquering warrior. Having a donkey at a service also brings the story alive, especially for children who always crowd round to give the donkey a stroke. Please do come and join us. And we are really grateful to John and Rosemary Porter and all at Folly Oak Donkeys for bringing the donkeys to us.”

 

Pictured: Meet the Donkey. Picture by Daniel Fazio. Unsplash