Rev’s Reflection March 2024
Why does life whizz by so quickly when you get older? Life for everyone is busy whether you are retired, semi-retired or working part/full-time. Diaries are filled in a blink of any eye and the ‘stuff’ of life needs to be done. Bills paid, washing hung, families fed, dogs walked, and appointments kept. As priests we meet so many interesting people from all walks of life and from different parts of the country. We hear about their childhood, school life, jobs, holidays, and families. We meet up with families at baptisms, weddings and sadly of course, funerals but it is a privilege to get to know everyone a little more each time whether they are 9 months or 90 years of age.
I remember growing up with my gran living with us following the death of my grandad. She was a funny but slightly prudish northern lady with a silver-grey perm which when the light caught it, mesmerized me with a hint of lilac or was it blue. She was never without her pinny with two pockets, one for her smelling salts plus a hanky and another which contained a paper twist of ‘Plain Jane Toffees’, I’m sure I’ve mentioned her before. Granny and I shared a large attic bedroom and her later years she gamely tolerated my Hornby 00-gauge trainset, and I turned a blind eye to her commode! Her bed was a large wooden monstrosity which needed occasional coats of shellac. It was topped with the cosiest of eiderdowns and there was nowhere comfier than granny’s bed if you were feeling a little under the weather. The eiderdown was cool in the summer and warm in the winter, perfect for a snuggle and a snooze.
Mum, Dad and I originally lived in Salford but when I was two we moved down to firstly Putney in South London and then 6 months later to Wanstead in East London where we stayed for 16 years. Granny had very bravely moved with us; she was 62 at the time which (shamefully now) felt ‘very old’ to both her and us 55 years ago. Noone really moved away much in those days with most living just a few doors or streets away from family and friends. Front and back doors were left open, children played in the streets and babies in their bonnets were parked in their prams outside for their ‘daily dose of fresh air’. Everyone was very similar with no one really having any more or less than their neighbours. Community was everything and it provided a great mutual support network. As a child you daren’t do anything wrong because everyone knew your mum! We may have moved 250 miles away from family and home, but in our little multigenerational household, mum, dad, gran and I were the support network we needed in the early days. However, it didn’t take long for the community to welcome us in, and we were soon part of a much bigger picture.
It can be so easy to welcome or be welcomed, a conversation here or there, a quick chat at the school gates, stopping to talk in a shop, sharing a seesaw in the park, baking a cake for the lady next door, a 5-minute phone call or sharing a simple meal of soup. What is that phrase… ?
Oh yes… ‘A stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet’.
Rev Julie How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity. Psalm 133:1