A year before Julia and I retired from the Baptist Ministry and returned to live in Bewdley, Worcestershire, we spent a weekend in the town to reacquaint ourselves with the area. One evening at a local pub a small group of fellow customers, on discovering that we were ordained Baptist Ministers, began to regale us […]

Many, many years ago, as a small child, I was given a compass (for navigation purposes not drawing) by a relative. I was not that impressed at the time. I would rather have had a toy, or sweets, or even money to be honest. Over time, however, I got to love that compass. It came […]

At 80 years of age I am finally slowing down… and happily so.  For me it is actually not a matter of age or health but wisdom. I’m not sure that I have ever been an activist, even when I was in my 20s, although I had much more energy then, as well as the […]

On the morning of 29 July 2024, three children were killed in a mass stabbing during a children’s event in a dance school in Southport, Merseyside, United Kingdom. Ten other people, eight of whom were children, were injured. Police arrested a 17-year-old male at the scene. A motive for the attack has not been identified, […]

Sitting in my garden the other evening, with a nice glass of wine and some rather delicious minor munchies, listening to some Barbra Streisand, I was struck by a line from one of Streisand’s songs (Here’s to Life if you really want to know): ‘There is no ‘Yes’ in yesterday’. It perfectly summed up my […]

In July 1945, when Clement Attlee had led the Labour Party to Victory in the General Election, the Rev Dr Howard Williams (who was the Minister of Blenheim Baptist Church, Leeds, at that time, and a life-long socialist himself) caused a stir with a ‘wayside pulpit’ notice outside the church which read: ‘CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT. […]

I left school aged 16 with only one GCE (in Art if you really want to know) much to the derision of family and friends. It was a very humiliating time for me. Fortunately I was persuaded to return to school and re-do my Fifth Year, which was also a very humiliating experience. Earlier this […]

Last Sunday Julia and I should have been in France enjoying a short holiday in the French sunshine in the delightful historic town of Chinon where we had booked a wonderful apartment overlooking the chateau on one side and the river on the other. Unfortunately, due to President Macron, we had to cancel that holiday […]

In its heyday Abbey Baptist Church, Reading, where Julia is the Minister and I am the BOGOF, was responsible for planting somewhere in the region of 25 new churches in and around the Reading area. Last Sunday we visited Carey Baptist Church, planted by Abbey in 1867 on the western edge of the Reading of […]

Last Sunday, in the latest of our Sabbatical Sunday jaunts, we paid a visit to Carey Baptist Church in Reading. The church was founded in 1867, a plant from our own church, Abbey Baptist Church, and was named after William Carey, a famous Baptist missionary from Northamptonshire, who went to India in 1793, and who is still highly revered […]