November 2020 – Remembrance Sunday
The service this week has been prepared by Hazel Bowell and Mike Honey
Dear Friends,
As you are aware, due to the coronavirus lock-down, we are unable to gather in church for services at the present time. I was to lead this Sunday’s Remembrance Service at Paulton so I would like to take this opportunity for you to join me to share in the service I have prepared. As we look back and remember past wars and conflicts, let us be ever mindful of the unrest in our world today and to pray that peace and unity may prevail.
Hazel (Bowell) – Worship Leader PMC
Welcome & Call to Worship
Let us pray:
We come together today to remember. To remember with thanks those who have given their lives in service of others. To remember with sadness the suffering, destruction and pain caused by human conflict. We also come to commit ourselves to be peacemakers and peacekeepers wherever we can.
In Jesus’s name – AMEN
Poem: ‘Red Poppies in the Corn’ by Lieutenant Colonel Campbell Galbraith 1917
I’ve seen them in the morning light,
When white mists drifted by.
I’ve seen them in the dusk o’night
Glow ‘gainst the starry sky.
The slender waving blossoms red,
Mid yellow fields forlorn.
A glory on the scene they shed,
Red Poppies in the Corn.
I’ve seen them, too, those blossoms red,
Show ‘gainst the Trench lines’ screen.
A crimson stream that waved and spread
Thro’ all the brown and green.
I’ve seen them dyed a deeper hue
Than ever nature gave,
Shell-torn from slopes on which they grew
To cover many a grave.
Bright blossoms fair by nature set
Along the dusty ways.
You cheered us, in the battle’s fret,
Thro’ long and weary days.
You gave us hope: If fate be kind,
We’ll see that longed-for morn,
When home again we march and find
Red Poppies in the Corn.
Hymn 131 – By a Monument of Marble
1 By a monument of marble,
or a simple wooden cross,
here we gather to remember
sacrifice and tragic loss.
Blood-red poppy petals flutter,
each a symbol for a life,
drifting in a crimson curtain,
shadow of our constant strife.
2 Solemn silence now surrounds us
as we stand in memory.
Why must factions stir up conflict?
This eternal mystery
troubles hearts and stirs the conscience,
urges us to think again;
face the curse of confrontation,
yet reduce this searing pain.
3 For the sound of war still thunders
through our planet, on this day.
Every hour new victims suffer,
even as we meet to pray.
God, we need your help and guidance
in our constant search for peace.
Move us on to new solutions
as we pray that wars may cease.
Marjorie Dobson (b. 1940)
BIBLE READING – JOHN 15: v9-17
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
PAULTON’S OWN HERO – OLIVER BROOKS VC
Oliver was born in Paulton on 31st May 1889, the youngest of seven children. His father was Joseph Henry Brooks, a butcher who owned his own shop and his mother was Mercy Jane nee Snelling. The family later moved to live at Midsomer Norton and Oliver was educated at Midsomer Norton Church of England Infant and Primary Schools and was then employed by Norton Hill Colliery as a carting boy. He enlisted at Bath on 17th April 1906, just before his 17th birthday, though he added two years to his age! He trained at Caterham and served at Victoria Barracks, Windsor. In December of that year he extended his service to complete seven years. During his service he had numerous health issues and was transferred to the 1st Class Army Reserve on 17th April 1913.
For a while Oliver returned to the mines and then became manager at the Palladium Theatre. On 7th August 1914 he was recalled and went to France where he was swiftly promoted to Lance Corporal and finally Lance Sergeant.
On 8th October 1915 near Loos, France, he led a party of bombers against the enemy who had captured 200 yards of Allied trenches. The regaining of this lost ground was entirely due to the bravery of this NCO who accomplished this task in the midst of a hail of bombs from the enemy.
Oliver was promoted to Sergeant. He received the VC from the King in unusual circumstances. Whilst reviewing the troops at Hesdigneul, the horse the King was riding was frightened by the cheering of the crowds, reared up and dismounted him and landed on him leaving him with a fractured pelvis and other injuries. He boarded a hospital train which eventually took him back to England. The King wanted to decorate Oliver in person before leaving, so Oliver was summoned to Aire station on 1st November accompanied by the CO. Although the King was in severe pain, a private investiture was held at his bedside.
Later Oliver married Marion on 17th August 1918 in Aldbourne, Wiltshire. They lived in Windsor and raised four children. He died in 1940 and is buried in Windsor Borough Cemetery. In addition to the VC, he was also awarded the 1914 Star with “Mons” clasp, British War Medal 1914-20, Victory Medal 1914-19 and George V1 Coronation Medal 1937.
A few years ago, a memorial stone was unveiled on the Paulton War Memorial in recognition of Oliver’s bravery and gallantry.
DOUBLE HILLS MEMORIAL - PAULTON
On a beautiful Sunday morning on 17th September 1944, a Stirling Bomber towing a glider bound for Arnhem ‘Operation Market Garden’ took off from RAF Keevil airfield in Trowbridge. The plan was to land an Allied Airborne Army behind enemy lines and to end the war and bring the troops home.
21 Airborne Sappers from the 9th Field Company Airborne Royal Engineers and 2 pilots from the Glider Pilot Regiment all lost their lives when their Glider broke up in the skies over Paulton and crashed into a meadow.
My sister, then six years old, witnessed the tragedy. Every Sunday morning my Dad would take Jean for a ride on the bar of his bicycle from our home in Clutton. On this particular day, as they approached Marsh Lane going towards Hallatrow, they heard the planes and then saw the Glider break away from the tow rope. Jean still vividly remembers the events of that day. Dad took my sister home and then cycled to Paulton to see if he could help. Later he found a small piece of Perspex from the crashed plane and made this into a cross, which we still treasure in our family. My Mother-in-Law, Ruby Bowell, who was in the WVS at the time, was also reputed to have been one of the first people to rush to the scene of the crash and later she wrote the poem which is engraved on the memorial stone to those brave soldiers who perished that day. The Memorial, which was built by the Royal Monmouth Regiment, was erected in 1979 and was unveiled by the commander of the famous British 1st Airborne Division, General Roy Urquhart. Every year, with the exception of this year due to the coronavirus situation, a service is held at the Arnhem Memorial to commemorate the sacrifice of those who died at Double Hills, Paulton .
CAPTAIN SIR TOM MOORE
I suppose probably like me, the name Captain Tom Moore was unfamiliar to many of us at the start of this year.
Thomas Moore was born in Keighly, West Riding of Yorkshire on 30th April 1920. He grew up in the town where his father was one of a family of builders and his mother was a head teacher. He was educated at Keighly Grammar School and then started an apprenticeship in civil engineering.
In May 1940 he was conscripted in the 8th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, stationed in Cornwall, shortly after the beginning of the Second World War. He was selected for Officer training and was commissioned as a second Lieutenant on 28th June 1941. Later that year he was posted to India and was tasked to set up and run a training programme for army motorcyclists. He was initially posted to Bombay (now Mumbai) and subsequently to Calcutta (now Kolkata). As part of the Fourteenth Army, the so-called ‘Forgotten Army’, he served in Arakan in western Burma. Tom returned to the UK in February 1945 to take a training course on the inner workings of the Churchill tanks, learning to be an instructor. He did not return to the regiment but remained as an instructor and Technical Adjutant of the Armoured Vehicle Fighting School in Bovington Camp, Dorset, until he was demobilised in 1946.
On 6th April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and with his 100th birthday approaching, Tom began fundraising for NHS Charities Together, a group of charities supporting staff, volunteers and patients in the British National Health Service. His aim was to walk one hundred 25 metre laps of his garden, ten laps per day, using his walking frame. His goal was to raise £1,000 but this amount grew every day as more and more people donated to the charity. He achieved his target of one hundred laps on the morning of 16th April, watched at a safe distance by a guard of honour from the 1st Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment. He said he would not stop and aimed to do a second hundred. On the morning of his birthday he had raised £30 million. The JustGiving page for his campaign closed at the end of that day with the final total of £32,796,475 with a further £6,173,663.31 expected from the Gift Aid Scheme.
Tom was overwhelmed by the generosity of people in raising this incredible amount of money which was beyond his wildest dreams. Along with singer Michael Ball, they made a recording of ‘You’ll never walk alone’ which topped in the weekly “Official” UK Singles chart. He received several accolades for his remarkable achievement and subsequently was knighted by The Queen.
Tom’s determination and loyalty resulted in several other people, including children, following his example and raising substantial sums of money for the NHS.
What a humble but incredible man, encouraging others and determined to do his part in supporting the NHS in fighting a different kind of war in 2020, the deadly coronavirus.
A prayer of intercession
Thanksgiving
Lord we give thanks for:
all those who have served and all those who continually serve you, particularly through these difficult times;
for those who inspire others through their charitable actions;
for all those who provide hospitality;
for those who provide meals and food for others;
for those who have helped us to make changes in our lives both minor and major.
May we be open to your prompting,
and help us make change where change is needed,
and be ready to open our service
to those you have placed on our hearts.
We ask this in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Petition and Intercession
We pray for all who seek out the broken:
the vulnerable in our world,
the homeless,
the war torn,
the refugees and asylum seekers and offer them protection;
the elderly hidden away at home, and save them from loneliness;
the abandoned, and save them from suffering;
the mentally distressed, and help them find peace and stability;
the poor and save them from starvation;
your rejected people, and save us from forgetting them.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
Lord we pray for those who wait;
We pray for those who wait by hospital beds;
For those waiting for justice;
For those waiting for prison doors to open;
For those waiting for an end to war;
For those waiting for food;
For those waiting for loved ones to come home again;
For those waiting for someone to knock on their door;
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
Let us pray to the God of forgiveness,
for the world in which we live,
for the church in which we serve,
for the homes in which we love,
and for those most in need.
Lord we lift up your church in the midst of lockdown, that your church will be a place of forgiveness,
of wholeness, healing and peace.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
We lift up to you today all those whose journey is difficult and painful; all those who are in need, are anxious or who are sick. We pray that, through their sufferings they may find the joy of the Lord, in their weakness find your strengthened hand and in despair find hope.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
Petition
Lord, open us up to be channels of your love, to serve and wait on others.
Help us to be companions along the road to others as you Lord are my companion on mine.
Lord in your name. Amen.
Hymn 693 – Beauty for Brokenness
1 Beauty for brokenness,
hope for despair,
Lord, in your suffering world
this is our prayer.
Bread for the children,
justice, joy, peace,
sunrise to sunset,
your kingdom increase!
2 Shelter for fragile lives,
cures for their ills,
work for all people,
trade for their skills;
land for the dispossessed,
rights for the weak,
voices to plead the cause
of those who can't speak.
God of the poor,
friend of the weak,
give us compassion we pray:
melt our cold hearts,
let tears fall like rain;
come, change our love
from a spark to a flame.
3 Refuge from cruel wars,
havens from fear,
cities for sanctuary,
freedoms to share.
Peace to the killing-fields,
scorched earth to green,
Christ for the bitterness,
his cross for the pain.
4 Rest for the ravaged earth,
oceans and streams
plundered and poisoned —
our future, our dreams.
Lord, end our madness,
carelessness, greed;
make us content with
the things that we need.
Refrain
5 Lighten our darkness,
breathe on this flame
until your justice burns
brightly again;
until the nations
learn of your ways,
seek your salvation
and bring you their praise.
Refrain
Graham Kendrick (b. 1950)
ACT OF REMEMBRANCE:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
We will remember them
We will remember them
Two minutes silence
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Hymn 470 – Lord for the years
1 Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided,
urged and inspired us, cheered us on our way,
sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided,
Lord of the years, we bring our thanks today.
2 Lord, for that word, the Word of life which fires us,
speaks to our hearts and sets our souls ablaze,
teaches and trains, rebukes us and inspires us,
Lord of the word, receive your people's praise.
3 Lord, for our land, in this our generation,
spirits oppressed by pleasure, wealth and care;
for young and old, for commonwealth and nation,
Lord of our land, be pleased to hear our prayer.
4 Lord, for our world; when we disown and doubt him,
loveless in strength, and comfortless in pain;
hungry and helpless, lost indeed without him,
Lord of the world, we pray that Christ may reign.
5 Lord, for ourselves; in living power remake us,
self on the cross and Christ upon the throne;
past put behind us, for the future take us,
Lord of our lives, to live for Christ alone.
Timothy Dudley-Smith (b. 1926)
Blessing
Now go forth with renewed inspiration to do the work of God. Seek good, not evil, love goodness, and establish justice. This is the greatest offering we can make, letting justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Go in peace, with love for our neighbours.
And may the blessing of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with us all now and for evermore. AMEN.
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