Leah Fritz - Obituary by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs

Leah Fritz - Obituary

by Michael Bartholomew-Biggs

Click here to read this article in The Guardian

Leah Fritz, who was born in New York, moved to London with her husband, the artist Howard Fritz, when she retired. She took up poetry and became a well-known figure at venues all over the capital


My friend Leah Fritz, who has died aged 88, was an American writer known for her support of the civil rights, peace and feminist movements. In her two books, Thinking Like a Woman (1975) and Dreamers & Dealers (1980), she appraised the women’s movement and celebrated the work of the leading activists Andrea Dworkin and Susan Brownmiller.

When Leah retired with her husband, the artist Howard Fritz, to live in Britain in 1985, she moved her focus on to writing poetry. She soon became a well-known figure at poetry venues all over London, particularly at the Torriano Meeting House in Kentish Town, where she was still a regular visitor until a few months before her death.

Born in New York to Harry Hurwit, an architect, and his wife, Esther (nee Bloom), a building manager, Leah went to Hunter College high school in New York and then to Syracuse and Columbia universities, although she chose not to complete her studies at either institution.

An assortment of administrative jobs followed, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she met Howard. Subsequently she began to write for publications such as Screw magazine, when it was a publication of “free love”, and the Village Voice. She continued her journalism while bringing up two children and, later, writing books.

Over the years Leah and Howard had always loved visiting London, and when they reached retirement age they decided to move there in order to focus solely on their art. Leah published five poetry collections in Britain, including From Cookie to Witch is an Old Story (1987), Whatever Sends the Music Into Time (2012) – whose cover featured an elegant and enigmatic painting by Howard – and Gone (2019), which included moving elegies about Howard, who died in 2018.

Her poetry often made skilful use of classical forms, but she also knew when and how to slip into free verse when required. Her writing was always frank and she tackled her themes head-on. She was also a sharp-eyed and forthright reviewer for several magazines. One of her poems was showcased in the Guardian’s Poem of the Week column in 2011.

Leah had a dry sense of humour and fondness for debate, and will be remembered as a loyal friend.

She is survived by her two daughters, Monica and Amy, and two grandsons, Leon and Luca.

Poetry reading at the cornerHouse Surbiton

Bernadine Evaristo - Girl, Woman, Other

So I'm busy reading Bernadine Evaristo's Booker Prize winning novel, Girl, Woman, Other in preparation for the Penguin Live and National Theatre In Conversation event with Evaristo.

Click here for a link to the Bernadine Evaristo in Conversation page on the National Theatre website.

T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize Winner 2019 Roger Robinson for his collection A Portable Paradise

Huge congratulations goes to Roger Robinson this year's winner of the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize for 2019, for his poetry collection A Portable Paradise. 

He is a writer and performer who lives between London and Trinidad. 

He wins £25.000.00 for the collection and joins past winners of the prize, including, Hannah Sullivan - who won last year with her debuet collection Three Poems, Sharon Olds - shortlisted this year with her collection Arias, and who won in 2012 for her collection Stag's Leap that chronicled the end of her marriage with a visceral honesty and Sarah Howe - a judge this year and winner of the 2015 prize with her collection Loop of Jade that recorded her half Chinese herritage. The Chair ofthe judges, Pascale Petit praied Sarah for her "startling exploration of gender and injustice through place and identity... her daring experiment with form." 

Judges John Burnside, Sarah Howe and Nick Makoha made the choice this year. Personally I don't know how they did it given the incredibly strong shortlist this year.

Perhaps I should take the advice of Ian Macmillan the presenter for the shortlist reading that took place at the Royal Festival Hall last night. He reads and re-reads the shortlisted collections over several months.

Click here for a link to the online newspaper Oxford Mail, the first online publication I could find that posted the news of the winner. I had been waiting impatiently following the BBC news, Radio 4, The Guardian and the Poetry Society. None of these posted the news. It's now 8.10pm. Oxford Mail posted the news 40 minutes ago.

Wolf Moon and Lunar eclipse Friday 10 January 2020

from The Guardian TS Eliot’s hidden love letters reveal an intense, heartbreaking affair 2 January 2020

T.S. Eliot’s hidden love letters reveal an intense, heartbreaking affair
‘I tried to pretend that my love for you was dead, though I could only do so by pretending myself that my heart was dead,’ the poet wrote to Emily Hale

by Edward Helmore in Princeton, New Jersey
Thu 2 Jan 2020

Click here to read the article on the Guardian website

TS Eliot’s intimate letters to confidante unveiled after 60 years

 Letters from poet TS Eliot to Emily Hale in Princeton, New Jersey. Photograph: Shelley Szwast/AP

TS Eliot’s love letters to scholar Emily Hale, the great poet’s muse and source of “supernatural ecstasy” for more than 30 years, were released on Thursday amid fevered speculation and under tight security at an elegant library on the campus of the Ivy League’s Princeton University.

The Nobel laureate’s correspondence to Hale, whom he met when both were studying at Harvard University in 1912, has long been the fascination of Eliot scholars but remained hidden, on both the poet and Hale’s wishes, for 50 years after Hale’s death in 1969.

The letters reveal that his feelings for her were intense and later were reciprocated by the younger Hale – but despite this, their love was ultimately and heartbreakingly thwarted.

Hale has long been understood to be the inspiration for some of Eliot’s most breathtaking verse, including the first lines from Burnt Norton, the first poem of his Four Quartets.

“What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden. My words echo

Thus, in your mind.”

The Eliot scholar Tony Cuda, of the University of North Carolina, who is also the director of the TS Eliot international summer school in London, told the Guardian the release of the letters tells the hidden love story of Eliot’s life – and of literary modernism.

“It is the missing piece of his career and certainly the most significant revelation about a major poet of the 20th century that we’ve had,” he said.

In the newly released letters, written after Eliot and Hale met up at a tea party in London in late 1930, the unhappily married poet wrote on 3 October of that year:

“If you knew what pages and pages of tenderness I am not writing now [underscored] I think you would trust me.

“I have no really intimate friends, though vast acquaintances,” Eliot wrote, in his own hand, imploring Hale to accept his ardour.

“For the first and last time, praying that I have given no offense. For I see nothing in this confusion to be ashamed of – my love is as pure ... as any love can be.”

He concluded: “If this is a love letter it is the last I shall ever write in my life. And I will sign it.”

Hale, whose replies no longer exist, accepted Eliot’s entreaties. So began a passionate correspondence with his paramour, who by now was based in Boston, while he was in England.

By November of that year, Eliot – now typing – wrote he had been in a “state of torment” for a month.

“You have made me perfectly happy: that is, happier than I have ever been in my life; the only kind of happiness now possible for the rest of my life is now with me; and though it is the kind of happiness which is identical with my deepest loss and sorrow, it is a kind of supernatural ecstasy.”

He continued: “I tried to pretend that my love for you was dead, though I could only do so by pretending myself that my heart was dead; at any rate, I resigned myself to celibate old age.”

Describing himself to be in a “kind of emotional fever”, by December he confessed that “the pain is more acute, but it is a pain which in the circumstances I would not be without”.

The letters were made public for visitors to the spectacular Firestone library at Princeton University in New Jersey on Thursday, having been broken out of wooden crates the day before.

For Hale, their circumstances were more complex. Toward the end of her life, in 1969, she offered a three-page account of the relationship to the librarian at Princeton.

Eliot had told her to her “great surprise” in 1922 “how very much he cared for me; at the time I could return no such feeling”.

Hale acknowledged she knew his marriage to be “a very unhappy affair”. But she resisted the entreaties of “this gifted, emotional, groping personality”, writing that she was “dismayed when he confessed after seeing me again that his affection for me was stronger than ever”.

The friendship continued to 1935. “We saw each other and knew about each other’s lives – though I had no feeling except of difficult and loyal friendship.”

However, Eliot’s commitment to his “mentally ill wife” restricted any further development until his spouse was institutionalized.

Then, from 1935 to 1939, Elliot and Hale began spending summers together in Campden, Gloucestershire. She continued in her account: “He and I became so close to each other under conditions so abnormal, for I found by now I had in turn grown very fond of him.

“We were congenial in so many of our interests, our reactions, and emotional response to each others’ needs – the happiness, the quiet deep bonds between us and our lives, very rich ... And the more because we kept the relationship on an honourable, to be respected, plane.”

Hale wrote that “only a few – a very few – of his friends and family, and my circles of friends, knew of our care for each other; and marriage, if and when his wife died – couldn’t help but become a desired right of fulfilment”.

However, their relationship was doomed. Eliot’s first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot, died in 1947, but instead of devoting himself to Hale, Eliot went on to marry someone else, his second wife, Valerie, for reasons that remain unclear despite the unveiling of the letters.

In a letter dated 1960, which Eliot wrote as a statement to Princeton in anticipation of his letters to Hale eventually being made public, he briefly explained the end of his decision not to request her hand in marriage.

“Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me; Vivienne nearly was the death of me, but she kept the poet alive.”

He continued: “I wish the statement by myself to be made public as soon as the letters to Miss Hale are made public … I fell in love with Emily Hale in 1912, when I was in the Harvard Graduate School. Before I left for Germany and England in 1914 I told her that I was in love with her.”

For herself, Hale wrote that instead of that “anticipated life together which could now rightfully be ours – something too personal ... emotional for me to understand decided TSE against marrying me”.

This, Hale continued, “was both a shock and sorrow”.

“Perhaps I could not have been the companion in marriage he hoped ... Perhaps the vision saved both of us from great unhappiness – I cannot ever know.”

Hale concluded: “The question of his changed attitude was discussed but nothing was gained from further conversation.”

from The Guardian TS Eliot’s intimate letters to confidante unveiled after 60 years

T. S. Eliot’s intimate letters to confidante unveiled after 60 years
Collection of 1,131 letters may shed light on the poet’s relationship with Emily Hale

by Caroline Davies
Wed 1 Jan 2020

Click here to read the article on the Guardian website


 Emily Hale and TS Eliot pictured in 1946 in Dorset, Vermont. Photograph: AP

A collection of more than 1,000 letters from the Nobel laureate TS Eliot to his confidante and muse Emily Hale is unveiled this week, after having been kept in sealed boxes at a US university library for 60 years.

The cache promises to offer an intimate insight into the poet’s life and work, and on the extent of his relationship with Hale, a source of speculation for decades.

The 1,131 letters, which date from between 1930 and 1956, were donated by Hale to Princeton University Library more than 60 years ago with her stipulation they remain sealed until 50 years after either Eliot’s death, or her own, whichever occurred last. He died in 1965, and she in 1969.

The two had met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1912, when Eliot attended Harvard. They rekindled their friendship in 1927, by which time Eliot had moved to England. He corresponded frequently with Hale, who was from Boston, and who taught drama at US universities including Scripps College in California.

Eliot ordered Hale’s letters to him to be burned, according to biographers.


 Letters between TS Eliot and Emily Hale displayed in Princeton, New Jersey. Photograph: Shelley Szwast/AP

“I think it’s perhaps the literary event of the decade,” Anthony Cuda, an Eliot scholar and director of the TS Eliot International Summer School, told the Associated Press. “I don’t know of anything more awaited or significant. It’s momentous to have these letters coming out.”

Their relationship “must have been incredibly important and their correspondence must have been remarkably intimate for him to be so concerned about the publication,” he added.

Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888. His best-known works include The Waste Land, The Hollow Men and Four Quartets.

His letters to Hale began after the end of his first marriage to the Cambridge governess Vivienne Haigh-Wood. Scholars point to the first poem in the Quartets series, called Burnt Norton and named after a home in England Eliot visited with Hale, as significant because of lines that suggest missed opportunities and what might have been. Eliot married his second wife, Valerie Fletcher, in 1957.

The Eliot scholar Frances Dickey, one of the editors on The Complete Prose of TS Eliot, said the poet was ashamed of his first marriage. The letters could reveal how close he and Hale were, and if they ever considered marriage, she said. Whatever else Hale was, she said, she was a link to the life he had left behind in the US.

The 12 boxes, which include photographs, ephemera and clippings, were unsealed by Princeton University Library staff in October to be scanned for digital viewing at the library from 2 January.

Susan Stewart, a professor of English at Princeton, who was present at the unsealing, said two senior librarians “stood behind a table full of wooden crates wielding dual pairs of tin snips.

“They proceeded in tandem to snap the copper bands holding the crates and the wooden slats clattered to the table.”

She added that what little was known about the correspondence indicated “Eliot wrote to Hale freely about his predilections, his fellow poets, and above all, his opinions as a reader”.

Daniel Linke, the interim head of special collections at the library, said there was minimal, if any reading, during the unsealing. He expected that scholars from around the world would be travelling to Princeton in the first few days.

“It will be the special collections equivalent of a stampede at a rock concert,” he told the Associated Press.

Winter Solstice 22 December 2019

T. S. Eliot Prize 2020 Shortlist reading

Click here for a link to the T. S. Eliot Prize 2020 Shortlist reading

When: Sunday 12 January 2020
Where: Royal Festival Hall
What time: 7.00
Price: £12.00 - £15.00



TS Eliot Prize Readings

Hear the poets shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize reading from their own work, on the eve of the award ceremony and the announcement of the winner.

Hosted by poet Ian McMillan, the event is the first major highlight of the 2020 literary calendar.

The TS Eliot Prize is awarded annually to the author of the best new poetry collection published in the UK or Ireland in the calendar year.

This year’s shortlisted poets are: Anthony Anaxagorou (After the Formalities), Fiona Benson (Vertigo & Ghost), Jay Bernard (Surge ), Paul Farley (The Mizzy), Ilya Kaminsky (Deaf Republic), Sharon Olds (Arias), Vidyan Ravinthiran (The Million-petalled Flower of Being Here), Deryn Rees-Jones (Erato), Roger Robinson (Portable Paradise), and Karen Solie (The Caiplie Caves).

It is judged by a panel of established poets who this year comprise John Burnside (Chair), Sarah Howe and Nick Makoha and has been described by former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion as the Prize most poets want to win.

The Prize, the ‘world’s top poetry award’ (The Independent), was inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society’s 40th birthday and to honour its founding poet, and is now awarded by the TS Eliot Foundation.

Medieval & Folk Carols - Joglaresa & Belinda Sykes

Sermon: Looking for the coming of Jesus - Micah

Click here for a link to my Advent sermon.

You'll need to scroll down to the Eleven O'Clock service or click on the Eleven O'Clock service tab at the top of the page.

It was given on 8 December.

Click on the podcast or streaming button.

The sermon lasts just under 20 minutes.

Hardy, Conrad and the Senses by Hugh Epstein

Here's a new book from my friend and ex colleague Hugh Epstein.




Click here for a link to the book on amazon.

No Far Shore by Anne-Marie Fyfe

Here's a new book by a friend and ex colleague.



It's a book of travel writing, autobiography, poetry, and memoir. Anne-Marie travels across the island coastlines that make up the United Kingdom. She travels also to Ireland and especially Cushendall on the Antrim coast where she grew up. Anne-Marie also journeys west to the eastern seaboard of the United States. Throughout her book, she weaves observations and comments about writers that also have been inspired by the sea and line that divides them. She writes about her deep connection to the sea and its constantly shifting border with dry land.

Click here for a link to the book on amazon.

Book Review Vertigo and Ghost by Fiona Benson

Title:      Vertigo and Ghost

Publisher: Cape

Author:  Fiona Benson                                                         

First published:  2019

Genre:   Poetry 

Awards Shortlisted: T S Eliot Prize 2019

Content        The book has two halves. Part 1 contains poems about Zeus. He’s presented as a serial rapist. The poems cover the arc of his life. There are poems about the various rape encounters he’s had with a variety of goddesses. There are poems about his later imprisonment and execution. Although the poems depict classical Greek characters, Benson sets these encounters in a modern day setting.

                    The second half of the collection contain personal poems. These are poems depicting nature, specifically where she lives with husband and children in the west country. Two daughters. She writes about the experience of motherhood and the anxieties associated with bringing up young children. There is danger, threat, self-sacrificial and love.

Comment     Setting the first part of the collection in classical Greek mythology tmay be a way of creating distance between readers and the experiences she depicts. Descriptions are often violent and disturbing. Shocking.

                    The whole collection begins with a personal autobiographical poem about being a teenager. I think it’s brilliant. It prepares us for the second half of the collection. I really thought there were some great poems here.

Recommendation           4/5

Click here to buy this book from amazon

Poetry Reading at The cornerHouse Arts Centre Douglas Road Surbiton.

Poetry reading at the cornerHOUSE Arts Centre in Douglas Road Surbiton. 
Where: 116 Douglas Road  Surbiton
When: Friday 6 December 2019
Drinks: 7.00
Reading: from 8.00

Entry £4.00

Click here for more details.

Poetry Reading at The Troubadour Monday 2 December 2019 at 8.00

Monday 2 December marks the end of tthe autumn poetry season at The Troubadour in Earls Court. 

That means a poetry bash where invited poets read a poem on a specific theme. The theme is: Somewhere Over the Rainbow. They'll be at least forty poets reading.

There's also the opportunity of hearing the prize winners of the 2019 Troubadour Poetry Competition

Click here for further details about the poetry reading.

It starts at 8.00.

£8.00 entry.

Come along and be dazzeled by words

Book Review: The Heat of the Moment by Sabrina Cohen-Hatton

Title: The Heat of the Moment         

Publisher: Doubleday

   Author: Sabrina Cohen-Hatton
   First published: 2019
   Genre: Autobiography




Content

Cohen-Hatton writes about her life as a fire fighter and a Deputy Assistant Commissioner. She’s been in the fire service for over 20 years. In this book she describes with quite vivid detail what it’s like tackling major fire incidents. Cohen-Hatton also presents us with a high ranking managers perspective on the decision making processes involved in tacking such incidents. It’s a book partly showing us the mind of a manager and the multi-layered considerations required in managing such incidents. It’s also a book about psychology. She details the psychological processes people go through when faced with such traumatic experiences.

Comment

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton is Jewish. Her father was Morrocan. He died of a brain tumor when she was 15.
The book describes a range of fire incidents. They are vivid and dramatic episodes.  Incredibly readable.
She tells us about the extra ordinary life journey she has been on to arrive at such a senior position in the fire service. She writes about her homelessness as a teenager and her award winning post doctorate research into decision making under acute circumstances. And how this research has changed the way fire fighting is tackled today. Notjust in the UK but globally. It’s incredibly readable and fascinating.

Recommendation   5/5



Click here for a recent Desert Island Discs featuring the author

The 2019 T S Eliot prize shortlist

I should have posted this some time ago when the shortlist was first published back in October. But never mind. Here it is now.

The 2019 TS Eliot prize shortlist

After the Formalities by Anthony Anaxagorou published by Penned in the Margins
Vertigo & Ghost by Fiona Benson published by Cape Poetry
Surge by Jay Bernard published by Chatto & Windus
The Mizzy by Paul Farley published by Picador
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky published by Faber & Faber
Arias by Sharon Olds published by Cape Poetry
The Million-Petalled Flower of Being Here by Vidyan Ravinthiran published by Bloodaxe
Erato by Deryn Rees-Jones published by Seren
A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson published by Peepal Tree Press
The Caiplie Caves by Karen Solie published by Picador

Click here for an article reviewing and summarising the books

Thought for the Day Radio 4 15 October 2019 with Rev Dr Giles Fraser

I haven't been following Thought for the Day since I stopped comuting to work at 7.30 in the morning. But the other morning I was driving to an early hospital appointment when I heard Giles Frasier's episode. It struck a few chords with me including Jewish and Christian so I thought you might like to hear it.

Click here for a link

Desert Island Discs

I just have to share this current Desert Island Discs programme. I'm absolutely overwhelmed by the story of Sabrina Hatton-Cohen.

Click here for the link to the programme

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0008xy6

Feeling Dizzy by David Loffman

Here's one of the poems I read at the poetry reading at the cornerHouse last Friday. I hope you like it.

Feeling Dizzy

At first, it’s a flutter in my stomach.
I feel lightheaded
and a little dizzy.
With a dull ache in my chest.
It stays a while.

Then dissolves into the jobs 
and usual distractions of the day.

Weeks later it comes again.
More insistent now.

This time it comes with an ache 
high up in my throat.
Everything feels a bit fizzy.
I want to cry.

I take an Aspirin.

I tilt my head and listen
in case it has something to say to me.

Silence.
I think about calling a doctor.

It comes and goes like this for a few weeks.
I live uneasily with it.
A little worried.

I realise there’s something strangely familiar about it.
From long ago.

When it comes I stop and tilt my head
and ask it, what are you? 
and where are you from?
But it never answers me.

Sometimes I let myself get distracted.

I think about calling a doctor again.

Then one day when I’m in the middle of it
I count off the symptoms again.
And suddenly it clicks 
I know exactly what this is.


It's happiness.

Sermon 11 August 2019 at Christ Church New Malden

Click here to a sermon I gave at Christ Church New Malden on the 11 August. The sermon series is called, "A Christian who has changed my life." I chose to talk about Alan Caldwell, my father-in-law. Katy's dad.

Here's the reading used in the service.

Ephesians 3:14-21 

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.


Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.


When you click here scroll down to the 6.30 service.
You'll find it under the date 11 August.

It's about 20 minutes long.

Click here to stream it or download it. 

Here's a transcript of the sermon in case you want to read along.


I hope you are enjoying these hymns we’ve been singing this evening. Some of the songs were sung at Alan Caldwell’s funeral. 

The Reverend Alan Caldwell, he was my wife’s dad, my father in law until he died in March – just 5 months ago. 

The first time I met Alan was in November 1982. Katy and me had been friends for a year or so. One weekend she invited me home to meet her family. They lived in a small village about 10 miles from Ipswich in deepest darkest Suffolk.
I remember the bus we took from the station. It was evening. Very quickly we travelled out of the street lights of Ipswich and plunged into countryside darkness. I peered out of the windows. I couldn’t make out anything at all. A few blurred lights maybe. The bus raced along until suddenly about 20 minutes into the journey Katy suddenly stood up and rung the bell. The bus drew rapidly to a stop.
When I got out I thought we were in the middle of nowhere. I thought I’d landed in a gothic horror story. And then I noticed a dimly lit porch light a little way off. Suddenly we were in the kitchen. They were all there. The Caldwell family with Alan popping in and out with Bibles and bits of paper under his arm.
What I most remember from that first meeting with Alan was the warm and totally accepting welcome I felt from all of them. Phew! This wasn’t a gothic horror story after all. This was Little Women or Pride and Prejudice.

When I look back at that bus journey on that evening to Katy’s family, I think that it was like my life up until that moment. There was nothing but darkness all around me. And then I came into that kitchen. A Christian home filled with light and warmth. I felt accepted and loved right from the start. 

One way Alan showed his love and acceptance of me was the way he treated my Jewishness. Being Jewish didn’t really mean much to me back then. I’d had a Bar Mitzvah and I knew the basics. But as I grew up – if I was honest - my Jewishness was a bit of a problem. Firstly we were quite a lonely family. My parents felt a strong sense of being Jewish but never went to the synagogue. And they never mixed with non-Jewish people. Secondly being Jewish in a north west London secondary modern school in the 1970’s wasn’t easy. I was an outsider. Word got around about the boy that didn’t go to morning assembly. The anti-Semitic insults soon followed. 

A few years before  I met Alan I did meet and made some Jewish friends. They’ve been an amazing support to me over the years even though I became a Christian. We are still all very close.

But despite those friends, Alan reminded me that the Jews were God’s chosen people. He said being Jewish was special. He told me that Jesus was a Jew. He began telling me about how the stories in the Old Testament were linked to the stories about Jesus in the Gospels. At first I didn’t pay much attention. But I remember he invited me to visit a bible exhibition showing what life was like in Palestine when Jesus was alive. 
Alan was the first person to show me how important it is to be Jewish. He helped me to value something about myself that I thought totally unimportant.
I think my ministry here at Christ Church has been informed partly by my Jewishness. And I feel comfortable and confident in my Jewish heritage. It was Alan and those Jewish friends who made that possible.

Another really important influence Alan has had on me was how he helped me to love the Bible. 
He was passionate about the Bible. He told me how central the Bible is to being in a relationship with God. Before I became a Christian I had loads of discussions with him about the Bible. He always made a point emphasising how the translators of the NIV went back to the original Greek and Hebrew texts. He told me how careful they were in translating the psalms and other Hebrew poems and songs. 
Over the years he’d shown me the importance of reading the Bible daily, of meeting people regularly to read and get to know the Bible better. He introduced me to the Amplified Bible and the Chain Reference Bible.

7 years after I first met Alan I began teaching. It was now 1987. I’d become a Christian 2 years earlier in 1985. Alan had baptised me. I attended his Confirmation classes. He prepared me for my Confirmation. Amazingly he gave Katy away at our wedding and then somehow married us both. 

So I began a career in teaching. I loved teaching but it was so intense. I remember I found that first long summer holiday difficult to cope with. So when the long summer holiday came work suddenly stopped. I didn’t know what to do with the silence and all that spare time.

Then in the second summer holiday I suddenly remembered the Bible. Every morning after Katy left for work I’d start reading and exploring it. At first I brought my knowledge and experience of studying English. And gradually over the years, I bought a concordance,  a chain reference bible, an Amplified Bible, a Bible dictionary and a Dictionary of Theology. And for about 2 or 3 hours each day I explored the holy scriptures. It was an incredible time. I felt the Holy Spirit was with me, guiding my reading. It was very exciting. In the summer holidays before we had our children I really felt I was getting to know the Bible. I found that the routine and discipline helped me structure the long summer days. From then on they became a pleasure and a delight. Alan had helped me discover that.

And it’s good to be reminded of that time again now with Iona and Arran grown up and left home. Especially now that I’ve just retired. 

It’s about time I really got stuck into the bible like I did in those summers.

So Alan really helped me read and love the bible. If we ever found ourselves talking about it we almost always disagreed. But he trusted in the Holy Spirit working in my life. Perhaps he had an idea that at some point in the future I might stand in front of a congregation like I am today.

I think he started preparing me for leading a home group or preaching really early on when I’d only been a Christian for a couple of years.

One summer soon after Katy and me got married Alan suggested a sailing holiday. Alan was a very experienced sailor. He’d got certificates and everything. So he was our captain. But we were a pretty motley crew. There was Katy and her sister Helen and me and my mother. A family holiday. I don’t think the crew had any serious sailing experience. Two of us couldn’t even swim. Alan took charge. We obeyed our orders and did our jobs. 
He also gave me a special job to do. I was to choose a Bible reading every evening and make then share a few reflections on it.

That holiday was important. Alan was bringing two very different families together. He was building bridges and establishing bonds. Even today Helen and my mum have a special friendship that goes back to that holiday. They still laugh over watching the Port Watch – Katy and me - starting work, while they – the Starboard Watch sitting back and getting out their knitting. 
We were pretty hopeless though. We got stranded on sand banks. We made loads of blunders. But it didn’t matter at all. Alan had brought us together. We were a community, a family. We were building memories. We were getting to know each other and sharing difficulties. He showed me – all of us - the importance of a community working together in unity with a common purpose. Like a church.

So these are three stories about Alan Caldwell that show some of the ways he influenced and shaped my Christian life. There’s loads more stories I could share about him. Like the fact that Katy and me settled here in New Malden. We’re here  because when Katy was moving to London in 1984 for work, she received one reply from her advert. It came from New Malden. But we stayed here because Alan was a curate here at Christ Church and became Curate in Charge at St John’s between 1969 and 1973 when Katy was a girl. It’s there Alan met Trevor and Sue Webster and introduced them to the church. You can read all about Alan’s time here in the Exhibition Stephen is putting up in the church halls.

So finally I just want to say a couple of things about Alan’s funeral and Bible reading we had.

Alan had a huge influence on my life. I hope I’ve shown that. But of course I’m aware that he also had a massive impact on thousands of people’s lives over the course of his life, and especially in his church ministry. 

When Alan’s daughters were planning the funeral at St Mary’s church in Menai Bridge Anglesey they really didn’t know how many people were going to turn up.
Menai Bridge is quite an isolated community. There it is on the north west tip of Wales.  Well the response was enormous. The church was packed. Extra chairs were brought in and people were standing at the back and in the aisles. 

At the reception afterwards they had to bring in more tables, chairs and provide a lot more tea things for people.

Past pupils came to the funeral. They were people Alan had taught 60 years ago. There were people from the two creative writing groups he had joined when he’d retired. There were people from the local Samaritans. Alan had been an active Samaritan in Menai Bridge right up to the time he was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer last December. There were neighbours, old family friends and parishioners from the parishes he had ministered to over decades – including many of the churches on Anglesey. As well as the parish church he’d worshipped at in Menai Bridge.

It was extraordinary to be a part of that funeral service and to meet so many of the people his life had touched, changed and transformed.

The reading chosen at Alan’s funeral came from Ephesians, chapter 3. 
Iona – my daughter – Alan’s grand daughter read it at the funeral.

Alan’s daughters chose Ephesians because this was Alan’s favourite book of the Bible. When Alan was training to be a minister at Oakhill College in 1965, alongside Stephen’s dad, Gordon Kuhrt and John Short,  Alan joined an early morning Bible study. They studied Ephesians. Alan got to know the letter really well.


And this is just an incredible passage to read. It’s a prayer in which Paul hopes that God will bless his readers by bestowing on them the ability – that is the discipline and will power - to enable faith in Jesus to live and flourish in his readers lives. And to know the vastness of God’s love for each of them.
As Alan studied this passage he must have felt Paul writing to him directly. And as Alan read this passage year in year out throughout his ministry he must have prayed it for us - his family including me and all the people and parishioners he knew and ministered to over many years.

It’s a prayer he would pray for all of us.

When I think about Alan now just 5 months after his death, I think I’ve been blessed by having 3 father’s in my life. There’s my biological dad – Martin - who brought me up. There’s also Michael Denman – he’s the consultant immunologist who treated me, saved my life back in 1976 and lead me back into education. And then finally Alan Caldwell. I never was able to call Alan dad or father but I owe much of my Christian life to him. He baptised me. He brought me to confirmation. He even gave Katy away at our wedding and then married us. 

Alan had a huge impact on my life.
I thank God for him. 

I miss him. 

Poetry Reading 7 June The cornerHouse Surbiton

So yet again I'm one of several poets reading in the evening. 

There's always a warm and welcoming atmosphere on these poetry evenings.

So come and join us.

Enjoy

Poetry reading, Friday 26 April

I'm one of several poets reading in the evening. There's always a supportive and sympathetic audience. 

Come and join us on 26 April.