Cremations at Breakspear Crematorium

Jan 22^nd           Peggy Bate, aged 84 (after service in St Giles’)
Feb 12^th           Rose Dowling, aged 85

 

Each Sunday at St Giles’ Church we pray for all the people who live or work in a particular road in the Parish.  During March we will pray for the following roads: 

Mar 2^nd           Greenacres Avenue
Mar 9^th            Halford Road
Mar 16^th          Haslam Close
Mar 23^rd          Haythorpe Drive
Mar 30^th          Heacham Avenue

If you live in one of these roads why not join us at our 8am or 9.45am services?  You will be most welcome.

The local service for this year’s event will be held on Friday, 7^th March at 2pm at St. Martin’s Church, Ruislip.  This inter-denominational service has the theme ‘God’s Wisdom provides new understanding’ and has been prepared by Christian women of Guyana.  The speaker will be Carol Bevis-Smith.

All are invited to attend – ladies and gentlemen too.  Refreshments will be available after the service.

 

If you have a prayer request, please write it in the book in St John’s Chapel at St Giles’ Church, and a group of people from the church will pray about it.  The chapel is open each weekday around midday (except Friday), and on Saturday mornings from 10.30am till 12 noon.  You may prefer to pray with someone.  If so, please attend the 9.45am service on any Sunday at St Giles’, and stay behind for prayer at the end of the service.

After 60 years of successive Governments dragging their feet, it has been decided to recognise the Land Girls (and Lumber Jills) with a special badge commemorating their efforts during the Second World War.  Ickenham’s best-known Land Girl is Pat Sparke who, at the tender age of 19 went to work for Cyril Saich at Home Farm.  She was Pat Byrne then and had been attracted to the land by “the uniform and the trousers in particular.  I was very athletic in those days”, said Pat, “and I wanted to be a PE teacher.  However, my Dad couldn’t afford to send me to college and the Government could.  So they sent me to Sparsholt Agricultural College for eight weeks to learn about dairy farming”.

And like thousands of other young girls at the time, she left home to learn the hard way about milking and muck-spreading, haymaking and harvesting and the thousand other things that farmers and Land Girls in those days took in their stride.  After the War, Pat left briefly to try an office job but the call of the land was too strong and she returned to Home Farm to help look after the farm as well as Cyril and his wife.  Pat took on the role of Housekeeper and Secretary remaining at Home Farm until Cyril’s death in 1989.  In her spare time she joined the WI and took up bowling. 

It was bowling that brought her and Ken Sparke together.  They married in 1994 and lived happily together until Ken unfortunately died in 2001.  Today, Pat is a lively 85 years and still, after 61 years, on the WI Committee!  Naturally, she retains fond memories of her life on the farm, wearing those smart trousers!  She rightly thinks it’s a disappointment that the girls have had to wait for so long to be thanked for what they did for the country but will be pleased to accept her hard-earned badge.  

 

You may recall the story of Ashleigh (ICN Nov 07) who will be representing the Project Trust in August this year when, straight from school (as Vyners’ Head Girl), she will be going to Africa to teach a variety of subjects to deprived Ugandan children.  One of those subjects is music and, for this, she will be well prepared by her experience as solo saxophonist with the Vyners Swing Band.  Before leaving for Uganda, she has to raise the daunting sum of £4,480 to cover her costs.  Several appeals and fundraising events have got her almost half-way there, but that still leaves around £2,500 to go.  If you’d like to help you could send a cheque (however small), payable to Project Trust, to Ashleigh Bairstow, 54 Copthall Road West, Ickenham, Middlesex, UB10 8HS.

Or why not go along to Vyners School to see Ashleigh and the rest of Vyners Swing Band on Sunday 30^th March at 2.30pm?  It’s their ever-popular Spring Charity Concert, a ‘free to get in – pay to get out’ event, where the raffle and retiring collection will go towards her Project Trust fundraising target.  Entry is by Free Ticket, but it’s a popular event and you’ll need to book these early – call 01895 234342 or 07786 152915.