A very enjoyable...

... celebratory Parish Dinner at St Bede's, Clapham Park, on the eve of the First Sunday of Advent. It was great fun, a proper sit-down dinner.... tables decorated with golden crackers...excellent food...cheerful parish priest Father Chris Basden rushing about and presiding in style. There was a raffle, and much lively talk, and it was all hugely enjoyable...I wrote the history of this parish a few years back, published as a paperback under the title One Corner of London . The church is one of several built through the generosity of an heiress, Miss Ellis, in the early days of the 20th century: it now has five Masses every Sunday plus a Saturday evening Mass, and there is a parish school and a big annual Corpus Christi procession through local streets...the room where we were eating was the basement of the large house bequeathed by Miss Ellis and now used as the presbytery and parish office - older parishioners remembered this basement as a dark and rather mysterious kitchen area but in recent years it has become the parish hall and for the Dinner was packed to capacity, uncomfortably warm but extremely jolly and full of people enjoying themselves! A happy evening.