Saturday, October 13, 2018

To Richmond...

...and to this church, which has seen a substantial rise in numbers over the past couple of years...it is across the river from St Mary's University, where I am often to be found busy with my research work.  Lovely to be in Richmond - a place with strong family asociations for me - on an Autumn evening.

Long ago, a young man made a film - in the early days of home cinematopgraphy in the 30s - about the Autumn tide along the Thames, bringing the Autumn to this roverside town. It  featured his parents and siblings: Autumn walks, his schoolgirl sister crunching into a ripe apple, the first leaves scattering down along the paths... and it won an award, and is now of course a period piece. If he had lived, I think he might have been a successful director/producer/writer...  But he did not live to do that. When war broke out, he volunteered for the Royal Air Force and was shot down somewhere over the North Sea.....he was my uncle and his name is on the big RAF memorial overlooking the Thames at Runnymede. And  you and I owe to him, and others like him, the duty of keeping our country a good and happy one, where truth and freedom are upheld and where we can worship God on an Auytumn evening and practise our faith without fear...

1 comment:

Dominic N said...

Thank you for this.