Povey Prattle

We were recyclers in post World War II Britain, even though we didn’t know the word. Each household was issued with a bin into which were to be placed food scraps of all kinds. Bristol Corporation emptied the bins twice each week, and the food was boiled some place or other to make food for pigs. Hence the bins were called “pig bins”, and the men who emptied them were called “ pig men” . Mrs. Wilcox, the Greengrocer’s wife once remarked to me “what a strange thing - to call them “pig-men”. Strange indeed, and the men who collected what Americans would call trash also had a strange moniker. Our trash was not placed in trash cans, but in dustbins. And then men who emptied those each week - yes, you’ve gotten it already, they were the “dust-men”. Jam jars were recycled too. This was a voluntary effort, usually undertaken by local boy scout troops. They would come around the neighbourhood once or twice a year to collect used and washed jam jars. They’d get a penny or two for ...

In the mid to late sixties of the previous century I began my flirtation with the Church of England. I was directed to St. John’s on the Wall as a good, “sound", evangelical parish. St. John’s is one of the few remaining medieval Churches in Bristol, (many were bombed in World War II), and indeed it sits on what remains of the old city wall, right over one of just two remaining city gates. The Vicar of St. John’s was one Dr. Dodgson Sykes, an aged and godly man. The principle service on the Lord’s Day was Morning Prayer. At the end of the Prayer Book liturgy, Dr. Sykes would remove himself from the Chancel, and go into the Vestry Room. There he would remove his surplice, and re-emerge wearing a black “Geneva” preaching gown. Then he would preach. I had encountered one of the few remaining so-called Black Gown Churches in the Church of England. I had no idea that what I saw was not normative. St. John’s is now closed (declared redundant as the Church Commissioners put it). An...

At the bottom of our back garden ( yard in American English) was a railway. It was once part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway ( LMS) . The old LMS had created this line from Birmingham, to give them a toe-hold in Great Western Railway ( GWR ) territory. But after World War II and the nationalisation of the railways, this line was now part of the Midland Region of British Railways. The rest of Bristol was served by the Western Region of British Railways, the successor to GWR. "Our railway" was on an incline which was the second longest in England, and big trains would often be pulled up it with two front engines, and a rear engine, known as a “banker”. They were steam engines. The smell of hot steam and coal smoke was often in our nostrils. It was a rotten day for Mum when soot from the engines infected her sheets drying on the clothes line. Mr. and Mrs. Ford ran their tripe processing factory just the other side of the railway bridge. What a stench whe...

There were important social rules in 1950’s Great Britain. One was that you never ate in the street. My friend Jeffery Davies walked by our house with his mother one morning. He was munching on an apple. My own mother was scornful. “What kind of mother”, she opined, “would allow her child to eat on the street?” One day Mum and I, and probably my sister Elizabeth set out for the shops on Church Road, about ¾ mile away. I think that my Aunt Irene was with us too, but that is a dubious memory. Mum, or Aunty Irene diverted us to one of the few remaining local bakeries “ Hubbard’s Bakery” on Whitehall Road. Mrs. Hubbard waited on customers, and of course, we each called her “Old Mother Hubbard”. Mum bought some doughnuts. These were not the modern anemic ones such as you might purchase at Dunkin’ Donuts or the Supermarket. They were doughnuts, not donuts. They were fried, crispy and sugary on the outside, hot on the inside, with jam which almost burned your tongue. We diverted in...

When six Churches get together they can make a difference. That’s what happened in 1989 when Sarasota’s Church of the Redeemer, First Christian Church, First Congregational Church, First Presbyterian Church, First United Methodist Church and Grace Fellowship Church created Resurrection House . They did so following the initiative of the Vestry of the Church of the Redeemer, who had been inspired and moved to action after ministering to a homeless woman who was sleeping in their grounds. Resurrection House is a day shelter for homeless people, working to give them a “hand up” rather than a hand out . Each weekday between 80 and 160 people come through the doors. Inside this bright, clean, air conditioned building (with a historically listed Mediterranean Revival style store front) homeless people are able to: Have clothes laundered (we do about 60 loads a day) Take a shower Eat breakfast Purchase reduced price bus passes Get job and housing counseling Get clothing and work shoes...

It was at the age of five years and three months that I entered Greenbank Infants’ School in what Americans would call grade one. I cried. But just about every child cried that day. I am told that after mid -morning “play time” (recess) I announced “I saw my sister outside and I am not going to cry any more”. That sister was Maureen who, seven years older than I, was lurking in the street next to the playground. (That same sister told me that I taught myself to read - by reading the newspaper, but I have no memory of such an accomplishment). My first teacher was Miss Suttle. I remember very little about her, except, in common with most children, I used to give her a kiss at the end of the school day. In grade two my teacher was Miss Baker. She seemed to be so strict. One day I raised my hand in class to complain that I had a headache. “So do I” said Miss Baker, “so we are both in the same boat. Now get back to your work”. When I left her class Miss Baker gave me a book. It ...

I had nothing either mundane or exciting in the works for Saturday 15th September, so when my friend The Revd Andi (Andrea) Taylor called and asked me to join her for a B.E.C.B I readily agreed. Andi and I knew and liked each other when she was at the Church of the Redeemer, Lexington, MA and I was at St. James’s in Cambridge, MA. She is now the Associate Rector at St. Boniface on Siesta Key in Sarasota, and we traveled to Tampa with retired Priest the Revd. Ralph McGimsey, his wife Kay, and the Revd. Alan Rogers, Deacon at St. B’s. The journey gave Andi and I chance to share deep and mutual prayer concerns from the Diocese of Massachusetts (gossip!) , and for me to meet Ralph, Alan and Kay. As it happened, Kay and I were already acquainted - we each volunteer at Resurrection House in SRQ. The B.E.C.B? It was “the Recognition and Investiture of the Rt. Revd. Dr. Dabney Tyler Smith as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South West Florida” - and it happened at St. Peter’s Cathedra...