February 2023

St Leonard’s, Sherfield English

At St Leonard’s we have well and truly seen the New Year in,

with a Communion service led by James on New Year’s Day.

It was well attended, and no one looked too tired from

partying the night before, or at least they hid it well!

Christmas has been an absolute delight at St Leonard’s this

year. The community’s enthusiasm for all our festive events

and services has been tremendous. I think the decorating of

the church with each window depicting a carol or Christmas

song – reindeer, donkeys, bells and stars standing next to

towns and crowns, while the gentlemen rested, ably

supported the real Christmas tree with twinkly lights.

Everyone was surrounded by the story of the Nativity and

was humbled by the thought of the arrival of the Prince of

Peace.

So as we ended 2022 we also start 2023 by hoping for peace

and joy to the world. Lent gets under way in this month of

February; in March we join the Thorngate benefice by

hosting a Lent Lunch on Saturday 18th (12 noon to 2 p.m.)

We will offer several varieties of home-made soup, as a light

lunch at no fixed cost. But you are asked to donate to UNICEF

and all their projects across the world, particularly

concerning the war in Ukraine. In our small way, hopefully,

we can help many.

Julia Noble, St Leonard’s Churchwarden

News from the Church Commissioners:

Resulting from their Mission, Pastoral and Church Property

Committee meeting on 25th January, the Church

Commissioners have deferred making a decision on the

future of our parishes, “pending further information they

wanted first from the Diocese”. The next meeting of that

Committee is scheduled for 22nd March 2023.

This “Post meeting note” is now publicly available at

https://www.churchofengland.org/consultation/Thorngate

From there it is also possible to download their “Committee

paperwork”, as accumulated prior to 25th January, via

https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-

01/thorngate_comm_papers_www.pdf (96 pages).

While the news of this further delay will be disappointing to

us all, we can at least be reassured that the issues involved

are being thoroughly considered.

Paul Newby, Parish Newsletter Compiler

December 2022 Newsletter Entry

The church year moves on apace as we approach the end of 2022. We are

grateful to the Reverend Nick Grew for once again taking our service of

Remembrance. It was good to see so many people from the village joining

in and we are especially grateful to Eric Hounslow for decorating the church

and once more organising the laying of the wreaths and crosses.

Of course, once Harvest and Remembrance are past it is time to start

thinking about our Christmas services. In St Leonard’s we begin the festive

season with our Christingle service on 27th November and continue with our

evening Carol Service at 6pm on the 11th December. A reminder that our

‘Midnight’ Communion service is at 8pm on Christmas Eve, and our service

at 11am on Christmas Day will be family friendly and (hopefully!) funpacked.

Saturday 3rd December sees a special Christmas coffee morning

with additional stalls and a harpist. Our fabulous team of flower arrangers

will be decorating the church on the morning of the 10th, and you can get a

sneak peek of the decorations (this year’s theme is Christmas Carols) at a

talk and book signing given by local author, Claire Gradidge at 5.30pm later

that day. Claire has family ties to Sherfield English and will be talking about

her murder mystery novels set in and around Romsey during the 1940s. On

the evening of Monday 12th the choir will be leading carol singing at the

Hatchet Inn from 7.30pm. We were delighted to have been invited back by

new landlord, Tom Moody, and hope you will join us for this rousing

tradition!

In the run-up to Christmas we are continuing to run our Parish Pantry

scheme, providing small food parcels to any resident of the village who

might be struggling with the recent rise in prices. Parcels can be collected

anonymously from the church porch at any time. Thank you to those who

have provided donations to keep the scheme going. Take-up has so far

been slow and should we find there is not a need for the scheme within the

village (something for which we will be extremely thankful) then donations

will be passed on to Romsey Foodbank or to the Parish Pantry scheme in

West Tytherley. 3rd December Christmas Coffee Morning Julia Noble

4th December Holy Communion Revd James Pitkin

10th December 5.30pm Talk and Book Signing by local author, Claire

Gradidge

11th December 6pm - Carol Service

12th December 7.30pm Carol Singing outside Hatchet Inn

18th December Morning Prayer Clare Durham

18th December 6pm Wellow Wood Methodist Carol Service

24th December 8pm – Holy Communion Revd James Pitkin

25th December Christmas Day – Family Service Julia Noble

St Leonard’s Dates for your diary 2023

1st January 2023 11am Holy Communion Revd James Pitkin

8th January Morning Prayer Clare Durham

15th January Family Service – Epiphany Revd James Pitkin

22nd January Morning Prayer Clare Durham

29th January 11am hosting Wellow Wood

October 2022, Newsletter Entry

As I write this, we are in unchartered waters nationally as we are currently

in mourning for the Queen. It is all very surreal. I want to thank all the bell

ringers who have rung bells following the strict London Bridge Protocol for

the death of the Monarch. The bells play such an important part in St

Leonard’s existence and having eight bells has made this time of mourning

extremely poignant. Michael Eastwood tolled the tenor bell on the night the

Queen passed away and the bells were half-muffled for the next day,

unmuffled for the proclamation of King Charles III on the Saturday, and

then half-muffled again to be rung for St Leonard’s commemoration service

for the Queen on the Sunday. A number of people came to this service led

by knowledge that faith played such an important part in our Late

Sovereign’s life. Attending a service in the local church together somehow

brought comfort. The church is a constant in a chaotic world, as indeed was

the Queen.

It was a moving service provided largely by the Church of England so that

every parish church could commemorate The Queen with the same words,

obviously St Leonard’s made a few additions, including the choir singing

John Rutter’s “Lord bless you and keep you”. The National Anthem finished

the emotional service - the new words will take a bit of getting used to, for

me at least. I thank everyone for joining us to make it such a memorable

and fitting end to the second Elizabethan era.

It seems appropriate that I move on next to the bell tolling for the burial of

Nora Pointer at St Leonard’s. Nora started ringing St Leonard’s bells in

1957 and was bell captain for many years. Nora was our last verger, and

she held the post for decades being particularly efficient at getting a church

full of people to do exactly as necessary – “All Stand” will never be said

quite the same at St Leonard’s, and her soprano voice from her seat at the

rear of the church will be ever present.

September brings our Harvest Festival and collecting non-perishable items

for Romsey Food Bank for those whose finances are starting to bite. We

celebrate together after the service and if it is sunny, we could even sit

outside on the new bench. St Leonard’s always decorates the church with

fruit and veg and flowers, some real and, quite possibly, some knitted, as

we celebrate everything to do with farming and nature. The

acknowledgement of the seasons in the church calendar is very much at the

forefront of our thoughts in this rural village

The season of autumn is upon us, and as we anticipate the approach of

winter (after the heat of summer do we expect a cold, cruel winter?) St

Leonard’s will be starting a new initiative with a “heat and eat” theme. We

would welcome donations of non-perishable items to make up food parcels

for anyone in this village who is going to have a tough time this winter as

the heating becomes more expensive and food prices climb, and some need

to make the decision to heat, or eat, each day. We will hopefully provide

food parcels for families with younger children, making sure that breakfast

is covered so that they can go to school fuelled to learn. And another parcel

for older people who just need a few extra meals. We hope that those who

genuinely need a little help will be able to venture into the church porch

subtly and collect a parcel at a time which suits them.

If anyone has any “bags for life” to contain the food parcels or nonperishable

food provisions that they would like to donate, then please just

leave them in the church porch and we will parcel them up regularly. We

hope that those in genuine need take advantage of this small assistance, so

please spread the word.

In the event that donations outstrip demand then we will donate the items

to Romsey Food Bank, so nothing will be wasted. It may be that there is no

need for a “heat and eat” project in Sherfield English, but we feel we would

like to support those that may need us in a practical way, so we are going

to try, and we can only wait and see, hope and pray.

Julia Noble. Churchwarden of St Leonard’s, Sherfield English