On Saturday 9 July, 2011, Reverend David Phillips was licensed as Priest-in-Charge of the Anglican Church of St George, Vernet les Bains.
Formerly Associate Priest in the Benefice of Elloughton Brough with Brantingham (York), we welcome David and his wife Lesley to this diocese.
The celebration on Saturday was a joyful event with a Church packed with parishioners, friends, ecumenical guests and clergy and readers from the neighbouring parishes of Pau and across the Pyrenees in Madremanya and Barcelona. Mme le Maire was on hand with her deputy, as the reopening of the Church was very much a civic event as well. The Diocese has given the building to the municipality which intends to use it (when restoration is complete) to host cultural events throughout the year, with the agreement that it will be available to our congregation on Sundays and one day per week. Abbé Christophe Périchon, the parish priest (who looks after 30 churches in his secteur!) was also in attendance along with many of his own parishioners.
A team of bell ringers, with their own transportable bells, rung changes before and after the service. A new stained glass window, depicting the patron St George, was also dedicated during the service.
Formerly Associate Priest in the Benefice of Elloughton Brough with Brantingham (York), we welcome David and his wife Lesley to this diocese.
The celebration on Saturday was a joyful event with a Church packed with parishioners, friends, ecumenical guests and clergy and readers from the neighbouring parishes of Pau and across the Pyrenees in Madremanya and Barcelona. Mme le Maire was on hand with her deputy, as the reopening of the Church was very much a civic event as well. The Diocese has given the building to the municipality which intends to use it (when restoration is complete) to host cultural events throughout the year, with the agreement that it will be available to our congregation on Sundays and one day per week. Abbé Christophe Périchon, the parish priest (who looks after 30 churches in his secteur!) was also in attendance along with many of his own parishioners.
A team of bell ringers, with their own transportable bells, rung changes before and after the service. A new stained glass window, depicting the patron St George, was also dedicated during the service.
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English Bell Ringing comes to the Pyrenees
Installing a permanent ring of bells in time for the re-dedication was too ambitious even for mad keen bell-ringers and part-time members of St. George's congregation, Jeff and Catherine Ladd. However, a solution appeared in the Spring, when Jeff and Catherine were invited to visit Alistair Moon in Senouillac, near Albi. Alistair lived in a former château and, finding that he missed bell-ringing when he moved the France, had acquired a "mini-ring" for his barn: eight small bells, the largest (the tenor) weighing just 10lb, set atop a frame made of several steel girders. Although the bells are considerably smaller than those you would find in a church tower (a 10cwt tenor would be a more common weight), they are attached to wheels and rung with ropes in exactly the same way. When Alistair mentioned that they could be easily dismantled and transported, Jeff and Catherine were quick to ask if he might be able to bring them to Vernet for the weekend of July 9th/10th. He needed no persuading! Another part-time member of St. George's congregation, Michael Strutt, is a ringer, so the search was on to find a minimum of four others. In the end there were eleven ringers, including ex-pat ringers from Provence and Germany, and even a couple, Roger and Sue Green, who travelled all the way from Ilkley in West Yorkshire by train. The bells arrived on the Friday afternoon and, with help from the church treasurer John Shearman, they were erected inside the entrance to the church. A practice session was held in the evening for the ringers to get used to ringing such tiny bells. A quarter-peal of Plain Bob Triples (bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=30095) was rung before the induction service on Saturday and the bells were also rung afterwards, prompting much interest from both English and French members of the congregation. A full peal was attempted after lunch in honour of the occasion. A peal, as you may imagine, is four times the length of a quarter-peal and comprises at least 5000 rows, in which each bell sounds once. Moreover the order of the bells within each row has to be different, so concentration and stamina are required, especially in the boiling heat of a Mediterranean summer. Sadly, on this occasion, the effects of the sun after a fine lunch proved too much of a challenge and the peal was lost with about 30 minutes remaining. Undaunted, the bell-ringers returned on Sunday morning to welcome the congregation with handbells. Following the service, another peal was attempted on the mini-ring. Thus time, 5040 Grandsire Triples was successfully rung in 2 hours and 24 minutes (bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=30096). Finally, to round off the weekend's activities, a peal of Yorkshire Surprise Major was rung on the handbells: same rules, but this time with each member ringing two bells each (bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=420698). Catherine wrote " We were delighted to be able to make a genuinely English contribution to the weekend's celebrations and it may be that in the future, when St. George's is in regular use, getting our own bells could be on the agenda. With a proper system of sound control they should not annoy the neighbours and they would bring plenty of tourist business for the town for, as we have seen, keen bell-ringers will travel a long way for something new and different." In a sad sequel to such a happy day, all three of the ringers who at the time were suffering from cancer, Catherine Ladd, Roger Bailey and Roger Green have since died, all far too young. It's a fitting tribute to them, and to Catherine's prophetic words, that St George's should now be so close to having a permanent ring of bells.
The portable peal of Bells being installed in St. George's
Our first wedding blessing took place on Monday the 25th of July between Toni a Finnish national and Gabrielle an English girl brought up here in France
