The Parish Magazine December 2024

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12 The Parish Magazine — December 2024 Please mention The Parish Magazine when responding to advertisements Providing a reliable service 365 days a year delivering tasty, nutritious meals 2 course hot or cold lunch Wide choice of daily menu Free delivery 11:30am to 2:30pm No long-term contracts Special diets catered for Breakfast/afternoon tea packs Bread and milk service Home from hospital service More than a meal – well-being check, help in emergencies, plating up service, sign-posting to other support services We understand every meal counts, our service will not fail you! Independent, family-run funeral directors serving Sonning since 1826. We are delivering to an expanding area in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire. Please contact us to find if we are now delivering in your area. Our compassionate and professional team are here to help you with everything related to a funeral from pre-planning to bereavement support. Local branches in Caversham and Henley-on-Thames. www.abwalker.co.uk | 0118 947 7007 Tel 0118 214 8318 Mobile 07592 652210 Email enquires@bridgeshomecare.co.uk Bridges Meal Delivery Service, Henson House, Newtown Road, Henley-on-Thames Oxfordshire RG9 1HG ALPINE APRÈS TERRACE AND IGLOOS Your all new ‘après destination’ has arrived this winter to The Great House Sonning. Vintage ski meets alpine lodge with a new look for our heated terrace & signature igloos. Think warming cocktails, seasonal events and cosy corners that will make you feel like you’ve been whisked off to The Alps. APRÈS PARTIES - Thursday 28th November, Thursday 12th & Tuesday 31st December Book a table on the terrace for this festive season or try one of our Igloos on the lawn. SCAN TO TO BOOK AND FOR MORE INFORMATION coppaclub.co.uk/christmas | @the_great_house 135 DECEMBER 2O24.indd 12 13/11/2024 10:15:02
parish noticeboard — 5 Father who? One person you are bound to run into this Christmas season is Father Christmas. These days he seems to frequent shopping malls and garden centres. If he looks tired, just remember that he has been around a long time and gone through a lot of transformations. Father Christmas wasn’t always the red-suited, whitebearded star of the retail trade that he is today. He began life as Nicholas, born about AD260 in Patara, an important port on the southern coast of Turkey. When his parents died and left him a fortune, Nicholas gave it to the poor. He became a bishop of the nearby city of Myra, where he almost certainly suffered persecution and imprisonment at the hand of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Nicholas was a serious theologian: he was a participant at the First Council of Nicaea, which formulated the Creed that we say today. He even, reportedly, slapped another bishop in a squabble over the exact nature of the Trinity. Nicholas died in Myra about AD343, but the stories of his generosity and kindness were just beginning. One enduring tale tells of the three girls whom he rescued from certain prostitution by giving them gold for their dowries. When the father confronted him to thank him, Nicholas said he should thank God alone. In the UK, Nicholas became the basis for Father Christmas, who emerged in Victorian times as a jollyfaced bearded character. Meanwhile, Dutch and German settlers had taken him to America with them as Sinter Klaas and Sankt Niklas. 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS It was in America that Nicholas received his final two great breaks into real stardom. The first was when the Rev Clement C Moore, a New York Episcopal minister, turned from his life-work of writing a Hebrew/English lexicon, to write a fun poem for his children one Christmas. His ‘The Visit of St Nicholas’ is now universally known by its first line: ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. From Clement Moore we discovered that St Nicholas is round and pink-cheeked and white-bearded, and that he travels at night with sleigh, reindeer and a sack of toys on his back. It was also Clement Moore who revealed that St Nicholas enters houses down chimneys and fills children’s stockings with toys and sweets. So how did we find out that Father Christmas wears red? That was the US Coca-Cola advertising campaign of 1931, when they finally released the latest, up-to-date pictures of Father Christmas — he wearing a bright red, fur-trimmed coat and a large belt. These days, it is good that Father Christmas uses reindeer and doesn’t have to pay for petrol! In order to get round all the children in the world on Christmas Eve, he will have to travel 221 million miles at an average speed of 1,279 miles a second, that's 6,395 times the speed of sound. For all those of us who are already exhausted just rushing around getting ready for Christmas, that is a sobering thought. From the editor's desk The Parish Magazine — December 2024 13 Your ideas are always welcome I have just added another folder to the shelf where I keep a a printed copy of each of the The Parish Magazines that I have edited. Each folder holds a complete year, the first being for 2013. The latest — currently empty — folder is for 2025 which means I have had the pleasure of producing The Parish Magazine for 12 years. If my mother was alive she would now be panicking because for her 13 was very unlucky, but the good news is that for me, it is no such thing, and I am looking forward to my 13th year as editor. Looking at the first issue I edited made me realise how much it has changed physically since then; it has more pages which are larger in size, and it is printed in full colour. The difference is even greater compared with the first issue of The Parish Magazine published in 1869, which is not surprising because the world has changed beyond recognition since the time Victoria was on the throne. We are now on our sixth monarch since her. GENERAL INTEREST The most interesting comparison is, however, that the content of the current magazine is more like the first issues published in 1869 which had a broad range of articles and stories designed to be of general interest, although always with a Christian background. It had always been a 'paid-for' magazine which restricted its circulation and over time had turned into a document focused on recording the events directly related to St Andrew's Church Sonning. In other words, it had become very inward looking which had the consequence that less than 100 copies were being printed. Today, we print and distribute 2,300 copies free of charge for readers each month, and current issues are also available to be read online at https://www.theparishmagazine.co.uk I always welcome ideas for stories and feature articles, and indeed, I always welcome written full length articles, although I can't promise that I won't edit them a little! I am also willing to help with the actual writing of articles if you feel, as I know some people do, that they are not able to put words on paper in a meaningful way. As a journalist I did this all my working life, ghost writing articles for engineers and business managers who, while they were excellent at what they did, often found it difficult to put their ideas and thoughts on paper, or indeed, because they did not have the time to do what I was being paid to do! While on this subject of writing, I am still welcoming articles for the 'Why I am a Christian' series that we started last April. To date, we have published seven in the series and judging by the 150+ people who attend St Andrew's Sonning services every week there is scope for many more! As always, I am happy to help with the writing, so please give me a call! 135 DECEMBER 2O24.indd 13 13/11/2024 10:15:02
Page 1 and 2: The Parish Magazine Magazine Parish
Page 3 and 4: Serving the communities of Charvil,
Page 5 and 6: The Parish Magazine — December 20
Page 7 and 8: the parish noticeboard — 1 Advent
Page 9 and 10: Lights shining in the dark! Corinne
Page 11: the parish noticeboard — 4 SHARIN
Page 15 and 16: parish noticeboard — 6 Nothing is
Page 17 and 18: feature — 1 Three Christmas quest
Page 19 and 20: feature — 2 Christmas pudding and
Page 21 and 22: feature — 4 At the beginning of t
Page 23 and 24: CHILDREN'S is welcome to we celebra
Page 25 and 26: around the villages — 1 arounD th
Page 27 and 28: around the villages — 1 around th
Page 29 and 30: HOME AND Garden — 2 Robin facts a
Page 31 and 32: THE SCIENCES The Parish Magazine
Page 33 and 34: CHRISTMAS christmas quiz David Pick
Page 35 and 36: THE ARTS — 1 Rev Michael Burgess
Page 37 and 38: THE ARTS — 2 Book Reviews — 2 D
Page 39 and 40: PUZZLE PAGE — 2 CROSSWORD 1 2 3 4
Page 41 and 42: CHILDREN'S PAGE The Parish Magazine
Page 43 and 44: Please mention The Parish Magazine

The Parish Magazine December 2024

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