THE PARISH CHURCH OF STOKE DAMEREL
(ST. ANDREW & ST. LUKE)

Email:   info@stokedamerel.church                                          
www.Stokedamerel.church
www.facebook.com/StokeDamerelChurch

Please note: Stoke Damerel Church does not divulge
personal information to third parties.

Sunday 4 October                18th Sunday after Trinity

  Merciful God,
we entrust to your tender care
those who are ill or in pain,
knowing that whenever danger threatens
your everlasting arms
are there to hold them safe.
Comfort and heal them,
and restore them to health and strength;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

PLEASE PRAY FOR:-
The sick:-
Maureen, Margaret W, Graham, John S, Kathy, Mo, Matt,
Bertie, Morwenna, David J.
The long term sick and infirm:-
Diana, Liz & Keith N, Rob.
The Ministry Team:-
Rev'd Fran, Ruth and Marilyn.

BLESSED SACRAMENT CANDLE

If you would like to have the candle lit for a week
for a particular prayer / thanksgiving /
commemoration, etc., please send a £5 donation to
Debbie Smith, clearly marking your donation as
being for the candle. Details of your intention can
be emailed to:- sarah.lundstrom@virginmedia.com
so that a mention of the commemoration, etc., can
appear in the Sunday Sheet.

SERVICES THIS WEEK
Stoke Damerel Parish Church is a hybrid church
open for public worship and private prayer and all
services will be live streamed.
By attending a live streamed service, you give
implied permission to have your image captured
on CCTV and to be broadcast as participant in the
liturgy.

Watch our livestreamed services
Please follow the link to make your way to our YouTube page: 

 STOKE DAMEREL YOUTUBE CHANNEL 

Sunday 4 October                   18th Sunday after Trinity
0800 Holy Eucharist
1000 Sung Parish Eucharist
1130 PCC meeting

Wednesday 7 October
1000 Said Eucharist

Sunday 11 October                Harvest Thanksgiving
0800 Holy Eucharist
1000 Sung Parish Eucharist

HARVEST GIFT DONATIONS
Our Harvest Thanksgiving service this year takes
place next Sunday.
All Harvest gifts will be donated to the Devonport
Food Club, which runs at St. Aubyn church every
Wednesday morning.

Suggested items could be:
• Baked beans.
• Other tinned foods.
• Toiletries (for men, women, children) –
shampoo, conditioner, deodorants, shower
gel, toothpaste, toothbrushes.
• Toilet rolls.
• Breakfast cereals.
Items do need to be well within sell by / best
before dates.
Thank you.

MARILYN'S MEMOS

HARVEST THANKSGIVING NEXT WEEKEND
Please do bring your contributions as soon as
possible, so that a display can be made in time for
our Eucharist on 11th October. We are collecting
tinned and packaged goods, toiletries of all kinds
and perishable food which will not spoil before
next weekend.

HEATING

The heating engineer, Jon of Mechanical Services,
visited today to turn the heating on and check the
boiler. We will be having two new thermostats
which will be much easier to programme than the
ones we have now. Unfortunately, the boiler fan
has proved faulty and we must wait for a new one
to arrive. Another unexpected expense for our
treasurer!

UPDATES TO NOTICE BOARDS
These are in hand. Signs4U have taken the
wording and measurements for the notice boards
at the front and rear of church and our new
incumbent should be acknowledged as soon as
Chris and Richard get it sorted.

THANK YOU TO THE QUIET VOLUNTEERS
Just a word of appreciation to Ann, John and Jerry
who beaver away in the garden. Thank you to Ann
and co who florally enhance our worship, thanks
also to those who change our altar frontals, to
those who take tea cloths, table cloths and items
used during communion to be laundered, similar
thanks to Oly who is revamping our linen
cupboard in the ladies cloakroom. We all
appreciate your input.

CLERGY VESTRY
Just a plea to those who unlock the safe and key
safe/key cupboard: please could you ensure both
are locked after the money is counted.
Thank you.

Marilyn

A CANTERBURY TALE
Pilgrimage to Canterbury. Planned for earlier in the
year; then God intervened.
First to Rochester- a fine cathedral, city and castle;
next Whitstable, then on past Kentish hopfields,
resting at Premier Inn Margate. Evening of Rev
Fran’s installation!
Tuesday visit to Turner Contemporary art gallery.
[Victoria Pomeroy, now award winning Director of
The Box, was Founding Director there.] I missed a
Bridget Riley exhibition, but again God
intervened, with work by Hulda Guzman and a
welcoming wall-full of a David Hockney work
looking out onto an Anthony Gormley in the
estuary beyond.
It bucketed down through Ted Heath’s Broadstairs
and a rare Edward VIII pillar box by Wetherspoons
in Ramsgate en route to Canterbury.
Bright and sunny on Wednesday, I went to see
where the then Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas
Becket ‘lost his head’ in 1170 for speaking against
King Henry II. There another God-incidence? I
couldn’t visit the nave and site of the Martyrdom
as it was closed for a Graduation Ceremony.
However the regular Wednesday morning
Communion in the crypt was open, led by a priest
with Permission to Officiate- like me. And another
art exhibition- this time with powerful paintings by
Renaud Muraire [The Prodigal Son.]
What did Chaucer’s pilgrims expect to find?
In St Thomas’ RC church in Canterbury is a shrine
to Becket (with finger?) and a stole of Archbishop
Oscar Romero, gunned down in 1980 at the altar in
El Salvador.
Then my ‘pilgrimage’ widened taking in visits to
the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway, the
emptiness of Dungeness, Cinque Ports of Rye and
Winchelsea and onto Hastings. After a short
‘delay’ to recover my phone from the Travelodge, I
visited Battle, with its fine diorama of the 1066
battle, then back to Hastings Town Hall to see their
Tapestry - a wonderful embroidery sewn in 1966
updating its Bayeux antecedent.
If we learn anything from history, it’s that we learn
nothing from history. I learned nothing from seeing
where Becket stood and fell, but I was there. Oscar
Romero was there too. In Oxford I was there
where Thomas Cranmer, the then Archbishop of
Canterbury, went to the stake together with the
Bishops of London and Worcester, Ridley and
Latimer for resisting the powers and authorities of
their day. Thomas More also comes to mind.
Recent gospel readings speak of the price of
following Jesus. Stand up, stand up ...
Rev Brian

ADVANCE DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
Oct 11 Harvest Thanksgiving Service
Oct 18 St. Luke’s Service
Nov 8 Remembrance Sunday
Nov 13 & 14 Christmas Fair

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN OCTOBER
John Mitchelmore, Craig Miles, William Brown.

STOKE DAMEREL PARISH CHURCH WEDDINGS
INYEARS GONE BY
When I wrote my contribution for last week’s
Sunday sheet, I included the information that one
visitor, Jan from Exeter Archives, had information
indicating that, at one time, Stoke church was
willing to undertake marriage ceremonies, when
other churches would not. She indicated that she
had a couple of other projects to complete before
she would be able to contact me. Therefore, I was
very surprised to receive her promised email this
week.
The email included extremely detailed information
relating to four marriages which took place at
Stoke church between 1802 and 1832. Jan noted
that the 1662 Book of Common Prayer listed
prohibited degrees of kinship when one could not
marry. This included prevention of marrying the
spouse of a brother or sister after the brother or
sister had died. It was not until 1921 that this
prohibition was completely lifted.
Jan’s research had uncovered “evidence of
couples who were breaking the canon law
forbidding marriage to a dead spouse's brother
or sister, coming from other parts of Devon to
Stoke Damerel parish church to marry. So, I've
now been through my research files and found
4 examples... they were actually only a few of
many other examples and I suspect that the fact
that you could get away with it in a busy parish
such as Stoke Damerel, may have been known
"through the grapevine" to couples who wanted
to marry without the attention of their local
community....”

The four examples are as follows: -

25th. January 1802 – Thomas Palk married his
widowed sister-in-law, Susanna Palk. The service
was conducted by the Curate, Rev. John Hawker.

3rd. April 1816 – Thomas Whiteway, a widower,
married Eleanor Smerdon, the sister of his dead
wife. The curate, Rev. John Hawker, conducted
the service.

21st. September 1816 - William Widdicombe
married Jane Faremouth, his widowed sister-in-
law. Rev. Humberstone was the Officiating
Minister.

20th November 1832 – John Sowton married
Harriett Palk, who was his dead wife’s sister.
The then Rector, Rev. William John St. Aubyn,
conducted the service.

It is interesting to look at the priests involved. I
have no information about Rev. Humberstone.
However, the first Rector to be visually recorded is
Reverend William John St. Aubyn (Rector from
1828 to 1877). Many of you will have seen the
dark silhouette of Reverend st. Aubyn amongst the
framed photographs hung on the walls of the
Rector’s Vestry. He was known as “the bad St.
Aubyn,” being at odds with a number of the
parishioners for many years.

He was also in charge of St. Aubyn’s church, and
their records include a photograph of him when he
was younger.

The two earlier weddings were conducted by Rev.
John Hawker, who had been in charge of the
church for 30 years from 1798, during most of the
time that Reverend Thomas Williamson had been
the (absentee?) rector.

Tony Barnard