I have now recovered enough from the emotion to be able to thank you all properly for your love and kindness, in the way I couldn’t during the presentation on Sunday!
I am so very grateful to each and every member of the Hampstead Parish Church congregation for the very warm and supportive welcome you have offered to me – and to all my family – over the past year. Your contributions to the services this weekend were overwhelming, and I felt so proud to be part of such a wonderful church. I was also quite overcome to see Diana and Bill approaching with a whole laundry basket of gifts from you all, and am immensely grateful for your generosity.
So many people worked so very hard to produce the two services – I am afraid I cannot list them all, but my thanks go to Angela James and Katherine who prepared the two orders of service; to everyone who cleans and maintains the church, leaving it looking so very beautiful and welcoming, (but perhaps especially to Beryl on this occasion, who scrubbed the floor where my nose was pressed against the stone during the prostration!); and to Angela Read, who chose the flowers, copying the bouquet I carried at my wedding, eighteen years ago this week. It is wonderful to be part of a church with a Director and Assistant Director who can produce not only a splendid traditional ordination service with anthems and a trumpet, but also a funky jazz mass with double bass and modern hymns! The churchwardens, altar servers, welcomers and sidespeople made everything go so smoothly and many visitors told me how warm and friendly the church felt – thank you all. It was very special to have so many children attending on Sunday, and they all read, prayed, sang and behaved beautifully.
Elizabeth and all her catering team produced not one, but two wonderful receptions, and I am so grateful to everyone who contributed food for the lunch on Sunday. Maggie could be glimpsed kindly and subtly photographing both services from the gallery, and I was delighted that Judy returned to her role as verger, even with the tricky task of corralling all the visiting clergy(!), after she had, as always, put in so much work behind the scenes and late into the evening, arranging and sorting altar frontals, silverware, candles and so much more.
And finally, thanks to all the men in my life, to Jeremy, without whose loving encouragement and practical support none of this would have been possible, to Hugo and Guy who are always loyal and helpful, and to Fr Stephen, who despite our very different personality types, (and the occasional murmur about my reminding him of Kanga in Winnie the Pooh) has been endlessly kind, patient, tolerant and trusting – the very model of a training incumbent!
It is, as I said on Sunday, both a joy and a privilege to serve at HPC, and I give thanks for you all.
With love