April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Well, that�s what T.S. Eliot wrote in The Waste Land but I think we�re all hoping, after the long winter, and busy Lent, for a gentler month ahead. Concerts, Lent Groups, Exhibitions, the services of Holy Week, can leave us all emotionally played out and ready for a rest. But not for long! School holidays, Church holidays, Easter Bank Holiday – lovely – but once you�ve had a rest turn your attention to the big event of the month THE SPRING FAIR. Circle 24th April on your calendar now [if you haven�t already done so] and get ready for a stupendous fund-raising event. Remember all the money raised goes to the charities we support so we need every penny we can get. We want you all to come, to bring us things to sell, we want you to cook, to offer help – there are lots of ways, from carrying things down from the gallery or up from the undercroft to selling on the day, arriving at the end to clear up, offering to deliver any unsold goods to charity outlets where they�ll benefit other organisations. Nothing goes to waste at the Spring Fair.
Meanwhile there are other things happening this month – the Annual Parochial Church Meeting is on 21st in the Moreland Hall [behind the Everyman cinema]. This is your chance, if you�re on the Electoral roll of the church, to have a say in the running of the parish, to vote on important issues, and to have a drink with the PCC, your elected representatives.
The wet weather cleared just in time for the planting of the new sensory garden at the front of the church, with the help of the Parochial School as well as other volunteers. The garden was blessed on Mothering Sunday and we look forward to seeing, and smelling, how it grows through the year. AND, finally, work should be starting soon on the other projects under the lottery fund – relaying the paths, repairing the walls, all the hard landscaping. The path layout in the churchyard is very old, showing up on all the maps since 1750 [around the time the extra land was bought to make it the size it is today] so even if there were space we wouldn�t want to change that but the paths will be resurfaced. In the Additional Burial Ground one path up the side, across the middle and up to the Columbarium will be surfaced to a standard suitable for wheelchair use, though there�s nothing we can do about the gradient, there simply isn�t any space to make a gentler slope.
The paths were once all laid out with crazy paving – the gardener [Joseph Riley] was paid 10 shillings a week by Richard Moreland [after whom the Moreland Hall is named] to carry this out. Not sure exactly when but Riley died in 1958, aged 74, so not for at least 100 years after the burial ground was opened. Some of the that crazy paving is still there and is gradually being uncovered by volunteers.
This work, and they hope to start at the end of the month, will require a certain amount of site paraphernalia, and may coincide with the closure of Church Row for water main repairs, but, hey, nothing worth doing happens without pain – and think how long we�ve waited for this!
Guided tours of the churchyard and additional burial ground will be held on 24th April during the Spring Fair – the times will be listed in the programme for the day,
Some of you may have seen, and been shocked by, the Panorama report on cocoa farmers� use of child labour. I even briefly thought �I�ll never eat chocolate again� till commonsense [and greed] came to my rescue. I did make sure I tracked down Fairtrade Easter Eggs though. Traidcraft immediately published a response which we reprint in this issue along with a letter of thanks for our recent payment which, although it focusses on the tea trade, makes clear the vital contribution Traidcraft�s �social premium� makes to farmers. It�s this premium that pushes up the price of Traidcraft goods over Fairtrade goods in our supermarkets and I hope you�ll agree it�s well worth paying that bit extra if it improves the very minimal standard of life of many of the producers.
Finally I have to report that NO ONE made any comment about what they like or dislike about the magazine so I have to assume you all love it!
But we do now have a facebook page – check it out – become a friend.
April
Judy East