Its Harvest Festival in Tylers Green today and for the first time in 19 years I am not there – and yet it is all so vividly pictured in my mind. The dark frescoed walls and ugly cramped Sanctuary of Frieth Church seem to melt away and I can see the long narrow nave with the cream washed walls and the windows piled high with fruit and vegetables and jam jars filled with chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies.

Somewhere there would be a neat loaf of bread shaped like a wheatsheaf and near the door there was always a zinc bath, procured at the last moment, into which would be massed great bunches of daisies and golden rod. The Lectern would have wild berries and a bunch of purple grapes; and the Font a fringe of white chrysanthemums and a wreath of purple corn.

What a mess we all made on the Saturday morning and how the leaves and berries got trampled and squashed down the aisle. Mr Freemantle would bring in his neat sheaf of bamboo – the disposal of which was always such a difficulty.

I can see Pusey laboriously carrying plants one by one, from the nursery over the way and arranging them on either side of the Altar. Once he brought vivid blue and magenta red – which looked magnificent against the emerald green of the Sanctuary carpets.

Special grapes were placed on the Altar and always – in front of the Cross and leaning against it, would be the little Cross I made each year from a handful of Wheat ears.

How fresh and clean it all looked on Sunday morning – the brasses specially cleaned, the surplices newly starched and fresh white linen on the Altar.

The organist begins the voluntary and soon the doors at the bottom of the Church are opened wide, the hymn is given out and the procession of choir and priest start up the aisle to the familiar words: Come ye thankful people come …. The Church is full to overflowing – the little wooden seats are pulled out and the vague restlessness of the unusual congregation is hushed and their voices take up the well-known tune. The organ, just a little ahead, becomes blended with the Choir and the Chancel is reached.

Later on, in the afternoon, the children will bring their gifts and the emptying of the trays must be a back breaking business. For it has become the tradition at Tylers Green that the gifts should be useful: and jam, eggs, fruit and groceries, even toys are presented.

She was a Devonshire lass. At 6½ she went to work on a farm and could make cheese and butter at 12. She could neither read nor write, having gone out to work before she was old enough to acquire these accomplishments. It seemed to put her at a disadvantage. She had the face and hands of a woman who has worked too hard all her life – and worked doggedly without rest or recreation.

He is a small man with small pale blue eyes set in a face devoid of colour. He is a gardener by trade and has worked as a jobbing gardener to most of the older inhabitants of the village. He took a leading part in the doings of the Wesleyan Reform Chapel and his somewhat sanctimonious talk was an unconvincing mixture of the earthly and the Heavenly. He has been ill for some years and his wife’s devotion and patience has been a wonderful thing. When he reached convalescence he would sit on a chair on the common outside his cottage watching all the passers-by and he would take short walks round the village, – his sharp eyes missing nothing, nor would he fail to waylay anyone whom he met for a friendly chat. His capacity for conversation was inexhaustible and he had his own way of saying what he wanted to say – very slow and sure. He would begin a long way off and work up with many cautious remarks to the final piece of information. He would take advantage of one’s frantic efforts to bring the end more quickly in site, by turning aside to deal with one’s remarks at great length before returning to the point of interruption.

There was never any hope of dealing with the slow insistent working of his mind and tongue. It seemed as though he was like a woman travailing to the birth. One took refuge in pleading an urgent appointment and hurrying off and still he would stand waving his stick and continuing with what he wished to say for as long as one was in earshot.

He was a familiar figure with his light grey overcoat which intensified the colourless face. I can see him now with the curious habit of tossing his head while he spoke and the little eyes darting to and fro even when they lit up with the smile which never spread to his features. He would make anything grow and his wife was passionately fond of flowers. There is a little glass shelter by the side of their old cottage and under it, during the winter, there is a table massed with chrysanthemums. It seemed as if she had been starved of love and had sought it in her flowers.

Of her two children, one is the village idiot and when complaints of his behaviour brought officials to remove him to a home, she fought like a tigress for her young and succeeded in hiding the boy till the accident had been forgotten!

The other son had TB and resembled his mother in his good natured obstinacy. He married and has two children.

The eldest, a girl, was in my Sunday School class and for some weeks before her birthday she used to tell me that she had some flowers or chocolates which was bringing me the next day. She would take the trouble to come up to my house on purpose to tell me this on many. occasions.

As a baby she was the pride and delight of her grandmother, who would perhaps see in her the small daughter she had lost in infancy, so long ago.

She lived all alone in her old age in one room in a cottage down Nursery Lane. The Vicar gave me the job of fetching her for Evensong every Sunday night. She was a tough old lady of about 70 and had worked on the land as a young woman and the hours had been long and hard.

I took her to sit with me in my usual seat which was the front pew. I shall never forget the first evening. The Choir took their places and the Vicar gave out the hymn. She took the hymn book I handed to her, but finding she could not see the words, she produced a pair of glasses from a pocket in her petticoat. Finally with quiet deliberation she removed her hat and placed it, without hurry or shyness on the pew rest in front of her. Having arranged the glasses to her comfort she once more put on her hat, pinning it firmly to her coil of hair; and taking up her hymn book she joined heartily in the singing.

I took her to Church regularly for a long time and then one evening when I went to call for her, she would not come – and I learned that she was “courting”. She had incautiously boasted that she had money saved and I fancy the man was trying to get hold of it. I called several times, but she never came again. Some months later she fell very ill and I went to see her. The loneliness of these old women seems so pathetic. There was no one to look after her and though the neighbours did what they could, she became full of bedsores and had finally, much against her will, to be taken away to die in Amersham Workhouse. They call it the Institution now, to make it sound better, but I can never see a caged animal without thinking of these old folk carried away to cleanliness and to comfort perhaps, but with a feeling in their hearts that the prison walls have closed round them.

There was a time during the Building of the New Sanctuary when the week day services were held in the Scout Hut. The Scout Troop had been discontinued and the place was clean and dusted and kept locked between services.

We had rigged it up like a Chapel. There were rust coloured curtains at the windows and a rust and blue mat in front of the gas fire. Everything extraneous had been put away and a blue cloth completely covered the table that was to serve as the Altar.

The disused brass candlesticks were cleaned and polished till they shone and the vases were filled with flowers. A blue mat lay in front of the altar and one of the tall old oak coffin stools served as a Credence Table. Blue curtains neatly draped shut off a small part of the Hut near the door for a Vestry and the care and trouble we had taken was rewarded by a strange feeling of devotional atmosphere which filled the little building. This was helped perhaps by the fact that there were no Altar rails and during the Administration, the Vicar moved among us as we knelt in our places about the room.

The first morning the Vicar arrived his vestments were very damp (I had carried them over from the Church the night before). He brought them over to me and appealed pathetically for help. I had come early and had lit the gas fire and it was a simple matter to take the garments over there and dry them till it was time for the service to begin.

The Celebration had been at 10.00 am in Tylers Green Church and I had prepared the Pyx and the private Communion set, for the Vicar was to take the Reserved Sacrament to a dying parishioner immediately afterwards. When the Service was over and the congregation had gone, I waited on to tidy up after the Vicar had left the Vestry.

I remember the occasion most vividly, I noticed that the Pyx with the Consecrated Elements had been left on the Altar and presently the Vicar came down the aisle with a worried expression on his face. He told me he had just had a message asking him not to come for another hour and he must in consequence, go home and alter some appointments.

I promised I would not leave the Church till he returned; and I think it was the most beautiful ½ hour that I have ever spent in my life – an experience which comes back to me again and again to give me courage.

The wonder of it – that I should be left alone to guard that little thing lying upon the Altar.

The smallness, the insignificance of It, the fact that no one else knew It was there, at the mightiness of what It contained. The awful humbleness of God, the lowliness of Love. And there, alone with It in the Church, I felt the companionship of Jesus, His living all pervading physical Presence as I cannot dare to hope I shall ever feel it again.

For that short half hour He was closer to me than breathing and nearer than hands and feet; and that amazing experience has made me think of Tylers Green Church as the Garden must have seemed to Mary Magdalene – that it was there that I met my Lord and that He spoke to me.

Insignificant – little both in mind and stature, and yet with a kind heart that she hesitated to reveal.

Exact, living rule and the epitome of conventionality, her behaviour is governed on all occasions by the necessity – for her – to do the right thing in the eyes of the social world.

Striving to keep up her position she is half ashamed – so it seems to many of us, of her attractive unconventional and deaf husband. Adorning parties yet failing to shine at them because she never gives of herself and is entirely lacking in imagination.

I cannot picture her doing one spontaneous action and her fear of social indiscretion would guide all her dealings, even those with her most intimate friends. A woman of over 50, she still looks to her parents for guidance and in any argument their views, particularly those of her father, the Archdeacon of Bath, are quoted as impossible of contradiction.

A just man and a good man with a lively sense of fun. This was apparent in the somewhat surprised looking eyes and a mouth which seemed always to be trembling into a laugh. The fun might have had a sharp edge to it long ago but the passing years had evidently mellowed and softened it.

Righteousness looked out from the face, and uprightness and an understanding heart. A slight brusqueness of manner and a harsh voice belied the very real kindliness within. Everyone respected Artur Jagger and he was everyone’s friend.
He was a man of high principle and straight forwardness; and his abhorrence of deceit or wrong doing did not for a single moment make him despise any of his neighbours.

I think reverence from his fellow creatures and tolerance of their failings endeared him to all who knew him, and there are many who will remember his ready sympathy.

He died a few days after his 70th birthday and I think he cannot have been afraid to pass into the presence of his Creator.

Even in a small Country Parish there are moments of indescribable rush and confusion. Take a Sunday when the Vicar is away on holiday. There is a parson to be fetched for the 8 0′ clock and to be taken home afterwards. If he lives 5 miles away that means 20 miles to go. The Vestments and the linen have to be tidied away leaving only time for a hurried breakfast. Sunday School takes place at 10 and I am there to open it and read the prayers. On this occasion a representative from a Missionary Society is coming to take Matins and

I have to be at Wycombe to meet his train at 10.25. I dash over there, only to find he has not arrived. Coming home my radiator boils and I have to beg water from a house. I ring Mr Bacon who agrees to read the service. I am just in time to get back to the Parish Room to close Sunday School and then comes the idea of getting the organist to give a recital instead of the sermon. And so the arrangements go smoothly on.

Another Sunday the visiting Parson sent me word at 2.30pm that he felt ill and would be unable to take the Children’s Service at 3. On rushing down to the Church I found that a large number of parents had come with their children so the only thing to do was to open the Parish Room and invite them all in there for hymns, prayers and intercessions. Being quite unprepared it was something of an ordeal.

Dr. Chennels

Dr Chennells, old and somewhat infirm – occasionally did duty when the Vicar was away. All arrangements had been made for him to officiate at a wedding and I had laid out the Registers in the Vestry. He asked me to be present and I took up my position in a pew at the back of the Church to say the responses. As the happy couple came down the aisle I smiled at them and the bridegroom held out his hand. I gripped his in a congratulatory grasp only to find a 2/6 tip left in my palm!

On putting away the Registers I discovered that Dr Chennells had allowed the couple to sign in the wrong place. Before going away the Vicar had filled in the Certificate for 2 Weddings and today’s couple had put their signatures to the wrong certificate. This had to be dealt with at once.

When the Vicar was away

Things always seemed to go wrong when the Vicar went away.

Tiresome little things such as the organ refusing to function in the middle of the service. On that occasion we sang the hymns unaccompanied, assisted by the queer noises and finger clipping on the part of the organist.

One evening, during a thunderstorm, the lights fused and we were left in almost complete darkness.