NORTH HERTS SANCTUARY
Thank you for the gifts left in the collection box in the Baptistry with donations to the Homeless Centre. They are very grateful to receive all dry groceries, tooth care items, deodorants and personal care items. This time of year, is particularly difficult for homeless people and North Herts Sanctuary regularly visits those who sleep rough and offer all support with food and care. Please could you continue with these gifts?
Thank you.
Joan Pinkstone
WORLD DAY OF PRAYER
The service this year has been prepared by the Christian women of Nigeria. The service will be at St Mary's church, Great Wymondley on Friday 6th March at 11am.
The theme of the service is ‘I will give you rest, come’. These services are always very thought provoking and special.
Everyone is very welcome
Jackie Harding
A Season of Promise
As the calendar turns and we step into the quiet, crisp air of January, there is a natural instinct to pause and catch our breath. The rush of Christmas—the carols, the candles, and the gathering of loved ones—slowly transitions into the stillness of a brand-new year.
If we choose it, the new year can arrive, not just as a new date on the page, but as a sacred opportunity. We can choose to see it as a time to reflect on all that has happened in the past and also to look forward with a hope that is both grounded and expectant.
The last few years have taught us a great deal about the value of community and resilience, especially since our experiences of the pandemic. We have learned that "church" is not merely a building with four walls, but the warmth of a phone call, the kindness of a shared meal, the healing power of being seen and heard, and the strength of standing together during uncertain times.
And as we look at the year ahead, we carry these lessons with us.
We have learned that the power of small gestures, like a simple "how are you?" can be the highlight of someone’s week. That it is vital to find stillness – in a world that often moves too fast, finding time for prayer and reflection is essential for the soul. And that there is real strength in having faith - even when the path ahead isn't clear, we are never walking it alone.
So, what do we hope for in this coming year? Beyond the usual resolutions, the people of our churches look toward a year of deepened connection with the communities we are called to serve. We hope to see our pews filled with both familiar faces and new friends seeking a place to belong. We hope to grow in our service to the local community, finding new ways to bring people together and to share God’s love. Most importantly, we hope to use our time—the most precious gift we are given—with greater intention.
And ‘time’ is a curious thing! It can feel like it’s slipping through our fingers, or it can be a tool for transformation. This year, especially with Lent arriving so early, perhaps we can all challenge ourselves to use our time differently:
To Listen: To truly hear the needs of our neighbours.
To Serve: To offer our talents, whatever they may be – gardening, baking, offering a lift, or visiting the housebound.
To Renew: To make space for spiritual growth and the joy of fellowship.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." — Jeremiah 29:11
As we move into February and beyond, let us walk with confidence. Let us be a people of hope, using every day of this new year to reflect the love and grace we have so freely received.
Wishing you all a blessed, peaceful, and purposeful New Year.
With love
Ginni
The congregation enjoyed an interesting Christingle with Revd Tricia leading the service and inviting the children to find Revd Ginni who had been missing.The children soon found Revd Ginni, well she was difficult to miss!
On Wednesday 18th February until 1st April the Friends will have a weekly Lent Coffeee Morning held at St Ippolyts Parish Hall starting at 10:30 until midday. Instead of sweet refreshments there will be savoury ones.. All are welcome contact Joan Pinkstone on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone 01462 4576600
St Ippolyts Church installed the floodlights for the Millennium celebrations 25 years ago with the aid of a grant from the floodlighting trust. They were first illuminated on Christmas Eve 199 and they have been used every night ever. We now have LED lights that are more reliable, have better colour control; and are cheaper to run. The floodlighting is now 100% LED lit.
Unfortunately, during 2025 there were a number of nights when the floodlights were not working, this was primary due to ingress of water int o the cabling, not the lights themselves.
With the current electrical cost the annual sponsorship needs to be £20, we hope this will be enough and we have 52 weeks to fill. You may sponsor as many weeks as you wish. You may wish this to be in memory of a loved one, to celebrate a birthday, a wedding, or anniversary etc.
Please help to fill in the list and sign up early. You can give cash to either Jane Veasey, Clare Reid or Michael Hooper, BUT it is preferred that you pay by bank transfer to ST IPPOLYTS CHURCH FINANCE FUND Sort Code 20-41-12 Account Number 00522899.
Michael Hooper Tel 07831 354322 e mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Bridge Builders, who print our PAX,is a small ecumenial charity based in Stevenage who work with primary schools in Stevenage and the surrounding are, to tell children about our beliefs through regular assemblies, lessons and workshops. All the work is tied to the R.E. curriculum and is offered free of charge to schools. This year over 1200 children have been booked to follow the Christmas journey and learn about the real story of Christmas.
Once again we wiull be keeping the trradition of carol singing alive by singing our way around the Broadmeadow Estate.
Meet at 1 Ash Drive at 18:15 and sing as loud as our voices ans as long as our toes keep going. Everyone of any age welcome. At the end enjoy a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie.
Contact Barbara Thomas This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
18:00 Compline at St St Mary's Great Wymondly
This is a gentle service of prayer and reflection lasting about 20 minutes.
GROWING UP IN GOSMORE
I remember a happy wartime childhood. This might sound a contradiction in terms, but I was too young to understand what was happening elsewhere. I was just happy in my own secure world of my parents, my grandparents who lived next door and our many pets.
I was often told by my mother when she brought me home from Benslow Nursing Home some days after my birth in May 1940 the road home was blocked at Gosmore by a barrier of miscellaneous farm machinery and implements in an attempt to block a suspected imminent invasion by the enemy. Dad told me I was born on the day the Germans invaded Belgium and so the threat was very real.
I remember that although my Dad and Grandad Sid and Will Linfield, worked in Munts shop at 21 High Street, Hitchin, it was actually very difficult to obtain new toys and there was great excitement when I was given a sad-looking handmade dog of pink and blue stockinette, who for some unexplained and unfortunate reason I called “Wonk”!
When I caught Scarlet Fever, which in those days was a dangerous illness, I was lucky enough to be able to stay at home and not sent away to the local isolation hospital at Letchworth as my friends were. Those two words still give me an uneasy feeling even today.
To cheer me up, on one of her visits our family doctor, Winifred Simmonds, who was I believe the first lady doctor in Hitchin (and who caused a stir with her open top car and two cocker spaniels!) brough me a lovely set of doll clothes which I kept for many years, Dr. Simmonds specialised in treating children and her consulting room contained a wall adorned with photographs of her young patients and on her desk was a tin of sweets for the children!
Dad managed to find a little second-hand clockwork trainset for me that Christmas which mysteriously disappeared soon after. I was told later that a customer’s child needed it!
In those days after an infectious illness all toys and books had to be put in the oven to be fumigated, and I still remember the singed smell that hung about them afterwards!
Of course, wartime meant the dreaded “coupons” and even in 1951 when I left for boarding school my ration book went too.
Petrol coupons were so hard to come by that cars were “laid up” for the durations of the war and if we went anywhere, it was either by foot, bus or, more likely, pony and trap. Dad drove to work in the town in his trap and the pony was stabled in Perks and Llewellyn’s yard opposite the shop. Perks and Llewellyn’s was run by Miss Vi Lewis, and I remember the large jars in the windows of her chemists shop. I still have a much-prized tablet of soap made from the lavender grown in the local lavender fields.
Dad was in the local Home Guard at Preston as a despatch rider but early in the war he took messages on horseback. Only later did he graduate to a motorbike. Actually, I understand a great deal of time was taken up by the playing of cards whilst waiting for action which we luckily saw little of it in our corner of North Hertfordshire.
My contact with the army was with the soldiers stationed at Tatmore Place nearby and soldiers wives and families often stayed with us and became and continue to be family friends over 70 years later.
I remember how coupons played such a major part in our everyday lives. Before walking to the village shop in Gosmore there was much poring over the books by my Mother to see how many “points” for the week remained and wondering what would be available in the shop. Believe me, those amusing episodes in “Dads Army” when “Jonesy” works magic with Mrs Fox’s ration book were very close to the truth! The shop was run by Alf and Elsie Tooley.
Alf being an Arthur Askey lookalike appearing later on “What’s My Line?” Lady Isobel Barnet and Gilbert Harding were on the panel. Gilbert Harding having once been a teacher at Welbury School in Offley.
Of course, sweets were rationed, and a lot of thought and time was taken in the selection for they had to last! Even now a Mars Bar (unavailable then) seems a treat but, is it my imagination, or have they grown smaller over the years?
I remember, having been told so much about them, how lucky I felt because Dad had managed in 1945 to get a banana for me. Secretly I was hugely disappointed to be presented with a brown, stickly object but proudly took it to school – St Luke’s in Walsworth Road for my mid-morning break. The sickly-sweet smell from the nearby tan yard at the back of the school permeated the gardens where we played.
Coupons had to be saved up for the purchase of new clothes. Someone gave Mum some parachute silk which needed no coupons and could be made into undies if you were good at sewing – sadly we were not! Nowadays, the only coupons I have in my bag are those to be redeemed at Tesco’s!
Jane More (Linfield)
Married to Bryan More at St Ippolyts on 4th May 1968.
FOR DEREK
Derek was one of those people that did everything quietly, he moved around quietly, he got things done quietly, he spoke to you quietly. He was a quiet man; however, he had a loud and caring soul.
That is what I will miss, very rarely did I ever walk around the village and not see Derek, either attending to his allotment or his fruit trees, or the orchard, maybe chatting to a neighbour or just walking round the village with a wheelbarrow.
I was also privileged to see Derek and Cherry every few weeks when they needed a haircut and have done so for the last 46 years. Even before that, he would take pity on me as a school girl, as I walked from the little Wymondley bus stop up to the village, often with heavy school bags, offering a lift, even if I was nearly there.
A number of times, on my regular visits to the church yard, or taking a quiet moment in the church as I often do, Derek would appear, sometimes for a chat, sometimes just a friendly smile as he went about his day. As I said, a quiet man.
However, along with Cherry, they were stalwarts of the village and have done so much for Wymondley. In my opinion, they have quietly done more for the village than any other couple over its history.
For many, many years, between them they have raised tens of thousands of pounds to help fix the church: the roof, the bells and many other problems along the way. Tirelessly they would care for the grounds, nurturing the habitat for the bugs, butterflies and birds and their joy of the swifts returning each year would light up their spring. If you listen now the swifts are probably here or on their way and their loving care has made this a special place.
This world is in crises, but in their way, they couldn't have done more. It's a pity that there aren't more Cherry and Dereks in this world and Derek is a massive loss to it and to us all who are a part of Great Wymondley or its recent history.
Just a few weeks ago I was visiting the church and a couple of walkers came in. Derek happened to be in there too and immediately went up to them, made them feel welcome and was pleased to impart his knowledge about the church building, and the village itself to them. I just listened in the background, proud of the village my family has called home for over 60 years, and proud to have been hearing Derek's passionate view of it.
Like many folk, I will miss him greatly and I join all who are here in being there for Cherry as she goes forward ... with love
Jean Burdett-Coutts
FLOWER FESTIVAL IN ST IPPOLYTS CHURCH
BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND - 23rd, 24th and 25th AUGUST
We are looking forward to welcoming you to our Flower Festival in St Ippolyts Church. The theme for the festival this time is Songs and Music.
If you have family or friends visiting over the bank holiday weekend, do bring them along to enjoy the floral displays and to stay and enjoy a slice of home-made cake and a cup of coffee or tea.
Entrance: Adults £5.00, Children under 16 Free.
Opening times 11am – 5pm Saturday and Sunday, 11am – 4.00pm on Monday.
We still have room for a few more displays and would welcome anyone who would love to create a floral arrangement.
Also, we always welcome anyone who would like to be involved in this event and to help us raise money for improvements to our beautiful parish church. We need stewards, helpers with refreshments and cake makers. If you can offer any of the above, and be part of this wonderful festival, your help will be much appreciated.
For more information, please contact Mary Hooper
(This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) or Tel 01462 457350
Thank you
St Ippolyts Fund Raising Group
We look forward to our monthly coffee morning on Wednesday 2nd July and Wednesday 6th August to be held in St Ippolyts Parish Hall Committee Room starting at 10.30 and finishing at 12.00 pm. All are welcome to join in, and we will have a mixture of cakes and refreshments too.
Please come along and join a relaxed morning of local friendly company.
Frances Williams, Carol Scott, Joan Pinkstone.
MELODIC MIRACLES
Join Ginni and/or me to worship with residents at Little Wymondley Care Home 2.30pm and Sloe Hill Care Home 3.30pm on the first Tuesday of every month.
Rev'd Tricia Reed
FAITH FOOD & FELLOWSHIP
Share a light lunch and chat about things that puzzle us!
12.30-2.30pm on second Wednesday in each month at The Vicarage Stevenage Road, St Ippolyts, SG4 7PE
9th July Death and dying
13th August Why do bad things happen to good people?
10th September Topic tbc
Places limited to 12 people
Please book a place by emailing
Rev’d Ginni Dear at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
JULY SERVICES
Service times vary and may be in any of our three churches so please check the time and venue carefully.
Sunday 6th July
8.00am – BCP Holy Communion – St Ippolyts Church
9.15am – Breakfast Service – St Ippolyts Church
This is a 30 minute lively and informal service suitable for all ages. Breakfast is served afterwards and all are welcome.
11.00am Holy Communion at Iris Court Residential Home, Gosmore.
The service lasts about 25 minutes and is followed by coffee and cake. Open to everyone.
Sunday 13th July
9.15am – Holy Communion – St Ippolyts Church
11.00am – Holy Communion – St Mary the Virgin, Great Wymondley
Sunday 20th July
9.15am – Parish Praise – St Ippolyts Church
11.00am – Holy Communion – St Mary the Virgin, Little Wymondley
5.00pm – Evensong – St Ippolyts Church followed by supper at The Vicarage.Please let Revd Ginni know if you will be staying for supper – This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sunday 27th July
9.15am – Holy Communion – St Ippolyts Church
11.00am – Parish Praise – St Mary the Virgin, Great Wymondley
WEEKLY SERVICE*
Every Wednesday
6.00pm – Compline (Night Prayer) – St Mary the Virgin, Great Wymondley.
This is a gentle service of prayer and reflection lasting about 20-25 minutes. A beautiful way to wind down and refocus after a busy day.
Dear Friends,
July 3 marks the Feast of the Apostle Thomas; he is arguably my favourite New Testament figure (not my favourite Bible character for that is Job – assuming that he was a real life figure). Thomas is one of the most human people, but he is also one of the most misunderstood and maligned ones in the Bible. And as I am naturally slightly perverse he is the ideal subject for my monthly column.
Thomas the Apostle – Doubting Thomas. It's the only reason for us to remember him - negatively. We tend to overlook the fact that at the time of the death of Lazarus he was the one who insisted that the disciples should follow Jesus into danger when the Jewish authorities were hell bent on getting rid of Him. And being positive about him elsewhere, we may also suggest a possible reason why he was not with the other disciples in the Upper Room after the Resurrection. How?
'Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails and place my hand into the print of the nails and place my hand in His side I will not believe'. His reputation is based on those words. Suppose we change one word to see Thomas afresh. 'Unless I place my hand into His side, I CANNOT believe'. I see the Apostle distraught with grief after the crucifixion, going away by himself to mourn; it was so intense that he couldn't bear to be with anyone else. When the first murmurings of the resurrection appeared he wanted to believe so much that he could not dare to be disappointed. So we find Jesus' compassion for him when the two met again and his doubts were silenced. As soon as Thomas had his evidence he threw himself at Jesus feet, and if legend is to be believed he played a vital role in the development of the Faith in India.
But his name is still associated with doubt; it always will be. When I was scribbling down some random thoughts in preparation for this column (it is prepared in advance in spite of the evidence to the contrary at times!) I wrote this quite spontaneously. 'Doubt involves the ability to be honest'. Those who know me doubtless know that the only certainty in religion for me is uncertainty. Put another way, the heart of all religion lies not in being able to prove anything but in holding the unprovable by faith. That however can cause spiritual problems for some people when it conflicts with events in their lives. I have enormous respect for those who know what they believe and do not doubt or ask questions. At times I wish I could be like that, but my path in the Christian pilgrimage does not take me along that path. Mine is the path of searching and questioning, of making doubt my friend. This has been especially the case since in 2022 when I first had a stroke and then saw Judy collapse and become paralysed, all in the space of less than two months. You may have had similar painful experiences in your life, and they pose huge spiritual questions. Then you may feel guilty about asking questions, especially those that seem to have no answers. So I am with Job and his doubts and questions, and with Thomas with his blazing honesty If only one could have them together around a meal table with the mythical cigars and a fine wine, it would be unforgettable – one can but dream. Come to that, if only I could be there with them and talk to them...
Questioning is sometimes wrong, notably when we would seek to damage the faith of others by doing so. But there are times when we have to ask questions of God because that is the path that life takes us. Honest doubt may be the path that we must take as part of the Christian pilgrimage, reaching out blindly towards God in a state of uncertainty. I love the image of fog. In fog we are utterly alone, wrapped in a damp darkness where we are disorientated and do not know where we are going, the air filled with mysterious sounds that frighten us. But when the fog lifts and the sun comes out, we find that all those certainties that were once there, but we thought we had lost are still there, and we can move onwards with confidence. It is the merging from the darkness into new light. Honest doubt to me represents that; it is part of the pilgrimage of life. We have to be honest, we have to cling on. It may involve pain, it may involve anger towards God, it may involve intense uncertainty. But it is honest. We must not be afraid of doubt, nor must we feel it is something wrong; we must make questioning and even doubt our friend, not something to fear. It is something to embrace not to be run away from – it is a part of what being a Christian is all about.
with my love and best wishes,
Paul
Revd. Paul Lanham
Saturday 9th August at 10am at St Ippolyts Churchyard.
This is a short service in the churchyard (whatever the weather) where we celebrate Saint Hippolytus, to whom the church was dedicated, by blessing the horses who are brought here.
Please do bring your horses and pass the word.
Everyone welcome, with or without a horse!!
Refreshments will be provided and a collection taken to support our local branch of ‘Riding for the Disabled’
JUNE SERVICES
Service times vary and may be in any of our three churches so please check the time and venue carefully.
Sunday 1St June
8.00am - BCP Holy Communion - St Ippolyts Church
9.15am - Breakfast Service - St Ippolyts Church
This is a 30 minute lively and informal service suitable for all ages.
Breakfast is served afterwards and all are welcome.
11.00am - Holy Communion - Iris Court Residential Home, Gosmore The service lasts about 25 minutes and is followed by coffee and cake.
Open to everyone.
Sunday 8th June - Pentecost
9.15am - Holy Communion - St Ippolyts Church
11.00am - Holy Communion - St Mary's Church, Great Wymondley
Sunday 15th June
9.15am - Parish Praise - St Ippolyts Church
11.00am - Holy Communion - St Mary's Church, Little Wymondley
5.00pm - Evensong - St Ippolyts Church
Sunday 22nd June
9.15am - Holy Communion - St Ippolyts Church
11.00am - Parish Praise - St Mary's Church, Great Wymondley
Sunday 29th June
9.15am - Benefice Holy Communion - St Ippolyts Church
*NEW WEEKLY SERVICE*
Every Wednesday
6.00pm - Compline - St Mary's Church, Great Wymondley This is a gentle service of prayer and reflection lasting about 20-25 minutes. A beautiful way to wind down and refocus after a busy day.
Dear Friends
Over seventy years ago two small boys often played together in a rambling country rectory garden near Gloucester. It was idyllic and they had a lot of fun together - until one day it all ended. The mother of one of them was stopped from his going to the rectory on pain of her excommunication I wonder what happened to him; we never met again.
How times have changed - for the better! I was fortunate in being a theology student in the 1960's. We normally associate that era with flower power, the mini-skirt and Vespa scooter, sexual liberation and all the rest of it. But it was also an exhilarating time in the Church. New versions of the Bible, new forms of worship, new theological thinking, even different clergy dress (I used to wear a suit and clerical collar everywhere except in bed and on days off but this became less formal!).
Perhaps above all the possibility of Christian unity was in the air, and I became (and remain) a fervent disciple of it. We met together, we wanted to work together, we really believed that it was possible at last to bury our differences and become one. Then for various reasons we drew back and now unity seems just a dream. But not all has been lost.
At least spiritually the small boy might now be able to play at the rectory in a way that he had been forbidden (though the house is now a hotel and the village is now a vast housing overspill). And while the other boy has become an ecclesiastical fossil, the denominations are spiritually closer than they have been since the sixties. The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity may be less prominent, but its spirit moves on, and by God's grace it will continue to increase and grow.
Instead of the usual summer column about Whitsun and Trinity I write with deep sadness of the death of His Holiness Pope Francis on Easter Monday, but rejoice at the election of Pope Leo XIV, with every prayer for him and our friends in the Roman Catholic Church. Would that the enthusiasm of the future appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury be greeted with the same universal acclamation of His Holiness' election, but I fear that it won't. I would mischievously love to see white smoke rising from a chimney of Lambeth Palace to mark Anglicanism's equivalent, but even if it did, nobody would take any notice. But that is another matter.
The last act of Pope Francis was to give his Easter blessing and then pass through the thousands outside the Vatican before leaving us. Apart from
deeply moving it was also truly symbolic. Easter 2025 spoke (as always) of life, of hope, of God's power over the entire world. The ministry of his successor represents and remains that message - and more. The role of the Church is that of mission and ministry, of prayer and worship, of loving and serving others. We must pray together for new life in God's Church. For an awareness of who we are and what we exist to do, to try to extend our own tiny corner of God's Kingdom and help to breathe ever more life into it. It is the task of all God's people and we must work together to that end, to bury our differences and spiritually to be one.
Perhaps on reflection those heady years ago represented an ideal which was too optimistic and unrealistic; it tried to achieve too much too quickly, and so we are as we are now, pursuing a different path towards the tortuous path to Christian unity. In doing so we need to remember and acknowledge the difference between unity and uniformity. Organic unity will not come in our lifetime; it may never happen because people have different beliefs and interpretations of the truth. What is important is that we recognize and respect the beliefs of those of other denominations and work together in the service of God, rejoicing in our differences and drawing from each other. This lies beyond practical issues. It is God's will for His Church and for the whole of humanity; it represents the mission and aspirations of all of us, regardless of which part of God's Church we belong to.
So, I welcome with open arms the ministry of the new Pope, and I pray that he and the whole Roman Catholic Church may flourish and work with Christians of all denominations to extend God's Kingdom on earth.
And may small boys continue to play together regardless of what they believe and which mythical garden they are in - as one!
With my love and best wishes,
Paul
Revd. Paul Lanham
