February 1998
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In this issue February 1998 Valuing young people Christmas and the law The tallest falls Luis Palau is coming Chernobyl children This month’s Notes & Events The Parish Magazine of St Peter’s with All Saints’ Welcome to the February issue of the Berkhamsted Review. In this month’s issue... It’s interesting to reflect on the fact that, like so many things in life, the Valuing young people Review is the result of a lot of effort and Christina Billington wants us to value teamwork on the part of many people. Our the contributions young people can contributors; our advertisers; our loyal make. distributors (particularly this time of year when trudging through windswept streets Christmas and the law delivering magazines is hardly appealing); Some surprising legal pitfalls of the the editorial team; the people who make festive period uncovered by Stephen sure we can pay our bills; our printers… Halliday. everyone plays a vital part. The same is true of technology, though I speak The tallest fall somewhat wryly as this month this Helen Appleyard on the Ashlyns School ‘member’ of our team is responsible for expedition to the world’s tallest the magazine being a little late! waterfall. The amount of work everyone does, month in and month out, is truly amazing Luis Palau is coming and is most certainly valued. A big thank The famous evangelist is coming to you to everyone. Berkhamsted. Revd Peter Swaffield Building on this, the Review is one of outlines the plans. the ways we can get our message across not just to our parish but to the wider Host families wanted! community in Berkhamsted. This of An important initiative gets under way course embraces all ages, and with our this month. Chris Smalley tells us more. emphasis on youth in our parish (see Christina Billington’s leader this month) ... plus our regular features, readers’ we’d really like contributions from our letters, notes & notices and diary dates. young people for the magazine. You’re out there - come on, how about it? Chris Smalley Cover: Reflections of the castle. Photo: P J Craig Editorial Team: David Woodward, 3 Murray Road HP4 1JD (862723) Barbara Belchamber, 38 Gaveston Drive HP4 1JF (864933) Chris Smalley, 18 Osmington Place, Tring HP23 4EG (826821) email: [email protected] Advertising: David Woodward, 3 Murray Road HP4 1JD (862723) Circulation: Daphne Montague, 27 Hill View HP4 1SA (875320) Treasurer: Miles Nicholas, 46 Fieldway HP4 2NY (871598) Committee Sec.: John Cook, The Gardeners’ Arms, Castle Street HP4 2DW Responsibility for opinions expressed in articles and letters published in this Review and for the accuracy of any statements in them rests solely with the individual contributor Next Copy Dates (all Fridays): 31 January 7 March 3 April 2 review leader I am writing this starting in May. Any other youth leaders on New Years are very welcome to join. Christina Day, an auspi- But New Years Day is an occasion to Billington wants cious moment to look forward in a more visionary sense. us to value the look at the youth What do I hope to achieve in this new year and children’s and in the next few years? contribution young work in the par- I want to give a lot of time to the older people can make. ish. It seems no group. It is very easy for someone like me time at all since I to get involved with lots of different things started, a matter of weeks instead of four which seem important at the time, yet are months. The welcome I have received actually not as important as giving young from people has been amazing. The people the things they really need in this amount and quality of co-operation in the day and age. They need time, they need youth ministry has exceeded all my hopes. someone to be their friend. Only then What has happened in these four when they feel secure, loved and months? I have met with all the leaders of appreciated, can faith be fully shared. the various youth groups and have I would like to see all the youth and attended the Sunday school leaders’ children’s groups to be a place where the meetings of all three churches. I have members are committed and supportive of attended Pathfinder and Sunday school one another, where it is safe to explore the sessions. I am now on the planning Christian faith, and understand how their committee for the family service at All faith works with the modern world, where Saints’ Anglican. I have made a start with these people can become full and a youth music group, which had its first committed members of their churches. outing on the 21st December, with the All I would like to see our churches Saints’ Anglican family Christmas service. valuing the contributions the young people We accompanied the Sunday school in can make to the life of the community, and their tableau of six lessons and carols. allowing them to explore worship valuing With the aid of Emily Banks, Kate what they can give rather than being afraid Greenfield and Ambrose White, and the of what they will change. In my occasional help of Sue and Mike Sismey, experience young people may want we have restarted the Wednesday night alternative ‘youth services’, but where games club. We have from between 12 to they are loved and feel part of what is 19 young people attending. going on they will feel that the normal After some time I found three other worship on a Sunday belongs to them, as it people willing to be leaders with myself in belongs to the rest of us. the older young people’s group - Carole Nothing that we do is of any worth Dell, Anne Acton and Carolyn Gunn. unless is what God wants. We can really This new group will start on 11th January labour in vain in this life unless we seek and will be every Sunday. God’s will. Much, much prayer is needed In this new year I am running training for all those working with young people. sessions for the Sunday school teachers My hope and request is for the parish to and the Pathfinder leaders. For the YPF support this work fervently in prayer. And leaders the diocese is organising a when the going is tough, for us all to keep Spectrum training course, probably going. 3 TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SPACE call David Woodward on 862723 The Review has a wide local readership; advertise and get the message across to your customers! 4 when he was prime minister. The Lytteltons were related not only to William Gladstone, but also to the Spencer family (and thus to the late Princess Diana), and there are many references to both in the book. On one occasion Lord Lyttelton wrote to Gladstone asking him for an earldom. Gladstone’s reply reproduced in the book is a model of how to say no to a relative whom you do not wish to offend who asks a favour which you are not prepared to grant. Was it while staying in Berkhamsted that Gladstone scratched his head and concocted the wording of his tactful reply? Gladstone’s Visits We are likely to be hearing a lot about Lytteltons, Spencers and Gladstone Gladstone this year, the centenary of his A book published last year, Victorian death. Paddy Ashdown described him the Girls, written by a Berkhamsted resident, other day as unquestionably the greatest Sheila Fletcher, tells something of the prime minister we have ever had. lives of three aristocratic young ladies, While staying at Berkhamsted Place daughters of the 4th Lord Lyttelton. Gladstone would regularly walk down When you pick up a book as well-written Castle Hill on Sundays to Morning Prayer as this one, based on a careful distillation at St Peter’s. In those days his route of gossipy letters and frank diaries, it is would have been along the lime avenue difficult to put it down. No wonder there is through unspoiled parkland. There were a waiting list for it at the library. no buildings then on that side of the Apart from the author’s living here the railway except for a cluster round book does have some local connections. In Berkhamsted Place and a few large houses one place it tells of the girls’ coming to on Whitehill and off Gravel Path. Berkhamsted by train and being taken by At the church he would have seen a carriage from the station to a lavish dance good deal of change between one visit and at Ashridge. They were also entertained by the next, because it was during and (and enraptured by the beauty of) the same between his terms of office that much of hostess, Adelaide, Lady Brownlow, at the the Victorian restoration of St Peter’s was Brownlows’ other country seat, Belton. carried out. And he would have seen the Mention of a number of other names in the beginning of the removal of the plain glass book is a reminder of some Berkhamsted from the church windows, one by one, and residents and visitors a century and more its replacement by stained glass. I am not ago. sure that with his evangelical brand of Berkhamsted Place, the Elizabethan churchmanship he would have approved. mansion that stood at the top of Castle Hill until it was demolished in 1967, had many Pictures in Glass owners and tenants over the centuries. In To me, though, St Peter’s windows the later part of Victoria’s reign it was have great richness and interest.