May - July 1918

I had this letter from Jo. “I’ve just heard from Dorothy’s father. Strangely he doesn’t mention her at all, but has informed me of the deaths of all three of her brothers –Francis Cyril Houghton, Reginald C Houghton and Basil Gordon Houghton. I was so upset I didn’t know what to do. I was hoping to marry Cyril, and although he had never spoken of it to me, I knew from his letters that he cared for me. Now that he is gone, I just want to scream and cry, but what good would that have done. So I took a knife and on the inside glass of one of the lights in the dining room sash window, I scratched my name and Cyril’s – as if somehow the romance that will now never happen at least has an existence in some physical way.”

I wrote back to her straight away, of course, and offered my sympathy. She lost her best friend and her potential husband all in a very short time. She must be very unhappy.

“Dear Barbara, Rebecca and darling Beth,

I ride around a lot looking at the nearby villages, hills, beaches etc. The weather gets very hot round about midday when there is frequently a short sharp thunderstorm after which it gets hot again.

A bomb went off in the cold meat storage depot last night. And the other night when we were in town, we were coming home at 2 a.m. and when we went outside we found the sky all alight from a big fire in the middle of Limmasol, and all the church bells ringing for miles around. About 2.30 there were lots of people around, and it is not a very nice spot during any trouble so we shot off. Luckily it was dark so no one recognised we were English so we didn’t have any trouble. We all three had revolvers which we had loaded ostentatiously in front of the Greeks so we didn’t have any trouble.

However the streets were full of people moving towards the centre of Limmasol and there was a lot of noise and fire engines hurtling past. All very interesting.

Apparently what has happened is that someone threw a bomb at the Turkish embassy in Limmasol which caused the Turks to riot and set the Greek owned cigarette factory on fire, and also the sports stadium. The Greeks then joined in and in the ensuing battle, stones, iron bars, shot guns, bombs, etc. were used and two Greeks were killed. This morning the papers blamed it on the British whom they said allowed the Turks to go wild and start beating them up.

Usually the paper is most indignant that the wicked British should be here at all. All rather amusing.

But the result is that we are now not allowed out of camp, but if somebody cuts down some telegraph poles then I can go out and put them up again.

I’m glad you took time to read about sunspots and hope that it helped you form a more scientific explanation for the Fatima nonsense.

Hope you are all well.

Love

John”

“Dear Barbara,

Things have been quite hectic here this past week. We heard that a new battalion was arriving in 24 hours and that they would require telephones. This took all that evening to fix. The next day we heard that 2 more battalions were arriving that night which meant that all Saturday morning and evening and all Sunday was spent fixing phones for these people. It entailed amongst other things laying a cable across the main road which meant I had to find the draining plan as cable has to go under it. However we got it all finished.

Love,
John”

“Dear Barbara, Rebecca and my little Beth,

You asked about whether we go to Church. We are allowed to go to the Patrick Church on occasion. Of course there are many thousands of us, and only space in the church for 200 at the most. So we have a rota and I have managed to go to church about twice a year.

The Patrick church dates from 1714 when it was consecrated by Bishop Wilson through whose exertions the church had been built. Prior to this date Patrick and German (can you imagine that there is a village called that near here) shared St. Peter’s in Peel. The church was rebuilt 1881 as the old church was in a very bad state of repair - the site of the old church becoming part of the graveyard. The site itself must have been of some importance as it is mentioned in 1505.

Love from Peter”

I have had my experience of playing the organ at St. Martin’s Church, and how wonderful it was. I was trembling when I went into the church to practice ahead of time.

Miss Hudson met me there, and showed me around the various features of the church. What struck me most was that it was just like being in a Catholic Church. There were stations of the cross on the walls. There were candles being lit in front of the Lady Chapel altar. There were crucifixes. People genuflected. The vicar was called Father. It was really more like being in my church back in Wisconsin than the small little church that hides behind the vicarage at St. Mary’s.

Miss Hudson explained that her family are Anglo-Catholics or ‘Tractarians’, followers of the Oxford Movement begun in 1833, which had the aim of restoring catholic principles to the Church of England. Unsympathetic to the style of worship at All Saints’, which was by comparison plain, her family decided to build a new church where they could worship in their accustomed manner.

She told me that Anglo-Catholic worship was regarded with a great deal of suspicion at the time and obtaining permission was not a straightforward matter. Nevertheless, it was granted and Mrs. Ann Hudson donated the site, whilst Miss Maria Hudson, her daughter provided the funds for the permanent church building.

The architect, John Dando Sedding, believed that a church should be ‘wrought and painted over with everything that has life and beauty - in frank and fearless naturalism.’ The Lady Chapel has an incredible gesso panelled ceiling by the designer Christopher Whall, with trees, animals and birds, including flying martins with a colour scheme of silver and gold against a knight blue background and is quite spectacular.

She showed me the major extension which was carried out in 1909 when St. Christopher’s Chapel opposite the main door was added as a memorial to Maria Hudson. This includes a huge relief tablet depicting St. Christopher carrying the boy Jesus, modelled in gypsum. She told me that it was done by the architect and designer Henry Wilson. The outside wall of the church had to be built out by around three feet to accommodate it.

The stained glass windows are wonderful. Again, Miss Hudson provided the history of them. The original windows in the Chancel are all by William Morris. Two windows, one by the main door and the other near the font are by Christopher Whall.

In 1888 a carved oak rood screen was added to divide the Chancel from the Nave. This also was designed by John Sedding, who said that he would paint it unless the grain was particularly good. It has a superb natural wood finish, so must have met with his standards.

The organ was a gift from Miss Stevenson of Cotefield on Hibbert Lane, and was designed specifically for the church at a cost of £220. I asked Miss Hudson if the man who built the organ was a priest, as she called him Father Willis. She told me that two of his nephews were in the organ building business with him, so he was called Father to distinguish him from them and also as a mark of high appreciation of his great abilities and artistic worth. She told me he was considered to the greatest organ builder of the Victorian Era. The organ doors were closed when we first got there, and in size it is in fact smaller than our organ at St. Mary’s Church. But the quality of the sound is much more wonderful, and it has an interesting collection of stops.

Anyway, it was a real experience sitting through and participating in the service, which was very like our Catholic Mass – except in English.  What a relief to understand all the words. They had many hymns, which I knew but had never played before as they are not featured in our Catholic hymn books. And the thrill of having the huge congregation sing in loud and cheerful voice, again was an experience to be remembered. At our church, the congregational singing is pretty soft and almost embarrassed sounding.

I played Come Holy Ghost at the beginning, Praise to the Holiest in the Heights in the middle and at the end, Hail to the Lord’s Annointed. The communion hymn, Thou Who at the first Eucharist did Say, surprised me, because it is all about praying for church unity. I of course did not go to communion, but played quietly on the organ while the rest of the church went forward.

Miss Hudson invited me to have a drink of tea in the school rooms behind after the service. They also have a community library there. She told me that the priest lives in a house by the canal, built also by the Hudsons, with a large sandstone panel depicting St. Martin giving half of his cloak to a beggar and another showing the de la Hey crest. Apparently the very first priest was called Rev. Hayes but had his last name changed to de la Hey. I must make sure to look out for it next time I walk up to Marple.

I am so glad I agreed to do it, and hope they will invite me to do it again sometime. Even so, I do hope our priest won’t hear about it, as I would hate for him to forbid me to play there again.