Sermon-And there's another country, I've heard of long ago

Photographs of the Fallen from the William Cory & Son Roll of Honour

A sermon given at The Corynthians Remembrance Service on Friday 7th November 2025 at St Olave Hart Street commemorating employees of William Cory & Son (now Cory Group) who fought and died in WW1 and WW2. The sermon is based on the text of Micah 4.1-5 and inspired by the music sung during the service and the rediscovery this year of the company ‘Roll of Honour’.

Sermon - Looking Love in the Face

Ernest Edward Spears, Frank Wotton Eastlake & Richard Henry Vaughan Thompson

A sermon given during services on Remembrance Sunday 10th November 2024 at St Giles-in-the-Fields based on the text of John 15.9-17 and the stories of some of the men listed on the WW1 memorial at the back of the church. The photographs of Ernest Spears, Frank Eastlake and Richard Thompson were printed in the pew sheet.

A Parish Remembers - War Memorial Stories

While at Christ Church, Southgate I produced an exhibition in 2018 recording just a fraction of the stories I had discovered about the men listed on the War Memorial inside the church. These stories came from obituaries in the parish magazine, online research by others and a great deal of information held at the Bishopsgate Institute. The project involved locating the home addresses of as many of the 146 men as I could and writing to the people who live at these addresses now, giving them information about the war memorial and inviting them to our Remembrance Sunday service. The research was featured in the Armistice Centenary edition of The Church Times and inspired a number of events and activities in the parish organised by others.

I have recently found copies of the display boards and am uploading them below as a record of the exhibition and research. To view the boards at full size, click on the thumbnails below and then right click 'Open image in new tab'.

Church Times Podcast-Armistice Centenary

Like many churches, Christ Church Southgate is one of those places which needs to actively reach out to people in the community. As Churchwarden I found an effective ‘arrow of evangelism’ was the history of the parish and the beautiful art and memorials in the church. These could be used to tell a narrative of how the parish had evolved from a small village to the north London suburb we see today. In exploring the history of our community through the art and memorials in church, new connections were made – street and building names took on a new significance and meaning. People saw they were connected to the church. They became ‘living stones’. The history and art inside the church helped to both break down and build up the walls of the church at the same time.

Realising that I knew nothing about the names of the 146 men on our WW1 memorial prompted a frenetic period of research – which developed into a three year long remembrance project – as different members of the parish started to take on – and complete – this history – weaving the stories of these men into the stories of their own lives.

I was interviewed by Ed Thornton, Assistant Editor of The Church Times, about the project for the Armistice Centenary edition of the Church Times Podcast. Listen here.

Church Times Feature-A Parish Remembers

It was a great honour to be asked to write a feature article for the Armistice Centenary edition of The Church Times. The article can be viewed online on the Church Times website here. 
The article describes the research I undertook into the names of the men listed on the war memorial in Christ Church Southgate and how this history was developed, by other members of the parish, during the course of the centenary.