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.

Living Remembrance

The temporary cenotaph on the morning of the Peace Procession in 1919 by Sir William Nicholson

Message for the Parish Magazine of St Giles-in-the-Fields, November 2023:

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“Where’s the plague memorial?” A question I’ve been asked more than once since my arrival here, by some of the many visitors who find St Giles through its connections to the plague. They come keen to find out more about the plague pit in the churchyard - reportedly containing over 1,000 bodies – or the first cases of the Great Plague of London (documented by Daniel Defoe), which broke out in the parish. Some visitors seem disappointed when they discover that there is no monument for them to photograph.

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'.