January 2012

From Fr John Gribben CR: "Dear Companions and Friends. A Happy New Year to you all. You will be glad to know that Auction II is on its way with the promise of excitement, drama and romance. We may not have Mouseman furniture this time and all those lovely chests of drawers are gone but we have one or two things that should make the headlines and it is early days yet – some of our big items came late in the calendar last year. From the Community comes one really exciting item – a medieval sword. Many of you will have seen this. It is a knight’s sword from about 1350. It is in very fine condition. I am having it valued in order to set a realistic reserve price. Another star item will be (when it arrives) the dinner suit worn by Sir Patrick Stewart when he played Claudius in David Tennant’s production of Hamlet on television and with RSC. He also wore it in a recent production of The Merchant of Venice. It will be accompanied by a production photo of Sir Patrick wearing the suit. I’m sure that this will add an element of high drama to the proceedings on 10 November. We are very grateful to Sir Patrick for all the help and support that he has given to us. Some of the Bishops have been very helpful. The Bishop of Beverly donated many fine things to the last auction and now he promises to make the supreme sacrifice by surrendering his Boy Scout uniform and other items of Scout memorabilia. I hope that others will be inspired by this as such items are greatly sought after. The Bishop of Wakefield was also very supportive in the last auction especially in making known to potential buyers the fine artworks that we had on sale. He too has promised quite a number of things but the one that tickles me is the Bishop’s bike. Bishop Frank Sargent has offered an oil painting of Silvanus Berry (former superior) – this would be a very fine souvenir of CR. For lovers of vinyl we have a large collection of 60/70s LPs including a first edition of Sergeant Pepper. In Jubilee year what could be a better souvenir than a boxed set of LPs recording the Coronation? Can you better this? I hope that you can. This is an effective way of responding to the Community’s Appeal and it is exciting and enjoyable. I am so grateful to all of you who helped last year. For me every day was like Christmas. That reminds us of what it is all about – a place where we can honour God’s holy name, a church that will enable the Good News. When we celebrated Christmas in the church for the first time in two years ‘I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the House of the Lord.’ Love and peace to you all. John CR".

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