A monthly magazine for two Churches in the Central Sussex United Area

The Broadway United Church

The Broadway, Lindfield Road,

Eastbourne, BN22 0AS

www.broadwayunitedchurch.co.uk

St Barnabas United Church &

Christian Centre

Kingfisher Drive, Eastbourne

Team Ministers:

Rev Memona Shahbaz (01323 739785)

Rev Paul Tabraham

Rev Andy Melvin

(See pages 11 and 12) Shrove Tuesday (See page 7)

Notes from the Editor…

W ELCOME TO February’s issue of your magazine.

Now we are in another lockdown I may produce newslet-

ters to supplement the magazine.

Rev Mona’s message is printed on a separate sheet, this month, to make

it easier to read. She also hopes to produce some Lent material that will be

shared with you via the webpage, Facebook and some printed material. Watch

the updates.

The magazine will be available on line in colour, and in a format that

can be printed.

Please visit www.broadwayunitedchurch.co.uk for the latest news avail-

able regarding Broadway Church.

You can also keep up to date with Broadway on Facebook and Twitter

@ChurchBroadway.

Next edition (March 2021) will be published around 24th February

Mick Mulley, Editor

February Birthdays at Broadway Church

9th Jenny Carey

10th Richard Edwards

11th Joshua Edwards

19th Helen Jones

Page 2

Page 3

Junior Church at Home

I MOGEN

HAS been

learning how

to use a Bi-

ble and finding the

relevent passage for

the lesson.

John the Baptist

(pictures right)

Jesus called to Si-

mon and Andrew to

be fishers of people.

Something to catch the fish! Don’t panic

it’s chocolate mousse and gummy worms

with bourbon biscuit crumbled over the

top

Pictures - June Phillips

D EAR FRIENDS

I hope you are keeping safe

and well during this third

lockdown.

I hope you were able to enjoy

your Christmas. I was very fortunate as

I went to my sister-in-law Daphne with

her daughter Hazel. Hazel and I had a

taxi to Daphne’s as I do not like driving

in the dark. Daphne was expecting her

daughter Dianne and partner Wayne to

come and cook the dinner but following

the news a few days before Christmas

this was not going to happen as they

were going to travel from Nottingham.

However Daphne certainly did us proud

she had worked really hard. Her husband

Ron usually cut the turkey but he is una-

ble to do this now. We all had a most

enjoyable time.

I was very sorry to get the

news to say Rev Ann Cole had died in

hospital. Peter, my late father and I had

been friends of Ann and Sid since they

moved to Polegate. When Peter went in

to the care home she phoned me every

day and she carried on this up until she

went into hospital for the second time. I

always called her my ‘My Special

Guardian Angel’ the last Saturday I

spoke to her she said ‘You are my

Guardian Angel now’.

I had just started driving my-

self to church and also getting my shop-

ping. When the third lockdown came it

was suggested to me that I did not go

into crowded places so my niece Sue

took over my shopping for me. I am very

grateful for what she does for me.

I met a young lady when I

went to Toyota over a year ago we got

talking and we exchanged phone num-

bers. We sent texts to one another occa-

sionally. Just recently I sent a text to

wish her a Happy New Year and she

replied and said we must catch up on

news. We did this and her mother now

lives with her and I spoke to her as well

she was so pleased to hear me as she had

heard so much about me from Amy. I

have arranged to do Facetime when we

chat next time.

February Birthdays

2nd Eileen Royer

6th Diane Webb

21st John Ruckes

We wish you all a Happy Birthday

News of the Fellowship

We send our condolences to the family

of Rev Ann Cole and many friends up

and down the country.

Please continue to pray for

Colin and Rev Jan Morley, Peter and

Kathy Cocks, Rev Philip and Shirley

Osborn and Rev Mona and the family.

Finally we pray for the house-

bound Marilyn Bristow, Bill and Jane

Grant we ask that the Lord will give you

his peace always.

With Christian Love,

Evelyn

News from St Barnabas Church

Page 4

Page 5

Treasurer’s Report - Broadway

T HE BOXES and Envelopes

have been emptied and the

money has been sent to Ac-

tion For Children totalling £298.94.

Those who have not been able to give

me their boxes please do when we are

able to meet.

The Electrical PAT testing

has been carried out and also a new

lamp fitted to light adjacent to side fire

door exit and a new 5' fluorescent light

replaced in the main hall costing

£440.28

Crystal Clear Deep Cleaning

for December was £308.00 and Gar-

den Maintenance £50.00

BT and Broadband for the

last 3 months was £40.83 and Manse

Expenses from 1st August - 31st De-

cember 2020 was £324.22

John Donoghue

Dressed During my surgical residency I was

called out of a sound sleep to the emer-

gency room. Unshaven and with tousled

hair, I showed up with an equally unpre-

sentable medical student. In A&E we

encountered the on-call medical resi-

dent and his student, both neatly at-

tired in clean white lab coats. The resi-

dent said to his student, "You can always

tell the surgeons by their absolute dis-

regard for appearance."

Two evenings later, I was at a

banquet when called to A&E for another

emergency.

I was stitching away, wearing

my dinner jacket, when I encountered

that same medical resident. He looked

at me, then said to his student, "Sure is

sensitive to criticism, isn't he?"

Page 6

T HERE ARE two confusing things about this day of ro-mance and anonymous love-

cards strewn with lace, cupids and rib-bon: firstly, there seems to have been two different Valentines in the 4th cen-tury - one a priest martyred on the Fla-minian Way, under the emperor Claudi-us, the other a bishop of Terni martyred at Rome. And neither seems to have had any clear connection with lovers or courting couples.

So why has Valentine become the patron saint of romantic love? By Chaucer’s time the link was assumed to be because on these saints’ day -14th February - the birds are supposed to pair. Or perhaps the custom of seeking a part-ner on St Valentine’s Day is a surviving scrap of the old Roman Lupercalia festi-val, which took place in the middle of February. One of the Roman gods hon-oured during this Festival was Pan, the god of nature. Another was Juno, the goddess of women and marriage. During the Lupercalia it was a popular custom for young men to draw the name of a young unmarried woman from a name-box. The two would then be partners or ‘sweethearts’ during the time of the cele-brations. Even modern Valentine decora-tions bear an ancient symbol of love - Roman cupids with their bows and love-arrows.

There are no churches in Eng-land dedicated to Valentine, but since 1835 his relics have been claimed by the Carmelite church in Dublin.

The very first Valentine card, a legend

The Roman Emperor Claudius II needed soldiers. He suspected that marriage made men want to stay at home with their wives, instead of fighting wars, so he outlawed marriage.

A kind-hearted young priest named Valentine felt sorry for all the couples who wanted to marry, but who couldn’t. So secretly he married as many couples as he could - until the Emperor found out and condemned him to death. While he was in prison awaiting execu-tion, Valentine showed love and com-passion to everyone around him, includ-ing his jailer. The jailer had a young daughter who was blind, but through Valentine’s prayers, she was healed. Just before his death in Rome on 14th Febru-ary, he wrote her a farewell message signed ‘From your Valentine.’

So, the very first Valentine card was not between lovers, but be-tween a priest about to die, and a little girl, healed through his prayers.

♣

14th February - Valentine’s Day

Eyesight

A man went to his doctor to say that his eyesight was getting worse. The doctor

asked the man to look out the window and to tell him what he saw. "I see the

sun," the man replied.

The doctor replied: "Just how much farther do you want to see?"

Page 7

E VER WONDER why we eat

pancakes just before Lent?

The tradition dates back to

Anglo-Saxon times, when Christians

spent Lent in repentance and severe fast-

ing.

So on the Tuesday before Ash

Wednesday, the church bell would sum-

mon them to confession, where they

would be ‘shriven’, or absolved from

their sins, which gives us Shrove Tues-

day. At home, they would then eat up

their last eggs and fat, and making a

pancake was the easiest way to do this.

For the next 47 days, they pretty well

starved themselves.

Pancakes feature in cookery

books as far back as 1439, and today’s

pancake races are in remembrance of a

panicked woman back in 1445 in Olney,

Buckinghamshire. She was making pan-

cakes when she heard the shriving bell

calling her to confession. Afraid she’d

be late, she ran to the church in a panic,

still in her apron, and still holding the

pan.

Flipping pancakes is also cen-

turies old. A poem from Pasquil’s Palin

in 1619 runs: “And every man and

maide doe take their turne, And tosse

their Pancakes up for feare they burne.”

Some people have noted that

the ingredients of pancakes can be used

to highlight four significant things about

this time of year: eggs stand for creation,

flour is the staff of life, while salt keeps

things wholesome, and milk stands for

purity.

Shrove Tuesday is always 47

days before Easter Sunday and falls be-

tween 3rd February and 9th March.

16th February - Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day)

January Frost

Photo - June Phillips Frost patterns on glass - Mick Mulley

Christmas Day Service - St Barnabas

Page 10

Doreen Elliston

D OREEN ELLISTON

passed away peacefully on

Tuesday 12th January, she

was 90 years old and a

faithful church member for many years.

Our prayers are with her

daughter Ruth and all the family. Rev

Mona has been in touch with Doreen’s

daughter Ruth and passed on our con-

dolences.

Doreen must of enjoyed painting as I

bought a painting from her in a Church

Auction many years ago. Mick

Doreen Elliston

Thank you to Rev Mona, the Elders

and all those who have been in touch

following Mum’s passing on 12 Janu-

ary 2021. Your kind thoughts and

memories of Mum have been a great

comfort to us all.

Mum was born in London

but evacuated to Hemel Hempstead

during the early part of World War

Two. Her family moved back to Lon-

don for a short while before deciding

to move to Brighton. Leaving school

at 14, Mum became an office worker

and met our father, Bob, at the Ice

Rink in Brighton.

They married in 1951 and

moved back to London as my father

worked in the Pathology Laboratory in

a London hospital. In the early 1950s

the smog in London became so bad

that they decided to move to East-

bourne. This also allowed them to be

nearer to family in Brighton and Lew-

es. My father continued to work as a

Medical Laboratory Technician in Pa-

thology – mainly at St Mary’s Hospi-

tal but also at other hospitals in the

area - becoming Senior Chief Medical

Laboratory Scientific Officer at the

DGH.

Mum concentrated on rais-

ing the family and fitted in part-time

work as we grew older. Before retir-

ing Mum worked for the Educational

Psychologist based within Social Ser-

vices at Esher House. For relaxation

she loved sitting in her garden and

enjoying the summer sunshine.

Mum will be greatly missed

by her four children, ten grandchildren

and five great grandchildren.

Ruth Rowland

Page 11

L ENT BEGINS with Ash

Wednesday. But why 'Ash'

Wednesday? The reason has

to do with getting things right between

you and God, and the tradition goes right

back to the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, the

Israelites often sinned. When they finally

came to their senses, and saw their evil

ways as God saw them, they could do

nothing but repent in sorrow. They

mourned for the damage and evil they

had done. As part of this repentance,

they covered their heads with ashes. For

the Israelites, putting ashes on your

head, and even rending your clothes, was

an outward sign of their heart-felt re-

pentance and acknowledgement of sin.

(See Genesis 18:27; 2 Samuel 13:19; Job

2:8, 30:19; Isaiah 58:5; Jeremiah 6:26;

Jonah 3:6)

In the very early Christian

Church, the yearly 'class' of penitents

had ashes sprinkled over them at the

beginning of Lent. They were turning to

God for the first time, and mourning

their sins. But soon many other Chris-

tians wanted to take part in the custom,

and to do so at the very start of

Lent. They heeded Joel's call to 'rend

your hearts and not your garments' (Joel

2:12-19). Ash Wednesday became

known as either the 'beginning of the

fast' or ‘the day of the ashes’.

The collect for today goes

back to the Prayer Book, and it stresses

the penitential character of the day. It

encourages us with the reminder of the

readiness of God to forgive us and to

renew us.

The Bible readings for today

are often Joel 2:1-2, 12–18, Matthew 6:

1-6,16 – 21 and Paul’s moving catalogue

of suffering, "as having nothing and yet

possessing everything." (2 Corinthians

5:20b - 6:10)

The actual custom of 'ashing'

was abolished at the Reformation,

though the old name for the day re-

mained. Today, throughout the Church

of England, receiving the mark of ashes

on one’s forehead is optional. Certainly,

the mark of ashes on the forehead re-

minds people of their mortality:

"Remember that you are dust and to dust

you will return..." (Genesis 3:19)

The late medieval custom was

to burn the branches used on Palm Sun-

day in the previous year in order to cre-

ate the ashes for today

More about Ash Wednesday on page 12

17th February - Ash Wednesday

Pray with grannie A small boy went to church with his grandmother and joined her when she quietly

slipped off the pew to kneel and pray. He even copied her example of burying her

face in her hands. But after a few seconds his curiosity got the better of him.

“Who are we hiding from, grannie?”

17th February - by David Winter

A SH WEDNESDAY intro-

duces the Christian prepa-

ration for Easter, which

normally coincides with Passover, the

major Jewish celebration of the year. It’s

near Easter because Jesus was crucified

at Passover, having just shared this very

meal with His disciples.

Passover celebrates and re-

calls the Israelites’ escape from slavery

in Egypt. Led by Moses they crossed the

Red Sea and 40 days later entered the

‘Promised Land.’ They shared the Pass-

over meal at their last night in Egypt and

have kept it all for nearly the past three

thousand years or so that have followed.

Many years ago, when I was

in Jerusalem to produce a radio pro-

gramme, I was invited to join a Jewish

family for their Passover meal. It was a

great occasion, very like our Christmas,

a family event with deep religious sig-

nificance for those who seek it.

At the meal in Jerusalem, we

ate modest lentils and unleavened bread

– Matzos as we now call it. We also

drank plenty of wine but not from the

cup at the end of the table. That is

‘Elijah’s cup’, only to be drunk from

when the prophet comes to announce the

arrival of the Messiah. At the last supper

Jesus instructed His disciples to drink

from that cup after supper, which may

have shocked them at the time. The

Messiah had come! ♣

Remembering John Keats

I T WAS 200 years ago, on 23rd February 1821, that John Keats, the Romantic poet, died in Rome of tuberculosis, aged 25.

Keats was a gener-ous, likeable and hard-working man who had much experience of suffering in his short life. He also had a love of civil and religious liberty. Most of his best work was done during the year 1819, when he was al-ready sickening after an ex-hausting walking tour of the Lakes and Scotland the previ-ous summer.

In that same year he had also been nursing his brother Tom through tuberculosis – the disease that killed

their mother. But in 1819, after Tom’s death, he moved to Hampstead and fell in love with a neighbour, Fanny Brawne, who was 18.

By this time Keats was devot-ing himself to poetry, having originally trained as a surgeon following his mother’s early death. He is most famous for his Odes, all of which (except the one to Autumn) were composed between March and June 1819. All of them ponder the clash between eternal ideals and the transience of the physical world.

His most famous lines: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

♣

John Keats

Page 12

A NDY AND

June, along

with Katie and

Imogen, visit-

ed Wakehurst Place to expe-

rience a spellbinding winter

lantern tail.

Glow Wild 2020 at Wakehurst Place

Photo June Phillips

4th Advent Sunday - Broadway Church

I MOGEN, WITH

mum Katie, lighting

the four candles at

Broadway Church

Page 13

Across

8 Interrogated (Acts 12:19) (5-8)

9 ‘Burn it in a wood fire on the — heap’ (Leviticus 4:12) (3)

10 Tobit, Judith, Baruch and the books of Esdras and the Maccabees are part of it (9)

11 Science fiction (abbrev.) (3-2)

13 Clay pit (anag.) (7)

16 Went to (John 4:46) (7)

19 ‘Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to — your bod-ies as living sacrifices’ (Romans 12:1) (5)

22 David’s plea to God concerning those referred to in 14 Down: ‘On — — let them escape’ (Psalm 56:7) (2,7)

24 Royal Automobile Club (1,1,1) 25 How the book of Ezekiel refers to God more than 200 times (Ezekiel 2:4) (9,4)

Down

1 Seas (Proverbs 8:24) (6)

2 One of the sons of Eli the priest, killed in battle by the Philistines (1 Samu-el 4:11) (6)

3 Specialist in the study of the Muslim religion (8)

4 ‘Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but — him as if he were your fa-ther’ (1 Timothy 5:1) (6)

5 One of Esau’s grandsons (Genesis 36:11) (4)

6 Taking a chance (colloq.) (2,4)

7 God’s instructions to the Israelites concerning grain offerings: ‘ — salt to — your offerings’ (Leviticus 2:13) (3,3)

12 Confederation of British Industry (1,1,1)

14 ‘All day long they twist my words; they are always — to harm me’ (Psalm 56:5) (8)

15 The crowd’s reaction to Jesus bringing back to life a widow’s son in Nain (Luke 7:16) (3)

(Continued on page 15)

Page 14

February Crossword

Page 15

16 Disappear (Psalm 104:35) (6)

17 How Jeremiah was likely to die if he wasn’t rescued from the cistern where he was imprisoned (Jeremiah 38:9) (6)

18 What the prophets do to a wall, with whitewash (Ezekiel 13:10, RSV) (4,2)

20 Made by a plough (Job 39:10) (6)

21 Noah was relieved when the flood waters continued to — (Genesis 8:5) (6)

23 Jesus gave the Twelve the power and authority to do this to diseases (Luke 9:1) (4)

Answers to January’s

crossword Any contributions for March’s issue

please submit them by

Friday 19th February 2021

Mick: mjmulley@gmail.com

With thanks to Parrishpump.co.uk for the

Crossword, some of the articles and pictures in

this edition

Thoughts, and opinions expressed in this

magazine belong solely to the author, and

not necessarily those shared by Broadway

Church, St Barnabas Church, ministers or

the editor.

Rev Ann Cole

I T IS with sadness we have to inform you that Ann passed away on 27th December.

We will miss her, she was not only a lovely person but also a good friend and we all enjoyed. her preaching. Our prayers are with her family.

Sue Sanders At the moment we have closed our church due to the high numbers of infection reported by the government, we will let you know as soon as it is safe to resume private prayer or services. The following preachers are booked for February (as instructed by the CSUA). But we will not open unless it is safe to do so:

7th Rev Andy Melvin.

14th Rev David Hague

21st Rev John Glover

28th Rev Mona Shahbaz