Welcome to the February 2022 issue of the parish magazine for St John's East Dulwich. Each edition of The Gander includes news and insights from St John's and our local community in East Dulwich and Peckham, as well as book reviews and profiles of some of our members.

This issue has been put together by Christine Camplin, Jim Nurton, Tayo Olatunde and Sue O'Neill. Click Subscribe to be added to our mailing list and you'll be notified when our next edition is available. The next issue will be published in March.

From the Curate...

Revd Gemma Birt

As Revd Gill is on sabbatical, it is my pleasure to introduce this month’s edition of the Gander. This month we look at the themes of restoration, reflection and rest, through a variety of different lenses.
 
Tayo Olatunde, who is also interviewed in this month’s edition, tells us about our forthcoming focus on an “Eco” themed Lent at St John’s; asking us to reflect on our current daily habits and how we might change some of these in order to help restore some balance and healing to the ecological crisis we are in. Sue O’Neill shares her experience of reducing her carbon footprint in an article on living without a car. Christine Camplin continues her excellent historical account of the history Goose Green, this month focussing on how the community sought to restore life and joy back to its buildings and spaces, so traumatically damaged by the Blitz. Gary Hunt brings us interviews with some local retailers in 'our manor'. Revd Gill tells us about the importance of Sabbath rest for us all, both in the context of a time of sabbatical and through her book review, of Dr Gabor Mate’s book “When the Body says No”.  If reading is a way you enjoy resting and reflecting, Jim Nurton and Anne Coates provide us with some excellent book suggestions, Jim with his pithy and insightful book review of Barak Obama’s “A Promised Land”  and Anne through her reflections what writing in lockdown was like (with some excellent insight, on her Hannah Weybridge crime thriller books!) 
 
Doing something new or taking part in something we enjoy can be a great way in which to feel restored and rested.  Julia Bairstow tells us about Dulwich and District U3A, an organisation dedicated to enabling retired and semi retired people participate in a wide range of recreational activities. We also have a short report on the recent organ recital and workshop by Anna Lapwood at St John's, which I know many people enjoyed. Finally, I share some personal thoughts and experiences of Chinese New Year as we enter the Year of the Tiger on 1 February 2022.  As far as I can remember, it was the one time things actually came to a decisive stop and pause for rest in our family because it was the one time my father would definitely take a day off work!
 
A new year is always an opportunity to reflect back and look forward, but most importantly to give thanks for God’s goodness in our daily lives. May we all seek, and find, the time we need each day to pause, even if just for a moment, for rest and reflection.  As Revd Gill reminds us
 
“In returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust will be your strength." Isaiah 30:15

Revd Gemma Birt

Christmas services: This year all the Christmas services went ahead as planned, including the Carol Service on 19 December, Christingle and Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, and 10am Masses on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Epiphany. Free tickets were available on Eventbrite for the main services.

Coffee Morning: During January, coffee morning has been meeting outdoors in the churchyard due to the very high number of local covid-19 cases. This has been surprisingly popular, with many regulars toughing out the chilly weather and enjoying meeting for a chat, coffee and cake. We are now planning to have our first indoor meeting on 2 February at the regular time of 11 until 12:30.
 

Introducing the organ: On 15 January St John’s hosted an Education Day event by Southwark and South London Society of Organists and Bromley and Croydon Organists’ Association, with guest organist Anna Lapwood. Following an introduction and welcome by John Webber, director of music at St John’s and Chair of SSLSO, Anna performed a short recital including JS Bach’s Fantasia in G minor BWV 542, Ghislaine Reece-Trapp’s In Paradisum and Star Fantasy by Christina Arakelyan. Anna then discussed her journey to becoming a professional organist, conductor and broadcaster, before presenting awards and taking the winners through a workshop at the organ.
 
Photo quiz: How did you get on with the quiz in the last issue? You can check your answers here. Our winners are Revd Anne Clarke and Peter Bibby – well done for knowing our local area so well!
 

Sabbatical
Revd Gill O'Neill writes: The idea of the Sabbath, of observing regular periods of rest is a familiar biblical idea. A sabbatical is simply an extension of that idea: that we need times of rest, refreshment and renewal. In the Diocese of Southwark, those in ordained ministry are encouraged to take a sabbatical every seven years. No particular expectations are placed on clergy in Southwark, it is simply a time to study, think and pray. I am enormously grateful for this opportunity, and to colleagues lay and ordained for enabling it to happen. I am looking forward to having time to read those theological books I have longed to spend time with, as well as time to unwind from the burden of leading during a pandemic. I hope you can make sabbath rest a priority in your life too. "In returning and rest you shall be saved, in quietness and trust will be your strength." Isaiah 30:15

September
The PCC met on Wednesday 22 September via Zoom.

Reports were received from: Standing Committee (8 September), Treasurer, Stewardship Secretary, Wardens and Eco Church. Topics discussed included finances and stewardship and charitable giving.

Reports were received from: Standing Committee (6 October/3 November), Treasurer, Stewardship Secretary, Wardens and Eco Church. Topics discussed included finances and stewardship.

December
The PCC met on Wednesday 8 December via Zoom

Reports were received from: Treasurer and Wardens. Topics discussed included finances and stewardship, Christmas services and Carols by the Green (18 December), Wardens’ Report with an update on planned refurbishment of Centre toilets, Vicar’s six-week sabbatical (31 January-20 March).

Revd Gemma Birt

My father is Chinese, and so celebrating Chinese New Year is an important part of my family’s tradition.  This year it falls on 1 February, and as its precise date depends on the moon’s cycle, it is also called Lunar New Year.
 
Most of my Chinese family live in Singapore and that is where I grew up, so my experience of it is a particularly Singaporean one. The Chinese diaspora is truly global and so there will be subtle differences in how Chinese New Year is celebrated depending on particular contexts and local traditions.  Perhaps the biggest differences will be in the types of dishes that will be enjoyed! So in Singapore, Chinese New Year cookies will often have things like pineapple, cloves and coconut in them as these are ingredients that are grown in South East Asia.    
 
This year we are entering the Year of the Tiger. This little statue is typical of the sort of thing you might find decorating a home this year. Notice how the tigers are eating Gold, and I think they have rather female looking eyes! The gold is symbolic and represents the hope that the year of the Tiger will bring abundance, good health, and prosperity to everyone.
  
The marking of the beginning of the “countdown” to the new year, in our family tradition anyway, begins on the night of the winter solstice (21 December). This was when we used to go to my Aunty Margaret’s house to eat a special meal together, and have some special dishes that we only eat on this day. 
 
One of these sweet dishes is called “Tang Yuan”. They are little dumplings made of glutinous rice flour that are filled with a sweet toasted black sesame paste. They are simmered in a home made sweet ginger soup.  They are made in white and pink; and this year, I made them at home in London for the first time. They were very easy to make, and delicious, chewy, and really quite pretty floating in the sweet ginger broth. 
  
The main celebrations begin on Chinese New Year’s Eve when families gather together for a Reunion dinner. This is a really important and joyful gathering, much like we gather with family at Christmas. I am glad that having missed Christmas with my parents, it looks like we will be able to gather this year for Chinese New Year!   
 
At Reunion dinner, lots of special and auspicious food is prepared and consumed, like noodles to symbolise long life, and dumplings to symbolise abundance and prosperity.  Most families have their own traditions, and in ours eating a dish made out of seaweed, dried mushrooms and dried oysters is one. Because noodles are eaten to bring a long and healthy life for the year ahead, we were always taught that they were not to be cut in any way.  So you had to have very long arms and be very nimble with chopsticks!
 
 
This is a photo of our family sharing a special Chinese New Year salad, made up of raw fish, lots of vegetables, and plum sauce, crackers, peanuts and special spices.  It is called “Lo Hei” or in Singapore we also call it “Yusheng”. Everything is ceremoniously added by everyone at the table, and then with chopsticks, everyone lifts the ingredients up from the plate as high as they can and wishes each other a Happy New Year! It is the ritual of tossing the salad up and saying “Lo Hei” that is really important!
  
Just as we have seasonal and liturgical colours to mark our festivals, the use of bright colours is a really important part of marking Chinese New Year. The most important colours used at Chinese New Year are Red and Gold.  Red because it was believed that this colour scared away evil and bad fortune, and Gold because it symbolises prosperity. 
 
Most Chinese homes will be decorated with lots of bowls of oranges, mandarins, fresh flowers and red and gold banners. Here are some photos of how my family have decorated the outside and inside of their home in Singapore this year. You can see the little red banner with Chinese calligraphy and a tiger on it, a “Good luck and welcome to the Year of the Tiger” sign. Can you spot the little orange Calamsi lime trees? 
 
Do you notice how there is a pair of banners and also a pair of Calamsi lime trees? Numbers have a special significance in Chinese culture, and odd numbers are sometimes considered bad luck, whereas even numbers are auspicious.  It is traditional to gift money at Chinese New Year, and this is done in red packets or envelopes, known as a “Hong Bao”. The amount will always be an even number. So, you are unlikely to receive £3 or £15 but might instead receive £6 or £10.  Interestingly, I was always taught that the number 8 is particularly auspicious (because spoken it sounds like “good fortune”), whereas the number 4 is not (because spoken is sounds like the word for “death”).  
  
On the first day of the Lunar New Year  (which is a public holiday in Singapore), we as children would wake up excited for the day ahead. We would start by putting on a complete set of new clothes that would have been bought to mark the fresh start the new year offers. The clothes would always be in bright colours, if possible red!  We would then find my parents and say “Kong Hei Fat Choi” ("Happy New Year" in Cantonese). We would give them each a pair of mandarin oranges and my parents, in return would give us red packets.
 
After that we would start our day of visiting relatives to wish them a happy new year, exchange mandarin oranges and, as children, would receive more Hong Baos!  At the same time, my mother’s handbag would be full of Hong Baos to hand out. First, we would visit my grandmother and grandfather, who would have special Chinese New Year sweets laid out for us, such as dried red dates, watermelon seeds, and pineapple tarts. There would be Fanta orange for us, and Chinese tea for my parents. At the house we would meet more relatives who would all be visiting my grandparents as they were the most “senior” in the family. 

We would also visit our Aunties and Uncles, as a sign of respect and love for them. One of my Aunties would have an “open house” so that anyone was welcome, and there we often encountered a very noisy, traditional lion dance.  
 
My sister and I used to be thrilled, and at the same time absolutely terrified, at the lion dance. The lion’s bright colours and enormous eyes, as well as the deafening sound of the drums that accompany it, were overwhelming for a small child!  We would try to find places in the house to hide from the lion as it traditionally visits every part of the house to “chase” away any bad spirits and, as I understand it now, effectively bless it for the year ahead. The whole dance culminates in the lion finding a parcel of lettuce hanging from the ceiling, which it reaches by the acrobats in the costume jumping on each other’s shoulders and one of them reaching up, through the head of the lion, to grab the lettuce and “eat it”.  It was a hugely exciting experience but I was always glad when the lion found his lettuce!
 
Every year at Chinese New Year we would also visit the Buddhist temple, where my father’s nanny’s ashes are kept and where my Grandmother worshipped. Special prayers would be said (in fact, this is where I first encountered the smell of incense!) and we would then be invited to join the nuns who looked after the temple for a delicious vegan meal.
 
Chinese New Year was, for many years, my favourite time of the year because it was the time that everything really did stop and we spent time with family, repeating traditions again and again, and there was a real and intentional focus on being joyful, eating together, being positive and putting the past year behind us.   
 
This year, we will have a very quiet Chinese New Year time together, giving thanks first and foremost for that which we have been able to do – see my parents again, after nearly two years apart because of the pandemic. I will get some Fanta orange for the children, and we have bought some new dresses.  And there will be noodles, pineapple tarts and plenty of tea.

 

Dulwich and District U3A formed in 2014 and is keen to attract new members from our local community. Our membership extends beyond the immediate locality to areas such as Camberwell, Peckham, Nunhead, Forest Hill, Sydenham and Brixton for example, but we are keen to increase our membership, so as to further reflect the diversity and rich culture of south east London.

Dulwich and District U3A is part of a nation-wide organisation for people who are retired and semi-retired. It is a charity run by it’s members and offers a whole range of differing learning and leisure activities, thus enabling members to meet together in small groups to pursue their interests, socialise and have fun! Currently we have over 700 members and over 90 interest groups covering a broad range from literature, foreign languages, art appreciation, discussion, walking, cycling, table tennis, Zumba gold, singing, music, cultural visits, wine tasting, bridge, cryptic crosswords plus many more. We also aim to cater for individual needs such as physical and mental impairments and hearing loss for example. Members are actively encouraged to set up new groups to cover interests not catered for.

This time two years ago I was celebrating the publication of "Perdition’s Child", the fourth in my Hannah Weybridge crime thriller series. Locally, I had a reading and signing session at Chener Books, and gave talks at St John’s and for a group which met at St Faith’s community centre. None of us could have known or been prepared for what followed: a country in lockdown and a pandemic that is still with us.

You might think that isolation and lack of distractions would be the perfect scenario for a writer but even for someone who has worked from home for years, I was not prepared for the sense of isolation and loneliness, which haunted me. My emotions at the time didn’t boost my creativity.

As I was unsure my publisher, Urbane Publications, would want another Hannah (or would survive the pandemic) I had decided to write a more or less contemporary psychological thriller. It was based on a short story I had written so I had the beginning and the end and bits of what would happen in the middle but I found it very difficult to concentrate. It was galling that on social media people were boasting of new skills they had acquired – anything from oil painting to rewiring a house (yes really – YouTube has a lot to answer for!) – and I was having a hard time stringing a sentence together, something I have been doing in one form or another all my working life.

In the end I had to put the project to one side and as I did so I had a vision of an armchair on a stage, and in it the dead body of the leading lady. Suddenly I was back in the 1990s when there was no pandemic, no social media, few mobile phones and smoking was still permitted in pubs. And there was Hannah Weybridge patiently waiting for me to expose her to more crimes to be solved. It was wonderful to be back in Hannah’s world picking up with DI Claudia Turner and DS Mike Benton, keeping up with the journalists at "The News" and seeing Hannah’s daughter Elizabeth make the transition to nursery.

You will be familiar with many of the settings I use – catching the 176 bus on Lordship Lane, Peckham Rye Park, East Dulwich Tavern, Goose Green – even St John’s church gets a mention in "Stage Call". Anyone who knows my predilection for a curry won’t be surprised that one scene in set in Dulwich Tandoori with Nurul who graciously allowed me to use his name. And thinking of names, I often use local street or place names as surnames for my characters.

Waterloo once again features heavily as The Old Vic is the theatre where the suspicious death of one of the nation’s “national treasures” takes place. Hannah, who had been collaborating with the actress on her memoir, finds herself drawn into an unfamiliar world. Who can she trust when everyone seems to be playing a part?  And no one is above suspicion.  

As I had suspected would happen, Urbane Publications ceased trading at the end of March 2021. It was a horrible moment when my ebooks disappeared a month beforehand. Just like at the end of a relationship when you wonder if anyone will ever like/love you again, I and many other of the Urbane authors were in publishing limbo. Yet curiously I was then in a better position with the book I was just finishing, "Stage Call". Few if any publishers would take on a book that was part of an established series published elsewhere. But a publisher might be tempted by five books…

To my delight, Red Dog Press, another independent publishing house, adopted Hannah Weybridge and published new editions with brilliant new covers and a text refresh of the first four books: "Dancers in the Wind", "Death’s Silent Judgement", "Songs of Innocents" and "Perdition’s Child" in the lead up to the publication of "Stage Call". Plus they are also available in hardback – a special joy for an author. 

The hardback and paperback editions of Stage Call are published on 15 February – the digital version has been available from 18 January.  

You can pre-order from Red Dog Press here or Amazon or order from bookshops – Chener Books should have them in stock – and I’d be delighted to sign any copies! 

 

@Anne_Coates1

On 8 May 1945, after nearly six years of war, Germany officially surrendered. The conflict was over.
 
'V.E. Day was extremely quiet. Was it that people were really too exhausted to celebrate? In any case the war had not finished with Japan. There were a few street teas and a bonfire or two, but nothing more.' **
 
              
The consequences of the Blitz were still visible - ruins and desolate empty plots where there had been terraces of homes and shops. St John’s Church was closed; between December 1940 and April 1951 marriages were solemnized at the Church of the Epiphany, Bassano Street. St Andrew’s Mission in Waghorn Street was sold in 1948. It had been declared redundant in 1932. (It is now a Rosicrucian meeting hall.) The dates 1939-45 were added to the Calvary.
 
Community life slowly began to return to normal. From 1946 mixed bathing was allowed at Dulwich Baths, and popular bands played for dances. Two years later, in 1948, Champion Hill Stadium (Dulwich Hamlet) hosted football matches at the London Summer Olympics.
 
The Labour Party under Clement Atlee won the General Election on 5 July 1945, replacing the wartime coalition of Winston Churchill. Three of the urgent tasks faced by the new government, education, health and housing, were driven by decisions made by the war-time government.
 
The primary goal of the 1944 Education Act (The Butler Act) was to widen opportunities for all with free, compulsory schooling for all children between five and 15 (the school leaving age was raised to 15). Separate schools were created for primary and secondary pupils. While some local authorities implemented the “tripartite system” (grammar, technical and secondary modern), the Labour-controlled London County Council opted for the comprehensive model, merging two or more existing schools into a single entity.
 
The result was more upheaval for children. Some of the old elementary schools became primaries: St John’s Schools, St Anthony RC, Grove Vale, Dog Kennel School - but at the age of eleven pupils moved elsewhere.
 
In spring 1946 the new secondary schools opened in existing school buildings; their former primary pupils were dispatched elsewhere.

 
It must occasionally have seemed like an elaborate game of educational musical chairs.
 
On 5 July 1948 the National Health Service Act came into effect creating the National Health Service. This followed the 1942 Beveridge Report recommendation to create "comprehensive health and rehabilitation services for prevention and cure of disease". Most health services were now free to everyone. Dulwich Hospital and St Francis Hospital with St Giles Hospital, Camberwell, joined the NHS under the control of the Camberwell Hospitals Management Committee.
 
Another urgent need was housing. It was estimated that over 70,000 buildings were completely demolished in London and another 1.7 million damaged. Families returned from evacuation. Post-war maps showed where patchworks of individual prefabs had replaced fractured terraces. The housing shortage had started before the war and prefabricated dwellings were one of the strategies prposed in the 1944 Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act. By January 1947 over 100,000 had been completed. There were over 20 different types; the most familiar in London was a flat-roofed,  detached “box” assembled around a core kitchen and bathroom unit. 

It was time for rebuilding.
 
Source
** Revd. Frank Bishop in: A History of the Parish of St John the Evangelist, East Dulwich, 1865-1951 by W.J.A. Hahn
 

I had intentions to learn to drive when I was 17 but found that the family funds for lessons had been used up by an older sibling! But I was soon living in London and didn’t feel the need for a car. However once we had our first baby I discovered what a nightmare it then was to travel by public transport with a buggy. A journey to the outer reaches of London was the final straw and I booked driving lessons. I was definitely not a natural but passed second time and bought a very cheap car for me to build up my confidence. But as time passed I still found driving made me pretty anxious. Part of the reason was that I did not need to drive very often as mostly everything was easilly reached on foot or by public transport. I would end up having to think of reasons to use the car. So as we couldn’t really afford the cost, we got rid of it. The plan was to rent a car if we really needed one, which we did for some holidays over the years and may do again in the future.  

Once we no longer had a car, we settled to a new pattern. Food shopping was done either piecemeal or using taxis home for bulk shops. For other shopping like clothes, presents, plants etc, we can normally get things home on public transport or a cab if necessary. If the shop I am in has an online presence I might order what I want on my phone there and then. On-line shopping of course makes everything easier. I have found all sorts of other tasks are also manageable, like going to choirs, house clearances, travelling to concerts, arranging care for elderly relatives, etc, etc.

Our children went to primary school a five minute walk away. When they went to secondary school it was by bus or walking, and they developed great skills at dealing with all manner of things that might happen on the way! Outings were by public transport to parks, swimming pools, walks in the country, National Trust properties, museums, London Zoo, etc.  The children learnt swimming, dance or instruments a short walk or bus ride away. Our rather petite eldest started learning the cello a bus-ride from us; I confess I was relieved when it was not pursued for long!  Horse riding, Woodcraft Folk and many more activities have also featured.

Living in an area rich with public transport, I really enjoyed not having to drive everywhere. We could walk along the road and chat, and sit on the bus and enjoy the journey. When we had our youngest it was great to now be able to wheel the buggy on the bus. I developed a very thick skin to disapproving looks if the children were having a noisy meltdown. It was easier to sort out problems when you are all sitting together rather than strapped out of reach in a car. There were of course awful journeys in the rain or cold but the relief of getting home would be delightful! I have to be honest that never having been a confident driver definitely contributes to my love of public transport. When we rented cars my children developed keen skills in not talking to me at difficult junctions or when passing big lorries on the motorway!

Our car-free holidays have necessitated choosing locations carefully, but it is not too difficult to find great destinations. Ours have included St Ives, Newquay, the Cairngorms, the Norfolk Coast, Centre Parcs, Bournemouth, the Gower Peninsula and abroad to places including the Catalonian coast and Corfu. My youngest and I have had UK camping trips by public transport, carrying all the necessary equipment!

Transporting our children to and from university has been ‘interesting’ but has been made much easier by being able to stow some luggage with friends making the same journey or more recently with the discovery of Anyvan.co.uk. We’ve also had to pay for storage if there have been gaps in tenancies. We always feel these costs will never be more than the cost of having a car.

Although there are some things we cannot easily get to we do not feel limited. Being very fortunate to live in Peckham, with such good bus and train services, means there are lots of lovely places we can visit without a car. It is funny how being car-free has become more recognised as something to help limit global warming. This has been our way of life for more than 20 years and, given good local transport, is no hardship to us!

Transport for London (TfL) has said that 2021 was its busiest ever year for its hire bikes.
 
However, large parts of the most deprived areas of Southwark, including Peckham, Camberwell and south Bermondsey, have no access to the scheme. The hire bikes are mostly concentrated in the north-west of the borough, closer to central London.
 
During the 2021 expansion Southwark acquired docking stations near Canada Water Tube station and the Elephant and Castle roundabout. 

Yet the bike programme in neighbouring Lambeth reaches much further south - Brixton is south than Peckham - and north of the river, there are docking stations in Hammersmith and Fulham in west London and Tower Hamlets in the east.
 
There is some good news, though. In a Southwark Council report from 2020 officers said that they planned to install eight docking stations in Camberwell, Peckham, Nunhead and along the Old Kent Road by 2023 and had more than £1 million in developer money to fund this expansion. They have not yet announced where the stations would be or how many new bikes the borough would get.

How long have you been coming to St John’s? I have been part of the St John’s community since 2006. Making it 16 years I’ve been coming.
 
What first drew you to St John’s?  As a 4^th generation Anglican whose distant cousin on my mother’s side is the former Anglican Primate of the Church of Nigeria, I can comfortably say that I come from a family with a very strong connection to the Anglican Communion. So, when I moved to East Dulwich from Exeter, it was a natural choice for me to join St John’s.
 
What do you like about the community here? There are so many things I love about our community. Starting with the choir and our organ. It is soul-lifting to come to service on a Sunday and hear the choir singing hymns accompanied by the organ. I also love the warmth and welcoming spirit within the St John’s community. Add to that the diversity and rich history of the Church.
 
Where do you live?  I live in Beckenham; having moved there from East Dulwich several years ago.
 
What work do you do? I run a consulting company where we provide Technology, Business Transformation and Data Privacy advisory as core services.
 
You’ve been involved in setting up the Eco Church Group – can you tell us more about that? What are the aims? Eco Church is a project led by A Rocha UK in partnership with Christian Aid and supported by the Church of England. Its core aim is to encourage and support churches and its congregation to be more environmentally conscious. Churches with an interest in the initiative are encouraged to complete the unique online Eco Survey about how they are caring for God’s earth in different areas of their life and work. The answers a church provides will collect points towards an Eco Church Award.
 
What things do we need to change to become an Eco Church? And how are we going to do that? Since the group was set-up in 2019, we have been working on several initiatives aimed at improving how we, as a church and individually are taking care of God’s green earth by making small, incremental eco-friendly changes in our lifestyles. An example is the eco-friendly articles that now regularly appear in The Gander, offering tips on eco-friendly changes one can make. Other examples are an energy audit of the church (we are now looking to change to LED lightbulbs) and animal-friendly initiatives around the churchyard. The Eco Church survey helps to set-out goals for us to work towards. Unfortunately, the pandemic had made it hard to achieve a lot of these goals. Hopefully, with the latest COVID guidance, we will now be able to achieve a number of them that would then lead to us being awarded our first Eco Church award…. Watch this space.

What sorts of things can we do individually to help the environment? First, awareness is crucial. We all need to commit to continuously educating ourselves on how to be “eco-friendlier”. This includes considering eco-friendly alternatives to any new purchase we are considering making. It could be as small as replacing the purchasing of plastic bottled shampoos with refillables, or switching to paperless billing/bank statements, to as big as replacing one’s car with a hybrid/electric vehicle. Secondly, we need to encourage friends and family to also join the “green revolution”. As mentioned previously, small, incremental changes by many can make a big impact.
 
Why do you think becoming an Eco Church is important? And what do you think will be the hardest thing about becoming an Eco Church? As Christians, our commitments are not only to our neighbours but also to God’s earth. This means that we all have a responsibility to work towards bequeathing to the next generation a world in a better condition than what it currently is.

Being an old, grade-2 listed building, I would say that the hardest things to achieve in becoming a fully Eco Church are goals that align with our energy consumption. Such goals as changing the church’s very old boiler to an eco-friendlier one without a dip in performance, improving the church’s energy efficiency rating and becoming energy semi-independent by installing solar panels.

As someone with a young family, do you think we are giving enough attention to the environment and sustainability? Do you think young people have anything to teach older ones in this respect? One of the biggest advantages of social media and technology is the increased awareness it has given to climate change, pollution, and the efforts of the younger generation in demanding sustainability commitments from companies and governments. However, I do feel that a lot more still needs to be done. Particularly by the government in terms of policies and laws. Balancing economic growth through trade with the top polluting countries such as China, US, India and Japan, and holding such trade partners accountable requires far more political capital than successive governments have been willing to give up.
Isn’t it rather unfortunate that the younger generation seem to be more passionate than the older generations about the world they will be inheriting?
 
You’ve also been involved in the Black Voices Matter (BVM) group and the unconscious bias training. What impact do you think these have had and how can we take them forward? A major hindrance to racial equality is the taboo associated with having honest and open conversations amongst peers, colleagues, and communities, on race and racial inequality. The BVM initiative in 2020, which came about because of the killing of George Floyd, offered a platform to break this taboo within the St John’s community. The “Ask Me Anything” session which kicked off this initiative was one of the most honest and powerful sessions I have ever been part of. I felt that despite the lockdown and only being able to meet via Zoom brought us closer together as a community than any face-to-face session would have. Subsequent sessions and the church’s mission through Revd. Gill’s leadership to be an “Ally” makes me proud to be a member of this community.

Of equal importance was the output from these conversations. It resulted in a fantastically delivered unconscious bias and allyship workshop, facilitated by Laura Williams and Joy Taylor to the PCC last year. I am looking forward to the roll-out of the workshops to the wider St John’s community in 2022.
 
Are there any other aspects of church life (PCC/diocesan synod etc) that you’ve been involved with or would like to in the future, and if so why? Until I stood down last year, for the past 3 years, I was a member of both the Diocesan and Deanery Synods respectively. I currently represent the Eco Church Group on the PCC. I am also part of the editorial team of "The Gander". And, I have been a member of the audio-visual team for several years. You will see me on some Sundays handling the audio and online streaming equipment.

St John's Library
Book Review by Revd Gill O'Neill

When the body says no: The cost of hidden stress by Gabor Maté

 

This book kept popping up on my social media feeds, and I was intrigued by the title. The premise is simple: that our bodies are affected by our minds. This sounds uncontroversial, but modern medicine can be dismissive; in a recent NHS health check, my blood pressure, blood sugars and cholesterol were all scrutinised, but I was not asked about my psychological health. Dr Gabor Maté is a retired Canadian GP who grew increasingly interested in the connection between stress, trauma and health outcomes. He draws on research and personal stories to support his view that the stress we experience has a significant impact on our physical wellbeing, and that persistently high levels of cortisol lead to illness. Maté argues that we need to look at how familial and wider societal systems, and not just individual psychology, can be antagonistic to health. This coheres with Laura Howell-Williams’ article, “It’s just not cricket” about the racism experienced by Azeem Rafiq, and how such trauma can lead to physical health conditions. (Gander, Nov 2021) Maté argues that people who tend to prioritise the needs of others above their own are more likely to become unwell. Maté avers that illness is the body’s way to communicate: our body “says no” because we cannot; our body is telling us something about our stress, because we struggle to acknowledge it with our minds. He does not suggest that people are therefore to blame for their illness, rather we need compassionate curiosity about the stress and trauma we carry, and that medicine ought to include psychological along with physical examinations. In this period of great societal stress, this call for a compassionate and honest understanding of how stress impacts wellbeing is timely and illuminating, and reminds me that the Christian tradition has much to offer here. 


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A Promised Land by Barack Obama

The first volume of Barack Obama’s memoir has all the style, humanity and insight you would expect from the 44th US president. After the developments of the past five years, it’s a pleasure to read his measured, wise and generous thoughts on everything from race and society in the US to tackling Al Qaeda in Afghanistan (the book ends with the assassination of Osama bin Laden).

A Promised Land is relatively short on Obama’s philosophy and upbringing – topics covered in his earlier (pre-presidential) books – but long on the mechanics of politics. Its 700 pages give plenty of insight into the highs and lows of campaigning and then governing as a US senator and during his first term as president.

There is a lot of detail on US economic and healthcare reform – possibly a bit too much detail for overseas readers – but the second half of the book has compelling insights on international developments: the section on the negotiation of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in 2009 is a highlight. These are often introduced by summaries of topics such as the history of the EU and the rise of China, though these sometimes feel a bit superficial.

One of the things I most enjoyed about the book was the pithy word-portraits of everyone he encounters. For example, David Cameron “possessed an impressive command of the issues, a facility with language, and the easy confidence of someone who’d never been pressed too hard by life”. Sarah Palin (remember her?) was “a potent disruptor” but “appeared lost, stringing words together  like a kid trying to bluff her way through a test for which she had failed to study”.

Perhaps the one thing missing is a real attempt to engage with criticisms of his presidency. Why was there not more progress on the Middle East? How did the US political culture allow Donald Trump to flourish? And above all why could more not be done to tackle gun crime in America? Hopefully Obama will address some of these questions in the second volume, which is due to be published soon.