THE PARISH CHURCH OF STOKE DAMEREL
(ST. ANDREW & ST. LUKE)

Email:   info@stokedamerel.church                                          
www.Stokedamerel.church
www.facebook.com/StokeDamerelChurch

Please note: Stoke Damerel Church does not divulge
personal information to third parties.

Sunday 8 March                Third Sunday of Lent
 

Merciful God,
we entrust to your tender care
those who are ill or in pain,
knowing that whenever danger threatens
your everlasting arms
are there to hold them safe.
Comfort and heal them,
and restore them to health and strength;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

PLEASE PRAY FOR:-
The sick:-
Maureen, Margaret W, Graham, John S, Kathy, Mo, Matt,
Bertie, Morwenna, David J, Wendy.
The long term sick and infirm:-
George, Peter, Diana, Liz & Keith N, Rob, John and Shirley.
The recently departed:-
We give thanks for the life of Barbara Jean Allen,
known as Jean, who died on 22nd February. We
pray for her family and friends at this sad time.
The Ministry Team:-
Wendy, Ruth, Marilyn and Rhona.

BLESSED SACRAMENT CANDLE

If you would like to have the candle lit for a week
for a particular prayer / thanksgiving /
commemoration, etc., please send a £5 donation to
Debbie Smith, clearly marking your donation as
being for the candle. Details of your intention can
be emailed to:- sarah.lundstrom@virginmedia.com
so that a mention of the commemoration, etc., can
appear in the Sunday Sheet.

SERVICES THIS WEEK
Stoke Damerel Parish Church is a hybrid church
open for public worship and private prayer and all
services will be live streamed.
By attending a live streamed service, you give
implied permission to have your image captured
on CCTV and to be broadcast as participant in the
liturgy.

Watch our livestreamed services
Please follow the link to make your way to our YouTube page: 

 STOKE DAMEREL YOUTUBE CHANNEL 

Sunday 8 March                Third Sunday of Lent
0800 Holy Eucharist
Celebrant: Rev’d Mike Harman
1000 Sung Parish Eucharist
Celebrant: Rev’d Mike Harman

Wednesday 11 March
1000 Morning Prayer

Sunday 15 March              Mothering Sunday
0800 Holy Eucharist
Celebrant: Rev’d Dr Sacha Pearce
1000 Sung Parish Eucharist
Celebrant: Rev’d Dr Sacha Pearce

WELCOME BACK
To Rev’d Mike Harman.

MARILYN'S MEMOS
LENT WISE, Spiritual Essentials for Real Life
We held our second session on Wednesday and
were fortunate to have the company of Rev’d
Brian with his wife and chauffeuse, Erica,
following our monthly Eucharist. We had a recap
on our “Compass” session last week where we
were reminded that God the Father is our
destination and that Jesus is the way by which we
arrive there. This week, our course led us to think
about nourishment and what we need to keep
ourselves going.
The Bible passage was John 6: 25-35 which occurs
right after the feeding of the 5000, resulting in the
crowd wanting to make Jesus king by force. He
took himself far away from them and when they
eventually tracked him down, he rebuked them for
only wanting food which made their stomachs full
and told them they were striving for the wrong
kind of food.
“Far more indispensable than for the physical
body is spiritual nourishment for the soul. One can
do without food for a considerable time, but a man
of the spirit cannot exist for a single second
without spiritual nourishment.”
Mahatma Ghandi 1869-1948

The phrase "man cannot live on bread alone"
emphasizes the necessity of spiritual
nourishment alongside physical sustenance,
highlighting the importance of God's word in our
lives.The phrase originates from Deuteronomy 8:3,
where Moses reminds the Israelites of God's
provision during their time in the wilderness.
It states, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger
and then feeding you with manna, which
neither you nor your ancestors had known, to
teach you that man does not live on bread alone
but on every word that comes from the mouth of
the Lord”.
This verse illustrates that while physical food
is essential for survival, it is not sufficient for a
fulfilling life.
Paula Gooder ends this second section with the
marvellous words from William Williams’ hymn:
Bread of Heaven.

Our bell tower

You might wonder about the extension to the
scaffolding: easily explained. In order to continue
working on the tower without delay, the
scaffolding has been extended considerably and
shrouded in plastic so that the roofers can work
in wet weather. They must construct an internal
scaffolding to protect the integrity of the newly
leaded roof, while they remove rotten timbers
which will be replaced by steel girders. One of the
newly louvred areas will need to be temporarily
removed as the girders have to be introduced
through this aperture. Please pray that they do not
find more extensive rot and water damage to any
further wooden sections. Our treasurer, Debbie, is
quietly confident that we can pay our bills without
recourse to a further loan. We have almost finished
paying off our £50,000 loan for our refurbishment.

Mothering Sunday 15th March
Mother’s Day, or Mothering Sunday, is celebrated
on the fourth Sunday of Lent.. This special day has
a long and evolving history in the United
Kingdom, which we will expand upon next week.

Portuguese speaking African and
South American group

Our Portuguese speaking group hire the Parish
Centre from time to time, for a celebration of the
cultural heritage from their many countries spread
across the Globe: apart from song and dance, one
of the main essentials is sharing food and alegria
de viver! Delicious!

ELECTORAL ROLL
The Electoral Roll has to be revised each year and
you will find notices to this effect on our entrance
doors. If you are NOT on our current roll and
would like to be (please check eligibility) there are
forms to submit which can be found on the table at
the back of the church. Please could you give the
forms to Ruth, Sarah or me.
Marilyn

ADVANCE NOTICE
Annual Church Meeting and
Annual Parochial Church Meeting 2026
On Sunday 19 April after the 1000 Parish
Eucharist we will hold our annual two meetings to
elect Churchwardens and then Parochial Church
Council members, plus receive the church
accounts and other reports. After those meetings
there will be a brief meeting of the newly elected
PCC to elect Officers.
Electoral Roll Revision timetable
The proposed timetable for the revision of our
Electoral Roll is as follows:

1 March       Notice given that Electoral Roll is to be revised on...
15 March    Revision of Electoral Roll opens
29 March   Revision of Electoral Roll closes
5 April        Revised Electoral Roll published
19 April      APCM Electoral Roll presented to the meeting.

Ruth Jordan and Wendy Pezzey are our Electoral
Roll officers if you have any questions.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN MARCH
Geoff Bersey, Jenny Whalley, Ellie Brown,
Katie Armstrong, Jean Farrar, Jackie Richmond.

RUTH’S REFLECTIONS
How quickly do things change? In a few days the
world has found another battle ground. We are all
aware of the current crisis in the Middle East and
Iran and perhaps, like many of us, wonder where
it is all going to end. I found myself feeling a
mixture of emotions ranging from anger to sadness
and almost despair at all that is happening.
Countries find themselves under attack, people
stranded, the loss of life and still many are
suffering from the results from previous wars
trying to get lives back on track. My own
experience of working in the Middle East has
made it even more poignant. So much of the
conflicts are in the land that my boss used to call
the “Land of the Holy One”. This was the place
where Jesus walked and yet now it is a place of
war and destruction.
We are in the season of Lent. As believers this is a
personal journey that leads us to the cross and the
celebration of resurrection. During this time the
daily readings often include Psalms. Where else
can we go to find a Psalmist truly expressing his
feelings before God? The need to express deep
concerns, despair at circumstances, feeling
abandoned and yet so many of the Psalms offer us
hope. Psalm 22, the psalm of suffering, is followed
by Psalm 23, the psalm of comfort and assurance.
“Even through the darkest valley, I fear no evil”.
Psalm 22 begins with a cry to God, “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?”. Familiar words
that are part of our Easter meditation and yet out of
that despair and desolation, we find that after
expressing his deepest feelings, he is able to say
“from you comes my praise in the great
congregation” and “those who seek Him shall
praise the Lord” (verse 25-26). It is as though
after the pouring out of despair comes the
assurance of hope.
Psalm 23 is a personal Psalm and it is about our
relationship with God. It may be familiar, but the
truth of these words are our comfort and hope.
Whatever we may feel at this time, we can know
that the “Lord is MY shepherd, I shall not want”.
God does know what we need and when we need
it and even when life feels difficult, he is still our
shepherd.
If you, like me are struggling with all that is
happening in our world, we need to remember
that God knows and that our response can only
be prayer. “The Holy One” is still walking with
us and hears the cries of those who suffer.
Ruth

MISS FLORENCE E. COLLINS
Although there have not been any monthly parish
magazines since publication had to cease when we
all went into Covid lockdown, the church archives
contain many old Stoke Damerel parish magazines
going all the way back to 1878. There are,
however, many gaps during the late 19th. century
and early 20th. century. Over the years, I have
digitised some magazines but am well short of
completing this task. I recently looked at a bound
copy of the magazines for 1916. With hindsight
we know now that this was right in the middle of
the First World War, but no-one then would have
known that there were still two years of warfare to
survive. The 1916 magazines contained news not
only related to Stoke Damerel parish church but
also to “The Lady Chapel of the New Church”,
which was the only portion of the proposed
cathedral to be built, and was in Collingwood
Road, where part of Stoke Damerel Junior School
is now located. There was also news regarding St.
Bartholomew’s Mission Chapel in Higher Stoke
(now a small car park serving Stoke village), and
St. Luke’s Mission in Baker’s Place (then located
at the eastern end of Richmond Walk). Whilst
glancing through the January magazine, I came
across a lengthy tribute to Florence E. Collins who
had died on 18th. December in the previous year.
The magazine article reported that she had not
been unwell but had been taken ill during an 8
o’clock church service and passed away the
following weekend. The list of her many roles
undertaken for the church was extensive, including
being the Superintendent of the Infants Sunday
School.
I then remembered that there is a wall memorial
to her memory on the south wall of the chancel
‘tucked in’ behind the southern portion of the
chancel arch, as shown below.

The memorial, dedicated exactly one year after her
death, does not say when she was born, nor how
old she was, but does record that “the Reading
Pews” were given to the church in her memory.

The February magazine included another long
report of parishioners gathering to pay tribute to
her memory and noted the intention to open a fund
to purchase a suitable memorial. In the March
1916 magazine, a long list of subscribers to the
memorial fund was published. The total donated
had already reached £52-10s-4d. By April the fund
totalled £82-17-3d and was subsequently £93-13s-
6d in the July. In 2026 this would now be worth
about £13,000. As noted on the wall memorial,
two reading desks were purchased and can still be
seen in the church, adjacent to the pulpit steps and
in the nearby southeast corner. The letters “SA”
(probably for the church of St. Andrew) and the
date “1916” are the only inscription on each of
them. Unfortunately, we do not know who carved
them. However, I have read that they were
probably intended to go into the, never completed,
cathedral which might be why they are somewhat
bulky for their current location.
    
Hopefully, one day, the craftsman who carved the
two reading desks might be identified. However,
the work does not seem to match the quality of the
Pinwill sisters, although we do have much of their
work elsewhere in the building.
Miss Collins must have been extremely well
thought of for so much money to be raised in her
memory.
Tony Barnard