Sermons And Gubbins

  This sermon was written for Remembrance Sunday 2025; eighty years since the end of World War  II. Today we mark eighty years since the end of the Second World War. I remember clearly standing here only six years ago, marking one hundred years since the very first Remembrance  Day. I also gave my first remembrance day sermon 11 years ago, marking one hundred years since the start of the First World War. This is my fifth Remembrance Sunday sermon. Each year that I write these sermons, I realise that fewer and fewer of us remember.  Back in 2014, I remarked that to have met anyone who had died in World War I – that great war to end all wars, you would have needed to be at least 96 years old then. You’d need to be 107 now. There are about 130 people living in the UK who are 107 or older. You would need to be over eighty years old now to have ever met anyone who died in the  Second World Wa.  That’s about 4% of the UK population. Even with that, you’d probabl...

This poem was written for our monthly poetry group, The theme for November was memories/remembering. I hope you enjoy reading it! November Memories "Remember, remember"; you excitedly recite the poem you have learnt to me.  "Do you know it, Daddy?" And my childhood memories suddenly burst into my mind. Grabbing a stick to check for hedgehogs under the bonfire my own Dad had built in the back garden. And when it was lit - the siren-song of the beckoning heat and hypnotising flames, Calling me closer, only to make me recoil and flinch as the fire suddenly cracks  And a burning scrap of paper flies free from its boundaries, Racing towards my face before suddenly fleeing and fading  into the cold night sky. I can see the enticing tin that the fireworks came in,  looking all the while like a magical box of forbidden treats; Fountains of gunpowder sherbet. Explosions of neon popping candy. A golden sparkler; a treacherous lolly-pop I hold at arm's length  for fear of ...