Christ Church Huntingdon Blog

I saw a newspaper cutting recently. It was taken from the Tacoma News Tribune, a local Seattle based newspaper way back in 1953. The article asks about the telephone of the future. Let me quote from this 1953 article, it’s not too long (remember that it’s nearly 70 years old)…   “Mark R Sullivan, San Francisco, president and director of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph company, said in an address on Thursday night (1953), “Just what form the future telephone will take, is of course, pure speculation. Here is my prophecy: ‘In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. It probably will require no dial or equivalent and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want as they talk. Who knows but what it may actually translate from one language to another?’” Well I think that 70 year old guess about the future of the phone is pretty spot on. My mobile phone can be carried around, allo...

 As I write this Thought for the Day I'm sitting in Coneygear Park, the sun is shining, I can hear the birds, and the world feels a whole lot brighter than it did just a couple of months ago. I want to talk to you this morning about staying young. I don't know how old you think I am, judging by my voice, but I'm actually only 24. According to the woman on the checkout at Aldi who asked to see my ID, I look like I'm 16, which is just past the point of being a compliment in my opinion. But we all want to look young, to fight the effects of aging on our body. The cosmetics industry worldwide is huge, and though it used to be just celebrities who paid through the nose for, well, nose jobs or other kinds of plastic surgery, it's now something members of the general public will pay thousands for. And it's not just women as stereotypes would have us believe - it's men too! A friend at church was telling me about a guy he works with who's getting Botox...

A few music loving listeners among us today may know the name Ralph McTell, a singer songwriter who’s been performing folk songs since the 60s. Probably most of us have heard of his most famous song, the Streets of London . I’ve asked Mark to play it at the end.  “Oh, let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London. I'll show you something to make you change your mind”. It’s about a song in which Ralph lyrically leads us through the streets of London to meet a few characters that have fallen on hard times.  The old man in the closed down market kicking up the papers with his worn out shoes, the woman carrying her home in two carrier bags.  It’s a moving story which has lasted in the UK memory for now 52 years. In the song Ralph shows us these characters facing poverty and homelessness and effectively says, don’t think that everything is bad and lonely, compare yourself to these guys and you’ll see you have so much. Not a bad reminder. What...

Well I wonder if you remember Betty Boothroyd's life in politics? She was the first and only female speaker in the House of Commons. Between 1992 and 2000 she kept order in the House of Commons, and now she is keeping order in her own house.  Betty Boothroyd, or the Right Honourable Baroness Boothroyd OM as she now is, is 91 and downsizing from her London home to move to, yes, local Cambridgeshire, where she has bought a small cottage 1 which just doesn’t have the windowsills or space to display all the items from her time in public life.  So 40 items from her life (which involved mixing with Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and others) are going under the hammer in auction. There’s an ornamental box from President Yeltsin, there’s a limited-edition figure of Lawrence of Arabia that was give to her for her work as president of the All-Party defence group. There’s a decanter presented to her by the British Navy in St Petersburg, and all have to go.  “You can’t take it...

I don’t know how many of you are into football – I’m sorry if you’re not. I’m personally a Brighton and Hove albion fan, which isn’t the easiest thing to be, as they’re not the greatest team, but that’s by the by. What I want to talk to you about this morning is being a champion.  I was scrolling through sports headlines recently and saw that Manchester City Football Club have a decent chance of winning what’s called “The Quadruple” – that means winning the Premier League, the FA Cup, the League Cup (or Carabao Cup) and the Champions League all in the same season. They still have a long way to go, but it would be amazing if they managed to do it, because no other club in the history of football has ever done it!  And their rise to the top, as with any football team winning a tournament, is pretty straight forward. They win a lot of matches, they might lose a few, but it’s never in doubt that they’re going to at least get close to winning. It’s never likely that they’r...

Hasn’t it been great to have a few of the restrictions unlocking in recent days so that we can see our friends and family face to face. We still can’t go into other’s homes, and so there have been some chilly moments in gardens and parks, but it’s still wonderful to actually see people. As a family, over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been able to catch up with all the grandparents too which has been lovely. It’s been a long wait for so many. There’s nothing like seeing someone face to face. Zoom and facetime, emails and phone calls are all great, and I don’t know how we would have got through the last year without them, but there’s nothing like face to face. You avoid the painful delays, glitches, misunderstandings and miscommunications that sometimes happen with talking online. With zoom you can miss a whole sentence, because someone’s still on mute! As a church at Christ Church Huntingdon we have just enjoyed 5 services over Easter that were face to face, [or as our good fr...

As I write this, it is Tuesday 23rd March 2021. Exactly one year on since the first lockdown was announced last Spring. I don’t think I’ll ever forget those shocking words spoken to the nation by Prime Minister Boris Johnson “From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home” 1 . It was a bewildering and scary time, and though the weather was warm for months, schools shut, markets tumbled, sickness and mortality sky rocketed and since that time around 120,000 people have died in the UK alone.  Although we give thanks for the vaccines, and the remarkable work of the NHS, we are not out of the woods yet, as neighbouring countries face a 3rd wave. Today, Tuesday, has been called a day of reflection, and by the time you hear this message on Wednesday morning you may well have taken part in a minute’s silence at midday, and you may well have stood on your doorsteps at 8pm to mark the occasion with your neighbours. Where do we turn when gr...