Batcombe

REP & DISTRIBUTOR: Johnny Gibbs jg@intramar.co.uk 83187

Batcombe Church

We have been having a monthly service recently, including the christening by the Rev Richard Kirlew of Ava-May Eleanor Gordge, pictured below with her parents, Peter and Louise Gordge, and her brother Charlie.

Batcombe – Wardon Hill

Bolster the Beams

Jan Pahl has kindly suggested that we should publish a poem written by her grandmother with a further request for donations to Bolster the Beams fund. If you wish to help repair St. Mary’s church roof, please contact PCC Treasurer, Julie Gibbs (julie.m.gibbs@gmail.com) or donate directly to https://justgiving.com/ batcombepcc

The Batcombe Road by Catherine Whetham

There’s a road climbs onto the Batcombe

Hill Where the sky and the bare downs meet, ‘Tis washed by the tears of the salt west wind And trodden by dusty feet.

It leaves the church with the golden tower. With the green mounds under the grass, And goes upward away through the thornstrewn slopes, Where the nibbling down sheep pass.

Just as it reaches the top of the hill It turns out of sight and is gone, And some folk say that it comes to an end And some that it travels on.

O Batcombe road climbing onto the hill, What is this tale you tell? For the dust and the tears, the graves and the thorns, Belong to life’s road as well.

And at last wherever life’s track may turn We needs must step into the West, Where some folk say that we journey on And some, that we come to rest.

But pondering upon it I think I know What they mean, for don’t you see, That one may be true – if you know the road, And the other be true for me.

Just for the moment, I’ve something to do, But the time will come, no doubt, To lay down my scrip and take up my staff And find the answer out.

Jan Pahl writes: “This poem was written by my grandmother, Catherine Whetham, nee Kitty Holt. She and her husband, who later became Sir William Dampier, inherited Hilfield from his uncle, William Bide, in 1916. Her family lived at Hilfield Manor from then till 1984. The poem was published in: C. D. Whetham (1918) Occasional Verses in Wartime, Cambridge, Bowes and Bowes. Her life story is told in: J. M. Pahl (2020) Kitty Holt – her Life and her Legacy, which is obtainable from Jan Pahl, J.M.Pahl@kent.ac.uk” A date for your diaries: Batcombe Jumble Sale is on Sunday 9 October at Leigh Village Hall. Doors open at 2.30 pm. All proceeds to the Bolster the Beams fund.

Batcombe Church Lottery

The prize-winners were:

May 2021

1st No. 34 Dawn Andrews 2nd No. 13 Amy Sellick 3rd No. 49 Marion Fudge

June 2021

1st No. 34 Dawn Andrews 2nd No. 56 Emma Shelford 3rd No. 50 Marion Fudge

July 2021

1st 38 Johnny Gibbs 2nd 51 Marion Fudge 3rd 32 Gillian Bond

Thought from the Rise of the Wriggle

“Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.”

Oscar Wilde

Johnny Gibbs