A FARRAGO

As part of its election manifesto, the Labour Party committed to a full investigation of the school curriculum and assessment system in England. Accordingly a review was launched in the wake of the General Election, opening on 25th September and closing on 22nd November. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to halt the decline and to grow music in our schools. As Methodism was 'founded on song' we should be more than a little interested in the outcome.

A very recent fire in Preston town centre, in a building to the rear of The Old Dog Inn, Church Street, reminded me that the pub was the early meeting place of the first Methodists in Preston. As teetotalism – founded locally - grew and grew in strength I expect that bit of their history was quietly put aside!

This time around church magazines, weekly information sheets, orders of service and the like have come to us from Clitheroe Methodist Circuit; St Mary's Parish Church, Eccleston; Trinity Methodist & United Reformed Church, Abingdon; Christchurch Priory; Minehead Methodist Church and from Carlisle Methodist Church at Wigton Road, plus the North Cumbria Circuit's production 'The Canopy'.

Did you know: a recent survey has suggested that 77% of people have never heard of Stir-Up Sunday (the last Sunday before Advent, when Christmas puddings were made and family members each took a turn at stirring the mixture – and made a wish)? Or that mince pies were said to be on the menu for the coronation banquet of King Henry V in 1413? Or that Christmas Island, in the Pacific Ocean, was so named by Captain Cook, who discovered it on 25th December, 1777?

We also regularly receive a copy of the magazine from our twinned Evangelische-methodistiche Kirche in Recklinghausen, Germany. This is available, translated to English, on our website via a link on the front page.

Roy Smith