75p for a service
Posted: 02 Nov 2006 @ 00:00
by
Margaret Duggan
BROWSING
through old records at a car-boot sale, Andrew Hewkin, news reader at BBC Radio
Shropshire, came across an acetate disc with a typewritten label which turned
out to be a recording of evensong made 40 years ago at St Peter’s, Worfield in
Hereford diocese.
It
was in remarkably good condition, he says: a private recording made by a
freelance company and, despite a few scratches, “entirely restorable with
modern technology”.
A bit of
haggling brought its price down to 75p, and a couple of weeks ago it was
broadcast for the first time by Radio Shropshire in the station’s regular
Sunday-morning slot.
In the
1960s, says the present incumbent of St Peter’s, the Revd George Fleming, St
Peter’s had a notable choir, and it was a full evensong, with psalms and
entirely clergy-led.
Hearing it
again was “a wonderful experience for those who were there 40 years ago and are
still around”, he says.
The church,
which is in the village of Worfield, and is the only place of worship in its
“20 square miles of parish, including 30 hamlets”, still has a good choir of 14
adults, and still uses the Book of Common Prayer for evensong.
He also
tells me the Sunday congregation averages 80-90, and that it has just “paid in
full” £300,000 to re-order the church.