SHE loved the tandem skydive, the Revd Rosie Bunn writes from
Burgh Castle, in Norwich diocese, and she hopes
that it has added a healthy £1000 to the funds for repairing her
church of St Peter and St Paul; but it is only a drop in the ocean
of the £500,000 that they need to raise.
She knew before she arrived in the parish that the church
building, one of the ancient round-tower churches in Norfolk, was
in a bad way; for her husband is a building surveyor, and left her
with no illusions. But when the quinquennial inspection was
carried out last spring, "it felt more like I'd be jumping out of a
plane without a parachute rather than the planned tandem
skydive."
The roof of the church and vestry needed serious attention.
"There was dry rot, wet rot, subsidence, nail sickness. . . You
name it, the building seemed to have it." The church is next to
Burgh Castle, a Roman fort managed by English Heritage, where the
seventh-century Irish monk St Fursey made his base. He took the
gospel to much of East Anglia, before moving on to France.
It gets many summer visitors, and during Open Churches Week some
450 were welcomed. But something had to be done about the roof; and
Mrs Bunn's skydive was originally arranged for late June, but the
wind was too strong. Fitting it in between weddings and Sunday
services was not easy; so it did not take place until a couple of
weeks ago.
The money raised is to be divided between Mrs Bunn's two
churches, St Peter and St Paul, and All Saints', Belton. But it is
the former that is in really urgent need, and the sky- dive is just
a start.