Churches

St Peter’s church was beginning to be used by the college on Sunday evenings for an alternative service of some kind and it was not long after that it became redundant in 74 and we realised something had got to be done about it. Jake Seamer was Mayor, luckily, having come back from the Sudan, and taught at the college and he said when the council were beginning to say what are we going to do about St Peters, one alternative I’m told was to knock it down and make a roundabout instead. He said you can’t do that, you can’t destroy St Peter’s, I am not going to allow it, I will form a trust and see that it is saved. So he did, and it took four years before he got his trust formed, got the first few thousand pounds together and it was recognised as a charity and that was in 1978. It wasn’t until I retired in 1980 that he or John O’Regan who was the other real leader in sorting the place out, said would I come and be Treasurer. So I said yes, fine, thinking it would just be collecting five quid off a number of people, and it became rather more when John said he thought he’d had enough of being Secretary so would I do that as well, so for about eight or ten years I was Treasurer, Secretary, floor cleaner, organiser of plays, concerts, whatever.

There were other people, Lillian Ross, another ex-mayor, and one of the main things was John O’Regan had organised the Tourist Information Centre in there, which we ran with voluntary help, a lot of us just put in a morning or an afternoon or a day a week until eventually Kennet, having moved it themselves to nearer the middle of the town, which I resisted for some time until I discovered that we had a person who wanted to run what we now have the Art and Craft Centre at the west end of the church, so I said right do shift and they moved. They are now talking about doing away with that TIC which doesn’t seem to me to be very useful. Then Tom Brooks, who started the Art and Craft Centre, started scraping away and discovered the tiles were there, and we realised it wouldn’t be all that difficult to clear that. Tom actually then moved and by the time we got working on it Alan Crane had arrived, who is really the man responsible for the enormous reconstruction, repairs and so on which we’ve done in the last few years. And then Deborah Reynolds said do you think we could set up a base in the North Aisle to sell Christian books and things and to run a restaurant. So I said well lets try and after a bit it was clear that they could manage it so they set it up. So that has been one of our two major things which has gone on in the church ever since.

The Methodist church that was in Oxford Street, which is now the Masonic Hall because the Wesley Hall was not built then, and the new chapel down New Road which is now Christchurch, that was opened in 1911. I gave the collection speech:

Dear Mr Chairman and kind friends
I’m such a tiny mite
That I have to stand upon a chair
Or I’d be out of sight
It’s very trying
Speechifying
And really I’d much rather
Jump down and run like anything
And hide behind the piano.
But mother says little folks
Can sometimes smile and coax
When grown up men can hardly
Get a halfpenny out of folks,
So if you took a penny out
I specs I made you willing
To put it back like this you know
And change it for a shilling.
And mother says if I speak up
And look quite brave and bold
I’m such a fairy I can change
Your silver into gold.
Now wouldn’t that be wonderful,
So please look in your hand
And if its sixpence put it back
And then I’ll wave my wand
And when you look again you’ll start
And cry out oh my bright white silver sixpence
Has turned to golden yellow.
So please do change your coppers quick
For something bright and shiny
For little coins are often best
Although like me they’re tiny.

I think they got quite a good collection.

As you go up the tower, which my wife and I take people up on Saturdays, we tend to do it about once a fortnight, there is a bellringer’s chamber, you can go up to the priest’s room which is just a small room in which the priest lived in the 15th Century and we can only assume he was probably glad to have it. It hasn’t got a loo, it hasn’t got a bath and I was taking a couple of ladies up there once and I said I don’t know what he did for a loo or a bath and they said well there’s a window isn’t there and they had buckets in those days. One of them called Thomas we think, put his name and the date just outside the door of it. One Friday a month there is a communion service and once a year we have our annual service which used to be an official sort of town event just to celebrate that we are there and that we think that it’s a good place for people to come and see.

I joined St Peter’s Church choir when I was about seven and I stayed in it till the War, or till the Home Guard formed. You had prayers on Sunday in the Home Guard and I put my age on a bit and joined the Home Guard with my father, but I was in the choir there for the best part of ten years. I was solo boy there too for a while, I was head boy there for a while and bless her heart Dapper Salisbury used to keep us all under control. We used to call her Dapper because she wore very heavy shoes and thick stockings and she always wore black right down to her ankles and we were never allowed into church until Dapper arrived. Then we sat in the two back pews in the church and we weren’t allowed to talk to one another until the last bell was rung and when the last bell was rung we were up and into the vestry and were allowed to put our robes on.

There was a choir of approximately 30 people in those days, there was also St Mary’s at the time and we were quite a rival to one another. We always went to Weymouth once a year on a bus, Mr Walton’s bus, that was quite a do out that was, and Knaptons, who used to own the shop in the middle of the High Street, used to supply all the sandwiches and the buns and cakes and I can vividly remember seeing Miss Salisbury going for a swim there and she came out of one of those wooden hut things they used to tow on with wheels and I can see her now with her black bathing costume on and her black hat on and she had a swim and it all seemed to float up on top of the water, amazing how I can remember the things like that. Of course we had a big sing song coming back. Oh it was a lovely time.