ascension_to_victory__a_long-lost_ve_day_sermon_discovered_and_shared_by_jane_richards (1080p), Cassie Long, Diocese of Exeter, Alan Quick

Tindle News

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00:00My name is Jane Richards and I'm a retired GP.

00:05So Jane, you made a fascinating discovery recently of something you had in your house.

00:11Can you just tell me what it is and explain it?

00:13Well, when I moved into this house, my parents, my father was dead,

00:20my mother was moving out of the cottage and one of the other things that we found

00:25in the corner cupboard which he had left to me were all his sermons

00:31that he had written meticulously out in full throughout his time as a priest.

00:40And the last thing I wanted to do was just throw them away.

00:46They were obviously of some importance.

00:50My father's name was Francis David Burley Richards

00:55and he was the vicar of credit during the war years and from 1940 onwards.

01:02You recently found one of your father's sermons,

01:06which is particularly pertinent to this year and a particular anniversary.

01:09Can you just tell me what that is?

01:11Yes, it so happens that the sermon that he gave on the Sunday after the announcement of peace in Europe.

01:21It was the Sunday after Ascension Day and it was a thanksgiving for victory in Europe.

01:27And he gave it in credit in church on May the 13th, 1945.

01:33Can you remember that day at all? Can you remember that time?

01:36Oh, I can remember that time very clearly because I can remember when war broke out.

01:43We were in London at that time because he was in a minor canon at St Paul's Cathedral.

01:50They had to fire watch in the cathedral and he was being one of the younger minor canons.

01:59He was up under the cross but at the top of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral

02:08because he was considered young enough to be able to get there.

02:11So he saw the bomb that fell down almost to Queen and, you know, footstops and rolled down Lugget Hill.

02:20I mean, it's incredible because St Paul's Cathedral is one of those symbols of survival of the Blitz.

02:24Yes, yes.

02:25Which I think most of us kind of, even those of us who weren't born, know that.

02:29Can see, yes. It is a survival symbol.

02:33It survived all that fire and things that were around it.

02:37It was on either side of the dome and things.

02:39And during the course of the war, at some point, your father moved to become Vicar of Crediton.

02:45The Vicarage of Crediton came up and my grandmother had been born in Crediton, his mother.

02:54And so he came down and they told me, oh, yes, you're nearly a local.

03:01And, oh my God, if you can sing in St Paul's Cathedral, you can probably fill Crediton Church all right.

03:06What was the experience of spending the rest of the war years in Crediton like for you as a family?

03:12Well, we were remarkably free. We had a lot of freedom.

03:16I must admit from time to time that the ARP used to come saying, Mrs. Richards, are these yours?

03:22I would have to admit that they were.

03:26Because we went out all over the place.

03:30You know, we had a lot of freedom, really.

03:34But the bombing of Exeter in 1942 is very clearly etched on my memory because that was a Sunday night.

03:42And, you know, we had to get out.

03:45And, see, all our windows fell in.

03:50Daddy was up in the tower of Crediton Church watching, saw this, of course, and realised.

03:58And Mama put us in a pram and pushed us across the playing fields up to the local octobus who were friends.

04:06So that is etched in my mind very clearly.

04:09Can you tell me a bit about the time that we're marking this year, VE Day, when that finally came in 1945?

04:16I think all sorts of things had lessened.

04:19You know, it was obviously we were waiting till we got to the end, which he does slightly reflect in this sermon.

04:29We sort of said we got into a normality of our own.

04:35We got rationing, of course.

04:37And my mother used to go into international stores and say,

04:41what do you want this week, cheese coupons or soap coupons?

04:45Because it was like that.

04:48You know, that was the sort of, you know, that was normality.

04:51But when recently you obviously found this sermon again.

04:54Yes.

04:55Can you just tell me what, what strikes you about it in terms of the memories it brings back of your father,

05:00but perhaps also any, any bits that really stand out for you?

05:04This is, this is just daddy being, being, making, making use of, of the event.

05:11To point out, you know, that it was our faith that had kept us going, as we should do.

05:21And that is why we were, you know, we got there.

05:28And are there any lines in the sermon that really stand out to you now?

05:33But I expect it will not have escaped you that in this week, which brought us to the great event of our times,

05:44there was also commemorated an event for which the adjective great is too small.

05:50An event, not of our times, but of all time.

05:55An eternal event that affects all mankind.

05:59So you suppose it was chance that brought the E-Day into the same week as Ascension Day?

06:06I do not think it was.

06:08But whatever anyone may think about that, the resemblances which connect the two events are no less remarkable.

06:19That I feel was, was a fairly prescient comment to make, and one for people to dwell on,

06:26and go back and think about, yes, we, we kept the faith.

06:32Yeah, it's amazing. And hearing it 80 years later, it's there.

06:37It's fine tingling, isn't it?

06:39It is. It is. It's quite there.

06:41That's, that is, you know, what I like that he did draw out at that time.

06:46What do you think he would want the message to be 80 years on after the end of the Second World War,

06:52if he was here to preach to his parishioners today?

06:56Probably keep the faith, you know. Don't, don't be doomed.

07:07Remember, Christ is there all the time for us.

07:12Then, as appropriate at that time, now, as in this rather different, different sort of shifting time.

07:21But he was, he is always there. And this was an example of it.

07:26This is just an example of it.

07:27That's an example of it.

07:28That's an example of it.

07:29And this is a good example of it.

07:30You

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