The church since 1929

Pinkie Turner

“My mother first brought me here to Sunday School at 3pm one Sunday in 1929.  The vicar then was Canon Dunn and we children were in awe of him.  We used to sit in church and we were given stamp albums and stamps with Biblical pictures on to record our attendance which were distributed by the first person sitting in each row.

I can remember Father Humphries who came after Canon Dunn [in 1931] perching on the top of a chair in his cassock.  We listened to him and he asked us questions.

In those days the Sunday School didn’t meet the rest of the congregation.  Where the coffee bar is now was a round table with paper and pencils and crayons which was the Children’s Corner and if we came to church with an older member of our family, that was where we would go when the sermon was being preached.  If we wanted to go to the toilet we had to go to the church hall which was a temporary hall built of metal and asbestos because the church was still saving money to build a proper church hall after the First World War.  I can also remember a small kitchen in the vestry and an iron staircase which led down to the boiler.

We were not encouraged to attend the main services until we had been confirmed at the age of 11.  Deaconess Mary Allen, who was a very strict person, prepared the girls.  You had to prepare for your first confession by writing a list of your sins and I can still remember being told to drop my list into one of the coke boilers in the old church hall after being confessed and absolved.

In those days the church had a number of guilds: St Agnes, “Aggies”, was for people of working age and I remember they had a badminton club; then there was St Hilda’s for younger people and St Raphael for the sick and incurables.  We also had scouts, cubs, guides and brownies and I was Brown Owl for a time.  We had church parades quite regularly.  Rovers were the senior scouts and Rangers were the senior guides.  They used to put on wonderful Christmas concerts using whatever musical or dramatic talents they had.

There were many more services in those days.  On Sundays there was a Communion service at 7.30 am, then the Litany at 8.45 am, a Sung Eucharist at 9.00 am, Mattins and a Sermon at 11.15, Sunday School and the Catechism at 3.00pm and then Evensong at 6.30 pm.   We had a Eucharist at 7 or 8am, Mattins at 7.30 am, and Evensong at 5.30pm every day of the week too!  Sunday was a terrific day for services.

Of the early churchwardens I can remember Mr Groves who lived on Franconia Road and he used to say “stick to your church” and Mr Knight who lived on Elms Road.

Under Father Humphries we became much more Anglo Catholic and he introduced incense.  There was a lot of controversy: some people left to join the Catholics at St Mary’s and some went to St James’s, though others of course stayed.

I was confirmed in 1933.  All the girls were dressed in white and we were given a short white veil for our heads.  The boys were in dark suits.  The Bishop came to the church and the Bishop’s Throne was placed at the top of the step between the choir screens.  I can still hear the Bishop today saying “Bless O Lord this thy child” and feel the weight of his hand on my head.

At Midnight Mass all the nurses from the South London Hospital (where Tesco’s is now) used to come in their uniforms and cloaks and fill the first three to five rows in the church on the lectern side.

I used to come to the Sung Eucharist at 9 o’clock and sit on my own on the left hand side of the church.  My father was not very religious and my mother suffered from ill health but I do remember her bringing me to church for a long service during a Mission in the 1930s and my begging her for Fox’s glacier mints.  I lived at “Westview” in those days next to where Price’s used to be at the Clapham Common end of Narbonne Avenue.

The whole atmosphere in the church was different in those days.  There was very little chatting after the service and no coffee bar.  Services were from the Book of Common Prayer and hymns from the English Hymnal.  Services were better attended then because people didn’t have motor cars to drive away early on Sundays to visit family and friends.  The social life was very good and we didn’t rent out the church hall as much as we do now.  And we didn’t have a quota to pay!

Father Hodges arrived at the start of the war [in 1939] but I spent all the war with family in Hampshire and went to church in Fleet.

After the war I came back to Clapham and met Ted Turner at the church.  He was thirteen years older than me and his first wife had died of TB.  Many people met their partners through the church in those days and Father Hodges married us in 1949.  He was a lovely vicar but I didn’t know him very well because I had been away.

Father Green came next [in 1950].  He had been in the Navy and was a widower with a young son.  He came with his sister who looked after them both. 

In those days we had a robed choir but it was men and boys only with choir practice on Wednesday and Friday evenings under Laurie Briant.  Towards the end of the war women began to be allowed to sit and sing together in the first few rows by the pulpit but they weren’t robed.

Father Harvey followed Father Green [in 1957].  He was a quiet, gentle and reverent man and I can remember him saying “I will love you to believe in Jesus Christ”.

After Father Green came Father Davies [in 1973]. He had been a naval padre but had always wanted to be a parish priest.  By then we did have ladies in the choir.  I was in the choir and wore a blue gown.  I bought my gown and still have it hanging in my wardrobe at home.  Father Davies was a short, solid chap and he used to ring me after he had had a tough day trying to teach RE at what was then Henry Thornton school, now Lambeth Academy.

Then came Peter Macan in 1981.  He had come from South Africa where his family were farmers and he had to leave because he married a lady who was not white.  She was a wonderful dancer and had been one of his congregation there. He had to leave in a hurry because of persecution and came to friends at a church  near the Oval and then to us.

In 1991 David Houghton arrived.  He was a very popular, friendly and approachable priest who was around for the restoration. He left to be a priest in Paris.

In 2003 Jeremy Blunden came.  He had a particular talent for encouraging the involvement of children in the church having a young family himself.  Father Jeremy recruited Mother Ruth as his curate from Holy Trinity and we were all delighted when she was chosen as our tenth and newest vicar.”