Well, despite my misgivings (see blog "Not in the Spirit of the Festival" Dec 4th 2007) I was overruled and Swallow took part.
Joe did a stirling job with his all day food, and there was a steady flow of visitors who spent a long time looking at my exhibition of photographs of 'Swallow People'. Local people were particularly interested, and several visitors found ancestors either in the photographs or in the registers, including Ian, the Rural Dean, who found his great-grandparents' (shotgun) wedding.
The weather smiled on us and people arrived to find tea tables set up both inside and outside the church.
We had photographs arranged along all the pews so that people could sit and examine them in comfort. I have now laminated copies of nearly all the pictures in the archive which means that we don't have to worry about them being handled.
Here two members of the Tomlinson clan, who farmed in Swallow for the best part of three centuries but have now all gone elsewhere, look at pictures of one of the two family farms (now lived in by my sister and her husband). Behind them are two montages of (mainly terrible) photos of Swallovians at a variety of village events - I seem to have caught nearly everyone either with a mouthful of food or with a glass of wine in hand - to which I shall add another . . .
And here is one of Pam's amazing cakes with the humbler offerings from the rest of us.
Although flowers were not a theme this year, several people had done flower arrangements
and Madge very successfully managed to combine a flower arrangement with the theme of the weekend with photgraphs of her 7 children, 15 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
We ended the weekend with Evensong. As usual with non-eucharistic services, the Anglicans were outnumbered by Methodists and Catholics. (Does this happen in other villages where the only village church is C of E, and members of other denominations normally have to travel to go to their own church so that they develop a sort of dual affiliation?) Richard, who took the service is a Methodist lay-preacher who is churchwarden at Nettleton Parish Church and has permission from the Bishop to take services in the Swallow Group, so we had a strong Methodist sermon to end our traditional Anglican Evensong in which the first lesson (Acts 2) had been read with great fervour by another non-conformist preacher.
Talking of varieties of Christianity there is a joke that the Catholic variety is centred on the Sacrament, the Protestant variety is centred on the Word, and the Anglican variety is centred on the . . . . . . collection. So, as a good Anglican, I am happy to tell you that the weekend made us over £350 - 75% up on last year.
