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Christopher D. Price

A HISTORY OF SAINT FAITH’S CHURCH CROSBY 1900 ~1975

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from THE BISHOP OF WARRINGTON

Martinsfield Elm Avenue Great Crosby August 26th 1975

Many congratulations to Saint Faith’s on being seventy five years young. I have loved coming to your church, for occasions which have always been well-planned, full of meaning and bursting with joy: a good reflection in fact of what the Catholic Faith is all about. For we need today to be men and women with clear reasons for our beliefs; purposeful people who are deeply happy, and able to show with humility and gratitude the difference Christ makes to one’s life.

Blessings on all your celebrations now and in the quarter century to

come.

+ John Warrington

Saint Bartholomew’s Day, 1975

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FOREWORD This history of S.Faith’s Church, Crosby, is an attempt to bring together several things. Through the medium of its Service Registers, fully and faithfully kept through three quarters of a century, it traces the development of the church’s worship and presents some statistics of those who attended it. Through its magazines over those years, it attempts to set these facts and figures in the context of the whole life of the church and the views and intentions of successive incumbents. And through occasional newspaper reports and some tentative observations and conclusions of my own, it tries also to impose a pattern on seventy five years of history and to assess the importance and value of some of the landmarks of the past as well as of the present. In doing this I am inevitably indebted to the writing of my predecessor in this work, Mr. George Houldin, from whose booklet ‘Fifty Years’, written and published in 1950 for an earlier anniversary, I quote extensively. ‘Fifty Years’ is, naturally enough, a product of its time, and reflects the attitudes and concerns of twenty five years ago; it is nevertheless a most valuable source written by one to whom most of those first fifty years were a memory and a record of service to S.Faith’s. I am grateful also to Mrs. Kay Byth for research done in the magazines of the past, discovering many revealing and, I hope, sometimes entertaining items, and to all those friends who through their memories, their suggestions and their help at various stages with the work have contributed to the final product. Although I have tried to be objective, the views expressed are of course mine alone, and represent my interpretation of past and present. To those who see things differently, or to whom through sins of omission or commission I have done less than justice, I apologise. It may seem that the pages that follow show an undue preoccupation with statistics, and in particular with the numbering of communicants. In defence I would suggest that there seems no other satisfactory way of measuring the development of a church’s worship, and also that a church which has always so valued the centrality of the Eucharist in its life needs no other yardstick. This publication marks the seventy fifth anniversary of the consecration of Douglas Horsfall’s church in Crosby. I hope that it will reveal both to those within and outside the family of Saint Faith’s something of our church’s story. It is dedicated to all past benefactors, priests and people of Saint Faith’s, as welt as to those under whom and with whom I serve today.

Douglas Horsfall Founder of St Faith`s

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CHAPTER ONE Thomas Howe Baxter

'This Church of Saint Faith is dedicated to the glory of God as a thankoffering for the revival of Catholic Faith and Doctrine in the Church of England during the sixty years reign of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria.' So reads the inscription on the north chancel wall of St. Faith's, carved deeply in the sandstone as a witness to the intentions of its founder and a permanent reminder of the special, and often controversial place this church has held in Crosby in the seventy five years since its foundations were laid. For it is probably true to say that, for better or for worse, St. Faith's has always stood for something distinctive in Crosby: an uncompromising and unavoidable building, standing uncompromisingly for a special order of worship and an emphasis which for many years set it well apart from the mainstream of Anglican worship in the area. As a result it must often have seemed something of a citadel set in hostile territory, and its successive priests and congregations saw themselves as Defenders of the Faith, an embattled minority witnessing to a style and pattern of worship generally conspicuous only by its absence, not only in the local area but also in the Liverpool Diocese as a whole. For when St.Faith's was built, the Oxford Movement was little more than half a century old, Keble, Pusey and Newman still remembered, and what they stood for and rediscovered in Anglicanism generally misunderstood, if not actually feared and hated. The new emphasis on order in worship, authority in the church, regular Celebration of the Eucharist and a limited use of vestments and ornaments in church, moderate though it seems by today's standards, was

sufficient at the turn of the century to inflame the tempers of loyal Protestants who, deeply suspicious of Rome and all its ways, saw in the Anglo-Catholic movement not merely a devoted attempt to deepen spiritual life and restore some of the ancient principles and practices of Anglicanism into a church which seems sadly to have neglected them, but a sinister campaign to sell out to the Pope and restore rule from Rome by the back door. And in ultra-conservative, Protestant Liverpool, although there were fewer of the dramatic battles for the faith, vicious lawsuits and personal attacks that happened so often in London and elsewhere at the time, there was nevertheless a strong and genuine feeling which showed itself in hostility and bitterness at the time of the foundation of St. Faith's and which left a legacy of suspicion and isolation for the first half century of the new church's life and beyond. If the rapid development of Christian thinking and ecumenical initiative have, thankfully, largely relegated these differences to the pages of history, the pace of urban development has meant that Crosby itself has also changed almost out of recognition since the turn of the century. George Houldin in 'Fifty Years' sets the scene in 1897. Waterloo and Crosby were separate Urban Districts, Waterloo was a mere strip along the coast and Waterloo Park separated from it by fields and half-completed roads. St. John's Road was little more than a cart track: 'one could stand at Thorndale Road and see the barges moving slowly on the canal near Ford.' There were no shops in St. John's Road, Crosby Road was a country lane with a scattering of large houses, and although Merchant Taylors' School's new buildings had been erected in 1878, from their grounds one could see the cemetery at Ford over the cornfields on the opposite side of Liverpool Road. Cows grazed on what is now Victoria Park, and open fields stretched from there to the railway, and the quiet rural districts of Waterloo and Crosby had still to experience the rapid rash of urban development which in the next half century was to remove much of their character and turn them into little more than the northernmost of the continuous suburbs of Liverpool and Bootle. 'At this time Queen Victoria was the reigning monarch, and no more loyal place existed than Waterloo, for the people in eve ry walk of life looked upon her with very real affection. They emulated her views on religious matters, too, for she held Lutheran opinions, and in this scattered area there were no fewer than five churches, four of them with

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the Protestant flavour strongly marked.' Needless to say, it was not at the good Queen's suggestion that the inscription on the wall of the choir at St. Faith's was written. Squire Houghton of Waterloo and Squire Myers of Great Crosby owned most of the land in the area. Douglas Horsfall, our founder, was the cousin of the latter, and in 1897 approached him with a view to buying land for the building of a church. He was a devoted builder of churches, but Squire Myers is said to have regarded this particular request with some surprise. "Why on earth do you want to build a church miles from anywhere?" he asked. "It will not always be miles from anywhere," replied Horsfall. "Right. If you are fool enough to build a church, I will be fool enough to give you the land" - and he did. From the windows of his residence the squire watched the laying of the Foundation Stone by his cousin's small son Robert (a photograph, of this event, survives; the stone can be seen outside the North porch), and he saw the walls of Accrington brick and Runcorn sandstone-dressing grow in the course of time.

Laying the Foundation Stone He is reported to have remarked, "You asked for land for a church, but you are building a cathedral." The work went on, and with it came the single-line tramway which passed the church and ran from Seaforth to Crosby and which in 1900 began to be operated by electric cars owned by the Liverpool Overhead Railway. Both tramway and, sadly, the Overhead Railway (the famous 'Dockers' Umbrella') are now things of the past, although the extra width of much of Crosby and Liverpool Roads still bears witness to its original presence. But its original coming marked the beginning of the process which was to bring the town round St. Faith's and make its founder's prophecy come true.

St. Faith's was designed by architects G.E Grayson and Ould, who were responsible for several Liverpool churches of the period, notably St. Ambrose, Everton, and All Hallows, Allerton. By the time its famous inscription was in place, disquiet over the purpose of the new church was beginning to grow. The Protestant reformers in Liverpool began to make the weekend pilgrimage to what is now the top of Fir Road and engage in noisy demonstrations. Long after the church was dedicated they continued to protest every Sunday: it was the erection of houses on the ground around the church that eventually hampered these demonstrations, although far from silencing the opposition. Despite the storms the work went on, and by March 1900 the church was ready for its consecration. 'But there was a snag. Dr. Ryle, the first Bishop of Liverpool, had died, and the new Bishop (Chavasse: whom history was to prove hostile to Anglo-Catholic churches anyway) was not yet enthroned. Such an influential churchman as Douglas Horsfall was not to be deterred by this, and he approached the Metropolitan, who agreed to consecrate the new church on April 21st, and so the district had a visit from an Archbishop of York for the first time in history.' The 'Waterloo and Crosby Herald and Formby, Bootle and Seaforth Gazette' published on the day of consecration reflects in its pages the moods and the issues of the time. The Alexandra Assembly Rooms, Blundellsands suggests itself for your private dance or ball, and boasts electric light throughout. The Lancashire Dental Institute Ltd offers 'Guaranteed sets from 21/-' and will provide 'Gas extraction 2/6 or Painless, with Freezing, 1/-'. On Good Friday and Easter Monday (the previous week) the paper reports Seaforth Sands thronged with hundreds of holidaymakers, with the 'Aunt Sallies' and other sideshows coming in for 'a good share of patronage'. Pierrots were due at Waterloo Town Hall 'following their appearance in the Italian Riviera area'. The Church of England Society for providing homes for waifs and strays were holding a three-day sale of work, with music daily by a ladies' amateur orchestra, while down in Bootle a man had paid 11/2d for a pint of milk but had found it to be deprived of its cream: the Bootle milk dealers were fined 5/- with costs. The same issue has much to say about St.Faith's. A preliminary meeting had been held some months before in Waterloo Constitutional Club to introduce

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the first incumbent, Mr. Baxter, to his prospective congregation, 'to afford those interested an opportunity of learning his views and intentions over the conduct of divine worship.' Mr. Baxter had said that there were three things which he would like to be the keynote of services at the new church: 'reverence, heartiness of worship, with everyone realising that they had a part to play if the services were to be acceptable to God, and that the services should be "thoroughly English".' Mr. Baxter was an Englishman from the bottom of his heart. It made him indignant to see people introducing into the church customs which were not authorised by the Prayer Book and which were repulsive to the English character. He wanted a service whose ritual was, in his own odd words ‘quite dignified', and one which was not slovenly. There would be an opportunity of receiving Holy Communion every Sunday, and in that service he would feel bound to take the Eastward position and use altar lights: this he had done in his previous parish in London and felt conscience bound to introduce them here. It is an interesting comment on the religious controversy of the day that Mr. Baxter should have felt the need to justify the modest amount of ritual that this report suggests. These were the years of lawsuits against those suspected of Popish practices, and of the imprisonment of recalcitrant priests, and St. Faith's was to experience its share of such antagonism and hostility for many years to come. A letter from an R.Griffiths in the Liverpool Daily Post of two days before complained of the impending arrival of the Archbishop of York, and the threatened procession that was to accompany him. 'As most people have heard of the idolatrous nature of the Northern Primate's consecration, is it not high time that Protestants roused themselves and repudiated these iniquitous proceedings which are surely being introduced into their beloved church without their assent?' he enquired rhetorically. He did not explain the idolatry at which he hinted, and the Crosby Herald, in its report of the Consecration service, refers to 'The usual Office for the Consecration of a Church' and goes on to give many interesting details about the proceedings themselves. Mr. G.E.Lewis, the first organist, engaged a professional orchestra for the service, and composed much of the music. There were no fewer than nine hymns, including 'All people that on earth do dwell', 'The King of love my Shepherd is' and 'Bread of Heaven, on Thee we feed'. It was a beautiful day, the paper records, 'the sun shining with summer

warmth.' The Archbishop, his chaplain and the Diocesan Registrar were met at Waterloo station by Mr. Barron, J.P. and taken to St. Faith's in his carriage. There were 'few vacant seats' in the new church (designed to hold 800) when the long procession wound round from the vestry to the door. Cross-bearer, choir, clergy (five canons and 23 ordinary), registrar, mace-bearer, chaplain and Archbishop approached the door. Dr. Maclagan knocked thrice on the closed door and Mr.H.Douglas Horsfall 'founder and benefactor of the £16,000 church' let him in. The service proceeded, with the processional blessing of the various parts of the church sandwiched between psalms and hymns and lessons. The deed of consecration was read and signed by the Archbishop with the words: 'By virtue of our sacred office, we now declare this Church to be duly consecrated and for ever set apart from all unhallowed uses in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen.' The Archbishop took as his sermon text Ephesians 4.12: 'And these were his gifts: some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip God's people for work in his service, to the building up of the body of Christ.' His sermon today reads somewhat repetitively and long-windedly, but its theme is relevant enough. Every member of the church had his part to play, and all were called to be saints. The life of a priest was the most blessed and beautiful on earth, and his work should take him into his people's homes. St. Faith's purpose was 'the fulfilment of the likeness of Christ in our individual lives'. We would not become saints by sudden transformation: it was the work of a lifetime and we should be like the 'shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.' The service ended with a collection of £25 and a hymn specially composed by the Vicar of St. Agnes Ullet Road, a church which must have been pleased to see St. Faith's arriving on the scene to share its outlook. It would then appear that Mr. Horsfall instituted a good St. Faith's tradition, for it is recorded that ‘he entertained the Archbishop and Clergy to lunch at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, where many toasts were drunk'! But all was not sweetness and light. History records also the presence in church of a Mr. Wise, a prominent anti-Ritualist, and a few of his friends. There was apparently no disturbances, although Mr.Kensit's militant Protestant followers were in the habit of making loud disturbances at services they

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found disagreeable. Mr. Wise contented himself with gathering a crowd round him on 'waste land opposite the church', there being no shortage of that commodity in 1900. He declared the church to be, as indeed it was, 'wonderfully arranged for carrying on the highest form of ritual.' Producing a cross and beads, he declared that this kind of thing was being given away in the new church, and he accused the Archbishop of wearing a gold cross and beads around his neck - a habit of which he ought to be ashamed. He resented the bringing of 'that Popish-monger' to consecrate the place, and called St.Faith's already a 'half-way house to Rome.' He urged the good people of Waterloo to keep a close watch on their new church. As yet, he admitted, they had no candies or confession, but he predicted that they certainly would have them by the next Easter. At this there came a voice from the crowd, and one of the 'good people of Waterloo' said to him: 'Go home and go to bed !' But of course neither Mr Wise nor the petition he had received urging him to refuse to consecrate 'this Mass House' had prevailed with the Archbishop, although a previous Bishop of Chester had refused to dedicate St. John's Tuebrook thirty years before. And the next day being the first Sunday after Easter, somewhat inappropriately perhaps, usually known as 'Low Sunday', the congregations made their way to the new church for its first services. The church they entered would have seemed very plain and unadorned to our eyes. As George Houldin records, there was only the High Altar at that time; behind it hung a dark red curtain the width of the wall; upon it rested a cross and just two candlesticks. The only other candies illuminated the pulpit; all the other lighting was by gas. The reredos was not yet in position, nor was the organ: a piano led the singing until August. The seven sanctuary lamps were there, but there was no Chancel Screen and no Lady Chapel. At the west end there were no name boards, only a 'great expanse of brick'; pews filled the whole church, those on the south being 'paid pews' in keeping with the customs of the time, but those on the north (Crosby) side and in the two transepts being 'free and unappropriated'. 'It was to this large new church,' Mr Houldin records, 'that the congregation made their way on the first Sunday, under the guidance of the Reverend Thomas Howe Baxter, the first Priest-in-Charge.' He was never Vicar as such; until the existing incumbents of St Mary's, S. Luke's and St John's, out of whose parishes ours had been carved, retired, the incumbent

of StFaith's was known technically by the curious title of Perpetual Curate, suggesting perhaps more of a threat than a distinction. Mr Baxter's first service was the 8 am Holy Communion: he administered to 21 communicants and collected 7/5. The Vicar of St Agnes preached at 11 am Mattins and Canon Samuel Crawford Armour, illustrious headmaster of Merchant Taylors' and a great supporter of St Faith's, preached at Evensong. The pattern of services in those first months was for a regular early celebration and a 6.30 pm Evensong, with Mattins at 11 followed by Litany or by Communion. Morning collections and communicants were small in quantity and number: 20 or so people at 8 or 11, and rising above 40 only at Christmas or Easter. Evensong, however, seems always to have been well attended at St Faith's as elsewhere in those days. 'At the choral services,' we read, 'the Processional Cross preceded the choir which, each Sunday evening, during the singing of a hymn before the service. processed down the south aisle and up the nave before entering the chancel.' This modest ceremonial was agreed with Mr Baxter who 'gave an undertaking not to make changes in this procedure, and often though he wanted to, be it said to his credit, he never did.' The first Register of Services illuminates with occasional marginal comments some of the events of those early years. On May 14th 1900 'Daily Mattins and Evensong commenced' although not entered daily, and a week later the Relief of Mafeking was celebrated with the Te Deum and two verses of the National AnthemThere were '12 or so' at Whit Monday Mattins and no-one at all at Communion on St Barnabas Day. Mr Baxter 'read himself in' on August 5th: XV of the Articles at Mattins and the other XXIV at Evensong; a week later 'part of the organ was used for the first time.' St Faith's was beginning to make itself a name in musical circles ‘...for the Choirmaster felt that a Church that was like a Cathedral should possess a Choir like a Cathedral, and so successful was he in procuring this, that the "singing at St Faith's" became the talk of the district and people came from far and near to hear it.' At the first Christmas services there were 107 communicants at three services but 'no sermon' at Evensong, and no collection recorded, so perhaps there was no service either. Obviously Mr Baxter found it an uphill task introducing the people of Crosby to regular weekday worship, never something for which the Anglican church has been especially noted, but George Houldin records that it was a

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different matter on Sundays. 'The saintly and loveable character of the Rev. T.H.Baxter was already showing its influence, for the regular attenders grew in number, and it is on record that three times in the first year the church was full - and it holds 920!' This latter seems a dubious statistic: the seating was officially for 800, and to get even that many for Merchant Taylors' School Services seated in anything like comfort today practically requires the use of a shoe-horn. Nevertheless it is obvious that Evensong was a very fashionable and popular service in the 1900s, and the appeal of fine preachers and good music, together with the absence of television and cinema often produced bumper congregations.

St Faith`s showing its 1900 isolation. On January 22nd 1901 at 6.30 p.m. is recorded in the Register: 'Death of Her Majesty Queen Victoria of Blessed and Glorious Memory', while on February 10th 'A Notice appeared in the "London Gazette" that an order had been signed by the King (Edward VII) in Council assigning a consolidated chapelry to the consecrated church of Saint Faith.' That Lent there began Wednesday night services and Sunday afternoon Children's services. On Good Friday the church was 'well-filled for the Crucifixion' (!) and a total of 153 communicated on Easter Day, although the main service of the day was Choral Mattins. Whether Mr. Wise's predictions had come true is not clear, but there were certainly the candles he feared behind the altar, and he would not have been pleased with R.F.G. Smethwick's sermon on the first Anniversary of the Consecration, for its subject was 'Ritualism'. On September 15th the Dead March was played 'a.m. and p.m. for President McKinley, assassinated'. On a happier note, on the 25th, 'an illuminated address was presented to the founder in Waterloo Town Hall by Canon Armour of Merchant Taylors' from the Parish and Congregation.' By contrast we read of a 'Clinical

Celebration' at 70, St John's Road for B. Croft, who died a few days later: the first recorded funeral at S. Faith's taking place on October 4th, with 'full choir'. The dedication of the reredos, the work of Salviati of Venice, on All Saints Day, 1901, saw a renewal of controversy and protest in Waterloo. Mr. Houldin takes up the story. 'This wonderful work of art set the district aflame again, for such a treasure was not to be found in any Anglican church anywhere. The central panel came in for much criticism as being completely "Popish". (it records the Crucifixion, with the figures of the four Evangelists, and the beasts that represent them; also portrayed are the six-winged Seraphim of Isaiah: the whole finished with gilded and inlaid mosaic work). A charge of idolatry was levelled at all who, as had been the custom since the church was opened, bowed before the altar, and once again began the series of protest meetings organised by the Protestant Reformers. For many, many weeks, worshippers were heckled again with the shouts of "Change here for Rome!" Only the stalwarts could endure this, and they did, and as others saw them steadfast, they returned. The Bishop was appealed to and he paid the Church a visit and reported that "there is nothing in the ornaments or furnishings in the church which are contrary to the tenets of the Church of England".' Luke-warm approval, perhaps, but sufficient; with it, and the passing of the years, a gradual process seems to have begun whereby the pattern of worship and the ritual adornment that we take for granted today were introduced S. Faith's Day, 1900 had not been observed (nor, incidentally, have I been able to discover what had prompted Douglas Horsfall to dedicate his Crosby church to St Faith of Aquitaine, Virgin and Martyr), but in 1901 there were four services on October 6th (a weekday: 'very stormy and wet'). On Tuesday 15th at 8 p.m. and in the presence of the Bishop of Liverpool we read 'Whole Nave filled. The founder of the Church was present at Evensong.' And so the pattern emerges. Odd notes bring the past to life a little. 'Collection for Food and Betterment Association providing 1/2d dinners to poor children'; 'Deep Snow'; and two or three amusing and unintentional juxtapositions and comments. 'Mattins: Rev. R.F.G.Smethwick appointed Rural Dean' and at Evensong the same day 'Dead March in Saul for Rural Dean.' Then there was 'Anthem: "And behold there was a great earthquake". Stormy night' and finally 'Rev. W.A.Reeves at Sefton. Very Wet.'

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By Easter Sunday 1905 Mr. Baxter was administering to 196 communicants, with 81 at one service, the highest recorded to that point. The Bishop gave his special permission for a Lantern Service, and on St. John the Evangelist's Day there was 'no-one present' again at 7 a.m. The Parish Hall was opened in 1906, although without the rooms behind the corridor or up the stairs. It was much used for badminton in those early days, and had a greater floor-space than today. Mr. Howarth, a member of the church, had supervised the work and especially the laying of the floors; these were so highly valued that boys could only play there if wearing 'rubber-soled tennis shoes.' There were no Scouts - the organisation had yet to be formed by Baden-Powell in fact - but there was a Boy's Club. Two revealing events in 1907 and 1908 show that prejudice was dying hard in the streets around S. Faith's. In 1907 Fr. Herring, of S. John the Baptist, Toxteth, a church now demolished, came to preach. He was singled out for the particular wrath of the ever-present Protestants, who 'wreaked their vengeance on him as he came to S. Faith's in his carriage, hurling stones through the window. The abrasions on his face received attention in vestry from the Warden, Dr. Gay.' The next year Bishop Chavasse came to preach. Apparently he was of no great size and given to waving his arms violently and caught his lawn sleeve in one of the pulpit candle flames. 'He tried unsuccessfully to. extinguish the fire, and but for the timely intervention of a sidesman, the consequences might have been unpleasant.' The headlines next day read 'Bishop on Fire in Crosby Church', and the incident was generally held to be a judgement on S. Faith's for being so idolatrous as to use candles in the first place. Mr. Baxter was quite capable of taking the offensive himself, however, if only within the church. In his Lenten Notes in a 1907 Parish Leaflet (the earliest form of the parish magazine) he has some strong words on self-denial. 'Possibly the health - and morals - of some would be improved by taking less beer, spirits or wine.' And two years later, in December 1909 he was further moved to declare that 'the attendance on weekdays is miserable'. In 1909 Mr. Baxter begins to record numbers at Children's services: usually 80 or 90. That August we read: 'Very hot, very fine. Lady in fit carried out of church during Evensong.' The weather in 1910 and 1911, however, at least as seen through the S. Faith's

vestry window, appears to have been inclement ('Very wet - storms severe frost - deep snow'). In 1910 the rest of the Hall was added and 'our leading choirboy, Stanley Whinyates, was appointed to the Chapel Royal (St James), which was an indication of the efforts of Mr. Lewis to build up a worthy choir.' In Lent 1911 Daily Eucharists appear for the first time: numbers range from 2 to 13, and the invariable collections vary from 2d to 6/1. By Easter 1912 there are 353 communicants. Soon after we see 'Dead March for those lost on the Titanic', among whom was the Chief Engineer, Joseph Bell, whose death is commemorated by a brass plaque on the wall of the south aisle. Following 7 a.m. communion on Ascension Day there was 'Breakfast for Men in Parish Hail'. 40 present and 4 ladies.' Even more cheerfully, next Easter, 'the largest morning congregation we have ever had was present at 11 a.m.' 72 of them communicated. On July 11th the choir watched the King open the Gladstone Dock; on August 24th the organ was cleaned; on August 13th the church was cleaned; on September 4th Mr. Baxter oiled the bell. After this burst of activity the records badly declare the Great War to have started on August 2nd. That year saw the replacement of Mr. Lewis by Mr. J.W. Waugh, F.R.C.O. 'one of the most brilliant organists of his day.' By next Easter the communicants were up to 393, and the Vicar was clearly succeeding in building up a regular communicant membership which has been a feature of St Faith's ever since. But this was to be his last year. Limited as to what he could achieve at St Faith's by the undertaking he had made in 1900, and feeling that the time had come to make 'further advances in the ceremonial', he decided to leave St Faith's and arrange 'for a successor who would not be bound in the same way. And so he arranged an exchange of livings with the man who was to become his successor: the Reverend Harold Bentley Bentley-Smith, Vicar of East Coatham, near Redcar, Yorkshire. His last Sunday was October 3rd, 1915: Mr. Bentley-Smith was inducted and instituted on 15th. This briefest of interregnums must have been a great relief to the Wardens of the time: they would have been hard-pressed, doubtless, to provide the sort of service to which St Faith's congregations were now accustomed had the gap been longer. And so 'we said good-bye to the faithful and saintly priest who had steered the ship safely through its troubled seas.' Mr. Baxter died in 1926, and there are two windows to his memory in the South aisle. A new era was about to begin at St Faith`s.

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CHAPTER TWO Harold Bentley Bentley~Smith

The years that followed Mr Bentley-Smith's induction were, to say the least, controversial. Not that St Faith's had not been the centre of controversy in itself since its building: but until now it had at least presented a united front to the world. The events of sixty years ago changed this. It is not easy to piece together the exact course of events; the service books, not surprisingly, reflect little of what happened, and it is from 'Fifty Years' that most of what can be gathered is taken. The new Vicar 'was obviously unfamiliar with the Churchmanship of the Liverpool Diocese', and seems to have been puzzled as to what exactly in the rituals of St Faith's justified its proclamation as a witness to 'Catholic Faith and Doctrine'. It must be remembered that St Faith's was still a 'Mattins Church' on most Sunday mornings: it is obvious that Mr Bentley-Smith felt it was time to change this. 'When he voiced this, there was antagonism, but contending for the Faith was what he enjoyed. He instituted a Sung Eucharist every Sunday at 10 am and put Mattins to 11.15.' To try and please everybody he left the sermon at Mattins, but expected the choir to sing at both services, duly fortified by coffee provided during a short break between the two services, by courtesy of the Vicar. Things began to warm up. 'The congregation was split into two camps, and it is regrettable that ill-feeling often was evidenced. A protest meeting, with the Vicar in the chair, broke up in disorder, no decision being reached.' The Mattins people seem at first to have outnumbered the Sung Eucharist people, until in 1916 Mr Bentley-Smith formed the Guilds,

and young people began to join them. The members were invited to 'wear their badges and join in the procession at the Sung Eucharist.' Through this strategic move, the Vicar seems to have won the day: 'within a few months the congregation at Mattins had declined so seriously that, in the words of the Priest-in-charge, there would be no sermon to such a "miserably small" number' - and the sermon was transferred to the earlier service. Now, of course, the choir objected to staying on to sing to a mere handful and asked to be excused. They were duly excused; Mattins without music was rescheduled to precede a 10.30 Choral Eucharist and the Vicar's work was done. 'Further protest meetings were held, and the Vicar accused of "disloyalty" by a certain faction. Tempers now thoroughly aroused, no settlement was possible.' As the Vicar declared in the magazine of September 1917, 'at all other churches in the neighbourhood Mattins can be had as the chief service; we shall be one where the Lord's Own Service is given its rightful place'.

The Chancel before the screen was fitted in 1921.

The gas lighting is evident.

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It seems strange, sixty years on, to imagine the heat generated by what would seem so right and inevitable a development and so relatively mild a stand; it is interesting to speculate, however, what might be the reaction today if an incumbent were to adopt similar tactics in an attempt to reinstate Mattins at the expense of sung Eucharist! Certainly the effect was deep and long-lasting; many of the congregation seem to have left for other churches, and those that remained were perhaps less representative of the parish than may have been the case before. From this period will have dated the formation of the image that St Faith's was to enjoy for the next half-century: distinctive and uncompromising, a party rather than a parish church. Reputations take a long time to build up, and even longer to die. The Service Book tells a little of this. 'Holy Communion' becomes 'Holy Eucharist'; the number of weekday celebrations rise. The first 'Choral Eucharist' was on November 7th 1915: there are recorded 62 communicants, but numbers fall rapidly from this point, until only a handful are taking the sacrament at the principal Sunday service. This went hand in hand with a decline in attendances: from '105 present' on November 7th it becomes '80 present', and later again '60 present'. Allowing for the inevitable fluctuations, it is clear that, following Mr Bentley-Smith's revolution, communicants and attendances fell away: the united congregation Mr Houldin speaks of was also a smaller one. The registers also became more perfunctorily kept at this time, and comments are few. On Whit Sunday 1916 'Linen Vestments first worn'; a week later occurred a 'Masonic Service'. On September 17th 'Outdoor Procession: Pouring wet', and next week, when the sun shone, 'Harvest Festival - Procession with banner.' 'Silk Vestments for first time' were worn on St Faith's Day, when there were 51 communicants at 6.30 am. In November occurs the only recorded 'Merchant Taylors' Cadet Corps Parade' at Mattins, and in the National Mission Week that followed there were five services daily with up to 40 communicants. That year the Vicar began spelling Christmas 'Christmass' and began also to record a slow rise in numbers. Attendances during 1917 at the Choral Eucharist began to rise above 100 again; as the Vicar's incumbency drew to its close the tradition for which he had fought so hard was clearly becoming established. George Houldin fills in some more details. The Angelus Bell began to be rung; a cope was introduced at Evensong. The South Transept was, in 1917, transformed into a chapel and

an Altar purchased and ornamented by the Vicar. The frequent weekday ringing of bells, especially at 6.30 am services prompted several anonymous letters to the Liverpool press under the title of `That Waterloo Bell`. Nor, apparently, was disapproval of our activities confined to the laity. 'During the Patronal Festival that year (still 1917), some forty clergy and leading officials of local churches were invited to attend one of the week-night services, but none accepted.' The Vicar did not mince words in the magazine. 'With a well-meant desire to break down insularity and foster a Christian fellowship, we had the presumption, audacity and temerity to invite clergy of 21 neighbouring churches with members of their congregation to one of the week-night services. Light refreshments were to be served after. Only five of the 21 had the courtesy to reply and none turned up. We shall be chary in future about making any similar attempt.' And sad news of a different kind for St Faith's came with the death in action at Cambrai, France, of Captain Robert Elcum Horsfall, son of the founder, and to whose memory the screen was to be dedicated four years later.

That same year saw the end of Mr Bentley-Smith's ministry at St Faith's. His health had never been good, and when it broke down completely, the whole responsibility of the parish fell on the Curate, Rev. T.R.Musgrave. Mr Bentley-Smith's last celebration at St Faith's seems to have been 7.30 am on January 13th, 1918 (9 communicants: 116 on the plate). Henceforward the initials in the book are those of 'TRM' ('this truly faithful priest'). He continued the battle: 'Festal Evensong' features for the first time on the Eve of the Ascension, and later 'Green Silk Vestments' (presumably the ones to which Mr Houldin refers) were presented by the Men's Guild

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and used for the first time. But, in the words of the history 'the congregation appeared to lose heart and become dispirited.' Added to this, came Mr. Bentley-Smith's actual resignation, and for the next five or six months the parish was without a Vicar. He was the first of three incumbents of St Faith's to resign the living through ill-health. He eventually recovered sufficiently to become Vicar of All Souls, Hastings, followed by several other appointments and died at the age of 87, in 1965. The departed incumbent had taken St Faith's a long way in his short stay and had laid the foundations for the incumbency that was to follow and the church we know today; but it had been an uphill task and must have caused much anger and distress at the time. The unhappiness arising from his changes can probably best be described as a necessary evil: the net result of this and the long interregnum was to leave St Faith's at the end of the Great War at a relatively low ebb, and in very great need of the man who was about to become its third incumbent.

The Nave when the church was illuminated by gas and the pews extended past the pulpit.

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CHAPTER THREE John Brierley

On October l9th, 1918 at 2.30 pm a long list of signatures in the Service Register records the end of the interregnum and the 'Institution of the new Vicar, Rev. J. Brierley, M.A.' He had been Vicar of Greatham, County Durham, but could not yet be officially 'Vicar' of S.Faith's, for reasons explained earlier. George Houldin describes him as 'a young vigorous man, of some thirty-two years of age ... Never did courage and determination mean more to any priest, for he found no Vicarage, no verger, no money, no coke, no magazine and practically no congregation. What he did find was a keen little band of chancel workers and stalwarts in the small congregation. Of these men in those days, this priest wrote exactly thirty years later: "They stood by me so selflessly that there began such friendships as 1 have never known since".' Among this band Mr Houldin singles out one in particular - Mr S.R. Taylor. He had served as Warden under Mr Baxter from 191 1 to 1915 but had then withdrawn his support' during the next regime. He rejoined the flock as Mr Brierley's Warden and became Lay Representative on the Diocesan Conference and Vice-Chairman of the Parochial Church Council. 'in and out of office his loyalty never failed and his regular attendance at public worship was maintained until. at a ripe old age, he was called to Higher Service.' Mr Taylor became Warden in 1920, the year in which Mr Brierley's plans for rebuilding the life of S.Faith's seem to have been completed. Its keystone was 'attendance at Corporate Communion, monthly at least, and at the Sung Eucharist every Sunday.' It is interesting to note that this latter would not have involved taking Communion under normal

circumstances: the practice of general communion at the main service of the day was still over forty years off. 'At first there were some who resented being "forced to church" but patient and clear teaching convinced them that this was the start of the Catholic life, and soon the congregation at the 10.30 service was over three hundred, and the average Sunday communicants over 70.' These are interesting statistics - a larger congregation than we can muster today, but a far smaller proportion of communicants another comment on the changing pattern of Christian worship this century. On the subject of statistics, it is intriguing to note that the new Vicar, whose records are always most neatly and conscientiously kept, seems to have instituted the odd custom of recording not attendances, but the number of coins collected at services: a later service book of his has this as a printed heading. If this is to be taken as a guide to the numbers giving these coins, it reveals, among other things, that despite the attendance boom Mr Houldin records on Sunday mornings, there were always many more coins received at Evensong than there were at Choral Eucharist. From this time dates the regular recording of regular weekday celebrations: at 10.30 am on Mondays (a tradition already long-established and still continuing) at 7 am on Thursdays and 7.30 am on most other weekdays. Coins are faithfully recorded at these services too: weekday yields varied from 5d to some 2/-, and those who parted with them varied from 1 (quite often) to 7 or 8. That Good Friday featured the Three Hours Devotion and that Easter saw 280 communicants (317 in 1975). Numbers rose steadily again, and in August Mr Baxter paid a return visit to a crowded church. And on September 14th the Bishop of Liverpool induced an Evensong congregation to part with no fewer than 1008 coins: probably a mixed blessing to Wardens and Sidesmen who had to count them. April 21st, the 21st anniversary of consecration, was marked by the unveiling and dedication of the new Chancel Screen. It was the gift of the founder and the work of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, architect of Liverpool Cathedral. The magazine of April 1920 gave details. 'On March 9th the Chancellor of the Diocese ... granted a faculty for the erection of the screen which Mr H. Douglas Horsfall is giving to S.Faith's in memory of the late Captain Robert Elcum Horsfall. In the design are incorporated

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carved figures of S.Chad, S.Paul, S.Agnes (with lamb) and S.Catherine (with wheel), marking the connection of the late Captain Horsfall with S.Chad's College, Durham (the patrons of the living) and the three great Liverpool Churches of S.Paul's, Stoneycroft, S.Agnes, Ullet Road and S.Catherine's, Abercromby Square.' In 'Fifty Years', Mr Houldin calls it 'one of the finest modern screens in existence.' It was unveiled in the presence of priests from two of those churches: S.Agnes and S.Paul's, as well as others from S.Margaret's', Anfield, S.Mary's, Bootle, S.Michael's and S.Luke's.

The Church Group in a 1935 photograph. Douglas Horsfall, wearing a hat, is on the vi car`s

immediate right. That July is recorded 'Intense Heat' on three successive Sundays (they always say the summers were hotter in those days!) and for these weeks the Evensong collections fall below the morning takings for the first time. Was S.Faith's too hot for comfort those July evenings in 1921? Whatever the reason, the end of the heatwave saw the familiar pattern reassert itself. Other things happened that year. A cinema group wanted to put up a 'super cinema' on the land now occupied by Cameron's garage 'and no greater antagonist was found than the Vicar, who was instrumental In quashing the idea.' He will have been even happier at the purchase of a Vicarage in College Road, purchased for £2000, raised within two years by the congregation. Soon electric lighting was installed in church, and the large gasoliers in the chancel replaced by 'hidden lights'. The supports under the roof, and marks of brackets in the Sanctuary can still be seen. In 1923 there was another new arrival: Jim Burgess. In that year he began fifty years of devoted service as Verger of S.Faith's, through a saga of fuel-heaving, boiler-

tending, flood, air-raids and fire. To his and everyone's delight, Jim was able to complete a full half-century of service before his eventual retirement in 1973. The same year saw some interesting items in the magazine. The formation of a football club is announced, with the Vicar as its president: red and white shirts and dark shorts are to be worn, players to change in the Parish Hill and play on a pitch in Kingsway. They would find it less easy today! In October it was decreed as something of an innovation that for the period of a year the Creed was to be sung to the music of Merbecke 'except on great festivals'. And, following the marking of the Patronal Festival by two outdoor processions, the Vicar declared proudly that 'it is believed that it is the first time that the Cope has been taken into the streets of a Liverpool parish.' The musical innovations continued: in July 1925 'the congregation will note that we are trying a new setting to the Eucharist: Martin Shaw's "Folk Mass".' The Dean of King's College, Cambridge declares that 'it is very jolly and the congregation soon pick it up and love it.' He makes it sound like a baby rather than a service setting; but in fact the Shaw Folk Mass was adopted and remained a standard S.Faith's setting right through to the days of Series Three. 'The tragic death of the Organist, Mr. Waugh, whilst on his way to Evensong on a summer evening in 1924 shocked all at S.Faith's; his daughter-in-law took his place at a moment's notice. Later the regard and esteem in which the congregation held him was expressed in the beautiful stained glass window to his memory. The Vicar appointed a young man, a pupil under Mr. Goss Custard of the Cathedral, and Mr. Ernest Pratt at 22 years of age began his responsible work. Under him our choir's reputation has been enhanced so that it is said that there is only the Cathedral Choir that is better.' Thus (George Houldin, on an appointment that, like that of Jim Burgess, was to span the years and last well into the sixties. The previous year in the Registers had seen two Episcopal happenings. The Bishop of Nassau had preached to a large congregation, and 'Albert Liverpool' (A.A. David, third Bishop of the Diocese) had signed in at S.Faith's for the first time. Wednesday 4th June that year was a 'Day of Continuous Intercession for the Conversion of England to the Catholic Faith', with what looks like the first midnight service, and another at 7.15 pm

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with the slightly sinister title of 'Reception of the Fiery Cross'. There was a United Corpus Christi service (united with whom?) and the first Merchant Taylors' Girls' School Ascension Day service, while on Tuesday September 15th a weekday record of 210 took communion prior to 'Pilgrimage to the Cathedral'. The next major event was on Saturday October 31st, 1925, when Canon Peter Green and the Rev. T. Grigg-Smith (Children's Missioner) began a fortmght's Parochial Training Mission in the parish. 'The preparation was carefully undertaken, every house in the parish being visited by a member of the congregation for months prior to the mission. The chilly and often antagonistic reception which was experienced by many visitors proved that hostility to the Catholic cause was not quenched and misunderstanding was still rife.' One wonders how these visitors' successors would enjoy visiting 'every house in the parish for months,' and just what their reception would be today. The Register tells the story within the church itself. There were another new record of 218 communicants at the early celebration on the opening Sunday and five services each day throughout the fortnight, with good attendances, especially at the nightly mission services. Despite the hostility in the streets Mr Houldin records that 'The Mission of 1925 made a great impression on the life of the parish.' It is always hard to judge the long-term effect of such an event: the years following 1925 were certainly good ones for S.Faith's, and for this the work of that fortnight must doubtless take some credit. More credit still should properly go to Mr Brierley, his hard-working staff and the congregation, recovered fully from their early despondency and still, to use George Houldin's words again, 'Contending for the Faith'. Mr Brierley began a new service book at Christmas, 1925, spelling that festival with just the one 's' again. He made it clear in the magazine that fasting from 6 pm was a necessary preliminary to communicating at the midnight Eucharist: a long way from today's pattern of greatly reduced fasting and communicating twice in a day. There were 283 at four celebrations that Christmas, with the usual two only at the main service. And so the fourth Register goes its orderly way, in the Vicar's small tidy writing, and with red letter days properly recorded in red ink. The highlights are fewer now: 'Albert Liverpool' signs twice, and

Bishop Cathrew Nyasaland once. Other familiar signatures to supplement those of the Vicar and J. Howard Foy, his Assistant Curate. are J.M. Buckmaster and G.A. Studdert Kennedy ('Woodbine Willie'). That Easter recorded a total of 417 communicants: the slow but steady increase was continuing. 1926 saw several homely items in the magazine. In January we hear that a proposal to start a company of Girl Guides 'has taken definite shape.' In February a Rover Patrol is started for boys of 17 and over, and on July 15th came the official opening of the Mothers' Union. Industrial trouble that winter brought a contemporary-sounding warning from the Vicar. Coke was likely to cost £4 a ton as against last year's 32/6. As we needed 35 tons, this would mean an extra £83 required. And, in an exercise familiar to treasurers and Finance Committees, it was calculated that an extra 6d a week from everyone would just about meet the needs. Probably the most significant event in 1928 was the arrival of the great crucifix. Douglas Horsfall, after a quarter of a century still a generous benefactor of S.Faith's bought it while on holiday in Italy and presented it to the church. From that time it was displayed during Lent for various periods of time above the High Altar, with the reredos closed and curtained in black, and below the Chancel Screen, providing a powerful and moving focus of worship and prayer. Later that year the Festival of S.Thomas is recorded as a 'Day of Intercession for the Ministry of W.L.M. (Mark) Way', with no fewer than seven services that weekday. 'W.L.M.W.' joins in the initials in the book that Christmas Eve: there were now two Curates to help their Vicar into 1929. Thomas, Bishop of Zanzibar, came for Sexagesima and Eric Milner-White, another famous name, took a service for Women in Holy Week. These latter had been a regular feature of S.Faith's worship for some years, and seem both to have been very well attended and to have welcomed many distinguished preachers. Mark Way, now made priest (and on his way to the Episcopate) first celebrated at Christmas 1929. For that year the efficient Mr Brierley totalled the communicants as 6782: a far cry from the modest totals of twenty years before, but still well below the figures to come. A few weeks later the old register is abandoned and records started in the first of the large-sized specially-printed tomes in use today. It featured the

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embossed name of the church on the cover, and the ubiquitous printed column for coins. This was, of course, the thirtieth anniversary. of the foundation; at an 11.15 am celebration on Easter Monday (April 21st) a flourish of red signatures attends the event, headed by the shaky hand of Charles C. Eleum, whose name also appears on the very 'first page of the first register in 1900. Other legible names are those of C. Thicknesse, Archdeacon Cyril Twitchett, and T.R. Musgrave, Curate during the previous interregnum. George Houldin records that the anniversary was also marked by the placing on the west wall of the oak boards recording the names of Vicars and Wardens and 'executed by the same craftsman who had carved the Chancel Screen.' His book also records the honour brought to S.Faith's and its Vicar when Mr Brierley was made a Canon of Liverpool Cathedral: 'a well-deserved tribute to a man who had done so much work for the Diocese, for as well as raising the esteem of S.Faith's, he found time to be Secretary to the Diocesan Conference, honorary Chaplain to the Bishop, and subsequently Proctor in Convocation.' Less happy and more controversial events surrounded the first attempt by Canon Brierley, as he must now be called, to obtain permission for the Reservation of the Sacrament at S.Faith's. Permission was in fact granted but 'shortly afterwards an Evangelical Canon of Liverpool heard of our plans and threatened legal proceedings. The controversy raged for a short time and, rather than have legal action over so sacred a matter, the Bishop withdrew his permission.' A sad but not untypical event: beneath the respectable Anglican surface passions could still run high. Nor was this the end of hostilities. A new generation of Protestant Reformers decided it was time to pay anothervisit to S.Faith's. The story of the events of an unspecified Sunday in 1931 is best told in the words of 'Fifty Years'. 'How Canon Brierley got the news, he would never tell, but get it he did, and acted upon it. Every sidesman and male member of the congregation was asked to be 'available' in Church that morning, and they were there to a man with such telling effect that when the band of some twenty 'Orangemen' arrived they were unable to find seats together and were separated - one here, one there - which quite devastated their plans. Heretofore, they had visited city churches which had but small congregations. Their interruptions here were hardly noticed, excepting that they sat down for the Creed and made one or two audible but harmless remarks

during the sermon. Unfortunately for them, they were sufficiently unfamiliar with the Prayer Book Service of Holy Communion as to imagine that the Prayer for the Church was the Prayer of Consecration, and they stood up all through it. A loud protest was voiced during the Prayer of Humble Access and, after making it, they noisily left the church, the large congregation taking no notice. The Protestants could barely have cleared the Church grounds when the Sacring Bell (at the moment of Consecration) rang out, and so there was spared any indignity to the Sacramental Presence. The condemnation of these men in visiting S.Faith's was very pronounced in the Liverpool papers next day, and one of their own leaders deplored their action. Since then we have been undisturbed.' It is tempting to share Mr. Houldin's pleasure at this famous victory over the powers of darkness and bigotry, with its rallying of the faithful to the sound of the priestly trumpet, the satisfying ignorance of the dreaded 'Orangemen' as to exactly when to make their protest and the final humiliating rout of the 'Protestants'. It is nevertheless sad that it should have been necessary for offensive and defensive positions to have been taken up so vigorously in the first place, or that the press should have had so unedifying a spectacle to report at all. And it is certainly a cause for thankfulness that such a confrontation is harder to imagine today: in recent years, apart from a little picketing, handing out of leaflets and sending of denunciatory letters,we have indeed been undisturbed at S.Faith's. The big Service Book says nothing of indignities to the Sacramental Presence in 1931. It records instead that October 19th was the Anniversary of the Vicar's Institution, with a special Celebration for those confirmed between 1918 and 1931. The next year, for the first time, a recognisably Scottish Episcopalian signatory appears: John, Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway. A peak of 464 communicants was recorded that Easter Day, and it was a good year for Bishops at S.Faith's as well. Autograph hunters could have obtained the signatures of Albert Liverpool, as he preached to the Crosby and Waterloo Urban District Councils, Charles Petriburg (Peterborough), preaching at a Lent Service for Women, and no less than William Ebor, Archbishop of York and Archbishop Temple of Canterbury to be, at another of the same. Advocates of Women's Lib will be pleased to note that at these services the Vicar was prepared to admit men 'so long as the main body of the church is reserved

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exclusively for women.' That September the word 'Mass' occurs, as far as 1 can see, for the first time in the records of S.Faith's. 'Special Masses' are said to mark 'Miss Green's departure to Wantage' (to the Community there?) and 'Rev. H.W. Cockett's departure to Africa'. It is time to return to the magazine for a selection of items from the early 1930's. By 1930 the green vestment set was wearing out and 'it appears that there is no great eagerness to renew them. We must patch and mend' declares the Vicar. A Vestment Fund is launched, but turns out to be 'the most extraordinary 1 have ever had anything to do with. 1 have just £9.5.0. in hand. The money is coming in at a rate which will not reach the required sum until 1932.' By July, however, he was able to report that all £30 had come in. Bazaars - often two-day events - are regularly mentioned, until in August 1931 'we have taken a grave risk and decided to do without another bazaar for three years.' A more momentous announcement is of the events of September 20th, 1931, when there occurred the only recorded Ordination Service at S.Faith's. Eight priests and eleven Deacons were respectively ordained and made, and admission for regular congregation was by ticket only. A thousand copies of the service were printed, but as the church had only 500 hymnbooks members were urged to bring their own. The service seems to have been a success: the October magazine records that 'almost a thousand people' were there, although it is hard to accept such a figure, even if they were standing several deep at the back. The same December, Canon Brierley declares 'we shall never get perfection (in singing) until the congregation take trouble to learn their part', and he announced congregational practices every Sunday in the Lady Chapel at 5.45 p.m. But by February 1932 the experiment was abandoned, and the attainment of perfection postponed for a while. Next year saw a solemn warning about attendance at the Three Hours Devotion on Good Friday. 'I dislike intensely seeing people come in late or go out early.' He makes an honourable exception for nurses and continues, 'This is sheer slackness and nothing else.' He was never afraid to be outspoken: nor to be dogmatic. Membership of the Guild (a communicant fellowship) involved an undertaking never to worship in any non-Anglican church, and he is also reported to have refused to accept some harvest decorations

which he had previously praised in church when he heard they had been used in a Nonconformist church. He remained also a stickler for accuracy: more than once dates and service details wrongly entered in black are crossed out and the same data substituted in red. Attendances remained good, with 429 at Christmas 1933 and a new record figure of 245 communicants at the 7.45 a.m. 'Low' celebration on Advent Sunday. In 1935 S.Faith's was thirty-five years old and on May 6th celebrated both the King's Jubilee and the Dedication of Carpets, Rugs and Curtains for the Lady Chapel. In the same year there were 198 at S.Faith's Day at 7.45 a.m. (yet another record), when the 'Children's Banner made and given by Miss Hamilton' was dedicated. But by now Canon Brierley's ministry was almost over. His last celebration was on Friday, November 29th, 1935, when there were 50 communicants for the 'Dedication of a (silver) lavabo dish in memory of Mabel Delano-Osborne.' The next entry in the book reads: 'Close of the Vicariate of the Reverend Canon John Brierley, October 19th, 1918 to November 30th, 1935.' 'I leave a parish united and full of vigour,' he wrote in the magazine. 'For me to remain indefinitely would mean that slowly but surely our work would be undone.' He left S.Faith's to become Rector of Wolverhampton, and a great era for our church had ended. He is clearly a major figure; equally clearly he was an autocratic one, and a priest of the old school. The story of his behaviour in a parishioner's house, when he is said to have seized and torn up a photograph of the local Member of Parliament because that unfortunate man had dared to vote for the Divorce Reform Bill, fits his character and, perhaps, the times in which he lived. His incumbency had also seen continued controversy, but only from without: the body of S.Faith's itself had undoubtedly been greatly strengthened and deepened by Canon Brierley's seventeen years of energetic and devoted ministry. Clearly a man of power and influence he had found a struggling, weakened parish and done much to 'put it on the map' as a church to be reckoned with, with a distinctive identity and witness. In so doing, he made possible the church in which we worship today.

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HAPTER FOUR John Schofield

Unlike the previous interregnum, the one that followed Canon Brierley's departure lasted a mere. ten weeks. Harold Stewart and Maurice Godfrey, assisted by George Houldin, held the fort, and maintained the pattern of worship: the most notable historical event to take place during their stewardship was the holding of a Requiem for King George V on Tuesday, January 28th 1936. Three weeks later Bishop Albert returned to S.Faith's for the Induction and Institution of the Reverend John Schofield. The occasion brought forth 575 coins, and was, in the words of the magazine, 'of a quiet and dignified simplicity'. Mr. Schofield, in Mr. Houldin's words, was 'a saintly man of great charm, but unfortunately he was not very robust. He came from Yorkshire's hills and dales (hills and dales?) and the air of the neighbourhood 'was not suited to him. This gloomy comment is sandwiched in 'Fifty Years' between a series of records of deaths connected with S.Faith's. Some time before news had come of the tragic death of the Revd. H.N. Cockett, in the mission field in Africa. It was, we are told, that tragedy which influenced Mark Way, who had been curate here between 1928 and 1934, to follow his former colleague abroad to work under the auspices of the Universities Mission to Central Africa: work which eventually led to his appointment as Bishop. Mr. Cockett's death was followed, in 1936, by that of Douglas Horsfall, the Founder. No specific memorial was raised to him: 'no other memorial is needed to the memory of this devoted son of the

Church than the magnificent edifice he so generously provided for us. May he rest in peace.' Mr. Sewell, 'Father of the Choir' was next, in 1938: his 38 years of service are remembered on one of the hymn and psalm boards in church. Finally there came the deaths of Canon Brierley's mother and eldest son. She had been a constant worshipper at S.Faith's and a great favourite and formative influence upon her son: the boy had been a server at S.Faith's altars. Both are commemorated, as is Mr. Cockett, in windows in the South Aisle. On a more cheerful note, 1938 also saw the retirement of one Canon Sykes, Vicar of S.Mary's. This otherwise unremarkable event Was of significance in that Canon Sykes was the last surviving incumbent of the original holders of office in the parishes out of which S.Faith's was carved. His departure meant that Mr. Schofield, three years after being instituted as Priest-in-Charge, could be duly inducted as the first Vicar proper of S.Faith's. As Priest-in-Charge and as Vicar, Mr. Schofield takes over the register with his straggly writing. 28 communicants attended his first celebration, then things settled down to the normal pattern for those years: between 60 and 100 communicants at 8 a.m. and one or two only of the large congregation at 10.45 for the Sung Eucharist. Mr. Schofield increased the overall number of services held at S.Faith's; indeed there were no fewer than eight on his first Ash Wednesday, including Mattins, Commination and the Litany. His first Easter saw, instead of today's three celebrations at midnight, 8 and 10.30, five at 6,7,8,9 and 10.45: they produced 460 communicants, on a par with Canon Brierley's best years. This seems in retrospect to have been a high-water-mark for these 75 years of history, both on Sundays and weekdays. There were now celebrations on all six weekdays, and often quite well-attended: it was not to be long, however, before numbers began slowly and steadily to decline. First, however, one or two red-letter days stand out. Among Bishops now signing the book are Bishop Fyffe of Waikato and, at one of the Services for Women, William Sodor and Man's sloping hand accompanied its owner. In May 1937, 150 communicants turned up on a weekday to mark the Coronation of King George Vi. Between these star appearances the mass of faithfully recorded statistics continues, and begins to show a slight

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downward trend. In March, 1939, Mr. Schofield remarked in the magazine that unpunctuality is a very common failing at S.Faith's. If you should be late, slip into a pew at the back.' He complains also that 'there is really no need for the whole congregation (at the time of taking Communion) to crowd into the middle aisle. Those in front should come first, followed gradually, and in order, by those behind. But events were moving in the world outside, and 1939 saw also the outbreak of World War Two which, for all its horror, as Mr. Houldin remarks, 'gave us a priceless treasure.' The events of a number of years before, with the reversal of the Bishop's decision over the Reserved Sacrament, have been recorded. Now the coming of war, and the need for the Sacrament to be made readily available for local emergencies, changed things, and permission was finally granted for its reservation in the Lady Chapel. The war nearly brought disaster to S.Faith's, however. In 1940 the fabric had 'a most miraculous escape.' A bomb fell a few feet from the north wall of the Nave, buried into the soil and blew up the heating gratings, doing a little damage to some pews and flooring in the area of the pulpit. But no damage was done externally, and nothing worse ever happened inside. The attendant fall of the cross from the roof at the west end left a cruciform indentation in the asphalt below which remained for many years. All the damage was duly put right, and a service of thanksgiving held. Throughout the war period the Vicar and the Revd. Eric Beard, his Curate at this time, were out at all hours; both they and Jim Burgess must have put in countless hours of overtime before the coming of 1945 and of peace. The war brought its human moments. Just before Christmas 1940 there was 'no celebration: priest overslept' and next Easter 'Priest 15 minutes late - found no congregation.' Too much fire-watching, perhaps. Mr. Schofield was presumably on time for the 25th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, even though only six people joined him. Communicants were down to 307 that Easter, and the blackout meant a temporary end to Christmas Midnight celebrations. Figures did not begin to pick up again until after 1945 . As we study them, they seem to give the lie to the notion sometimes heard that people tend to flock to church in time of war: they don't seem to have flocked much to S.Faith's, anyway.

The war makes its appearances in the pages of the contemporary church magazines, too, sandwiched between reassuringly normal items. Two people per night are needed for fire duty, and the youth fellowship is to invite its 'soldier friends' to social events. There are t o- be no palm crosses, as shipping in wartime cannot be spared for such purposes (no', that palm crosses take up much cargo space). In June 1941 the magazine is reduced to two pages; the printers had lost premises, plant, and S.Faith's blocks through bomb damage. But at the same time we hear of the issue of new books for the Middle and Senior Sunday Schools: each child was given responsibility for his copy of the 'Church and School Hymnal' and bidden to 'keep it free from tears and grime.' Further reassurances in those dark days came when in 1941 the Vicar announces that 'Miss Palmer has given over teaching Sunday School during the winter; she will be back with the daffodils.' And a final wartime comment. In March 1945 the coke ran out and for Lent the congregation suffered a penitentially cold church. By June things were better, and the blackout paint was being removed from the Hall windows. 1946 saw not only peace in Europe but the installing of Standard lights in the Chancel and, from an anonymous donor, Spanish mahogany candlesticks to match the choir stalls, and designed by Mr. Harold Woodley. It also saw the death of one of its Wardens, Arthur Studley. Twice Civic Head, he was, as George Houldin puts it, 'One of the most popular men who ever entered public life, and his gracious courtesy and unfailing cheerfulness endeared him to all. No less was he loved as Warden of the church, and the good condition of the fabric of S.Faith's owes much to the care and attention given by Arthur Studley to the church he loved and served so well.' That same year saw also two contrasting items in the magazine. An anonymous writer proclaimed that 'bad habits are catching. This is shown by the way an increasing number of people are leaving the church at the early celebration before the service is ended. This habit is undesirable and unnecessary.' By contrast we read of Miss Emily Conalty's achievements in obtaining a First in Theology at Durham University and being awarded a two year Research Fellowship. 1 She was the first woman ever to obtain a Theology First there, and no man had managed it in the previous five years. The steady succession of black days and red is interrupted for the first appearance of Clifford

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Martin, fourth Bishop of Liverpool, to preach to the Lenten Women. And the Revd. H.M. Luft, now Headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School, appears soon after, to take several Compline Services during Lent, 1947. But 'J.S.' himself appears less frequently in 1947 and disappears altogether from the book between June lst and August lst of that year, due to the illness that was soon to force him to resign the living. His return in August was temporary; his final celebration was on Wednesday, September 24th, with just four people present. His 'Vicariate' officially closed on 30th September, 1947, after eleven years, and the fourth interregnum began. He had been a gentle, quiet man, who was much loved by many, and he, like his predecessors, had done much for S.Faith's, if, seemingly, not in so demonstrative or obvious a way. In George Houldin's words 'The Revd. Sidney Singer, who had been Assistant Priest since 1942, manfully shouldered the burden of administering to the congregation, but in spite of his efforts things did not seem to do well. He left us in the early days of 1948 to take charge of New Springs, near Wigan.' In fact he was to live for only four more years, and the standard candlesticks now on the Nave Altar Platform are inscribed in his memory from his wife Florence. Despite the inevitable problems of an interregnum with or with ' out a Curate, 'the wonderful family of S.Faith's stood together.' And this interregnum was mercifully short once again. At 3 p.m. on Saturday January 31st, 1948 the Reverend William Hassall, L.Th., Director of Youth Work in the Diocese of Lichfield for the four years before, joined S.Faith's from S.Stephen's, Wolverhampton. On the eve of his induction, as if to signal the beginning of another period of history, the old service book ends and the post-war story of S.Faith's was ready to begin.

St Faith`s in 1937 showing how the roads had developed around the church.

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CHAPTER FIVE William Hassall

Fr. Hassall was Instituted by Bishop Clifford Martin and Inducted by Archdeacon Twitchett. The tradition of referring to the incumbent as Father rather than Mr. seems to have begun with him and has continued although from his successor's time Christian names replaced surnames as the mode of address. His :first entry in the new and smaller service register which begins with that service is appended to the signatures of attending priests and reads 'The Archdeacon of Salop and several others forgot to sign', an entry which strikes a sympathetic chord in any church officer who has tried to carry an unwieldy book round a crowded hall after such a service, attempting to get the signatures of numerous forgetful priests. There were 90 communicants at his :first celebration the following day (Sexagesima Sunday), but in the months that followed the more usual number at the 8 a.m was about 60 or 70, although there was a total of 348 that Easter. There were daily celebrations each weekday, and the numbers varied those mornings between two and ten or so. That August the Scouts were at camp at Barmouth, and Fr. Hassall visited them They went to the Parish Church for early Communion ('All the confirmed present') and he celebrated Sung Eucharist at 10.30 in Camp ('all the troop present'). Fr. Hassall's energetic approach to his ministry in those years is reflected in the magazine. In March he had written 'Some vestments are wearing thin and have had to be darned. They are unworthy of St Faith's.' This theme of unworthiness was to be the basis for many reproofs and a number of appeals in the years ahead. In April the magazine was claimed not to be paying its way, with a circulation of 270. There was a plea for an increased circulation to prevent the need to charge 3d a copy.

Back with the register, we read on September 5th that at the 10.45 Sung Eucharist there was 'Dedication of the New Children's Comer;' a fortnight later at the Harvest Festival Solemn Evensong and Procession the preacher was the splendidly named 'Vincent Windward Islands'. There were 92 communicants at the Patronal Festival that year (some years were still to pass before St Faith's Day at St Faith's was to become a major red-letter day), and the next month saw a Church Spring-Clean, according to the magazine. The heating system, and the walls and arches received attention: some of the areas were not to suffer such an indignity again until 1975. That Christmas in the register has a painted banner across two pages saying 'Nat ivity of our Lord' entwined with flowers, and accompanied by a beautifu1little illustration: Fr. Hassall records '150 + 94 - Full Church' at the midnight, and a total of 322 at all the services. It is again interesting to note that Easter Day communicants exceeded those at Christmas. The January 1949 magazine cover is blank but for the words 'TEMPORARY COVER UNTIL MARCH; by March this reads 'TEMPORARY COVER UNTIL APRIL', and April at last sported a new layout of information about priests, services and officers. A Confirmation service took place in Lent, and is noteworthy for the addition to the register of a parchment most beautifully recording the event, complete with a medieval style illuminated capital fully gilded. Lent went its normal way otherwise, al though without the Women's Services that had once featured so prominently, and gave way to Holy Week. The last celebration before Easter morning was at 6.15 a.m. on Maundy Thursday; after this Compline, the Good Friday Liturgy and the Three Hours Devotion preceded Holy Saturday Mattins, Evensong and Blessing of the Paschal Candle (some innovations here). There were 346 communicants on Easter Day. The magazine records that the Lady Chapel had now been restored in memory of those lost in both wars, with the pleasing detail that the Cubs had collected a thousand jam jars to pay for the renewal of the Sanctuary Lamp. Corpus Christi gets star billing now for the first time and, as a proper corrective, perhaps, so does the 400th Anniversary of the first English Prayer Book, falling entertainingly within the octave of that feast. But the most significant event that summer was the first broadcast service from St Faith's. This was on Sunday l0th July, 1949, and took the form of Choral Mattins. The Radio Times recalls the hymns as being standard favourites: 'Bless'd are the pure in heart', 'Fill Thou my life' and 'O praise ye the Lord'. The preacher was Canon

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Bernard Iddings Bell, Chaplain to Chicago University. For this special occasion all the choirboys signed in their careful handwriting: there were 22 of them and 8 men and they produced, according to the press, 'An impressive and inspired service, outstanding for the beauty of its choral singing'. The same report oddly records further that there 'was not an exceptionally large attendance at the Church, but those who were not present no doubt heard the service 'on the air' before taking part in the usual ll a.m. service.' Actually it was at 10.45 and the collections (the only guide to attendance) were £3.16.9 at 10.45 as compared with £3.0.7 for the B.B.C. During 1949 an interesting change comes over the Register. 'Holy Communion' and 'Sung Eucharist' gradually metamorphose into 'Low Mass' and 'Sung Mass', with occasional 'High Mass', but this does not happen at one fell swoop. High festivals come first, then a mixture of styles, and finally the book goes the whole hog and remains thus for the next twenty-four years. An unusual High Mass was the one on Friday September 23rd at 11.30 a.m.; it was the Reunion Festival of St Chad's College, Durham, Patrons of the living of St Faith's, and records several additional details. We read 'Principal of the College: T.S. Wetherall, M.C.: Robin Smallwood, Thurifer: David E.W. White and Boat Boy: Derek Clawson.' December 8th saw a performance by the College of St Catherine of the Chester Nativity Play, and soon after 381 communicants at Christmas. Next Easter they were to be 327, setting a proportionate trend that continues to this day. 1950, Golden Jubilee Year, opens quietly. In the February magazine the Vicar complains that 'The kneelers are in a disgraceful condition: very dirty and beyond patching.' He appeals for the congregation to give one or more, at 6/- a time, during Lent. Lent itself witnessed the reintroduction of the Women's Services at 3 p.m. on Thursdays, with such preachers as the Rector of Liverpool, the Bishop of Liverpool and Bishop Gresford Jones. The book had been somewhat perfunctorily kept for a time, but at Easter and for its last few pages it begins to look up again. For the Jubilee Festival began on Thursday 20th April, 1950, and after the 8 a.m. Low Mass on that day a new book begins. As far as the records go, the Golden Jubilee was celebrated in fine style. The seventh Register of Services, handsomely bound and inscribed, opens with two pages of photographs and press cuttings from the local papers, as well as a special article from the 'Church Times'. Photographs of assembled Wolf Cubs in long shorts are there, along with one of Fr. Hassa11, bald head

gleaming and a larger one of 'a happy group taken at the parish social', in which the Vicar's bald head is concealed beneath a party hat, as are the heads of some of the others. The Church Times article is very informative about the events of the week. Canon Brierley returned to preach and to recall the penniless state of the church upon his original arrival at St Faith's. 'There were no funds to buy boiler fuel; and he remembered how a few stalwart young parishioners helped him load coal on to barrows and hauled it to the church so that we might have at least the semblance of warmth for next morning'. The article also reports that the laity of the parish had distributed two and a half thousand leaflets in a visitation to every house in the parish. 'On the day of the festival itself priests from many neighbouring parishes attended the Sung Eucharist, and took part in the procession. The choir, which has a reputation for being second only to that of the Cathedral, sang the Mass to Merbecke's setting. The men of the congregation were necessarily at work; but the women turned out in force. Even so, most of St Faith's fifteen servers had made arrangements to be present and the organist, Mr E.H.Pratt, who has held the post for 25 years, took his yearly holiday at the time of the Jubilee. The Right Rev. H.N.V.Tonks, formerly Bishop of the Windward Islands, who had presided on the previous evening, preached. Afterwards, fifty guests sat down to a jubilee luncheon in the parish hall.' Their signatures adorn the next page of the Register. And finally, on a more homely note, the local press records the fact of the presentation of a 37 foot flagpole, at a cost of £12, the gift of the Choir of St Faith's.

Fr Hassall and the congregation in the Church

Hall during the 1950 jubilee Celebrations. Once the new register has passed the splendid pages of red-letter Masses, Solemn Evensongs and Processions and the like, it settles down again to the routine. Only an occasional entry catches the eye: 'Solemn Evensong' is solemnly recorded, as are the first use of 'Complete set of new kneelers' (to be replaced again in 1975), 'New Red Chasuble' and 'New Silver Wafer-box'. Two

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entertaining magazine articles appear at this time. In June Fr. Hassall roundly declares 'If you are told Corpus Christi doesn't appear in the Prayer Book, tell them "Neither does Harvest Festival!".’ And in the same issue we read that 'The Vicar's Discretionary Box has been sadly neglected of late.' 1950 was also the year of publication of 'Fifty Years: A History of Saint Faith's Church Crosby' by Mr. G.W. Houldin, the invaluable record of half a century to which the present author is so indebted. It concludes with a 'state of the nation' account of St Faith's in 1950, which I quote here in tribute. It opens with a tribute itself: to Fr. Hassall: 'It was in answer to prayer that God sent us a man worthy of past traditions, a man capable and energetic enough to formulate new plans for the future. He immediately set about refurnishing the sanctuary and renewing the robes of those who served therein. He transformed the dreary North Transept into one of the most beautiful Children's Corners to be found anywhere. Early in 1949 the Lady Chapel was renovated in a style more in keeping with the building, and this constituted the 'memorial to many former sons and daughters who are now at rest.' 'At no time have parochial interests obscured the wider activities of the Church, for with unfailing regularity the Diocesan Quota has been paid in full. The Vicar has endeared himself to young and old alike by his cheery friendliness. It seems more than likely that Canon Brierley's words are coming true, for just before the Induction and Institution he said: "There is no reason to doubt that your new Vicar will make the glories of the past seem but a pale light compared with the glories which are to come." In concluding this concise history of achievement, there come to mind all those who worked and worshipped with us and who are now in the Nearer Presence of Christ, and those who have been called to the distant parts of the world. For their contribution profound thankfulness is felt; and we welcome those who have recently joined the family, with the prayer that to the future generations may be passed on with even greater lustre the sceptre we now wield.' And so the Golden Jubilee Year ends and 1951 begins at St Faith's. That February 'Charles Warrington' conducted an episcopal Quiet Afternoon, proceeding several appearances by 'S.M.Gibbard S.S.J.E.' (the Cowley Fathers). He came back in November to conduct a mission, and an extravagantly decorated page records its title as

'The Key to Happiness'. At its conclusion the Vicar records 'Total number at the Early Masses 529.' For 1951, with characteristic attention to detail Fr. Hassall records 7,189 communicants and collections of £957.2.11. 1952 saw Requiem Masses ‘for His Late Majesty King George VI’, and the appearance of ‘New purple Frontal and a new Gong for the High Altar, the gift of Mrs. Martindale’. Visiting preachers are frequent: they include W.L. Mark Way, Charles S. Nye of St Nicholas, Blundellsands, Clifford Liverpool, Kenneth W. Warren and W.J. Phythian-Adams. And on October 18th, St Luke's Day, two masses celebrated the consecration of one of those signatories, W.L. Mark Way, as Bishop of Masasi in Westminster Abbey. In January 1953 the Vicar wrote in the magazine: 'January 31st, 1948 was a Saturday - and on that Saturday I was instituted to St Faith's living. Those five years have passed all too quickly, and as I look back I can only say how thankful I am to you all for your loyal support and affection, without which I could not have remained here.' A report of another sort, in the local paper, records the 'Clipping of the Church' on Mothering Sunday 1953. 'Despite the nip in the air,' we read, 'the sun shone through brightly, gleaming on the golden cross which, held on high, took its rightful place at the head of the procession.' The press seems always to have been capable of stating the obvious in style. A selection of other cullings from magazines of the Fifties. 'The music covers are unworthy of St Faith's, and new ones must be bought.' (1951). Twice in 1952 the offertory boxes were rifled and in one case removed. In July the Vicar notes that 'for some reason or other' St Faith's doesn't have many weddings. (It doesn't have many these days either.) The Paschal candlestick was given in 1953, in which year we hear that 'all four gates of the church have for many years been a disgrace. We want a new set worthy of St Faith's. In 1954 an interesting and unusual Register page records the signatures of 'The Bishop of Liverpool's Helpers from St Faith's who visited St Margaret's, Anfield on Saturday 27th March on the Occasion of the Bishop's Lent Mission.' They include G. W. Houldin, Caroline Mountfield, Raymond J. Clark, Madge Palmer and Dorothy and Lilian Carter, several of whom were still at St Faith's twenty years later to welcome a rather more permanent return visit from St Margaret's! The magazine appeals continued. Fr. Hassall asked for £30 for a new set of green vestments and £12 (‘no offer is too small’) for the renewal of the St Faith's banner. George Houldin gave a red

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frontal and the Vicar declared 'I am most particular about the perfection of things used in God's service.' In 1955 the new house for assistant priests at 16, Alder Grove was blessed by the Bishop of Liverpool on March l0th in the name of 'Saint Faith's House'. There soon came a major appeal for lighting. The total communicants for 1956 were up to 8,078, with the numbers for Easter and Christmas both just over 400. Sundays now saw between 50 and 80 at 8 a.m and about ten at 10.45. There were low masses each weekday with anything from two to twelve communicants, and recorded daily Mattins and Evensong attended usually only by the priest or his deputy. Rather better attended was a Classical Concert in February 1957. The Crosby Music Society Orchestra were brave enough to tackle Schubert's Great C Major Symphony and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto before an audience of over 300. Later that year the church Garden of Memory was laid out and hallowed. The P.C.C. agreed to have the ground thus landscaped, but the men of the congregation ended up doing the work as the gardener's estimate was too high. The hallowing took place after Evensong on July 28th: the congregation gathered round to await a procession headed by crucifer and choir; there were psalms. prayers, sprinkling with holy water and a blessing. It was soon to be well and truly watered again. 'Se vere storms swept the country for 48 hours' the next month. Soon after appear for the first time the ominous words .'Owing to illness of the Parish Priest these services could not be held.' With only Lay Reader George Houldin and no Curate, many services had to be cancelled until Fr. Hassall returned to health. Despite this, the year saw 8,011 communicants in all. In 1958 the Saturday morning celebration became established as a 'Mass with Instruction' for children. At the same time the communicants at the 10.45 a.m Sung Mass begin to creep up to anything between ten and twenty, and this despite the forbidding notice still in the porch at this time instructing intending communicants at that service to inform the Wardens in advance if they wished to make thei r communion. Clifford Liverpool came that Passion Sunday and 'Mark Masasi' at S.Faith’s -tide. Soon after there is another spell without services: this time it is 'Vicar in Retreat', but he is advancing again the following week for Ascension Day. In June it is declared 'With effect from this day Mattins is said before the first Low Mass' although the individual services are not recorded. This meant no fewer than three services every weekday and certainly represented a high-water-mark at St Faith's: a remarkable

achievement for a Vicar without a priested Curate and in doubtful health. In September the Sunday Schools were re-organised into Guilds: Children of the Cross up to 7, Crossbearers from 7 to 12 and Companions of the Cross over 12. The change, appropriately enough, took place on the Sunday of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Trinity 15). In the same month Peter Ryan conducted a Requiem for Helen Duggan, aged 104. Soon after there were only 52 communicants at three celebrations on St Faith's Day: it was still better kept by the clergy than by the people. Next month it is reported that £600 had been raised by direct giving in six months for the new oil heating system at church, so that the year, with 7947 communicants, could thus end on a warmer note.

The Children`s Corner. 1959 opened less auspiciously. Fr. Hassall suffered a slight stroke and, after January 4th, his initials are absent from the book until April 27th, and then he took only Evensong until May 1lth. 'T.S.S.' (the Revd. Thomas Stanage, his Curate now) was still only a Deacon, and the maintenance of regular Eucharists was in the hinds of the Reverends E.W.Pugh, Peter Ryan, H.Cawley and others, with the Rural Dean, Canon Nichols, also assisting. A Requiem had to be cancelled, and in its place T.S.S. provided Ante-Communion and Communion from the Tabernacle: the first recorded entry of this. Canon Naylor, the Bishops of Liverpool and Whitby, the Vicar of St Agnes, Ullet Road and 'Thomas S.S.F.' were among visitors during this period. Fr. Stanage, now priested, celebrated regularly from Corpus Christi 1959, but at the end of July the Vicar reduced the weekday services to three days only, although he did celebrate the somewhat exotically termed 'Sacrament of Unction on the Feast of the Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary.' On a more homely level, the Hall was modernised and redecorated at a cost of £700. In

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November the 8 a.m figures, which had been hovering in the nineties for some time, twice exceeded l00, and the 10.30, 20. 'Christmass' saw 335 communicants at midnight ('very full church'), and the year ended with a record of 8,661 communicants.1960 was Jubilee year again. It opened with a Morality Play performed by 54 St Faith's people, pre-recorded and mimed 'on the night' in church. In March the magazine reports that Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of York (to become Archbishop of Canterbury and once of Liverpool Parish Church) had written refusing the invitation to the Diamond Jubilee as he would be abroad. The Bishop of Whitby was promised instead. Woodworm was found in the reredos during its regilding. April 21st itself was the Thursday in Easter Week, and the Festival actually opened on Sunday May 1st. Another splendidly drawn and illustrated register page heralds a week of services. 'Philip Whitby' presided on May 1st, and other visitors to sign the book were T.S. Wetherall of S.Chad's, John Brierley, Charles, Bishop of Warrington and Clifford of Liverpool: three Bishops in one week! The Sung Eucharist of May 5th was attended by the clergy of all but two of the Deanery Parishes: a far cry from that occasion when they all cold-shouldered St Faith's. On this occasion they were rewarded by a special lunch. The register contains two pages of photographs. One, in faded, sepia, shows the St Faith's of 1900: standing oddly alone without hall or houses, surrounded by a fence and fields; inside we can see gaslights, a bare brick west end, no screen, and two candles only on the High Altar. The 1960 pictures are mostly of people processing and eating. A page of cuttings records the events of the week and includes the Festival invitation leaflet sent round the parish, which actually gets the date of Consecration one day wrong. In the magazine afterwards Fr. Hassall wrote of this 'most memorable occasion.' He said that 'the attendances at all the services were excellent; the many splendid preachers were worthy of the occasion, and the dignity and beauty of the ceremonial at all the services were in the best traditions of St Faith's. It was a joy to have as preacher on the Thursday Canon Brierley and to have with us many former Curates, some of whom now serve the church far from Crosby. Father Godfrey came from the Channel Islands to be with us. ..Canon Honner and Father Ford, who also began their ministries at St Faith's, came a long journey to join us in our Festival.' Among others thanked are 'our friend Mr. Du Cros' for the excellent lunch and the 'Magpies' for the jolly entertainment' that followed it. Then 1960 settled back into routine, although there were 500 present at a Mothers’ Union

Festival not long after. By the end of the year there were often more than twenty 10.45 communicants: the year totalled 8629, with 340 of them at the Christmas Midnight Mass. The magazine suffered a financial crisis and a change of printer, and featured an article, from an anonymous contributor, which sounded a note that was to become familiar in future years. He wrote: '1960 was Jubilee year, but it is a time for looking forward. Fine preachers, a beautifully-dressed church, large congregations and elaborate praise tempt us to think things are all right as they stand. We should go out into the world to witness to Christ as Lord and Master with renewed vigour.' For most of that year, however, the emphasis seems to have been on going out into the garden rather than the world. There are constant magazine pleas for young men to tidy the grounds, and to donate money for the badly-needed new mower. The Garden of Memory was getting very untidy. 'I can't do it all myself and no-one else cares. In future we must ask for a gift if anyone requests to have ashes placed there.' Later the Vicar reports complaints about the state of the place. We notice that those who do most talking give little or nothing to keep it neat.' Only marginally further afield, Fr. Hassall asks parishioners to squash a strange rumour that the new vicarage, then in the planning stages, was to be a bungalow. Inside church, Fr. Stanage left just before St Faith’s-tide and the initials of Canon Bates of St Luke's, the Rural Dean of the time, begin to appear with those of Fr. Cawley on a number of early celebrations. There were 8170 totalled for the year: the last time the Vicar was to add this information. Next Easter as many as 42 came up to the Altar at the Sung Mass. And in October the long- delayed new Vicarage began to be built. The papers reported that the Vicar and some officials intended to sit in the porch one Saturday to receive donations: a later photograph shows Fr. Hassall in his old study beaming with pleasure at donations duly received. And an artist's impression shows the Vicarage set amidst what appears to be several acres of grounds stretching across Milton Road into Cameron's Garage. That 'Christmass' the communicants were down to 286 and the banner headline in the register failed to appear. The year ends with the recording of much vile weather, and 'very thick fog' ushered in 1963. Snow continued into February with 'Blizzard all day' on 7th February and the Low Mass cancelled. There were different troubles in April: the Vicar reports problems with lads entering the church, lighting candles and burning notices. On one occasion the church narrowly escaped a serious :fire: from then on the church had to be locked to

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prevent a recurrence. Not until 1975 and a regular rota could the church be opened again. On September 24th the Bishop of Liverpool blessed the new Vicarage in the church grounds and Fr. Hassall moved in from College Road. A less happy fate was in store for the printed Church Magazine, which had struggled on since its last crisis: the last two months of 1963 saw only two issues emerge. And the old service register ran out on December 23rd; its last entries averaged some thirty at the Sung Mass, and down to forty or fifty at the early celebration. The new book is equally vast and well-kept; its first act is to record 333 Christmas Communicants. W.H.'s hand becomes increasingly shaky as the new year gets under way, but the firm hand of 'Laurence Warrington' appears for the first time to take the Three Hours Devotion on Good Friday. That May saw the reappearance of the magazine. Non-existent for several months, it was resurrected in duplicated form, with a cover, redesigned monthly, printed in colour on card at the Merchant Taylors' School Press by this writer. In this more economical and flexible format it has continued since, with contents varying from 12 to 32 pages. The first issue set the tone for future ones, with a wide range of home-produced articles and views. Its early numbers contain, among many other things, a desperate appeal from Mr. Pratt for more choirboys, a quotation from the Church Times on the occasion of the death of Canon Brierley ( a Requiem was held at St Faith's on June 15th) and articles on Vestments, the omission of the Last Gospel, and the value of Retreats. In 1965 thanks were given for the transformation of the Garden of Memory, the meaning of the term 'feria' was explained, the importance of genuflection emphasised and the life of a Franciscan explained by Brother Christian S.S.F. (Raymond Clark of St Faith's). But that autumn, after further periods of illness and consequent absence, Fr.Hassall finally reported his decision to resign the living of St Faith's. The Service Register had shown the way things were going for some time, with fewer ser vices possible and increasing help from outside: not surprisingly, too, numbers were falling off significantly. At the end of Fr. Hassall's term of office, the numbers at 8 a.m are around forty, although now as many as thirty would sometimes communicate at the Sung Mass. Florid and largely indecipherable writing boldly records the 'End' of the Incumbacy ( sic) of the Rev. W. Hassall' on All Saints Day, and the interregnum began. Before he left, though, the Vicar had printed in the new magazine a long and impressive list of work carried out during his time

with us; and it is this, rather than the sadder memory of his failing health and latter -day lapses of memory and concentration, that is his proper memorial at St Faith's. His first three years had seen the redesigning of the Lady Chapel, a new High Altar Cross and (six) candlesticks and various minor items. The next five years brought new vestments: copes, chasubles and cottas; new banners, gong, font cover, kneelers, carpet and lighting, as well as the complete overhaul of the organ and the installation of a new pedal -board. His last two years had added the adult library, wrought iron gates for the churchyard, Baptistry chairs and candlesticks, Children's Comer torches, hot water in the choir vestry, new oil heating for the church and the redecorating of the reredos. Over £7000 had also been raised towards the new Vicarage he had occupied for so short a time. A further memorial to a man who valued above all the beauty and dignity of worship and music at St Faith's was the subsequent restoration and cleaning of the organ in his name: a plaque dedicated by his successor and recording this is situated in the choir. The interregnum began with a vast variety of signatures in the book. Regulars are ‘+ L.W.’, Canon Bates and the Reverends W.H.Watterson, Paul Nichols, H.M. Luft and J.A.L Irvine. Only two weekday services could be maintained: the traditional and practically unbroken succession of Monday 10.30 a.m and a 7 a.m, usually on a Wednesday. During this period, the Sunday 8 a.m numbers fell further until they were on occasion below those at 10.45. Other events worth noting were the resignation of Mr. Gerald Layboume as Sacristan and his replacement by Mr. George Goodwin. and the serious ill-health of George Houldin. But in July 1966 there is a message in the Parish News, after more than one false alarm, from our Vicar-designate, Charles Alfred Billington. The Wardens express the hope that he will be known as Father Charles, and plans are on foot for the Induction. Eventually the book, still semi-indecipherably and still inaccurately, records the 'Beginning of the Incumbacy (sic!)of the Rev. C.A. Billington’ when he took over the living of St Faith’s on July 16th, 1966 and opened a new chapter in the life of the church. Doubtless every new incumbency seems to begin with sweeping changes, but there is no doubt that in its seven years this particular ministry revolutionised our way of life and of worship at St Faith's and in so doing made possible the church we know today.

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CHAPTER SIX Charles Alfred Billington

The entries in the Register for Charles Billington’s first Sunday at S.Faith’s set the pattern for his incumbency. There were 56 at 8 o’clock but 75 took communion at 10.45; the marginal note reads, ‘General Communion at Sung Eucharist commences.’ From then, onwards it became the rule for the great majority of those present at what became thought of as the family service of the church to go up to the altar to receive communion or, in the case of the unconfirmed of all ages, a blessing. From that date, too, the numbers at the early celebration inevitably declined and those at mid-morning built up to produce the pattern to which we are accustomed today. There came, too, an increasing participation by the laity in the services of the church. Over a period of years, and in some cases accompanying the introduction of new service forms, came such things as laymen reading the lesson and on occasion the Gospel, leading the intercessions, or the Evensong prayers, taking up the bread, wine and water, choosing the hymns, asking questions during the sermon and taking part in dialogues and discussions. S.Faith’s was catching up fast with the Liturgical Movement — and there was a lot of ground to make up. Not all the decisions made were smoothly made or without controversy and dissension,, but although some objected and a few departed, the majority soon accepted these innovations. Another new move was the establishing of regular weekday evening celebrations of the Eucharist: their ultimate success is reflected in the fact that in 1975 the Thursday evening celebration is almost always the best-attended midweek one, often attracting between twenty and thirty. Fr.Charles’ first Patronal Festival saw also the first Sung Mass on that day, with Robert Runcie of Cuddesdon celebrating and preaching. And soon after the Sunday Schools ceased to function at their traditional time of 3 p.m. on Sundays and instead began to operate in parallel with the morning service, their members coming in to share in the worship soon after the sermon.

The magazines reflect the upheavals and new enthusiasms of this hectic time. The Warden’s Notes ‘rejoiced at the prospect of such a varied and stimulating range of activities planned for us, from the youngest to the oldest, by Father Charles.’ Redecoration of the Hall is mooted, Jim Burgess’ welcome return to office as Verger is noted, explanations are given by the Vicar of the new Sunday Congregational evenings of hymn-singing, and learning of new tunes and settings, and the Vicar talks for the first time of Nave Altars and microphones. He accepts the resignation of Mr. Ernest Pratt, organist and choirmaster for many years, and prints a thoughtful letter from him in which he says, ‘the kind of hymn tunes which are being introduced, and the Service setting which it is proposed to introduce, are not among the most worthy forms of offering at our disposal and I there-fore cannot, as a matter of conscience, implicitly encourage them by rehearsal and performance.’ He was referring to the Appleford Mass setting and the Twentieth Century Light Music Group’s hymns by such writers as Appleford and Fr.Beaumont. Before Mr. Pratt’s departure at the end of the year there had been 250 at Fr. Charles’ first Christmas Midnight. Mr. Gerald Brown replaced Mr. Pratt in January, and the numbers communicating at 10.45 a.m. began to creep up into the 80’s and 90’s. On occasion, and for the first time in the history of S.Faith’s, they topped a hundred. That Lent saw more new things. There was an evening Sung Eucharist on Maundy Thursday and a Low Mass on Good Friday morning: this latter a cause of continuing controversy. And in the early hours of Easter we experienced the Vigil, Lighting of the Paschal Candle, Baptism and High Mass — new both to S.Faith’s and the whole area. This followed an ecumenical Lent Course ‘The People Next Door’, in which for the first time many of the congregation met regularly with members of Waterloo Baptist Church and SS.Peter and Paul’s Roman Catholic church to study together and to experience life not just outside our denomination but also the church as a whole. Other innovations in 1967 were the first known public use of incense, at the Easter Midnight (how Mr. Wise and his followers would have enjoyed that!), the introduction of women to the choir to help meet the perennial shortage of boys, and the use of the Stations of the Cross service in Holy Week. Articles in the Parish News defended and justified these and other changes the new Vicar had made and regretted that some had left and that others had remained to criticise. That Summer Evensong began to change from its seventy year pattern. The congregation, whose numbers had been falling slowly but steadily for

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many years, was confined — none too readily in some cases — to the front rows of the Nave: later they were to move to the Choir. The 10.45 service was brought forward to 10.30 so that there would be time afterwards for a cup of tea. This soon became coffee and a regular institution. And so Fr. Charles’ first year was over. By now Sunday 8 a.m. figures were at about 25 and mid-morning at about 90; there were three midweek celebrations including a movable evening one. On September 24th ‘Mass’ replaced Evensong on Sunday for the first time ever; two weeks later a major campaign and the presence of the Archdeacon of Liverpool produced 191 communicants at S.Faith’s Day evening High Mass (now so termed). It also saw the arrival of Mr.Patrick Fitzgerald to replace Mr. Gerald Brown upon the latter’s appointment to the Cathedral Choir and, a week after this, the first use of the new series two Holy Communion service. Sunday evenings in the Register begin to look highly individual now: successive Sundays in Advent 1967 read ‘Youth Club Service’, ‘Compline’, ‘Congregational Evening’ and ‘Musical Meditation on Christ. mass’. This latter is still spelt thus occasionally, and ‘Rememberance’ Sunday invariably thus mis-spelt. The October magazine, a special Patronal Festival issue of 24 pages, contained messages from three previous priests of.S.Faith’s, including Mr. Schofield. He recalled happy years at S.Faith’s and lasting friendships made, and said: ‘I think I can truly say that I have never loved any other church as much as I love S.Faith’s.’ Another who has given so much to S.Faith’s, Jim Burgess, also contributed some memories of the past to the issue. He recalled ‘an emissary from another church’ intercepting him one evening outside S.Faith’s and offering him another pound a week for an easier job if he would desert. He didn’t, of course, despite such ordeals as stepping into four feet of water one pitch dark morning in the notorious boiler house. The year ended with warning of the likely arrival of a Curate after many years, and 1968 began. During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Fr. John Kennedy signed in from S.Edmund’s Roman Catholic Church to preach at a Unity Service: the first recorded signatory from that denomination in the church’s history. That season also saw what was probably the biggest upheaval in the life of S.Faith’s since Mr. Bentley-Smith’s great Sung Eucharist controversy. After much debate and meeting, and ‘for an experimental period’ pews at the front of the church were removed and a temporary altar (actually the frontal cupboard in disguise) placed below the Chancel steps. Henceforward the 10.30 service was conducted from here, with communicants on three sides (and, for a period, pews as well) and the celebrant behind and facing down the church. History

records that in due time, and like most other S.Faitli’s experiments the temporary became the permanent and the fine platform, altar and rails at which we worship today were professionally made and installed. Just before the experiment began the Bishop of Liverpool, now Stuart Blanch, preached and confirmed to a full church on Mothering Sunday; the 175 communicants established a new record as probably did the amazing sum of £96 received in collections. An article at this time in the Parish News and entitled ‘of Altars, Ropes, New Tunes and Series Two’ struck a familiar note in trying to put these controversial but essentially internal preoccupations in the rightful context’ of the ‘church’s call to mission to the world outside. The Vicar reported from a Holiday Camp; the July issue was printed `June 1968` and later claimed to be an attempt to make S.Faith’s look ahead of the times; newcomers wrote poems about the warm welcome they had received when joining the church: in fact the magazine buzzed, as it has continued to buzz intermittently ever since with the clergy’s and the laity’s views. In the registers the new pattern began to stabilise, broken as usual by odd items of interest. There was the first High Mass for Corpus Christi; the inscrutable entry ‘Taxi’ under ‘Preacher’ one Sunday evening Sung Mass; services were cancelled to make way for Parish Outings to S.Paul’s Tranmere and S.Luke’s Southport for their Patronal Festivals; a ‘Special Mass with Holy Unction’ took place and there was a new record of 250 10.45 a.m. communi-cants when the Bishop of Warrington celebrated and confirmed one December Sunday. And of course that year also saw the arrival of the first Curate at S.Faith’s for seven years: the Revd. David Emery, living in 16, Alder Grove and making possible an increase to four weekday celebrations. The main preoccupation in church and magazine in 1969 was the Nave Altar controversy. In several articles Fr. Charles explained and defended his policy in making the experiment and then lobbying vigorously for a permanent installation. He saw the issue as part of the whole policy of worship in which he believed and he insisted that it should be seen this way. ‘I have been moved to see that, according to the Light I have received, one of our first objectives was to make the 10.45 a.m. service not for a selective High Church few but for an ordinary family who might drop into S.Faith’s. The Nave Altar I see as a vital part of that objective.’ The Curate gave support with articles about the ‘New Reformation’ and Canon Naylor addressed a meeting on the subject. The final stage was reached when, after the morning service on June 8th, the congregation voted by a margin of 65 to 23 for retaining the Nave Altar, a decision sub-sequently confirmed by the P.C.C. The Great Debate was over: the Referendum had been held.

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The Nave Altar It had been punctuated by preparations for what can only be called a Whit Spectacular, a service entered in the Register under the unique name of ‘The Power and the Glory and the Eucharist of the Holy Spirit.’ It lasted two and a half hours and featured a bewildering variety of component’ parts. The Bishop of Liverpool preached, pop musicians performed, a Pentecostalist Anglican spoke of the Spirit and, under the direction of Jill Brown, wife of a local Congregationalist minister, twelve men mimed the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and, in so doing, gave considerable food for thought to late passers-by as, at midnight and clad in sheets, they crept round from the hall to the porch to make their entry. There were 200 communicants (a suspiciously round figure) at this unrepeatable event, and they contributed to a record of 302 for Whit Sunday. A few weeks before more new ground had been broken as most of the congregation went to S.John’s, Waterloo to share their morning worship and return a visit made earlier to S.Faith’s. Soon after, Evensong was transferred into the Sanctuary for a ‘trial period’ that inevitably became permanent. Numbers at both ends on Sundays had steadily fallen (at this time per-haps a dozen at 8 and choir-plus-twenty or so at 6) while there were usually over a hundred communicants now at a ‘normal’ Sunday morning main service. More newcomers remarked in the ‘Parish News’ on the new relaxed and informal atmosphere at S.Faith’s, combining happy inform-ality in personal relationships with the due maintenance of dignity and beauty in worship. The year saw other unusual services, some of them unusually timed. At about 5.45 p.m. on All Saints Day (a Saturday) a Sung Mass was held ‘at conclusion of Church Bazaar’; two weeks later a ‘Top Ten Hymns Evening’ replaced Evensong. History records that, despite seventy years of the English Hymnal and two years of intensively canvassed ‘Twentieth Century Supplement’, the clear

winner was none other than ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, followed by ‘Jerusalem’, ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ and ‘Guide me, 0 thou Great Redeemer’ to Cwm Rhondda! And so into the nineteen seventies. Father Charles had promised that the Nave Altar would be the last major innovation for the time being, and 1970 was thus less controversial. It saw the institution of the ‘Meeting of the Church’ — the gathering of those concerned with parish visiting and mission — after a monthly Thursday evening Eucharist featuring free prayer from the congregation and the laying-on of hands in blessing. There was Any Questions in place of Mothering Sunday Evensong and on Passion Sunday the 10.45 finally became the 10.30. That Maundy Thursday there was the first Washing of the Feet at the evening Sung Eucharist (90 communicants and 24 feet). At S.Faithstide, Bishop Mark Way returned to preach and dedicate the Nave Altar. The seventieth anni-versary of the church was commemorated at the same time but only, as it were, in passing; April 21st itself had, oddly, not featured a service of any kind to mark the day. Two final events soon followed: MrFitzgerald’s last day as organist, and Fr.David Emery’s as Curate. In the months that followed Fr.Charles made what is probably the oddest entry ever in the Register, a ‘Special Low Mass in Freshfield Pinewoods’ for the benefit of Confirmation candidates who, on an elaborately planned expedition on the eve of their Confirmation, were surprised to stumble upon the family of S.Faith’s worshipping in, a hollow. At the Con-firmation, with Bishop John Bickersteth, the new Bishop of Warrington, and now of Bath and Wells, there were 270 communicants and ‘about 400 in church’, this latter being practically the first guess at actual numbers attending at S.Faith’s in all its years. Just before Christmas Dennis Richard Bury signs in as Curate and Nigel McCulloch, Chaplain of Christ’s College, Cambridge and another old friend of S.Faith’s, preached at midnight. The ‘Parish News’ reflects a few other events of the year. During it Fr.Hassall had died, and a tribute by Derek Clawson said much about him, his last years with us, and about what had happened since his departure, and put these things into perspective. ‘It was sad to see his last years at S.Faith’s, cruelly struck down and a shadow of the man he was - . . Much of what he stood for is changed now. But then he was a man of his generation, and we cannot blame him for that. As to whether his ‘transcendental’ view of worship or the more modern ‘immanent’ view is the better, we cannot tell: we stand too close to the change over to know. Perhaps his character can be

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best summed up by the wish he often expressed about his ashes if he were to die at SFaith’s. “Bury them,” he used to say, “where the servers stand when the Gospel is read. I can act as a marker.” He wanted to be useful even when he was dead.’ Another article that month records the passing of Mother Maribel of Wantage, sculptor of the ‘Rabbit Madonna’ in the Lady Chapel. This unusual group bears the identifying inscription CSMV (Community of S.Mary the Virgin) on its base. Later the Vicar states that, barring an invitation fo become the first Bishop of the Moon, he aims to stay happy among us for quite some time yet; proving thus that although he may often have been a visionary, he was not always a prophet.

Fr Charles and the church group in 1969. For 1971 was to be Fr.Charles’ last full year at S.Faith’s. It opened with a welcome to our current organist, Mr. Graham Atherton, who joined us in January. The month appropriately ended with the launching of the Organ Appeal as well as one of the numerous Parish POrse Appeals that all churches specialise in these days. Candlemas was marked by a moving and beautiful candle-light High Mass and Lent saw ‘Worship with a Difference’ on Sunday evenings. Music with a difference was provided on the weekend of March 14th, when SFaith’s staged a Musical Marathon. For two days and a night a rota of congregation and friends, accompanied by various organists and pianists, sang their way continuously through a lot of Hymns Ancient and Modern, good, bad and indifferent. They were refreshed through the long watches of the night, found the occasion exhausting but memorable, and helped to raise over £100 towards the target of some £600. Since those busy months, our organist has built and maintained an increasingly high musical standard and shown a most valuable liturgical sense. Despite many difficulties he has succeeded in providing a fine and fitting musical setting for our worship.

That June Mr. George Houldin, who had been ill for some time, left to live in Formby and end an association with S.Faith’s through much of its history. The same month Dennis Bury, our ‘temporary’ Curate was made priest in Liverpool Cathedral, but the Easter and Whitsun Midnight services both dropped in numbers. During the year the Sunday Evening ‘Sung Mass’ became ‘Evening Communion’, reintroducing the word to the Registers. That S.Faith’s Day welcomed Bishop Baker, the Gloriana Brass Ensemble and Miss Annette Cull as horn soloist, but only 95 comm-unicants. An oddity in December is a 7.15 p.m. weekday Sung Mass: ‘Votive of the Holy Spirit, attended by guests at Myles Davies’ 21st Birthday Celebrations’ (in the Hall,

afterwards). Myles, priested in 1975, in just one of a steady and remarkable stream of ordinands whom S.Faith’s has produced over the years, and, seemingly, in increasing numbers: to anticipate the future, the present incumbent, who is also Deanery Warden of Ordinands, has four in the parish in 1975. Back now in 1971, Nicolas Alldrit (another from our ranks to take Orders) warned in a magazine article of the dangers of ‘multitudinism’, of counting heads and acting as if the church existed merely to fill its pews and justify the science of statistics. The present author might feel chastened were he not a firm believer in the value of historical records and their interest as a guide to patterns of worship and to liturgical fashions. , Unrepentantly he records that at the end of the year, and for the first time, communicants topped the ten thousand mark. It might nevertheless be fitting to suspend statistics for a while, at least until Easter. During Lent 1972 Mr. Archie Pattison functioned as Reader for the first time, and the approaching departure of Charles Billington was upon us. In the February magazine he had announced his reasons for accepting two country livings in Bedfordshire. His son Chad needed a move to a better climate than that of Merseyside, and he himself, as he explained at one of the Parish Dinners he had instituted, and in a Farewell Speech, felt that the time had come to move on while the parish was strong and happy and he had achieved his main objectives here. His final Lent was memorable: it cul-minated in a farewell party and presentation after Easter Day Festal Evensong and closed with 61 communicants on Easter Monday at 10.30 a.m. as Charles Alfred Billington signed the book for the last time and left S.Faith’s for the parishes of Harrold and Carlton with Chellington. A large number of the congregation followed him for his induction and some visited him regularly in the months and years ahead. The plethora of innovations and happenings recorded

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above speak for themselves and for the priest who introduced them. If Fr.Hassall had, through his energy and devotion, added immeasurably to the furnishings and the internal beauty of S.Faith’s, and preserved and enhanced its traditional image and role, Fr.Charles had in a few short years brought it into the world of the 1970’s. Controversial, vulnerable, stubborn and lovable, he suffered from a personality cult that he publicly disowned but of which he was doubtless privately proud, and doubtless S.Faith’s was the better for it. He totally revolutionised the pattern of our worship and made us revalue ourselves and our contribution to the church; he brought the concept of family worship to the forefront and made S.Faith’s for the first time for very many years, if not for all time, a church for the parish and the family and not merely for the adherents of a particular party within Anglicanism. And he did all this without sacrificing Catholicism in its real sense; indeed hand in hand with the ‘pop’ hymns, his crooning into the new microphones, the children’s ‘nursery’ in the noisy back pews, and the washing of the Maundy Thursday feet in the yellow plastic bowl, there was also the establishment of regular High Masses, of the use of incense, of the Stations of the Cross, of mysticism and of sacramental devotion. It is impossible fully to assess so diverse a man, and one to whom S.Faith’s and I both owe so much; it is probably best merely to ‘add that Charles Billington created the S.Faith’s of the seventies, which is something for which I feel sure everyone in the congregation today feels continuing thankfulness. Dennis Bury remained for the first months of this latest interregnum as priest-in-charge. We heard of the death of Fr.Schofield, watched the Everyman Theatre produce ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ in church, organised another ‘Talents’ scheme and finally said goodbye to Fr.Dennis as he left for Birmingham University. The last Whitsun Midnight to be held saw only 72 communicants, but featured the first known consumption of refreshments at the back of church afterwards (and punch, at that!). In June we ex-perienced the first partial use of Series Three; in July Canon Edwyn Young of Liverpool Parish Church dedicated a new Visitors’ Book, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Hwfa Griffiths. For a week in August, and before Fr.Dennis’ departure, there were no services of any sort between two Sundays: almost certainly the first time this had happened for some seventy years. The ‘pure’ interregnum that followed the departure of the priest-in-charge saw the maintenance of the normal Sunday services, and the Monday and Thursday midweeks. Celebrants during this period included several local vicars and old friends as well as others from further afield.

in September came the news of Mr. Houldin’s death; an article in the ‘Parish News’ adds these memories of the man to the impression that the records give. ‘I see him as an eloquent preacher . - . I see him, dark-haired, striding home from a service, surrounded by numerous cubs, all wanting to hold his hand. He had the power to hold us spellbound, as few people were able. He lived for S.Faith’s, and I am sure that there are many who came under his influence who will always remember him with great affection, and be better for having known him.’ A link with the past had been broken, but the future was taking shape again. The usual mysterious negotiations between Wardens, Patrons and Bishop had, after one or two false starts, produced the promise of a new Vicar and then at last a date for his Induction. The Reverend Peter Goodrich, B.A., was to join us from S.Margaret’s, Anfield. The arrangements for the Induction Service were finally made, the Bishop of Warrington and the Archdeacon of Liverpool introduced and handed over S.Faith’s to its new Vicar (and vice versa), the Wardens sighed with relief, (as, no doubt, did the congregation), and, in the presence of 32 visiting clergy and abOut three hundred people, the interregnum ended and, on November 22nd, 1972 the Incumbency (spelt correctly at last) of Peter Goodrich began.

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CHAPTER SEVEN Peter Goodrich

Peter Goodrich’s ministry opened with a Eucharist at the now traditional time of 7.30 p.m. the next (Thursday) evening. The word ‘Eucharist’ is not without significance: from this date the Service Register reverts to the practice of its first fifty years and entitles its celebrations Holy Comm-union and Sung Eucharist, with the addition of the app-ropriate High Masses. From the first there were four weekday celebrations restored, and almost at once some were transferred to the Lady Chapel where too Evensong was said on four weekdays and Mattins on Mondays. Another innovation of value to the chronicler (even though he has to do most of the counting involved) is the regular recording of numbers attending as well as communicating at all services: that first Sunday there were 180 of them at the Sung Eucharist and thenceforward the Wardens added counting of heads from the back pew to their varied res-ponsibilities on Sunday mornings. Marginal notes in the Registers become more frequent and explanatory: ‘Adop-tion of Revised Calendar begins’; ‘13 candidates from S.Faith’s confirmed’ (partly prepared by the laity, they were among 227 taking communion and 350 in church that Sunday); ‘Choir Holiday’; ‘First full use of Series Ill Rite’; and ‘Series Ill: attended by P.C.C. prior to meeting’ were some from Fr.Peter’s first months. Christmas communi-cants were down to 233, mainly due to the steady decline in attendance over the years at the morning service on Christmas Day. The ‘Parish News’ now began to print the collects and lesson details for the month in advance as an aid to dev-otional preparation. It also continued to reflect the contro-versial, topical or merely entertaining, debating such matters as the merits of the Appleford setting (abandoned with Series Two) and the dangers of exclusiveness in music, the purchasing of new hymnbooks (A and M Revised) as part of a memorial to George Houldin, the value of coffee in hall, the introduction of advertisements in the magazine, concerts in aid of the Restoration Fund for S.Luke’s after its disastrous fire, and an increasing number of jokes of varying standards, for whose introduction this author must accept the blame. It also records the introduction of a new system of P.C.C. Committees during

1973: thenceforward responsibility for the various activities of church life have been shared between the Mission and Pastoral, Premises, Youth and Finance Committees. Good Friday has always been a barometer of priestly attitudes at S.Faith’s. From 1973 we reverted to a non-Eucharistic pattern, based on Veneration of the Cross, having thus experienced over ten years every variation from the traditional Three Hours to Sung Masses. The Series Three Communion service was used for the first time in full and to the music of John Rutter for the High Mass on Ascension Day. The numbers for this were down to 60, reflecting another trend downwards over the years: that of weekday High Masses on the major festivals. On July 1st they were down on a Sunday too, but for a very different reason: the Vicar and a number of the congregation were at S.Peter’s, Parr for the making Deacon of Peter Bernard Cavanagh, the next occupant of the Curacy and of 16 Alder Grove and the first man to come here as Deacon to start his ministry for many years. The year continued uneventfully, with communicants staying over 100 save in high summer, and attendances averaging 140 or so. The 8 a.m. services, transferred now to the Lady Chapel, were taken regularly by the Reverend Julian Davey, Head of Divinity at Merchant Taylors’ School and the Reverend Owen Yandell of Sefton. September saw two innovations: the holding of a very successful Harvest Supper and the beginning of a Thursday afternoon Toddlers’ Service, which has proved equally and encouragingly successful. From October 1st the daily offices are booked in the Register; Evensong numbers have ranged from one to some six or seven, with lay people regularly officiating. Also in October began the monthly Tuesday afternoon Evensong for the Ladies’ Group, inheritors of the Mothers Union meetings. There came too a series of chamber concerts in church arranged by the Crosby Arts Association and the Amici Concert Society as part of a developing policy of providing a welcome for the arts in our acoustically excellent building. In December the congregation helped to swell the numbers at the Patronal Festival of S.Thomas, Seaforth; a week later a new Carol and Toy service attracted 195 mostly young people to church. There were 258 communicants at the Christmas Midnight service at the end of Fr Peter’s first full year at S.Faith’s. The most memorable event of early 1974 was the combined service held in our church during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It took the form of an Anglican Festal Evensong, and our clergy were assisted by Methodist, United Reformed Church and Roman Catholic ministers and priests, while the inspiring preacher was the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Augustine Harris. There were 310 in church: certainly the biggest turnout for Evensong at S.Faith’s for very many years! Another spectacular followed: the revival of the pantomime tradition at S. Faith’s with the Curate writing and starring outrageously in ‘Aladdin and his Magic Handbag’ — a riotous success indeed. Back inside church, numbers began slowly again to rise, congregations averaging 150-170 on ordinary Sundays, with perhaps 200 on Parade or

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Baptismal occasions and up to 250 on, for example, Mothering Sunday. An unusual and very successful feature of the annual Missionary Weekend was a Concelebrated Eucharist in the hall with Bishop Baker joined by the Vicar, the Reverend Alan Wright of Seaforth and Canon Eric Lowe. An even more unusual event took place on Sunday, June 30th. The morning saw probably the first recorded instance of a said service in S.Faith’s at 10.30, while large numbers attended the Ordination to the Priesthood of Fr. Peter Cavanagh at the Cathedral. And that evening, instead of the usual sedate handful in the Choir for Evensong, there were nearly three hundred present for the Curate’s First Mass of the Holy Spirit. It was attended by fourteen priests and ministers from several denomi-nations and celebrated joyfully, at length and with much pomp and circumstance, music for the occasion being specially composed and played by Graham Atherton. During the year we supported Myles Davies as he was made Deacon, and welcomed Stuart Blanch, Bishop and soon to be Archbishop, for his second visit to S.Faith’s. He came on S.Faith’s Day, it being a Sunday, to confirm and to preach to a large congregation; there were also some 270 in church and 154 communicants at the transferred evening High Mass that Wednesday, the best turnout for several years. The latter service was followed by further, and more substantial refreshments at the back of the church after the service. By the end of 1974, most normal Sundays were seeing 160 to 180 in the main morning congregation; com-municants at about 120 were equalling the figures of five years before, and their total for the year was 9609. The introduction of a Christingle Service in aid of the Church of England Children’s Society on the Sunday evening before Christmas drew 255, mainly children with their Smartie tubes full of pennies. The service provided a fitting conclusion to the year and the unforgettable memory of all those happy children processing round the dark church with their candles stuck so perilously in their oranges. These last two years had seen certain definite trends emerge. There has been an increasing devotion and prayer-fulness in our worship which, while in no way detracting from the well-established and characteristic air of friend-liness and happy welcome that marks family worship at S. Faith’s, seeks to bring together the immanent and the trans-cendent, the intimate and the remote, in one offering to God. In so doing we hope to provide a firm and lasting basis upon which to build in our seventy-fifth year as we seek, having tried to put our own house in order, to look increasingly outward in mission to the parish and beyond. To this end, and under Fr.Peter’s guidance, the laity have been encouraged to take a still greater share in the actual running of the parish: through the work of the Strategic and other committees and in increased involvement in parish visiting and the formation of house groups and churches. They have also been years of consolidation and stabilisation at S.Faith’s. And they have seen new ecumenical initiatives that promise to sweep away the last vestiges of the suspicions and exclusiveness that for so long characterised S. Faith’s relationships with other churches, whether Anglican or not. The local clergy fraternal, a product of Peter Goodrich’s efforts, is a weekly interdenominational meeting for worship and joint

consultation; such a meeting would have been difficult even a few years before and impossible even ten years ago; we hope that it marks the end of the conscious isolationism that had for far too long been associated with the name of S.Faith’s for many of those outside it. The magazines of recent months reflect much of all this. Increased giving to Missionary work via our project at Magila Hospital, Tanzania, a Talents Scheme aimed not at keeping our own roof on but that of S.Thomas, Seaforth, increased income in Christian Aid Week, as well as the planning of Quiet Days and Retreats and the stepping up of visiting the housebound, lonely and needy of the parish —all these appear in their pages. Talking points now are the merits or otherwise of the Charismatic Movement, pop-ulation control and how best to celebrate our seventy-fifth anniversary - Nineteen seventy five, the anniversary and present year, has inevitably been one of activity, of looking back and also to the future. A few of the events of its first six months may serve to give its flavour. The main, if extra-liturgical feature of Lent was a major spring-clean of the church, using industrial equipment and an internal scaffolding tower, but entirely amateur labour. High and hidden recesses of the sandstone have been sucked clear of generations of grime, and choking clouds of dust and debris poked down from ledges visited until then only by pigeons. The wood-tiled floor areas have been laboriously sanded down, reglued in many places, and then four times varnished to produce a warm, rich and attractive finish. Over it have passed processional feet at several major services. The anniversary of consecration, Monday April 21st, was marked by a very special High Mass of Dedication and Thanksgiving. The liturgy was skilfully interwoven with the magnificent music of Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass, sung by the local Capriol Singers to a small orchestra and a large congregation. The Vicar left for a sabbatical term in Oxford the very next day, but by pre-arrangement rather than by a process of cause and effect. He returned briefly for Whitsunday and the next special event. That evening Bishop Baker administered con-firmation to some 70 candidates, from S.Faith’s, S.Nich-olas, S.Luke’s, All Saints and S.Stephen’s, Hightown, and presided at the Sung Eucharist in which the confirmation was set, with the clergy of all these churches concele-brating. By importing chairs in quantities normally needed only for school services, we accommodated some 610 con-gregation, exactly 300 of whom took communion; a record unlikely to be overtaken for some time and a most happy and successful addition to the year’s celebratory events. Furthermore it was, if one can use the term, something of an ecumenical activity in itself and perhaps a pointer to the future. Less spectacular, but equally significant, has been the launching of a major campaign for Commitment of Time, Talents and Money, and the success of a ‘Birthday Appeal’ for money to refurbish the church and its surrounds, the first fruits of which are already being seen. The year con-tinues with a Flower Festival, various musical events, and special services within the Patronal Octave, when Bishop Runcie of S.Alban’s will return to preach in the church where he once served at the altar. A bazaar, social events

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and, inevitably another pantomime after Christmas, should help further to make this a year to remember, despite the prospect of major expenditure upon our decaying heating systems and boilers. And finally, after a period of trial, the great crucifix which Douglas Horsfall gave forty seven years ago has been set on the wall of what was the Children’s Corner as the powerful and moving focal point of a new Chapel of the Cross to commemorate the anniversary year. And so history moves into the present and into the blank pages of the unfilled Register. To draw this account to its conclusion4 to provide a record of our pattern of worship and life in 1975, and as a means of paying tribute to some at least of those who serve S.Faith’s so well today, a port-rait of a typical Sunday morning’s activities may be of help and interest. At just before 10.30 on this composite morning the church is comfortably filled. If it is a Parade service, the front pews will be filled with Scouts, Cubs, Brownies and (especially) Guides, and their flags will follow the pro-cession up. If there is Baptism, the back pews will be filled with visitors. And if the two coincide, my fellow-Warden George Smith and I will be hoping the weekly duplicated notice sheets won’t run out, and that all the regulars will find their favourite seats. S.Faith’s owes George much for his hard work and loyalty over the years, not merely before and after the services and on the committees of the church but in many other ways behind the scenes and around the premises and grounds; no-one in recent years has done more in boiler-house and in garden. The books are kept out on the pews permanently: Series Three for the service order, and hymns from Ancient and Modern Revised (for most hymns) with perhaps one or two from either ‘100 Hymns for Today’ or the Twentieth Century Supplement (the 900’s in the blue book). Crucifer, choir, taperers, servers, Reader, Curate and celebrant enter from the back and move forward to the Nave Altar to the accompaniment of the opening hymn. The Sung Eucharist has begun. And so the service goes its familiar way, and the focus moves from the chancel steps in due course to the Nave Altar itself. The Vicar celebrates today: conducting the service with warmth and a quiet, friendly assurance that sets the tone for those assisting him and for the whole con-gregation. He often says that things are so well-run at S. Faith’s that he merely needs to stand in the middle on a Sunday morning and wave his arms and everything happens round him. In fact everyone else knows full well how much he contributes and that without him our worship would be infinitely the poorer, as would our whole life at S.Faith’s. Under the unobtrusive direction of George Goodwin, the servers assist the celebrant with invariable dignity and fitting style: the high standard of reverence they set and maintain has always been one of the marks of S.Faith’s. The choir is well-filled with boys, men and women; the latter now an established tradition. The problem of maintaining a full choir, especially with boys, is no less than it was in the past, but under Graham Atherton today both in quantity and quality the choir and its output set the highest standard. Fr. Peter Cavanagh preaches: children of all ages are de-

lighted to see that he has his complete Winnie the Pooh with him and is going to read a story about Eeyore the don-key, and to talk in his informal, very human style, sincere yet entirely without pomposity. Soon afterwards a server slips away to alert the Junior and Children’s Churches: the modern inheritors of the old Guilds and afternoon Sunday Schools; they come in with their teachers to sit at the front for the Ministry of the Sacrament. Meanwhile lay people read the lesson and lead the intercessions, the latter singly or in twos or threes and from the back of the church. Arranging the intercessions is one of several responsibilities of our Reader, Archie Pattison: in this, as in preaching and visiting, another devoted and hard-working servant of the church. In due time further lay people follow the collection plates up, bearing the bread, wine and water to the altar. The Peace of the Lord is exchanged from Fr. Peter through the whole congregation, with smile, handshake and even kiss; stray toddlers are pursued up and down the aisles; others are happily nursed by some of the girls from S.Christopher’s, a Community Home in Thornton to which the Vicar is now Chaplain and who attend our services.

Fr Peter Cavanagh The service reaches its climax with the Thanksgiving, and the acclamations, sung, as the rest of the service, to the music of Rutter, and general Communion begins. Assist-ants, Sacristan, servers and then choir file round the altar in quiet order, and the congregation follows: adults and children alike kneel on three sides of the altar to receive the elements or a blessing while the choir sing an anthem. When it is all finished and the ablutions are over, there remain only the final prayers and the notices before the recessional hymn ends the service at about 11 .40. A long queue forms to greet the clergy and to get through the only means of escape, while Wardens anq sidesmen tidy up the church. In the hall all is noise and bustle: Margaret Good-rich manages somehow to talk to almost everyone and to seek out newcomers: the ideal support to her husband with her friendly concern and welcome. Tickets are sold; lost property returned; coffee drunk; innocent bystanders per-suaded to read next week’s lesson. And thus a morning of worship and family fellowship is ended and all that remains is Sunday Dinner and a rest before the quiet intimacy of Sunday Evensong.

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And what can I say more? To generalise further or to pass judgment on the present incumbency would be premature if not impossible: it is, like all bur life in the church, contin-ually developing yet at the same time rooted in the past. But in the two and a half years of his ministry here, Peter Goodrich has won the genuine love and affection of those whom he serves as priest and pastor, as counsellor, as tire-less visitor and as friend. We look forward with trust and confidence to working with and for him in the years ahead, and to helping him put into action the stimulating ideas with which he has returned from Oxford. We have already much to be thankful for since November, 1972. We look forward, too, to the continuing and developing ministry of Fr. Peter Cavanagh. Whether working with young people; as graphic designer, scriptwriter and comedy star; or as priest and preacher, he has already given much to S.Faith’s and has more yet to give. Those of us privileged to serve the church today owe it and its priests much; not least our loyalty and affection. We are conscious, particularly in 1975, of the responsibility in-volved in carrying into the years ahead the mission of the parish church and of the Lord whom we serve. We have seen great changes in the past decade, and the forming of a community and of a way of life and worship that those who laid the foundations of S.Faith’s might not recognise but of which we hope they would approve. To study, as have done, the history of this church through seventy five often turbulent but never dull years is to be conscious, even in so short a time, of the weight of history and, above all, of the overwhelming love and loyalty that this Church of Saint Faith has inspired in countless people from the very beginning. It is possible, in all humility, to consider our-selves part of no ordinary church, and one which has still a distinctive and valuable part to play in bringing Christ to the world. It is wholly fitting at this time to look back in gratitude and in thanksgiving for all those, named or unnamed in these pages, who have sustained this church through seventy five years and who have given it so much; and then to look forward in prayer and confidence to the next three quarters of a century. For if one thing is certain, it is that with the pace of our rapidly changing world, the church of the future must develop even more startlingly and radically than it has done in recent years: and S.Faith’s can and will change with it. And we who love S.Faith’s today rededicate ourselves in 1975 to its service in the name of the Lord to whose glory it was built and to whom we pray that it may continue to offer up unbroken praise and worship.

The Great Crucifix above the High Altar and the Nave Altar in the foreground, Palm Sunday 1974.

The St Faith`s Dramatic Society with the vicar`s wife on the extreme right of the picture and Fr Peter Cavanagh

next to her.