My great uncle, Frank Anderson, died of his wounds in the Great War. His body is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Aubigny-sur-Artois in the Nord departement in France. Here in the Somme is the Chinese Cemetery at Noyelles-sur-Mer, on the way to the coast. The entrance gate, the design of Sir Edwin Lutyens, is shown in the photograph above.
In this cemetery are the graves of those Chinese who came from far away to join the Chinese Labour Corps. Many of them stayed on after 1918 and died in the Spanish Influenza epidemic. The cemetery is poignant and deeply moving.
It is sad to hear the reports from Africa of the bodies of black soldiers not treated with the respect that was undoubtedly their due, alongside their white colleagues. One hopes that this will soon be rectified.
The little cemetery at Noyelles shows the intention (apparently not always fulfilled) of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission that there should be no distinctions among the dead of race or class.
Formerly an Anglican priest (ordained 1975) received into the Catholic Church in February 2012, and ordained to the Diaconate on 27th July 2013. I took early retirement, and divide my time between London and northern France. I am deeply committed to the Ordinariate as a gift of the Holy Spirit in the search for unity. Like many Ordinariate members I feel a personal gratitude to Pope Emeritus Benedict, together with loyalty to our Holy Father, Pope Francis. My blog tries to make a small contribution to the growth of the Ordinariate by asking questions (and proposing some answers) about the 'Anglican Patrimony'.
I have always been fascinated by the whole issue of growth and decline, and therefore concerned for appropriate means of evangelisation in western Europe. I believe that the Holy Spirit is constantly renewing the People of God and that we must be open to him.
On Saturday 19th October 2013, I was ordained to the Priesthood at Most Precious Blood, Borough, by the Most Revd Peter Smith, Archbishop of Southwark, for the service of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham. I continued to serve the Ordinariate group and Parish at Most Precious Blood until the end of 2014. Subsequently, I helped in the care of the Ordinariate Groups at Hemel Hempstead and Croydon, and in the Archdiocese of Southwark, until the beginning of September 2015. With the agreement of my Ordinary, , the Bishop of Amiens appointed me Administrator of the Parish of Notre Dame des Etangs (Pont Remy) in Picardie, France.
After nine years as parish priest, with wonderful and supportive parishioners, I decided that the time had come to retire and return to the UK. A nasty accident four years ago and contracting COVID has left me physically rather feeble! I shall be ever grateful for the years in France, a wonderful ending to the years of parish ministry. So here I am back in the UK, taking a long rest, setting up home, coping with all the new Safeguarding procedures - and wondering what next.
Ordinariate Pilgrim 