Two weeks ago Ronald Ritchie attended St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh for a Special Service for the Scottish Guild of Servers, of which he is a member. Ronald was invited to represent All Saints Church.

“The service was a Full High Mass, enjoyable for me, as it brought back memories of my Old Church in England. We gathered in the Chapter Room to robe up, then paraded outside round the Cathedral and up the Nave to our seats. At the end of the Service we did the same in reverse to the Chapter Room. There were around 40 of us present, refreshments followed the High Mass.

As it was a Service for The Scottish Guild of Servers we were permitted to lead the Possession ahead of the Priests etc. into and out of the Cathedral, a joy for us all.”

Ronald Ritchie

      Appeal by Rev Robin Underhill,          Padre of the Mission to Seamen for

Hats for Seafarers

Below is a pattern for ‘Hats’ If you would like to make one or maybe two please hand your finished hats in at All Saints so we can forward them on Rev. Underhill.

Hat Pattern

Double knitting wool

No 8 or 4mm knitting needles

Cast on 96 stitches

Work Knit 2, Purl 2 rib for 5½ inches

Continue in stocking stitch (1 row knit, 1 row purl) until work

measures 8½ inches.

Shape Crown

1^st row – knit 7, knit 2 tog, knit 8, knit 2 tog, repeat to end of row, knit 1.

2^nd row – Purl

3^rd row – knit 15, knit 2 tog, repeat to end of row, knit 1.

4^th row – And all even rows purl.

5^th row – knit 14, knit 2 tog, repeat to end of row, knit 1

Continue Decreasing like this until 26 stitches remain.

Break wool, thread through the stitches, draw and sew up.

Jennifer Gray, 33 Main street, Port William DG8 9QH

Tel. 01988 700948

Annandale Group of Churches

Royal Garden Party.

11th June 2016.
The Royal Garden Party for Her Majesty the Queens 90th Birthday took place at Rammerscales, the home of Malcolm Bell McDonald, who gave us, with his blessing his garden and grounds for the after-noon.

The party was a great success, there were around 40 folks from the different churches, a grand social event to place, but best of all The Weather was kind to us on the day. It stayed dry.

The catering and refreshments were all done and supplied by folks attending, there was a bar serving wine, non-alcoholic wine and soft drinks.
The party concluded with a Songs of Praise led by Revd Martin and Revd John.

We were accompanied by a kind lady who brought along her portable electric organ.
Finally Malcolm asked us all to charge our glasses to enable us to sing Happy Birthday and drink a toast to Her Majesty the Queen.
Ending with God Save the Queen.

Ronald Ritchie

Lockerbie Primary School P1F and P1G Visit to All Saints Church Lockerbie 48 Primary One Pupils visit All Saints.

The rafters of All Saints echoed to the cries, squeaks and laughter of delighted children as they, and adult helpers, were challenged to find all the answers to a quiz based on what they could see around them.
Scottish Primary Schools follow a series of documents entitled ‘The Curriculum for Excellence’. The curriculum is set out in terms of experiences and outcomes and covers all the traditional areas of learning. The Christianity section of the Religious and Moral Education curriculum area requires that young children should have the experience of exploring some places and investigating artefacts to develop their knowledge of Christian beliefs and their awareness of the role of Christianity in Scottish society and the world.
All Saints Lockerbie is ideally suited to provide this experience for young learners. The church is very beautiful and is full of interest for children. So over the last few months we have been making contact with local schools with a view to providing a learning resource for RME.
Following two classroom visits, in which they were introduced, with power point presentations, to the church and to the meaning of artefacts within the church, two classes of Primary One pupils from Lockerbie Primary School visited All Saints, accompanied by their teachers Mrs Findlay and Mrs Graham and a cohort of adult helpers.
The children were given two quizzes, one completed with adults, and the other, a pictorial quiz, completed by themselves. The church was filled with about sixty adults and children eagerly running about looking for clues, assisted by Rev John and Mrs Maggie Macleod, Mr Ian Stewart and Mrs Marjorie MacGregor.
Following the quizzes the pupils then watched as Rev Macleod demonstrated how some of the artefacts the children had identified were used in a church service. He also showed them the layers of ceremonial clothing that a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church might wear.

To the great delight of adults and children some eight of the pupils were draped in a series of chasubles in all the liturgical colours.
Rev Macleod then demonstrated how the font was used for baptism with the help of a large antique doll. The children appeared to be fascinated!
Other teachers have expressed an interest in using the church and we are hoping to build this area of outreach. Anyone interested in using the facilities of the church to further Religious and Moral Education should contact Rev John Macleod or Mrs Maggie Macleod.

Mrs. M. Macleod.

For more than a hundred years, the congregation of the beautiful, little Scottish Episcopal Church of All Saints, Lockerbie, has worshipped from 10 foot long hard wooden pews.

But this week worship will be more comfortable – they’ll be sitting on 80 new upholstered chairs.

The original pews were unscrewed from the floor by congregation members and removed to addresses across the

county and as far afield as Edinburgh, some being acquired by families whose ancestors had sat in them.

The change to chairs that are comfortable and can be moved and stacked has created a much more flexible public space for the church. As well as its principal use for services, social events such as teas, fairs and barbecues can now be held indoors. The church can be used as an arts venue, for concerts, recitals, exhibitions and for educational trips from local schools. And as someone said, on seeing the interior for the first time last week, ‘Oh, what a lovely place for a wedding’. Associate Priest Rev John Macleod and Rector Rev Martin Callaghan certainly hope so. And for baptisms too.

On the 21st of May an Open Afternoon was held, to show off our new interior. Tea and home made cakes were served. Visitors came to see the changes and a very enjoyable afternoon it was.   Many thanks to all who helped

Old photographs show that this change is just the latest in the history of our beautiful church since the foundation stone was laid in 1901, and comes after three years of planning and negotiation. In making this change All Saints hopes to ready itself for the next hundred years.

This is one of the first photos we have of the interior of the church. the screen was taken down …….. and the beautiful oak(?) was used to make the altar. Some of the carvings can be seen on the front and back  of the altar

(sorry for quality of photo. Its a photo of a photo)

There is just more thing that connects these last interior  photos if you spot it please help yourself to a chocolate which will be at the back of the church until the end of June 2016

Maggie MacLeod and Kath Leadbeater

‘Group photo in church. from L-R Are Rev John Stevenson, Sadaf, Rev John Macleod, Saba,  Pastor Joseph Tark, Niloufar, Father Ebrahim’

A visit to Ankara

In 2015 Moffat Residents Rev John Stevenson and his wife Jane were invited to go to Ankara, the capital of Turkey to minister, on a temporary basis, to the congregation of St Nicholas of Myra, Anglican Church in the British Embassy. The previous priest Fr John Higgins and his wife Kay , having returned from a three year stint in the capital. There are a significant number of refugees from Iran, within the congregation of St Nicholas Church, who are supported in their worship and journeys of faith by Father Ebrahim, an Iranian Christian who is also a refugee. Rev John and Jane also became involved in providing food, in the form of sandwiches, for refugees, waiting all day for interviews, within the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR )compound. Rev John made a request to the Annandale Group of Episcopal Churches for funds and clothing to aid this work, and in particular to support Father Ebrahim in his work, not only in Ankara but with Iranian refugees throughout Turkey, and with the Christian ‘House Churches’ in Iran. The response was very generous, and money was sent out to Turkey.  During their final tour of duty, a new priest having at last been appointed, Rev John and Jane invited Rev John and Maggie Macleod from the Annandale Geoup of Churches to visit them in

Ankara to see the work that was being done and to meet FatherEbrahim and his Iranian flock, and the ‘sadwich-makers’. They were also asked to carry out hats, scarves, gloves and warm clothes for distribution to refugees.

The week before the visit a bomb went off in central Ankara killing many people. The week after the visit a bomb went off in central Ankara killing more people. Turkey is beset by internal war, by wars along its borders, by political strife, increasing sectarianism, suppression of free speech and vast numbers of migrants from all over the Middle and Far East. Ankara is a vibrant, bustling capital, with traffic that seems to have its own rules of the road, it is a welcoming city, filled with security forces.

During their week’s visit Rev John and Maggie visited St Nicholas Church and took part in the Sunday morning service by leading intercessions and reading the lessons and Gospel. Maggie led the congregation in singing a Taize chant; being a member of the Scottish Servers’ Guild she was particularly pleased to talk to the teenage Iranian girls who were performing the roles of acolytes and servers during the service. Translations of the service, the readings and the sermon are provided for the Iranian Farsi speakers by Father Ebrahim.

A visit was arranged to Margarita, an Italian lady, married to a Turkish national and a convert to Islam, who organises the making and delivery of sandwiches, juice, toys and clothes for babies and adults, to those waiting for interview in the UNHCR building.

This was a very social occasion, at which the Rev Macleod was the only man! All the ladies came from different countries and backgrounds but were gathered in by Margarita from an amazingly multi-cultural mix of contacts throughout Ankara.The sandwiches, 120 to be made on the day of the visit, were made very systematically.

They were then packed up along with fruit drinks, toys etc and wheeled along the road in a shopping trolley known as the ‘Mercedes’. No filming was allowed in the UN Compound and the security was strict. The waiting room was filled with families waiting patiently for the all-important interview to determine refugee status. Children waited quietly, two little girls with burns to their hands and faces sat colouring at a table, a lone young woman wept silently, her husband was somewhere in Europe, but she didn’t know where. Food was gratefully accepted, toys were triumphantly displayed in small hands, shy young mothers had baby clothes and accessories pressed upon them by Margarita …. Most had waited months – years for this vital interview. If refugee status was granted they would be allowed to travel to another country and start a new life. But if they could not show that they were genuine refugees, or if the stories told by man and wife, in separate interviews, did not tally then they would have to start all over again and begin the lengthy process of reapplying.

The many gifts of clothing were given to Father Ebrahim and to Margarita. These came from all five churches in the Annandale Group, many were new and others handcrafted. All were received with much gratitude, Father Ebrahim was overwhelmed by the care and generosity shown by people so far away. Although in Ankara the sun was shining and the temperature like High Summer in Scotland, he knew of refugees in Trabzon, to the North on the Black Sea, where it was still Winter and where the warm clothes would be most welcome.

The lovely Iranian family whose beautiful, bright daughters were acolytes in St Nicholas church were waiting on tenterhooks to be told the date of their departure to Canada …. It had been put back by the influx of Syrian refugees, so they said. But the girls were looking forward with some trepidation, to a new life, they were looking forward to going back to school, they had not attended for four years. They had been given homes in a town outside Ankara, but there was no work for their parents, so the parents moved the family to the work in the city, but took them away from the school to which they were supposed to go in the town. The girls taught themselves English from the TV and the Internet.  They were fluent.

Photo Shoot

28th March 2016

Work to get lots of new photos for the website is well underway thanks to Robert Leadbeater, Ronald Ritchie and myself who spent about 3 hours capturing some pictures of our beautiful church.  Ronald and I did most of the moving and arranging while Robert did his ‘magic’ taking the photos.  There was also a great deal of talking and laughter while Robert took over 250 photos; I took a few which are the ones added here. It will take some time to get it all together so  ‘Watch This Space’ as they say.

Many thanks to Robert and Ronald for giving up their Easter Monday.

Kath Leadbeater

Palm Sunday 20th March 2016

Blessing of the Palm Crosses

in the beautiful spring sunshine