Last week we travelled down to Sussex for a rare opportunity to see long-standing friends which was wonderful.  The true mark of friendship is that you can pick straight up where you left off, and the intervening two years since we last met together could just as easily be two weeks.  Apart from the pleasure of seeing each other face to face, it was so good to catch up on family news and discover how our various godchildren have coped with university life and finding jobs in a pandemic.

I had forgotten just what a beautiful area of the country Sussex is, and we were certainly blessed with gorgeous sunshine which made the Downs look greener and the attractive villages look even more quintessentially English with their red-tiled gabled roofs, and roses proliferating in the front gardens.  I will pass swiftly over my nervousness of travelling round the M25 to reach our destination, although I am in the fortunate position that my husband is much more willing to tackle the challenge of busy motorway driving than I am and he isn’t too distracted by my sudden gasp of breath as yet another vehicle suddenly pulls out into our path!

When I was a little girl, we used to visit my grandparents in Sussex regularly, and my father was the courageous driver who negotiated the M25 to bring us all (four little girls and my mother plus one rather stubborn Labrador) safely to a small village near Haywards Heath in our classic Dormobile - nb I am fascinated to see how those campervans are hugely popular once again for highly sought-after staycation holidays, and not just in this country!

As we drove down the A23 last week, I suddenly spotted the sign to my grandparents’ village where we used to visit them, and I was overcome with a sense of nostalgia for the lost holidays of my childhood.   There seems to be a certain irony that as we grow older and our memories start to work less effectively at remembering the current to-do list, we actually recall our earliest experiences with more clarity and possibly increasing affection.

On our return journey, I thought it would be special to visit my grandparents’ graves in the churchyard where I understood they had been buried, although there was some uncertainty about the correct location.  My husband and I turned off the A23 to explore the church where I hoped to find the graves.  We spent 20 minutes walking around the churchyard in the sunshine but couldn’t spot what we were seeking.  Curiously, there didn’t seem to be any date order for where gravestones were located, and I was beginning to wonder whether we were in the wrong churchyard.  At this point, a friendly churchwarden came out of the church to ask if she could help and I explained we were looking for the graves of my Burbridge grandparents from the early 1980s.  Imagine my immense surprise when she said she knew where they were, and she led me straight over to the path near the south door which I hadn’t reached in my search.  It was very moving to see the gravestones of my grandparents and it caused me to think deeply about the inevitable passing of generations, and how we are shaped by the people who have gone before us. 

Pinned to our kitchen noticeboard is a prayer which came from my husband’s side of the family, written by our daughters’ great great grandmother (Granny Bourne) in the early 1900s and I will share this with you now:

I pray that the Holy Spirit may ever help all my children, grandchildren & great grandchildren to carry on the tradition of my Father's and Mother's happy family life - honouring, loving & serving Him all their days, so that we may all be able to be united again in Him by & bye.

I say Amen to that. 

Sarah Bourne, Chaplain for the Arts – 28^th July 2021            sarahbourne@banburystmary.org.uk