Top down: Iain, Hana, Benjo, Ruth & Catriona
This Nativity scene was handcrafted by trainees at the C.S.I. Katpadi Industrial School
Christmas Letter 2011
Dear Friends,
Our Christmas letter is being written earlier this year and may be a little shorter, so you may be relieved! We will be spending Christmas and New Year in India which is an exciting prospect. Somehow we will have to make amends for our air travel and our carbon footprints! Eight years have passed since our last visit. Friends are getting older as are we and we feel it is time to make the pilgrimage to Madras/Chennai where we spent such a large and happy chunk of our lives – twelve years. While in India we are looking forward to having Christmas lunch with our god-daughter, Sarah, and her family, to making a brief visit to Kodaikanal in the Palni Hills where we used to spend our holidays, to worshipping in churches where Murdoch was once the minister and to visiting many friends in their homes.
The fact that it is eight years since we were there reminds us that time passes so quickly these days and I can hardly believe that my sister, Jean, is approaching 80 and Ruth’s father-in-law, Tony, is already 90. Last Christmas on our journey to and from Edinburgh the dashboard temperature was –8 C. – this year we should be a little warmer! We love to hear from you but we ask that you keep your greetings until the new year please.
This year we have had visitors from most phases of our lives. From India came the last couple whom Murdoch married in Chennai in April, 1978. Their daughter and son-in-law were with them and were delighted to meet the minister who married their parents 33years previously. From the Borders came the student minister and his wife who had worked with Murdoch at St. Ninians in Glenrothes in the early 80’s. They are also retired and had just been visiting Iona. From Runcorn came our former next door neighbours who make frequent visits to the most remote parts and islands of Scotland in their motor home in spite of increasing disablity. We are always delighted to see them. Cycling and Fair Trading friends came from Birmingham and we have regular conversations with Priscilla who paid us annual visits until recently but feels the journey is too much of a challenge now. From Milton Keynes, the last place in our working pilgrimage, came friends from the Well at Willen as they returned home after their pilgrimage to Iona and it was good to hear news of all that is happening at the Well.
Children and young people have been amongst our visitors and they have all been a delight, not least our own grandchildren. Hana and Benjo are both at High School now and have extremely full timetables – as do their parents. They play the piano, the flute, bass guitar and double bass so practice has to be fitted in to their schedule which is hectic in the extreme because of their commitment to swimming. Four mornings per week one or both of them has to be in the pool (which can be anywhere in Edinburgh!) at 5.45am! But they enjoy it and it certainly keeps them fit. We were on Iona in September where a remarkable group of young people from far and wide worked and made a wonderful contribution to life there this Summer. On Gigha, where we spent a week’s holiday in April, we met a small boy who, on his way to the re-cycling bin, told us he was ‘saving the world’.
We both keep fairly busy and are trying to keep fit. Iain has recommended that to keep both mind and body healhy we should walk two miles at a fast pace every day. We do our best but such things as the garden and the computer sometimes get in the way! The Summer lunches at the church hall were very successful this year and over the ten weeks we served many people, both locals and tourists, had a lot of fun and raised a considerable amount of money for the church and for charity. At the church itself a group of us have been active in the garden which is now looking cared for and really is a joy to behold. This is largely due to the initiative, dedication and hard work of a friend who has since died. Her commitment to making the place beautiful was clear even in the few days before her death when she drew up a list of plots in the garden and made sure that around 20 of us each took responsibility for a plot! Our own garden has looked good in this our ninth Summer here – the longest we have ever been in one house! In the Bach choir we have majored on the works of William Boyce but are now working on Handel’s Messiah.
Murdoch spent a wonderful week at the Kirchentag in Dresden, continues to attend the local poetry group, the St John’s Bible study group in Oban, and a Think Tank post the closure of Scottish Churches House. He continues being secretary of the Fellowship of St Thomas and we had an excellent gathering in Dunblane in late September with 58 people there when the theme was ‘The Persecuted Church’. He also attended a Gaudy at Hertford College Oxford where Will Hutton is now the Principal. We were both helping on Iona in September, attend the Argyll Iona Family Group regularly and continue to be members of the Fairtrade Steering Group for Oban and Lorn.
So as we all celebrate Christmas, and as we pray for peace and justice in the world today wherever we are, may we remember that justice means equality of opportunity for each of the world’s seven billion people, and each in our own way work for that.
May we hear the song of the angels: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to all people.”
Murdoch and Anne
Christmas Letter 2011
Dear Friends,
Our Christmas letter is being written earlier this year and may be a little shorter, so you may be relieved! We will be spending Christmas and New Year in India which is an exciting prospect. Somehow we will have to make amends for our air travel and our carbon footprints! Eight years have passed since our last visit. Friends are getting older as are we and we feel it is time to make the pilgrimage to Madras/Chennai where we spent such a large and happy chunk of our lives – twelve years. While in India we are looking forward to having Christmas lunch with our god-daughter, Sarah, and her family, to making a brief visit to Kodaikanal in the Palni Hills where we used to spend our holidays, to worshipping in churches where Murdoch was once the minister and to visiting many friends in their homes.
The fact that it is eight years since we were there reminds us that time passes so quickly these days and I can hardly believe that my sister, Jean, is approaching 80 and Ruth’s father-in-law, Tony, is already 90. Last Christmas on our journey to and from Edinburgh the dashboard temperature was –8 C. – this year we should be a little warmer! We love to hear from you but we ask that you keep your greetings until the new year please.
This year we have had visitors from most phases of our lives. From India came the last couple whom Murdoch married in Chennai in April, 1978. Their daughter and son-in-law were with them and were delighted to meet the minister who married their parents 33years previously. From the Borders came the student minister and his wife who had worked with Murdoch at St. Ninians in Glenrothes in the early 80’s. They are also retired and had just been visiting Iona. From Runcorn came our former next door neighbours who make frequent visits to the most remote parts and islands of Scotland in their motor home in spite of increasing disablity. We are always delighted to see them. Cycling and Fair Trading friends came from Birmingham and we have regular conversations with Priscilla who paid us annual visits until recently but feels the journey is too much of a challenge now. From Milton Keynes, the last place in our working pilgrimage, came friends from the Well at Willen as they returned home after their pilgrimage to Iona and it was good to hear news of all that is happening at the Well.
Children and young people have been amongst our visitors and they have all been a delight, not least our own grandchildren. Hana and Benjo are both at High School now and have extremely full timetables – as do their parents. They play the piano, the flute, bass guitar and double bass so practice has to be fitted in to their schedule which is hectic in the extreme because of their commitment to swimming. Four mornings per week one or both of them has to be in the pool (which can be anywhere in Edinburgh!) at 5.45am! But they enjoy it and it certainly keeps them fit. We were on Iona in September where a remarkable group of young people from far and wide worked and made a wonderful contribution to life there this Summer. On Gigha, where we spent a week’s holiday in April, we met a small boy who, on his way to the re-cycling bin, told us he was ‘saving the world’.
We both keep fairly busy and are trying to keep fit. Iain has recommended that to keep both mind and body healhy we should walk two miles at a fast pace every day. We do our best but such things as the garden and the computer sometimes get in the way! The Summer lunches at the church hall were very successful this year and over the ten weeks we served many people, both locals and tourists, had a lot of fun and raised a considerable amount of money for the church and for charity. At the church itself a group of us have been active in the garden which is now looking cared for and really is a joy to behold. This is largely due to the initiative, dedication and hard work of a friend who has since died. Her commitment to making the place beautiful was clear even in the few days before her death when she drew up a list of plots in the garden and made sure that around 20 of us each took responsibility for a plot! Our own garden has looked good in this our ninth Summer here – the longest we have ever been in one house! In the Bach choir we have majored on the works of William Boyce but are now working on Handel’s Messiah.
Murdoch spent a wonderful week at the Kirchentag in Dresden, continues to attend the local poetry group, the St John’s Bible study group in Oban, and a Think Tank post the closure of Scottish Churches House. He continues being secretary of the Fellowship of St Thomas and we had an excellent gathering in Dunblane in late September with 58 people there when the theme was ‘The Persecuted Church’. He also attended a Gaudy at Hertford College Oxford where Will Hutton is now the Principal. We were both helping on Iona in September, attend the Argyll Iona Family Group regularly and continue to be members of the Fairtrade Steering Group for Oban and Lorn.
So as we all celebrate Christmas, and as we pray for peace and justice in the world today wherever we are, may we remember that justice means equality of opportunity for each of the world’s seven billion people, and each in our own way work for that.
May we hear the song of the angels: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to all people.”
Murdoch and Anne