By Fr David

(This is an excerpt from the March 1992 newsletter.)

I had thought that this year I must give it a miss.

For the last six years Ash Wednesday has seen me shuttling from my parish in South London to the Ministry of Defence and back again (with a reserve priest standing by in the evening, just in case…).  Both were places I wanted to be on Ash Wednesday, both were communities of people I belonged to, people I wanted to keep faith with.  At the MoD it was important that I was witnessing and resisting as a parish priest.  At the parish liturgy it was important that people knew where else I was blessing and distributing ashes on that day.  The two celebrations at the beginning of Lent were deeply connected.

But now I find myself parish priest on the Isle of Sheppey, floating freely off the north coast of Kent; the nearest bit of seaside to South London.  It has a proud military history, with naval dockyard, army garrison and strategic airfield until the mid—fifties.  In 1797, the sinking at the Nore, just off Sheerness, shook the nation.  All the churches have memorials to heroes and of war.

My parish commitments, and the longer distance from London, made it impossible for me to be at the MoD this year.  And yet, something might be done…

The central choice of Ash Wednesday for the roll out/ launch of the first British Trident submarine too much to let pass.

So Robin Murch, Anglican Vicar of Queensborough, and I arranged a prayer vigil at the local memorial in Sheerness, to make the connections between Ash Wednesday and the launch of Trident.  We wrote to the local paper, we were interviewed by Radio Kent, invited parishioners.  About a dozen came.  We leafleted passers-by.  We drew both flak and support from all sides.

We noticed that most of the names on the war memorial were people, more than a thousand, both military and civilian, who had been killed in a major explosion on munitions ships in Sheerness harbour during the First World War, largely hushed up at the time.  The war machine devours its own.

It was small, peaceful, non-violent and strong.  A surfacing of resistance in an unexpected place.  And we prayed for and with you at the MoD.

Solidarity,

David Standley