ascension_to_victory__a_long-lost_ve_day_sermon_discovered_and_shared_by_jane_richards (1080p), Cassie Long, Diocese of Exeter, Alan Quick
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00:00My name is Jane Richards and I'm a retired GP.
00:05So Jane, you made a fascinating discovery recently of something you had in your house.
00:11Can you just tell me what it is and explain it?
00:13Well, when I moved into this house, my parents, my father was dead,
00:20my mother was moving out of the cottage and one of the other things that we found
00:25in the corner cupboard which he had left to me were all his sermons
00:31that he had written meticulously out in full throughout his time as a priest.
00:40And the last thing I wanted to do was just throw them away.
00:46They were obviously of some importance.
00:50My father's name was Francis David Burley Richards
00:55and he was the vicar of credit during the war years and from 1940 onwards.
01:02You recently found one of your father's sermons,
01:06which is particularly pertinent to this year and a particular anniversary.
01:09Can you just tell me what that is?
01:11Yes, it so happens that the sermon that he gave on the Sunday after the announcement of peace in Europe.
01:21It was the Sunday after Ascension Day and it was a thanksgiving for victory in Europe.
01:27And he gave it in credit in church on May the 13th, 1945.
01:33Can you remember that day at all? Can you remember that time?
01:36Oh, I can remember that time very clearly because I can remember when war broke out.
01:43We were in London at that time because he was in a minor canon at St Paul's Cathedral.
01:50They had to fire watch in the cathedral and he was being one of the younger minor canons.
01:59He was up under the cross but at the top of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral
02:08because he was considered young enough to be able to get there.
02:11So he saw the bomb that fell down almost to Queen and, you know, footstops and rolled down Lugget Hill.
02:20I mean, it's incredible because St Paul's Cathedral is one of those symbols of survival of the Blitz.
02:24Yes, yes.
02:25Which I think most of us kind of, even those of us who weren't born, know that.
02:29Can see, yes. It is a survival symbol.
02:33It survived all that fire and things that were around it.
02:37It was on either side of the dome and things.
02:39And during the course of the war, at some point, your father moved to become Vicar of Crediton.
02:45The Vicarage of Crediton came up and my grandmother had been born in Crediton, his mother.
02:54And so he came down and they told me, oh, yes, you're nearly a local.
03:01And, oh my God, if you can sing in St Paul's Cathedral, you can probably fill Crediton Church all right.
03:06What was the experience of spending the rest of the war years in Crediton like for you as a family?
03:12Well, we were remarkably free. We had a lot of freedom.
03:16I must admit from time to time that the ARP used to come saying, Mrs. Richards, are these yours?
03:22I would have to admit that they were.
03:26Because we went out all over the place.
03:30You know, we had a lot of freedom, really.
03:34But the bombing of Exeter in 1942 is very clearly etched on my memory because that was a Sunday night.
03:42And, you know, we had to get out.
03:45And, see, all our windows fell in.
03:50Daddy was up in the tower of Crediton Church watching, saw this, of course, and realised.
03:58And Mama put us in a pram and pushed us across the playing fields up to the local octobus who were friends.
04:06So that is etched in my mind very clearly.
04:09Can you tell me a bit about the time that we're marking this year, VE Day, when that finally came in 1945?
04:16I think all sorts of things had lessened.
04:19You know, it was obviously we were waiting till we got to the end, which he does slightly reflect in this sermon.
04:29We sort of said we got into a normality of our own.
04:35We got rationing, of course.
04:37And my mother used to go into international stores and say,
04:41what do you want this week, cheese coupons or soap coupons?
04:45Because it was like that.
04:48You know, that was the sort of, you know, that was normality.
04:51But when recently you obviously found this sermon again.
04:54Yes.
04:55Can you just tell me what, what strikes you about it in terms of the memories it brings back of your father,
05:00but perhaps also any, any bits that really stand out for you?
05:04This is, this is just daddy being, being, making, making use of, of the event.
05:11To point out, you know, that it was our faith that had kept us going, as we should do.
05:21And that is why we were, you know, we got there.
05:28And are there any lines in the sermon that really stand out to you now?
05:33But I expect it will not have escaped you that in this week, which brought us to the great event of our times,
05:44there was also commemorated an event for which the adjective great is too small.
05:50An event, not of our times, but of all time.
05:55An eternal event that affects all mankind.
05:59So you suppose it was chance that brought the E-Day into the same week as Ascension Day?
06:06I do not think it was.
06:08But whatever anyone may think about that, the resemblances which connect the two events are no less remarkable.
06:19That I feel was, was a fairly prescient comment to make, and one for people to dwell on,
06:26and go back and think about, yes, we, we kept the faith.
06:32Yeah, it's amazing. And hearing it 80 years later, it's there.
06:37It's fine tingling, isn't it?
06:39It is. It is. It's quite there.
06:41That's, that is, you know, what I like that he did draw out at that time.
06:46What do you think he would want the message to be 80 years on after the end of the Second World War,
06:52if he was here to preach to his parishioners today?
06:56Probably keep the faith, you know. Don't, don't be doomed.
07:07Remember, Christ is there all the time for us.
07:12Then, as appropriate at that time, now, as in this rather different, different sort of shifting time.
07:21But he was, he is always there. And this was an example of it.
07:26This is just an example of it.
07:27That's an example of it.
07:28That's an example of it.
07:29And this is a good example of it.
07:30You