Watch Reverend Francis Richards’ daughter Jane Richards read from his 1945 VE Day sermon for the first time since it was heard in his church 80 years ago.
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00:00My name is Jane Richards and I'm a retired GP. So Jane, you made a fascinating discovery
00:09recently of something you had in your house. Can you just tell me what it is and explain it?
00:13Well when I moved into this house my parents, my father was dead, my mother was moving out
00:21of the cottage and among other things that we found in the corner cupboard which he had left
00:27to me were all his sermons which he had written meticulously out in full throughout his time
00:38as a priest and the last thing I wanted to do was just throw them away. They were obviously
00:48of some importance. My father's name was Francis David Murley Richards and he was the vicar of
00:56credit and during the war years and from 1940 onwards. You recently found one of your father's
01:05sermons which is particularly pertinent to this year and a particular anniversary. Can you just
01:10tell me what that is? Yes, it so happens that the sermon that he gave on the Sunday after the
01:17announcement of peace in Europe. It was the Sunday after Ascension Day and it was a thanksgiving for
01:26victory in Europe and he gave it in credit and church on May the 13th 1945. Can you remember that
01:35day at all? Can you remember that time? Oh I can remember that time very clearly because I can remember
01:40when war broke out. We were in London at that time because he was in a minor cannon at St Paul's
01:49Cathedral. They had to fire watch in the cathedral and he was being one of the younger minor cannons.
01:59He was up under the cross but at the top of the dome at St Paul's Cathedral because he was considered
02:09young enough to be able to get there. So he saw the bomb that fell down almost to Queen Anne's footstops
02:18and rolled down Lugget Hill. I mean it's incredible because St Paul's Cathedral is one of those symbols
02:23of survival of the Blitz which I think most of us kind of even those of us who weren't born can see.
02:30Yes it is it is a survival symbol. It survived all that fire and things that were around it and it was
02:37on either side of the dome and things. And during the course of the war at some point your father
02:42moved to become a vicar of Crediton. The vicarage of Crediton came up and my grandmother had been
02:50born in Crediton, his mother, and so he came down and they told him oh yes so you're nearly a local
03:00and oh my god if you can see in St Paul's Cathedral you can probably feel credit in church all right.
03:05What was the experience of spending the rest of the war years in Crediton like for you as a family?
03:11We were remarkably free we had a lot of freedom I must admit from time to time that the ARP used to come
03:19say Mrs. Richards are these yours? I would have to admit that they were because we we got went out all
03:27over the place. You know we had a lot of freedom really but the bombing of Exeter in 1942 is very
03:38clearly etched on my memory because that was a Sunday night and uh you know we had to get out
03:45and um so all our windows fell in. Daddy was up in the tower of Crediton church um watching saw this
03:56of course and realized and we mama put us in a pram and pushed us across the playing fields up to the
04:04local doctors who were friends so that that is etched in my mind very clearly. Can you tell me a bit
04:10about the time that we are marking this year VE day when that finally came in 1945? I think all sorts
04:17of things had lessened you know it was obviously we were waiting till we got to the end and which he
04:27does slightly reflect in this sermon. We we sort of said got a normality of it of our own we got
04:35rationing of course and our mother used to go into international stores and say what do you want this
04:41week cheese coupons or soap coupons? It was like that it really that was the sort of you know that was
04:50normality. But when recently you obviously found this sermon again. Yes. Can you just tell me what what
04:56strikes you about it in terms of um the memories it brings back of your father but perhaps also any
05:01any bits that really um stand out for you? This is this is just daddy being being making making use of
05:10of the event to point out you know that it was our faith that has kept us going and as we should do
05:21and that is why we we were you know we got there. And are there any lines in the sermon that really stand
05:32out to you now? But I expect it will not have escaped you that in this week which brought us to the
05:41great event of great event of our times that was also commemorated an event for which the adjective
05:48great is too small an event not of our times but of all time an eternal event that affects all mankind.
06:00So you suppose it was chance that brought the e-day into the same week as ascension day?
06:06I do not think it was. But whatever anyone may think about that the resemblances which connect the
06:15two events are no less remarkable. That I feel was was a fairly prescient comment to make and one for
06:25people to dwell on and and and go back and think why yes we we kept the faith.
06:31Yeah it's amazing and hearing it 80 years later it's fine tingling isn't it? It is it is it's quite
06:40there that's that is you know what I like that he did draw out at that time. What do you think he
06:47would want the message to be 80 years on after the end of the second world war if he was here to preach
06:53to his parishioners today? Probably keep the faith you know don't don't be doomed really remember
07:10Christ is there all the time for us then as appropriate at that time now as in this rather
07:18different different different sort of shifting time but he was he is always there and this was an example of it