Wednesday,
21st August, 2002 13:00 BST
Forest folk - Peter Murphy |
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| Peter
Murphy at the Church of All Saints, Minstead |
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Take a closer look at the people who live and work in the New Forest.
We chatted to four people who live and work in the Forest. |
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Peter
Murphy is Rector of three Parishes in the New Forest: Lyndhurst, Emery
Down and Minstead. Before that he was at Hythe. He has spent nearly
20 years in and around the New Forest.
"I was born in Guernsey at the beginning of the war and evacuated
to Brighton. I was educated theologically at King's College London,
then went to Paddington for five years as assistant Curate.
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| Inside
the church |
I
was in Basingstoke for 10 years before moving to Hythe and now here
I am. I shall retire in four years, or so. So there's me, a potted
history!
The days when a Vicar would spend most of his time wandering around
the Parish annoying people are gone.
Until
the 1950s there were three Vicars running these Parishes. Now the
population is bigger and there's just me though I have two colleagues,
Camilla and Felicity who were ordained recently. We work together
as a team. Churches are not just run by Vicars.
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| Camilla
helps |
Sundays
are a bit like 'Meals on Wheels'! I start at 8am at one Church, on
to another for 9:45, another at 11:15, occasionally I do baptisms
at 3pm and there's usually Evensong at 6pm. Some of it we share between
us. I never get a chance to go to a car boot sale, very sad!
When going round the Churchyard you see names of families
who are still here and were here 400 years ago. All the people burried
here have lived and left their mark and in their day were probably
wonderful people. I like watching people grow, spiritually. It's a
delightful thing.
I love the culture of the Commoners and to immerse myself in that
culture as much as possible. I wish somehow that, within the culture
of the Forest, there could be a place for younger people - the children
of the present Foresters.
The price of property in the Forest makes such a difference to these
people. They don't have the capital so they have to move. I'm not
certain what that will do in the long-term.
Two thirds of our marriages take place with people who don't actually
live here. Legally I'm not supposed to marry anyone who's not resident
in my Parish. I'm to say "no, sorry I can't marry you, go across
to the pub you can get married there!"
That's so ridiculous and it does seem to me that I have an overruling
responsibility to do everything in my power to say yes, even if it
does mean being flexible with the rules. The Diocese know that I play
silly games but that I don't mind admitting it and I'm unrepentant!
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| Peter
did a net wedding |
My son
works with computers and heard of someone asking if anyone would marry
them over the internet.
He rang me and asked if I could do it. It was in the early days of
my using the internet so I had a bit of help from him.
We set it up - he was American, she was English. They wanted the marriage
to be solemnized in America and the UK at the same time.
We couldn't do that legally in this country so they were legally married
in a Registry Office before the service was carried out on the internet.
Then we had a Vicar in America and me in England. The couple were
in Taunton and their family and friends linked in from all over the
place. We called it a "Net Wedding".
We had set up chat rooms and people all over the world became interested.
Halfway through someone dug through the phone line in Taunton and
cut us off for an hour but by the end 400 people were logged on. They
could all send comments, it was scrolling through at a rate! It became
an internet reception.
I baptised their baby a year ago. They wanted that on the internet
but you can't get virtual water!
We have various works of art in the three Parish Churches.
St Michaels at Lyndhurst has windows by William Morris and a fresco
by Frederick Lord Leighton.
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| The
Saxon font |
At
Minstead we have a Saxon font. To keep it safe it was burried for
more than 200 years in the Vicarage garden, then discovered after
the reformation, by an Abbott who was digging the shrub bed when his
spade struck the edge.
You can see where the damage has been repaired. The font was returned
to the Church
in 1893.
All three Churches are centres of the Christian community. We wrote
a 'millennium promise' that we would carry out 1000 good deeds to
celebrate the year 2000. We have a book in which the good deeds are
recorded.
We have our own website and we publish our Parish magazine on the
internet. It's very useful, I get quite a bit of feedback. We did
it quite a long time ago and if anybody out there would like to reorganise
it and make it a bit more exciting we'd be delighted.
I've grown to love the Forest. It was a complete eye opener when I
came here, to discover this sub-culture of Commoning. The Commoners
are people upon whom the whole character of the Forest depends.
This is the most gorgeous place on God's Earth, as far as I can see.
It's a privilege to do all the things I do here and be paid for it!"
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