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Photos from our Anniversary Service at Westminster Abbey
On Wednesday 16th September 2009 at 12:00pm a Service of Thanksgiving was held at Westminster Abbey to celebrate The Churches Conservation Trust's 40th Anniversary.
View images of the event
The service was attended by over 1,300 volunteers, staff, trustees, patrons and supporters of the Trust, bringing together for the first time in one place many of the people who work tirelessly to keep the Trust’s churches open, welcoming and alive. People came from all over England to meet and celebrate our shared endeavour of saving and opening historic churches, in one of the most historic churches of them all.
The service was led by the Dean of Westminster and an inspirational address was given by the Dean of Guildford (we hope to provide a transcript of the address soon). Readings and prayers were offered by volunteers and staff of the Trust and the Chairman, Loyd Grossman.
The glorious architecture of the Abbey was filled with the voices of the Abbey’s special choir, which was joined for three great hymns by the entire congregation. The Trust was honoured by the attendance of the Lord Mayor of Westminster, as well as patrons and vice presidents of the Trust including the Rt Hon Frank Field MP, Lord Brooke and Lady Getty.
View images of the event
The poet Pauline Stainer gave the first reading of her poem, specially commissioned by the Trust and the Poetry Society for the Thanksgiving Service. You can read the poem in the Order of Service.
More details about Pauline Stainer
Pauline Stainer is an acclaimed English poet. She was born in the industrial district of Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in 1941. She later left the city to attend St Anne's College, Oxford, where she took a degree in English. After Oxford she completed an M.Phil degree at the University of Southampton.
Her determinedly neo-romantic poetry, which has won several prizes, explores sacred myth, legend, history-in-landscape, and human feeling - and their connections to the 'inner landscapes' of the imaginative mind. Her choice of subject matter is perhaps partly a reaction to her growing up in the industrial city of Stoke-on-Trent.
The compact vividness of her visual imagery is akin to that of the Anglo Saxon riddles, symbolist poetry, or the work of García Lorca. Reviewers have also detected the influence of Ted Hughes in her work.
She was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 1987. She came to public notice with her first volume, The Honeycomb (1989). Her later volumes, Sighting the Slave Ship (1992) and The Ice-Pilot Speaks (1994) led up to her nomination and shortlisting in the Whitbread Poetry Award for her fourth collection The Wound-Dresser's Dream (1996).
After completing her education she moved to Essex, raising four children. She spent several years on the Orkney island of Rousay, from which came a new book collection Parable Island (1999). She now lives in Hadleigh, Suffolk, England.