To the Plaza in Stockport to see the Jimmy Cricket Show. I first went to the Plaza to see Bambi, I was four years old and I cried. Not so with Jimmy who was as funny as always. There were other acts too including a large group of children from Mossley. I was pleased to see a boy whose family were connected with All Saints Micklehurst.

Jimmy devotes much of his time to charity shows. I took a lady from my congregation in Handsworth to see him at Tipton Community Centre in the Black Country. The proceeds were for the local hospice. Before the show he went to every table giving time to everyone. Mary and I were so delighted. Stockport too welcomed him with total rapture.

At our Christmas Day service 29 of us gathered together.  A modest number really, but larger than we can remember. We were pleased to be joined by friends from St John's Godley.

In the days before New Year we stayed with our son John in Stepney. My devotion to real ale was assisted in 1971 when Richard Boston wrote a weekly column in The Guardian entitled 'Boston On Beer'. His recommendation, when in London, was Young's Bitter from their brewery, then in Wandsworth. Quite close to John is the Queen's Head, a Young's house near Limehouse station, an excellent backstreet local, although under threat from the gentrification taking place in the East End.

Ann has always enjoyed the fireworks on New Year's Eve as Big Ben strikes midnight.  We took the opportunity to apply for tickets, and the three of us had to arrive at 9:00pm and then stand waiting for three hours.  Despite the discomfort Ann was excited throughout, John and I less so.  However, the firework display was wonderful and Ann is pleased to say she has experienced it.  For my part the last twenty minutes were tremendous, but the waiting period was really hard, although a meal at the Lahore on Commercial Road was an excellent preparation.

For the Festal Mass of 25th December 2015 perhaps we might achieve 30.  Hopes and expectations at St Thomas' are always understated.

Christmas University Challenge has been a joy.  I was delighted to watch the University of Hull beat Newcastle.  Rosie Millard, who writes for The Independent, was particularly outstanding.  I went to Hull in1968, a slightly mature student and this was before the M62 and the Humber Bridge.  I would catch the train at Stalybridge on the extravagantly named Trans-Pennine Express, enjoying the pleasures of the station buffet, especially best bitter and a coal fire in winter.  I didn’t qualify for a grant in my first year and received financial help from the saintly Bishop William Greer, the Bishop of Manchester.  It was his suggestion that I should do ‘A’ levels and apply to university … he was a very gentle encourager.  I would see Philip Larkin, the poet, in the university library, where he was the Librarian.  I enjoyed exploring the East Riding, visiting its churches, but unlike Larkin with his ‘cycle clips in awkward reverence’, I did my visiting in a Morris Minor.  He ends his poem, ‘Church Going’, with the lines ‘a serious house on serious earth it is’, but he also wonders, ‘when churches fall completely out of use what shall we turn them into’.  We hope that people will come to St Thomas’ to find, as Larkin says, ‘a hunger … to be more serious’.

To St. John's Godley for the Mothers' Union monthly meeting. I presided at Holy Communion in the church hall and afterwards we chatted. We spoke of smells encouraged by "Toast", a gentle looking back from the food writer Nigel Slater.  I have lovely memories of food and cooking from my childhood .  My mother worked at Sutton and Torkington, a hat works in Stockport.  I liked it best when she was on short time. I would come home, not to a cold house, but warm with the smell of toast and the sound of Mrs. Dale's Diary on the wireless.
Hyde became well known for the smell of the bone yard off Kingston Brow.  At school the odour from Newton Bank Printworks floating up Clarendon Road kept the windows closed on most days.  More pleasantly came the fragrance of Pattreiouex coming across from Ashton Road over Markham Street and Dow Street to my vicarage on Bennett Street opposite St. Stephen's.  The magnificent mill for Hyde Spinning Co. became Senior Service in 1960 closing in the 1990s and now a housing estate called Cotton Mills.  This name is a reminder especially as The Cotton Tree, where Chartist meetings were held is now closed like so many pubs in Hyde.

To Manchester Cathedral for the Requiem, truly atmospheric.  The mass setting was by Durufle. In the afternoon at the Cathedral was a book launch, 'None Will Remain, Five Lost Churches of Manchester', by Richard McEwan, an account of five Anglo Catholic churches now closed. Good to see that vessels and vestments were used in the service from St. Alban's Cheetwood and St. Benedict's Ardwick and that other items were on display. These churches received so much opposition in the nineteenth century, especially from succeeding bishops of Manchester and now the All Souls service in the cathedral was all that would be expected in the five lost churches, their influence has been achieved.

In 1966 several of us from the Congregational College in Whalley Range went to St. Alban's for Corpus Christi. Father Michael Graney became a gentle and thoughtful influence. I stayed at his rectory adjacent to Strangeways Prison in Waterloo Road whilst he was away at Walsingham.  I was in charge of the cats, twenty of them, perhaps more. I ought to have brought the thurible across from church.