BOB FINCH ARTICLE IN CHURCH TIMES

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keibat
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BOB FINCH ARTICLE IN CHURCH TIMES

Post by keibat »

In The Church Times for 15 April – a publication which I suspect not all that many Forum readers regularly consult – there is a lovely article by Bob Finch called 'The Prince, Bishop, Mayor — and refugees', which opens with a breathtaking story about Prince Harry, Richard Chartres the Bishop of London, Boris Johnson the Mayor of London, and a camp for refugee children established in double-quick time on the grounds at CH. It took my breath away, but I was baffled not to have heard anything about this .. and then it was revealed that he had retold the story of the foundation of CH but reset it today. A marvelous trick. Assuming the article will come out from behind the CT firewall in a week's time, I will then repost with the URL.
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Re: BOB FINCH ARTICLE IN CHURCH TIMES

Post by Katharine »

Here it is, you don't have to wait the week!

THE PRINCE, THE BISHOP, THE MAYOR AND THE REFUGEES

The special service at St Margaret's Westminster last month was arranged so fast that many people didn't hear about it in time, so the church wasn't full. The Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, spoke quietly but passionately about the urgent need to do something for thousands of unaccompanied refugee children in temporary camps and Prince Harry, sitting unobtrusively in the congregation, was visibly moved. He invited the Bishop to stay behind afterwards and after the two men had spoken, face to face, asked him what was the most practical and immediate thing he could do to help. "It's very simple" the Bishop said. "The rich have got to help these poor children. We need someone to take the lead in launching a project to bring as many of them as we can here, where we can feed, clothe and educate them."
" I think by 'someone', you mean me don't you?" Prince Harry replied. "Where do I start?"
The Bishop suggested that he should write to Boris Johnson as the man most likely to act quickly. Prince Harry wrote a letter there and then and the Bishop took it in person to the Mayor.
Boris Johnson understood immediately what was required and formed a committee of thirty bankers,hedge fund managers and businessmen. They met every day and made plans,with astonishing speed, to bring a first wave of a hundred refugee children to a temporary camp built by the Army in the grounds of Christ'sHospital in West Sussex.
The committee made generous contributions of their own money and simultaneously launched a massive nationwide appeal for funds. Collecting boxes were placed in churches and pubs. Without waiting for the total contributions to be added up, the first turfs were cut at Horsham and surplus huts from the American air base at Alconbury were erected on the edge of the sports field. Once IKEA had donated a hundred beds and John Lewis given all the sheets and duvets needed, other businesses quickly followed and the school was prepared foru the entry of a hundred children. Headmaster John Franklin, asked by reporters for a comment on what had happened replied " It's what Christ'sHospital was founded to do. It's what we still do."

If you are wondering how you missed reading about this, I should explain that it didn't take place last month but in 1552. And I've changed the personae...but not much.
It was the boy King Edward who was moved by a sermon given at Westminster by Bishop Ridley, in which he " made a fruitful and Godly exhortation to the riche to be merciful unto the poore."
Edward sent a message asking the Bishop to stay and speak with him. They sat in two chairs in the great gallery of the Palace. "My Lorde, sayth he, ye willed such as are in authoritie to be careful thereof and to devise some good order for their relief, wherein I think you meant me."
Ridley had no cut and dried plan and had not expected such a rapid response to his appeal.
He suggested that the King should send a letter to the Lord Mayor with a royal command to take action. Edward wrote the letter there and then and Bishop Ridley took it in person to Sir Richard Dobbs, the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor invited the Bishop to dinner. A committee of thirty leading citizens was formed and they acted with astonishing speed.
" Ffirste they devysed to take out of the streets all the fatherless children and other poore men's children that were not able to keep them and to bring them to the late dissolved house of the Greie ffryers wch they devysed to be an hospital for them where they should have me ate drincke and cloths, lodging and learning and officers to attend uppon them."
The committee met every day, "agreed to presse uppon every of themselves a several somme of money according to his calling and abilitie , some 20£, some 10£, some more, some less."
They raised £748, sent out circulars to every parish asking for help from the pulpit, printed "a very fyne,wittie and learned oracon" and sent it to every preacher and minister. Collecting boxes were placed in inns. Eventually the Clarcke entered everything in a faire book and the school was prepared for the entry of 500 children. "
Mr Calthorppe, one of the committee, sent 500 feather-beds and 500 padds of straw and as many blankets and a thousand paire of sheets." John Robinson was appointed Grammar School Master and paid £15 a year. There were Scoolemasters for the petties ABC at £2 13s 4d a year and a similar salary was paid for a Scoolemaister for Musicke, a Teacher of pricksonge. The first children arrived on 23 November 1552. Thirteen years later a Bluecoat boy had been sent to university.

It's hard to believe that anything like this could happen in 2016. Don't we have enough poor children of our own to care for? There are an awful lot of them and some refugees are not what they seem. There's probably another side to this story; we could pass by on that,

Bob Finch. 4 February 2016.
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
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Re: BOB FINCH ARTICLE IN CHURCH TIMES

Post by Kit Bartlett »

The Measuring Worth .com website gives the purchasing power of £1 in 2014 as 349 times that in 1552 which comes to an equivalent salary of £5236.50 per annum for the Writing Master's salary of £15. One does not know what hidden emoluments were available
at that time such as board and lodging compared with today.
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Re: BOB FINCH ARTICLE IN CHURCH TIMES

Post by J.R. »

Not being personal or rude, I can't say that The Church Times is one of my regular reads !
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Re: BOB FINCH ARTICLE IN CHURCH TIMES

Post by michael scuffil »

Equivalent values mean almost nothing, as the relative cost of things varies. A pint of bitter now costs almost as much as the cheapest drinkable bottle of wine; 50 years ago, the cheapest wine would have cost three beers.

I think we can safely say that even if John Robinson was not provided with lodgings, and he probably was, he would not have had to pay even remotely the equivalent of today's London rent.

And everybody was poorer, much poorer. We know that.
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Re: BOB FINCH ARTICLE IN CHURCH TIMES

Post by rockfreak »

Quite right about rents Michael. Thatcher's deregulation of rents in the 1980s was the problem, plus the laws diluting security of tenure, and of course the idiotic idea of encouraging everybody into bricks and mortar at any cost - 100% mortgages under the Tories going to 125% under New Labour. Property asset bubbles resulting in crashes in 1990 and 2007. Plus the failure to reband the council taxes at the top end thus providing a tax cheap invitation to rich oligarchs to invest their money in property in London and some other cities, dragging up prices for everybody else. Plus failure to build enough council housing. I believe that Germany has a more sane and balanced approach to housing. Thatcher never was very good on economics otherwise she might have been aware of John Maynard Keynes's dictum that "trouble starts when governments tell people that they can get rich without working". The "property owning democracy", the "share owning democracy". If it was possible for us all to become Warren Buffett or George Soros, or, in property, Nicholas van Hoogstraten, it would have happened by now. In the end, a house is a place to live, not an investment. Sorry about turning this thread into a political polemic but I do feel that housing is the hidden big problem of today's society - visible perhaps better to those of us who grew up in the postwar years when the essentials of life were kept affordable. I've had similar sentiments to this published in letters to The Observer and taken up by the Rev Paul Nicholson of the Taxpayers Against Poverty campaign.
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Re: BOB FINCH ARTICLE IN CHURCH TIMES

Post by Katharine »

There has been a reply to Bob Finch's article, written by Joshua Bell. I presume he is the Josh Bell better known to the more longstanding members of the Forum as Euresto - he was posting here while still at school

In ChurchTimes 6 May 2016.

Passing on blessings received at school

From Mr Joshua Bell

Sir, — I was very moved by Bob Finch’s retelling of the story of the founding of Christ’s Hospital (Comment, 15 April), the school that was my home away from home for seven years.

As Mr Finch’s quotation from its current headmaster said, Christ’s Hospital still houses and educates those whose background — be it a difficult or even dangerous home life, steep poverty or any number of other causes — means they would benefit from the academic rigour, pastoral care, and rich opportunity provided there.

One of 850 schoolchildren, and the fourth of five children being raised by my mother, I was cared for at Christ’s Hospital, educated, and invested in, with the result that I and the other 120 in my year, having entered in 2002 as shy boys and girls, left in 2009 as confident, well-educated and well-rounded young men and women.

How is this paid for? On the last day of the academic year, every leaver is presented with a Bible and hears the following words: “I charge you never to forget the great benefits that you have received in this place, and in time to come according to your means, to do all that you can to enable others to enjoy the same advantage; and remember that you carry with you, wherever you go, the good name of Christ’s Hospital. May God Almighty bless you in your ways and keep you in the knowledge of his love now and forever.”

JOSHUA BELL
Katharine Dobson (Hills) 6.14, 1959 - 1965
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Re: BOB FINCH ARTICLE IN CHURCH TIMES

Post by J.R. »

That is undoubtably the Josh referred to above.

I still have fond memories of meeting him on an OB's day and having a lengthy chat.

Pity he doesn't seem to grace this site anymore.
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