Taunton – Minster Church of St Mary Magdalene

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angels, Brian Bone, Father Willis, King Ina, Robert Key, Somerset Light Infantry, Susan Hutton, susanpoozan, Taunton, Taunton Minster, Tracy Sheppard

Last Friday, 3rd February, having spent a couple of hours, and taken lunch, at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton Castle, about which I blogged yesterday, and with a couple more hours before my bus back home, I decided to visit the beautiful church of which I had caught just a glance in the morning.

At 50 metres, 163 feet, the tallest tower in Somerset. Peregrines have had a breeding station at the top since 2017.

I paused to look at what I imagined to be the four Evangelists – they were not accompanied by their normal symbols – at the west door, and was struck by the humanity written on the face of whom I took to be St Luke.

I stepped inside. Susan!

Susan. Susanpoozan, loyal reader and commenter on my blogs, sister to two other loyal readers and to two other siblings, died just two weeks ago. I had seen her in November on my last trip to London. My next visit will be to attend her thanksgiving service later this month.

Susan herself wrote a weekly blog, She loved travel and she loved churches, especially their ceilings. One of her last posts was of her trip to Exeter, when its cathedral figured largely in what she wrote about the city. In the early months of 2021, when we were all unable to get out and about, she wrote up 21 ‘Tales from a mid-life gap year‘ about her travels in Europe in a van, in 1984/5.

I felt Susan was with me all the time as I explored this beautiful church.

The minster was founded by the Saxon king, Ina, when he founded the town of Taunton early in the 8th century. It became a parish church in 1308, and once more became a minster in 2022, ‘to reflect its ‘widening work engaging with civic life, as a hub in the west of the diocese…; as a major heritage attraction; and in serving the community and business life of Taunton’. The present church was completed in 1508.

West window

‘The nave is one of only five in England with double aisles and divided into five sections – the nave being almost a square of 26 metres.’ [Leaflet]

A glance up at the ceiling over the nave …

… and at the ceiling over the chancel. Susan would have loved both.

The Father Willis organ was built in 1882. ‘Look for ‘Alleluia’ angels on the pipes!’

Soldiers’ Corner. The Minster is the regimental church of the Somerset Light Infantry. The bell is the treble that was replaced along with the minster’s entire peal, in 2016.

‘The 1902 window features historical figures associated with the church.’

It was time to look more closely at those angels. These were gilded in in 1968, and are among more than 200 of the beings to be seen somewhere in the church.

‘Where is one for Susan? She was a music teacher. Found it!’

And here’s her angel, facing the west door.

These were commissioned in 2008, designed and engraved by Tracy Sheppard.

I walked round the outside of the minster, clockwise.

Silhouetted against the sun

In the sun

The south porch and that tallest tower

With the permission of the two of her siblings I know best, I am dedicating this blog post to Susan Hutton, 1934-2023. I have in mind also RK, 1945-2023, with whom I sang in a London choir in the 1970s. He was very closely involved with Salisbury Cathedral. I lost touch with him when I left the great wen. He made contact again in 2016 and I have learned of his death just this morning. Also Brian, 1923-2023, a dear friend from Reading and in recent years Yorkshire, whose thanksgiving meeting for worship I was able to attend virtually last week. May they all rest in peace.

Arnhem Remembered 3

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Antoon Verbekel, Argyll and Highland Sutherlanders, Army Air Corps, Arnhem, Auschwitz, Bailey bridge, British Army, Dorsetshire Regiment, East Yorkshire Regiment, Freedom Museum, Military Police, Monmouthshire Regiment, Netherlands, Operation Market Garden, Pete Hoekstra, Peter Leech, RAF, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal engineers, Royal Household Corps, Royal marines, Royal Navy, Royal Tank Regiment, Royal Welch Fusiliers, Somerset Light Infantry, St-Petrus Kerk Uden, Uden, Uden War Cemetery, War dead

Monday, 16th September was a wet day, and fortunately we did not have to go outside of the monastery, having a full day of rehearsals and a concert in its chapel that evening. I took very few photos, just two, of guests at our concert.

The first is of 97-year-old British veteran, Private George Avery, 71st Field Company, Royal Engineers. (My grandfather served behind the trenches in the Royal Engineers in the First World War, and in the Second my father in the RAF and my uncle in the Royal Navy. How I wish, like so many, that I had asked the questions when I had the chance. And, additionally this day, I was conscious that it would have been my mother’s 100th birthday.)

In September 1944 the Royal Engineers prepared for the drive north to Arnhem, and in February 1945 built the longest Bailey bridge in the world. Private Avery was at Auschwitz shortly after Liberation and says he will always remember that.

Here he is in those days. Same cheeky smile!

The other photo I took minutes later, of the US Ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra. He was born in the Netherlands, but moved to the US when he was three. He had been at the Freedom Museum the day before and had been urged to come to our concert if he was free. Here he is addressing us before the concert, with his wife, Diane, and ‘our’ American, Bill.

The chapel was full, with nearly 300 in the audience, the Ambassador unnervingly just feet away from us as we sang. Here our conductor, Peter Leech, is giving us concert feedback at the beginning of our rehearsal the next day, as we sat in our same places.

Tuesday 17th September. After lunch at the monastery, we set off in the coach for Uden. We were greeted there at the Commonwealth War Cemetery, right in the middle of the town, by a former mayor, Mr Antoon Verbakel. He has been for many years the chair of a group concerned with honouring those buried there, some 700, the vast majority of whom are British. He told us of the history of the cemetery, and said that, while their annual war remembrance ceremonies ares in May, he personally comes to the cemetery at the same time as – and he choked with emotion at this point – as our Queen is honouring the dead in Whitehall on Remembrance Sunday. He presented Peter with a book he had written giving the story of the cemetery, after which we were free to walk around.

A 32-year-old Flight sergeant from the Royal Canadian Airforce, 26.05.1943

A 19-year-old Trooper from the Royal Tank Regiment, 29.09.1944

A 20-year-old Private from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 07.11.1944

A 26-year-old Russian prince, serving with the Monmouthshire Regiment, 26.10.1944

A 20-year-old Pilot Officer from the RAF, 15.06.1943

A 20-year-old Private from the Dorsetshire Regiment, 16.02.1945

A 19-year-old Private from the East Yorkshire Regiment, 09.03.1945

A 21-year-old from the Royal Marines, 13.04.1945

A 20-year-old from the Polish forces, 31.03.1945

A 31-year-old Navigator from the RAF, 27.01.1943

A 25-year-old Corporal from the Royal Welch Fusiliers, 25.10.1944

A 21-year-old from the Glider Pilot Regiment of the Army Air Corps, 25.09.1944

A 33-year-old Corporal from the Somerset Light Infantry, 04.10.1944

An Unknown Soldier from the Royal Household Corps, October 1944

A 29-year-old from the Military Police, 13.04.1945

And many hundreds more, including servicemen from New Zealand and Australia.

It was time to walk to the parish room of the St-Petrus Kerk, where we would give our second concert. This was not just any old kerk. It was the size of a cathedral!

It was just as big inside as it was outside, as we discovered during our rehearsal.

Between rehearsal and concert, we were as bad as the youngsters…

For the concert, the church, while not packed, was very full, probably the same number as the night before. We were delighted to see Private Avery and his family there again in the front row, joining in, along with the rest of the audience, our encore, an arrangement of ‘We’ll meet again.’ The Dutch know it as well, if not better than the British do.