{"id":120,"date":"2014-03-01T19:28:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-01T19:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/?p=120"},"modified":"2016-06-14T07:31:43","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T07:31:43","slug":"memories-from-author-bernard-ashley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/?p=120","title":{"rendered":"Memories from author Bernard Ashley"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were so pleased to receive the following from author Bernard Ashley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I went to Wesley Hall as a boy in the war and after. With my father Alfred, my mother Vera, and my younger brother Michael we normally went to the Sunday evening services. The church had a circuit minister but we didn’t see him too often; in any case, our favourite minister was the lay preacher Jim Priest. He had great warmth and a good sense of humour. If he’d ever preached hell and damnation he’d have had a twinkle in his eye saying ‘Not really.’ I remeber one Christmas morning service when we talked to Mr Priest before it began about our Christmas presents – and I was wearing one of mine, a yellow short-sleeved pullover. I was so proud when it was mentioned in the prayers of thanks.<\/p>\n

The organ was played by Miss Rush, an elderly woman hunched over the keyboard and pedalling away. At some services a young man called Ernest Pocknell played his violin. I belonged to the cubs, and Ernie’s fianc\u00e9e Barbara was Baloo, assistant to Akela.<\/p>\n

Ernie was called up into Bomber Command, and he didn’t return from a raid over Germany. We all hoped he’s been taken prisoner-of-war, but sadly, he’d been killed. I had started to learn the violin on a borrowed instrument, and after a while I was asked if I would like to have Ernie’s. I gratefully accepted, and from time to time played a few scratchy notes at services, but I wasn’t nearly as good as Ernie had been. I kept a violin for years, and eventually gave it to Eaglesfield School for a boy to learn on there.<\/p>\n

Having visited our house for tea one Sunday – and noting how brother Michael and I got on together – Ernie wrote in my autograph book, ‘Little birds in their nests should agree,’ He was a dear, gently, man. I would love to know how Barbara fared later.<\/p>\n

I went through cubs and scouts – the regular meetings, district competitions, the two-week camps (real camping) and the camp fire nights in Wesley Hall, sitting round a false fire of sticks, crinkly red paper and a light bulb. The highlights of these were the camp fire ‘items’ – recitations, songs, and sketches. from time to time – I’m not sure it is was annually – we performed a Gang Show on the rigged-up stage in the hall. My love of theatre stemmed partly from performing in these.<\/p>\n

Wesley Hall and my family gave me a very happy childhood, despite the war. When my father changed his occupation in my early teens we moved to the Medway towns where I tried to pick things up. But it wasn’t the same. There was no skipper like Stan.<\/p>\n

I feel so grateful for the spirit and the friendship I had as a child in the Wesley Hall community – and I pay tribute to the people who carry on that precious tradition.<\/p>\n

Bernard Ashley<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We were so pleased to receive the following from author Bernard Ashley. I went to Wesley Hall as a boy in the war and after. With my father Alfred, my mother Vera, and my younger brother Michael we normally went to the Sunday evening services. The church had a circuit minister but we didn’t see … Continue reading Memories from author Bernard Ashley<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101014,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-centenary-blog","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7CN5E-1W","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/101014"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyhallplumstead.org.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}