The Rector’s (last) News Letter, 1976

In 1976 Rev’d. J.W.J. Steele wrote an elegant, poignant News Letter for his parishoners. He recalls the hot, hot summer of that year. He pays tribute to the life of the parish, the events shared, the personalities involved. He reminisces about life in the countryside of his childhood – sheaves in stooks, pitchers with pikels, ‘harvest-beer cool from the great stone pitchers’. It is a fabulous letter, well worth the read. It also contains the news that there is no longer to be a Rector of Powderham. The Vicar of Kenton would now assume total pastoral responsibility. ‘This to me is sad,’ Rev’d Steele writes, ‘for it means that I am the last Rector of Powderham after an unbroken line since 1258 A.D.’

The Rector’s (last) News Letter