To capture 2023 in a few pages..

2023 was the year that just kept on giving and giving and not necessarily positively so and then it took everything!

Well, we kicked the year off well, returning from an extended holiday in South Africa, alas to a flood in the Utility Room! This, in turn, unfolded a near eight month saga, in rectifying damage - thanks to our Insurer's builders incompetence. We got there in the end through perseverance and more so endurance! This coupled with my own projects to remove the rear roof of the house and to install a Velux window; all forward planning! (More projects next year!) But, we do have a rather smart Utility Room, greatly improved as I added a lower ceiling with sunken lights and additional sockets - did I mention the insulation too!

Granted the reader is used to a litany of holidays, albeit breaks, normally for work at my dens in France and Italy. That is the expectation and not to disappoint; we managed some. And then there were those, that were canceled! February saw a brief visit to France to garden a further brief visit to Italy in March seeing the purchase of a pellet burner. Another followed at Easter, except then incredibly nothing was done! Why? I for the first time in my life found myself being hospitalised! A collapsed lung following and due to a procedure by the NHS trying to understand my ‘COPD’. So came about the theme of hospitals.

The rest of the year it seems was endless rounds of visits to hospitals, firstly my sister-in-law died aged 60 following a Stroke, and we were all greatly shocked. My mother’s health began to falter and soon we found ourselves hoping for a diagnosis and hopes of a cure; alas only a diagnosis came. We found ourselves orphaned on October 1^st – nothing it seems quite prepares you for the loss of your mother. Mum, was incredibly brave till the end, I found myself saying that once again, she was ‘carrying us’. We were fortunate to be able to get her back home, where we might hope to provide as much comfort and security as we could, with round-the-clock attendance by family. She also had the joy and comfort of Charlie her faithful companion. (Dogs provide incredible comfort; as we well know, as we now have adopted Charlie!) I was glad, since there was no guidance from my mother, as to the manner of her funeral, that it was left to myself to put something together. My tuition told me that Mum knew I would do whatever I could as best I could. The Eulogy itself, I just wrote straight off; as if just pulled out of a draw, I didn’t need to change a word of it. I trust and know she would have approved. I can guess few could go and purchase a resting plot - days before they are about to die. Mum did! It was Mum too who literally must have given me the strength to help carry her out.

Miraculously, it seemed, we did get in a few more visits abroad. June saw a visit to Caporciano and we successfully had the pellet burner fitted. Later, we had another momentous visit to Italy to inaugurate the pellet burner (A specialist had to visit to do this and approve the installation.) And of course, we celebrated Mark’s 50^th, beginning at Caporciano and then moving on to the Eternal City. We finally had an excuse to stay at a lovely hotel we had always hoped to stay at: Donna Camilla Sevelli & yes we would recommend it.

A very odd year indeed. Life is very different. Life going forward is certainly a new phase, there is plenty to pick up on and indeed consolidate; for it has been a wake-up call for me; we are all mortal.

Something that has weighed heavily on my heart, as indeed it must with so many people, is the situation in the Middle East. Once again history records two thousand years later, not just one significant family being displaced but an entire nation. Would it be that the Light so shone that we might learn to Love and of course forgive? 

My Abuser Rev Peter H Beard, joining the ranks of "Survivors"

 

Peter Harvey Beard born 15th February 1939, to proud parents William H Beard, a Railway Guard and his wife Elsie an unpaid domestic living at 59 Percy Street, Shrewsbury, a modest overcrowed semi-detached dwelling, for they lived with Peter’s two sisters and his Grandmother, whose house it probably was.

Peter, was to grow up aware of a secret he had to hold dear, a secret to share with no one, for fear of rejection and alienation not only from his family but from everyone.

The young man became involved in a local church, St Chads a church that had its roots and influence in anglo-catholicism and that of the Tractarian movement of the C19. On the surface, the rituals and formulas offering and affording escapism, escapism from the humdrum of the ordinary taken up into the world of the mysterious and the Divine Mystery.

Of course, our Peter’s mystery was evolving, the facade, to be so carefully conceived and crafted as to divert people's attention from the truth.

Oh, to escape from all that is real and disconcerting, but the how, when and where, were but dreams. Peter, would be greatly disturbed as his awareness grew of what he could tell no man, all the urges that were emanating from his very loins.

Given as he was, to be strongly attracted to the church, it offered respectability and something beyond the immediate, and the immediate was frightening. The church offered gaiety itself, and frankly a cloak of respectability, especially to the veneer that was emerging.

Dream as he might, to escape not only from that within but to escape from having to disclose, what he dare not! If only he could take himself off to some far-flung place. to return in the Emperor's new clothes, the thought of returning clad in respectability and nobody would ask the question, let alone think he was gay.

With so much not in his favour, an impoverished background, he struggled to with academia, life at St Chad's gave him access to other ways of looking at the world. There he met interesting people, people who liked him and respected him. And everybody respected the vicar, a figure who stood large in the community, involved as he was in its very heart. Peter could but only dream to be like him. No one would suspect a vicar to be gay and what if he were? Everybody loved the vicar. Dream as he might, where would his dreams take him?

The Empire was in decline, all that was once Pink on the globe had taken on board its own flag. Many a young man had gone off to make his mark and if not his fortune, escaping on the waves. Shrewsbury was as landlocked as Peter's dreams.

Except, one day a Chaplain came to visit at St Chad’s they addressed hin as Padre. The padre made a deep impression upon Peter, he told of far off places such as one dreams of and of a ministry that was exciting as it was global.

Other, urges and thoughts which Peter could acknowledge formed from within, except these, were noble and respectable, he would very much like to grow up to be like the Padre.

So it was that the dye was cast and the engine house was the need to escape, if not only from oneself and those other filthy thoughts the ones he had to keep to himself.

Peter, had it formed in his mind that he would offer to go and help out in a Mission to Seamen, this would certainly keep afloat so much that he could hope for and to escape people finding out who he really was.

A little research with local newspapers where Beard last served as a priest, brought this to light (below) Thanks to the Editor of the Express & Star Newspaper Maria Cusine, who responded to my emailing…

Dated:14/7/97

A former Walsall vicar today pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a teenage boy.

Peter Beard, aged 58, appeared before Shrewsbury crown court just two weeks after he stood down as vicar of St Michael and All Angels in Pelsall.

He admitted one charge of indecently assaulting a boy under the age of 18, between October 1994 and January 1995.

The assault took place while Beard was priest-in-charge at Christ Church, Wellington, Shropshire.

Beard, who spoke only to confirm his name and plead guilty, was remanded on bail.

Judge Michael Mander adjourned the case for one month for reports to be prepared.

Beard retired as vicar of Pelsall on medical grounds on June 30 and has been granted a pension by the Church of England.

The nature of his illness has not been disclosed.

Beard had been off duty through illness since January and was suspended from working as a priest when he was charged with indecent assault.

He became vicar of Pelsall in 1995 and was due to celebrate 25 years as a priest this year.

A new vicar has been appointed to head a Walsall parish church after its former priest stepped down as he awaited trial on indecent assault charges.

The Rev Michael Last has been chosen as the new vicar for St Michael and All Angels Church in Church Road, Pelsall.

Mr Last will replace the former vicar, Peter Beard who stepped down in June — six weeks before being put on probation for three years by Shrewsbury crown court.

Beard had pleaded guilty to indecent assault on a boy under the age of 18 between October 1994 and January 1995. The assault took place while Beard was priest-in-charge at Christ Church, Wellington, Shropshire.

I wasnt the only victim of Beard others have written to me from the school where he taught:

What was carefully hidden is that before the Seamen's Mission he was a teacher at Kingsland Grange Preparatory School in Shrewsbury, where he abused numerous boys. I was abused by Beard in the early 1960s aged 11 and it has affected my life for the last 60 years. He would have been abusing children for over 30 years before he was caught!