With the retirement of Carolyn Hall and Pam Coombs from arranging church flowers, it seems timely to reflect on the history of flowers at St Joseph’s.
In Fr Pepper’s day, the Tinkler sisters used to cultivate flowers to fill rectangular containers which sat on the ledge either side of the tabernacle and on the floor in front of the altar. When flowers were in short supply and the Tinklers could no longer do them, Fr Pepper asked for contributions to a flower fund.
Parishioners contributed to the Flower Fund by choosing a Sunday when they made a payment to cover the flowers for a particular week. People often chose weeks to mark anniversaries of relatives’ deaths or birthdays or other celebrations. At Christmas and Easter, special retiring collections were taken from the entire congregation and the church always looked glorious on those occasions.
Father Pepper recruited Pat Parker to arrange the flowers. She was assisted by Ann Grafton, Mary Atkinson and Rosemary Thristan. Parishioners initially donated flowers and plants often from their own gardens. As you know, Pat was a very talented flower arranger who recruited Carolyn and Pam. After Pat moved to Wetherby, Ann, Mary, Rosemary, Carolyn and Pam were joined by Bridget.
Now help is needed with flowers, it would be a shame if folk think that the wonderful arrangements that there have been in recent years must be emulated and so do not volunteer to take a turn. Anyone interested in helping keep our church beautiful with flowers (once normality returns) should contact Bridget Mellor on 07904500983 or bidamellor@gmail.com