Flower Festival

Blake also wrote most of his Milton (1804) at Felpham and the preface to this particular work is famous as the words of the hymn 'Jerusalem'.

The very informative booklet available in the church said that the lines "....England's green and pleasant land' were inspired by the majestic views of the South Downs from the Earl of March pub at Lavant.

The arrangement opposite depicts the hymn 'Jerusalem' with the 'bow of burning gold', the 'arrows of desire' and the 'dark satanic mills'.

Both the poem 'Tiger, tiger, burning bright' and the hymn 'Jerusalem' arrangements were provided by Manor Nursery arrangers.

One exhibit that could easily have been missed but fortunately caught my eye was no 16 by the south door entrance on the right - an arrangement for Eric Gill (1882-1940), the famous artist, sculptor, engraver and type-face designer. The arranger Doreen Brigden had used white flowers to represent the white of paper and of stone.

It is mentioned that he once lived in Chichester but actually he also lived in Bognor for a short time between 1899 and 1900! His father Arthur Tidman Gill was the curate of St. John's Church, Bognor from 1899 until 1914 and lived both at 32 Glamis St. and Strathmore in the high street.

One of Gill's earliest inscriptions is actually in our Lady Chapel and our Eric Gill page and companion pages on his work at Guildford and Westminster Cathedral  now attract over 230 visits/mth.

It has nothing to do with the flowers (!) but I was fascinated to find that the arrangement actually included in great detail a copy of Gill's sketch for the proportions of the Gill Sans sans-serif typeface and clearly dated 20th December 1932.

Research historian John Hawkins and I are currently engaged in research into Gill's involvement with Bognor. He  has been described as one of England's greatest artist-craftsman of the twentieth century and I am so pleased that this flower arrangement was dedicated to him

Festival Concert

Another wonderful event was the Festival Concert held all amongst the flower displays on the Friday evening. This was not a viewpoint as one of the audience but one of the performers!

 The Choir of St. Mary's Church and guests put on superb programme of singing and instrumental playing interspersed with poetry readings by the Village Voices, a Felpham based poetry reading group. Julia Mason Jones helped to organise the poetry reading elements and asked me to  look in on a rehearsal to see how well the readings could be heard etc. Unfortunately (well fortunately for me!) Julia's husband Mark was laid out with back problems and indisposed so I ended up doing his readings including the William Blake poem 'The Echoing Green'. I had to do this piece after a hilarious and very accomplished 'Duet for Two Cats' by Vyonnikins and Maddypuss which was hardly fair!

Again the programme was cleverly matched to the Flower Festival event. For instance a very rousing 'Sussex by the Sea' perfectly complimented the floral arrangement no 1 near the west door by Town Flowers for the song of that name written by the musician, composer and songwriter William Ward-Higgs in 1907.

The new vicar Fr. Timothy Peskett (announced as the part time organist!) displayed his prowess at the organ with a Toccata in G and another highlight for me was when Jack Enticott, son of Sue Endicott (Village Voices) accompanied his mother on guitar whilst she very movingly read 'The Trees' by Phillip Larkin.

A truly memorable evening of entertainment in Felpham which had something for everybody. Our concluding poem was Blake's 'Letter to my dear friend, Mrs Anna Flaxman' where all of us joined in the most appropriate concluding words ' Away to sweet Felpham, for Heaven is there, the Ladder of Angels descends through the air'. How very true.

Peter Green