Christening party

Baptism at Church last Sunday, with the aunts and cousins in their summer finery.

William Francis Dixon - St Mark

A detail from an aisle window in St Mary, Brookfield parish Church in North London: St Mark by William Francis Dixon. Mark is now the only surviving Evangelist in a four light window; the other three were destroyed by a bomb blast during WWII. The tracery glass, which includes a head of John The Baptist, also remains undamaged
W. F. Dixon was born in 1848 and began his career as an artist with Clayton and Bell. He had his own stained  glass business, with a succession of partners, by the mid 1870s. In the 1890s he moved to Munich to work for Mayer and Co. and died there in 1928.
The window is dedicated to the memory of Mary Cocksedge and was given by her son Walter.

Chess at the homeless shelter

Two guests play chess together at the homeless shelter I help to co-ordinate.
More on chess and volunteering for the C4ws Homelss project here.

Two minutes silence

Smiley eye contact with two year old Daniel during the Two Minute Silence yesterday (that's his Dad in uniform).

Gerry Judah's The Crusader

When I arrived for 7.30am Mass this morning, I found Gerry Judah's fibreglass sculpture The Crusader is now installed at the back of my parish church. The version is different from the larger version shown here (and originally commissioned for the Imperial War Museum North). This version is smaller and in a ferric red which tones in well with the Victorian brickwork of William Butterfield.