Happy St Peter’s Day
St Peter’s day (29th June), along with St John the Baptist’s day (25th June), is an important marker for mid-summer celebrations. Bonfires were lit on both St John’s Eve (Midsummer’s Day, this was the Summer Solstice before changes in the calendar) and St. Peter’s Eve. In Tudor England both these celebrations included music, processions, garlands of flowers, drinking ale and feasting.
Locally St. Peter’s Day is the fixed point for the timing of Parwich Wakes, and gardeners in the village used to regard this as the best time for digging your first new potatoes.
The Odd Fellows Ale drunk at their feast on Saturday is a recent revival of a very old tradition. Chris and the A52s are keeping alive local music making. Our Carnival Parade is a reminder of the Tudor processions, and the floats in the parade echo the decorated carts popular in the north as part of the build up to hay making.
Being currently between vicars there is no St Peter’s Day service in Parwich Church this year, but Andrew Robinson, lay reader wrote the following on St Peter for us:
He was remembered at the Campsite Service on Sunday morning.
By the Shore of Lake Galilee he had a life changing experience. Called by Jesus to be “a fisher of men“. From that day he left the fishing business and set out to follow Jesus. Despite his human weakness, his impulsive nature and outright denial of Jesus, he knew forgiveness and was to become the leader of the early Christian Church.
Peter’s life and service to the Christian cause is a challenge to all who seek to follow in his footsteps.
The following carvings representing St Peter can be seen on the last pair of columns in the nave before the chancel arch in Parwich Church.
The last symbol, looking remarkably like a tennis racket, is often found puzzling but is assumed to represent a fishing net.
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