Letter from the Rectory - August 2026

Dear Friends,

August is often a slightly different month, and a time to relax or break off from normal routines. If we do go away anywhere on holiday, many head for the coast. As a child, my parents used to take us to the northwest Highlands of Scotland. However, after one year when we suffered 18 wet days in 21, they decided to alternate with the West Country.

The sea has certain qualities which no lake or river can begin to emulate, with the constantly changes of light at different times of day. By the sea, we can be reminded of the sheer beauty of God’s creation; but also of its power, and of how insignificant we are in comparison. Whilst younger children love to race into the sea, as we get older many of us prefer to just look at the sea rather than spending time in it. Our Island Nation is blessed with a varied coastline – great contrasts between our South Coast of white cliffs, river estuaries, sandy beaches and urban seafronts or, say, North and South Cornwall… we are so fortunate.

Many poets have attempted to capture these things. In 1882 Christina Rossetti wrote a short three-verse poem entitled Birchington Churchyard which was published in The Athenaeum. She composed it in memory of her brother, the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who died on Easter Sunday, 9th April 1882. He is buried in the Churchyard at Birchington, just west of Margate on the North Kent coast, near the south door of the Church.  

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A lowly hill which overlooks a flat,
Half sea, half countryside;
A flat-shored sea of low-voiced creeping tide,
Over a chalky, weedy mat.

A hill of hillocks, flowery and kept green
Round crosses raised for hope,
With many-tinted sunsets where the slope
Faces the lingering western sheen.

A lowly hope, a height that is but low,
While Time sets solemnly,
While the tide rises of Eternity,
Silent and neither swift nor slow.

Whatever your August brings, may it be a peaceful one.

​

James Campbell