2nd April 2010

A Chaplain’s Diary

 

 

Palm Sunday 28^th March

 

Sermons do hang over me, particularly at 10.30 am on a Sunday morning when I know I still haven’t got anything prepared and the service starts at 11.00am.  My wife tells me not to worry because no one ever really wants a sermon anyway.  She says, “I bet if you ask people who wanted a sermon to put their hands up, no one would.”  One Sunday, when I’m desperate, I shall test that theory.  The real problem is that the less time you have spent preparing something properly, the longer you tend to go on. Today, as she was leaving church, one of our choir members reminded me “If you haven’t struck gold within 5 minutes, stop boring!”

The legend is that Winston Churchill would never stand up to make a major speech in the House of Commons unless he was desperate to go to the loo.  He said it gave him a certain edge and stopped him speaking too long. So I shall have to try that technique myself one day.  

Amongst all the sad news about Roman Catholic priests and paedophilia hitting the media at the moment, came a short news piece that will be welcomed by anyone who has found himself dozing off in church.  The Vatican has called for priests to limit their sermons to no more than eight minutes. To cater to congregations dwindling attention spans, they have decreed that sermons should be short, pithy and topical.  It seems that the Catholic Church is only too aware that in an age of constant distraction their flock sometimes struggles to pay attention and no one should go over eight minutes – the average amount of time for a listener to concentrate.  So eight minutes it is from now on.

 

Monday 29^th March

 

Anglican Chaplaincy Policy here in Majorca is that we give away ten percent of our income to charitable causes.  The congregation of St. Andrew’s in Puerto Pollensa have just made their annual donation to Age Concern and to help development work in Peru.  At our last Church Council Meeting in Palma the accounts showed that we had given away €14,000 last year to a number of charities, including Christian Aid, Save the Children, the Joan March Hospice, Amiticia, Mary’s Meals, Mamalena and to development work in Peru …. but all of that is a small drop in the ocean towards the good work they all do.

 

Tuesday 30^th March

 

What a turnout for the Memorial Service for Bill Watson tonight!  We ran out of service sheets and I think he would have been quite amused by how many people were there.  Bill used to run the Rosamar Hotel along Terreno and the whole Terreno gang were out in force.  Bill’s mother is still alive and being 99 years old she obviously could not make it over to Majorca for the service, so Ken Greenall, a member of our congregation, filmed the ceremony so that she will be able to see it at a later date.  The tributes were quite moving, and after all it’s what people remember about us that is ultimately important and it was the usual mixture on such occasions of laughter and tears. 

 

Bill was born in Lancashire where his family owned a wallpaper business and, as Andrew Valente reminded us when he wrote his feature on Bill a few years ago in the Majorca Daily Bulletin, the successful family business meant that Bill had a privileged childhood. He went to the village school in Darwin, then on to a prep school and was then sent up to Scotland to a public school in Edinburgh called Fettes College, the school where Tony Blair went.  It’s one of the top places in Britain and, as Bill once recalled; at that school sport was more important than academic study.  He was always very proud that he played rugby for the first team.

 

After that Bill went back to join the family wallpaper business which was taken over by Crown wallpapers – the stress of which probably caused the death of his father at just 58 years of age – Bill was then 23. He went to London and got a job making Mars Bars – 50 tons of them a shift, followed by two years working for Manpower.  But then the entrepreneurial side of Bill came to the front.  He bought a business in St. Ives and it wasn’t long before he’d thrown out all the awful holiday souvenirs and Cornish perfumes from the small down market holiday shop and made it into a mini WH Smiths.

 

Eventually he made it to Majorca via Ibiza at the age of 38 where Basilio his partner, found him a job in Viajes Compas as a holiday rep.  After to-ing and fro-ing for a while he finished up working for Castaways which had 19 of the best hotels on the island.

 

Then the Rosamar was discovered, Basilio sold his café and in 1990 the Rosamar became Bill’s, though he would have been the first to admit that the business caused him both a great deal of pleasure and a lot of sleepless nights as well, with the highlights perhaps being the years 2000 to 2001 when things went very well indeed from a business point of view. His hotel slogan was “An oasis of tranquillity in the centre of Palma’s gay scene”.  Every month the majority of people at the hotel were returning guests and that’s possibly the best advert he could have hoped for. Constant return custom meant he was getting the formula right.

 

The last few years have not been easy for Bill.  I last saw him a couple of months ago in his bed, speaking with the aid of oxygen after a short spell in hospital.  I have always considered him a lovely guy and that’s why there were so many of his friends at his Memorial Service.  For all of that, we say thank you to God and commend Bill into the arms of his loving Creator.

 

Wednesday 31^st March

 

It was the last rehearsal tonight for the Georgie Insull Singers’ Concert on Good Friday evening at 8 o’clock.  They have been rehearsing twice a week since Christmas.  The annual Good Friday concert has become quite a tradition, followed by hot cross buns in the Coleman Hall.  Although this year’s concert has not even yet taken place, they are already committed to performing Messiah on Good Friday next year.  If that’s not planning ahead, I don’t know what is. I cannot look beyond Sunday at the moment. On Easter Day our church will be full as we celebrate Easter together. The island will come alive with the early morning Easter ceremonies and traditions. My colleague Paul Southern, and the Anglican congregation who meet at the Roman Catholic Church in Puerto Pollensa at 9am, will have finished their Easter service by the time we start in Palma at 11am. And although the English service in the Roman Catholic Church at Cala D’Or will not start until 6pm in the evening, they will all be part of those celebrations of all the churches around the world that Easter bunnies and chocolate eggs can do scant justice to.

 

In the words of Handel’s Messiah which will ring around many churches this Holy Week we shall once again assert “I know that my Redeemer liveth”.  A very Happy Easter to you all.

 

Fr Robert Ellis is the Anglican Chaplain of Mallorca

St Philip and St James Church

Calle Nunez de Balboa 6,

Son Armadans, Palma 07014

Tel: 971 737279

e-mail:anglicanpalma@gmail.com

www.anglican-mallorca.org