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Here’s a link to our October 2026 magazine. Paper copies will be available in both our churches from this weekend.

The autumnal edition includes updates from most of our groups and organisations as well as news from our local community and information about upcoming events.

The October 2026 magazine also has this swansong letter from Margery Spencer…

The time has come…

Those are the opening words of a nonsense poem by Lewis Caroll from “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” No, I hope I am not going to write nonsense or even pen words about shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and Kings. But for me the time has come to hang up my Reader’s robes. My licence is up for renewal at the end of November and after much thought and prayer I have decided not to renew it. It has not been an easy decision, but age and health issues mean that I am no longer reliable, which for me is unacceptable.

It doesn’t seem possible that it is thirty nine years since I was licensed alongside Barbara in Manchester Cathedral. I honestly had no idea in 1987 what the future would hold. It has been an eventful span of years. I have served with five Vicars, weathered periods without an incumbent, preached more than 200 sermons, given a multitude of talks, led countless services and undertaken many home visits. There have been highs and lows along the way. I have taken the funerals of too many friends, which has been challenging but a great privilege.

But there has been joy in celebratory services when the Bishop of Manchester visited the parish and when we held the festival of talents to celebrate the millennium. I have been there in many Carol services and I remember especially the ones shared with members of other churches in the area.

Change

The world has changed significantly in those 40 years. I remember driving with Barbara on dark evenings to deliver essays to our tutor in Bolton, now we would just press send on an email. There was no internet and research was painstakingly slow through the written word. My computer was a “state of the art” Amstrad and essays were recorded on floppy discs!

Working practices have changed – who knew we would have “hybrid working” – education has changed, academies flourish, eating habits have altered and we are more likely to charge our cars at an electric socket than a petrol pump.

Church life too has changed. We are now part of a United Benefice and there has been joy in meeting and working with our friends down the road.

We have a female Archbishop; who would have thought forty years ago that that would happen.

Now the church faces new challenges to be relevant in today’s world where there are many demands on people’s time and energies, when priorities have changed and there is less consensus on ideas and attitudes.

Supported and encouraged

But amidst all the change some things remain constant. From the start of my ministry I have been supported and encouraged not only by my family and close friends but also by countless parishioners whose prayers and words of support have enriched my time as a Reader. For this I am enormously grateful.

And throughout my ministry the great constant has been the love of God, unchanging, life enhancing. It has been there in the good and the bad times. Saint Paul assures us in the letter to the Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of God and I am certain that it has been with me throughout my time as a Reader.

To everyone who has been with me on this journey, my grateful thanks for your prayers, your support and your love.

Yours in Christ, Margery

PS. As Cath has reminded us, there is no retirement in the kingdom of God. I shall still be doing things in church, just not in my Reader’s outfit.

[Thanks to Aaron Burden for the cover photo sourced from Unsplash, with added cross]