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Editor:   Kings and mystics, writers and martyrs – August does well with its feast days that remember outstanding Christians. Monica and Augustine are new this month. 1     Ethelwold – Saint of Wessex 4     Sithney  – mad dogs 5     Oswald – a king with faith, courage and humility 6      The Transfiguration of our Lord 7    ...

Do you carry dogs in your car?  Be careful – letting them jump out of your car boot can risk damaging their legs, according to a recent Veterinary College study at Hartpury University Centre. Leaping out can increase the pressure on their front legs by as much as a quarter. That can cause muscular-skeletal pathologies.

St Ethelwold (c.912 – 84) did great things for the church at Winchester, which in those days was the principle town of Wessex.   He began as a simple monk, eager to restore the Rule of Benedictine in England, a major reform for the church of the time.  So, after serving at the abbey in Glastonbury,...

Most children get their first experience of handling money through their regular allowance.  So, how you give, and what you give really matters, for research has found that our ongoing attitudes to cash, saving and spending can be formed as early as the age of six. Rooster Money, the children’s money app, finds that parents...

Is there a unicorn in your home?  If you have children (or even if you do not?!), there is bound to be one prancing towards you. From cupcakes to stationery, bagels to inflatable plastic pool toys, headbands to slippers, t-shirts and even the new Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal, glittery rainbow coloured unicorns have taken the...

You know how some men find women’s interest in romance and clothes hard to cope with?   Well, Sithney (or Sezni) should be the patron saint of all such men. According to a Breton folk legend, Sithney was a hermit of long ago, minding his own business, when one day God told him that he was...

Don’t look now, but tattoos are everywhere, and with people stripping off, more of them have been exposed than ever this summer. Tattoos were once the domain of sailors and eccentrics. Not anymore – a walk down any high street will confirm that tattoos are now big business. Nowadays shops offering tattoos and body piercing...

The story is told in Matthew (17:1-9), Mark (9:1-9) and Luke (9:28-36). It was a time when Jesus’ ministry was popular, when people were seeking Him out.  But on this day, He made time to take Peter, James and John, His closest disciples, up a high mountain.  In the fourth century, Cyrillic of Jerusalem identified...

Many Christians have dreamed of doing something spectacular for God, which would be remembered for centuries afterwards. Oswald, who lived from 605 to 642AD, was in a position to do so. He was a King, whose father, Aethelfrith, was a great warrior who laid the foundations of the great kingdom of Northumbria. But Aethelfrith was...

All in the month of August Carnage in Omagh Sir Terry Wogan – a national treasure The spawning of al-Qaeda – from militant Sunni Islamists Diary of a Momentous Year August 1918 – the Battle of Amiens</strong THE WAY I SEE IT – Rating the ‘experience’ Beware foreign plants Millennials see a bleak future August wars...

  Bit short of cash for your holiday this year?  Cajetan (1480 – 1547) should be the patron saint of anyone who needs some extra money – right now.  For it was he who founded the Monts de Piete – the pawnshops – in the 16th century.  They were first designed to help people through...

‘You need hands to hold someone you care for’ – that song of 1958 reminds us how hands can convey a wide range of gestures and meanings. Hands to embrace, hands to signal ‘Stop,’ hands to sound out applause, and hands to show welcome. In the life of the church, we can thinkof sacraments that...