Chairman's Newsletter - May 2025

Cathedral to host special celebration
By PRIYAKA PATEL
News Reporter

TICKETS are available online from the Commonwealth War Graves Foundation website and from the Coventry Cathedral website. 
 

POPE FRANCIS met Archbishop Justin Welby several times.   In 2016 the two presided over vespers at San Gregoria al Celio in Rome.   Gifts were exchanged when the prayers ended.
      Archbishop Justin took the pectoral Coventry Cross of Nails from around his neck and presented it to the Pope, who placed it around his own neck.   The Pope gave to Archbishop Justin a replica of the pastoral staff of Pope St Gregory.   It was Pope Gregory who sent Augustine to England to become the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the sixth century.

The Independent published an account of the contacts between these two church leaders, and it is available to read online using the link –
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/pope-francis-justin-welby-archbishop-canterbury-b2737469.html

 

You are invited to meet
Canon Nitano Muller
at our next

FRIENDLY MONDAY
on 19^th May 2025
in the John Laing Centre

Welcome coffee from 10.30am onwards
Finish by 12 noon

Graham Sutherland remembered

ENGLISH HERITAGE has now erected a plaque at a house in London which was the early residence of artist Graham Sutherland, who designed the Coventry Cathedral tapestry.

Graham Sutherland was a leading British artist of the 20th century.   He is now commemorated with a blue plaque at 8 Dorset Road in the London Borough of Merton which is the house where he lived as a child.

         

Can you help the FRIENDS to organise its programme?   
Help is needed to set up the rooms or to help with catering or just to welcome members.   Can you pour a cup of tea?
The commitment is not great but help is needed to spread the load if we are to continue a programme for members.
 

 


 

The Cathedral needs Stewards
to assist at the following events.

Saturday 10th May - Matthew Coleridge: Requiem 
Arrive: 5.45pm     Event Start: 7pm 
Saturday 24th May – Intercultural Worship Festival – All day Event so please choose the time slot that suits you best.  
Time Slots:  10.30am - 1.30pm     1.30pm - 4pm     6.00pm - 8pm  
Sunday 15th June – The Most Perilous Comedie of Elizabeth I – Theatre in Ruins 
Arrive: 5.15pm     Event Start: 7.00pm  
Saturday 28th June – Vivaldi Four Seasons by Candle Light 
Arrive: 6.15pm     Event Start: 7.30pm  
Saturday 12th July - The Music of Fleetwood Mac 
Arrive: 5.15pm    Event Start: 7.30pm 
Sunday 20th July - Much Ado About Nothing – Theatre in Ruins 
Arrive:  Arrive: 4.45pm    Event Start: 6.00pm 

If you are able to help, please contact the Arts and Events team.
Phone:  02476 521288
Email: [email protected]
 

 

 
I RECENTLY CAME across the results of a survey that demonstrated Coventry to be one of the best-rested cities in the UK.
     Hammonds Furniture conducted the survey which showed that on average Coventry residents enjoy 6.7 hours sleep a night.   Such a sleep was second only to Middlesborough where residents manage to achieve the top score of 7 hours sleep per night.
      Neither of these findings match the NHS recommended sleep time of between 7 and 9 hours a night, but they are way ahead of Cardiff where the worst sleepers only average 5.7 hours per night.  
      Remembering who organised the survey, I presume that bedroom furniture has something to do with it!

         

 

 

 

 
     WHEN NOELLE GORDON was interviewed by the CROSSROADS Appreciation Society she was asked to say what were the finest episodes of CROSSROADS.   She replied
      Personally, some of the finest episodes we ever did were at Coventry and at the Cathedral. They were so pleased with some of those episodes that they have put the scripts of the episodes in the archives at Coventry Cathedral. We shot some fabulous stuff in the Cathedral. The episodes were all surrounding the car accident with Sandy, and we were wandering around Coventry looking for guidance and so on.

     It is only people “of a certain age” who remember CROSSROADS.   It was a low budget yet highly popular television soap opera that was filmed mainly at the ATV Birmingham studios.   The original series ran from 1964 to 1988 followed by a short revival from 2001 to 2003.
     It was set in a fictional motel in the Midlands and regularly attracted huge audiences, with viewership numbers reaching as high as 15 million viewers.   Noelle Gordon was the star at the centre of the stories.   More recently in 2023 a televised drama, Nolly, with Helena Bonham Carter playing Gordon,was made by ITV Studios and depicted her time in Crossroads and her sacking from the show.
     It has been possible to trace film of the CROSSROADS scenes that were shot at the Cathedral including those in the Ruins, outside St Michael’s House (“the hospital” in the soap) and inside the new Cathedral building.
     These scenes will be shown at a series of FRIENDS Film Shows starting in June.   The dates are to be confirmed.

     The Re-building of Coventry Cathedral was a silent film made by the Coventry architect, Barnard Reyner.   Mr Reyner was allowed access to the Cathedral site during the construction.   He created a 45 minute film that he then showed across the Diocese during the build up to the Cathedral’s Consecration in May 1962.
     The FRIENDS have digitised the Reyner film and it will be included in the forthcoming series of FRIEND Film Shows.   It has not been shown before at the Cathedral.
     The FRIENDS allowed the BBC to use up to 15 minutes of the film when making the 2021 film documentary– Coventry Cathedral: Building For A New Britain.   Copies of Reyner’s original notes/script will be available at the showing.
      Machine On Black Ground is a short art film made in 2009 that draws on much archive footage of Coventry Cathedral.   It was made by Graham Ellard and Stephen Johnstone, and has never been shown at the Cathedral.
      The official description describes a “film that fuses archival and original footage, combining images from early 1960s industrial documentaries, a concert by Tangerine Dream at Coventry Cathedral and original abstract material of modernist stained glass architecture (shot in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, Berlin; Coventry Cathedral; and The Meeting House, Sussex University). In doing so, the film suggests a utopian architectural project viewed from an imagined subterranean space or vantage point.”
      This film will also be included in the FRIENDS Film Shows in June and July 2025.
 

WATCH THIS SPACE as the film show dates are being arranged with the Cathedral and will be announced next month.