Friends, As very many of you will know, Henry Brown, a Lay Reader and great figure in Freshford, died in August. He was totally devoted to the village and had done a great deal over the years for the community. For any who don’t know what a Lay Reader is, he or she is a non-ordained person who is authorised by the Bishop to lead services and preach. Henry was very committed to this. I valued his help in this and in many other ways. For a long time he had been housebound and was gradually getting weaker. In addition his eyesight had practically gone. However, he never lost his marvellous laugh. I can hear it still. There will be a more detailed piece about Henry in the December issue of this magazine. I don’t know about you, but I find the whole business about Iraq confusing. I can’t see an easy answer at all. Surely there is a point at which evil must be resisted by force if necessary. Equally nobody, I hope, lets the idea of masses of people suffering and dying take a low priority in the international calculations. I do also sense a fairly common attitude which regards anything American as wrong. Is there resentment that maybe that they made all the difference to the end result of the Second World War? Or maybe it is because they are extremely powerful and not “British”? I mustn’t be flippant. The next few months are likely to be very difficult and our contribution must, I believe, be to keep up with the situation and pray. We should pray that war may be avoided and if the worst happens that it may be over quickly with the minimum of suffering and death. I am convinced prayer does make a great contribution.