Pew Sheet – 27th October 2024

The Rector writes  ’There will be a Service of Wholeness & Healing at 7pm tonight in St Mary’s Church.  All are welcome to come and experience the special quality of this beautiful service. Thank you to all the members of the ever discreet Parish Healer/Prayer team for supporting us all in prayer each day and also for being part of these quarterly services where we can come to God in silence with our worries and cares.  

All Saint’s Day is next Friday 1st November.  If you would like me to light a candle in memory of somebody, please email or text me the names before Wednesday 30th October (more on this inside…)

Next Sunday, 3rd November, is our annual Gift Day and as usual there will be special giving envelopes available in the churches. Also as usual I will be sending out an email during the week explaining all about our current parish finances to you… so brace yourselves!’

All Saint’s Day

In many countries across the world, 1st November – All Saints’ Day,  is considered a day of dignity

and reflection, an occasion for people to remember and miss loved ones who have died,  especially

perhaps those who have died during the previous year. 

In Finland, the tradition on All Saints’ Day is to visit cemeteries where loved ones rest and to light candles on their graves to honour and remember them.    

It was particularly impressive for the diocesan group visiting Finland back in 2017 to see the spectacle of thousands of burning candles in the dark of the Finnish winter and we really appreciated the opportunity given to us to lay candles in a graveyard in memory of our own deceased loved ones. 

The flames remain burning on the graves until the candles run out and are just one evocative way to keep alive the memory of those who are no longer among us.  

On Friday, 1st November,  I will light candles for all of the names that have been sent into me and I will place the lit candles in St Mary’s Churchyard.

If you would like me to light a candle for someone you loved, please email or text me the name before Wednesday evening.

When I have laid out the candles, I will remember all  of the people whom we have known and loved and who have gone to God before us. 

May they all rest in peace and rise in glory. Amen.  

As you know, our Diocese has a link with the Diocese ofLichfield in the U.K. and we hosted a group of 22 people from our Link parish of Perton in July 2023 for the Flower Festival.    At the moment, Perton do not have a Rector so the link is slightly in abeyance but hopefully we will rejuvenate it on the appointment of a new rector there.  If you have any thoughts on our link, please talk to Olna Trotter who is our Liaison person with Perton.

I have printed below an excerpt from Lichfield Diocese’s November Diocesan Prayer Diary which contains a special prayer for all of us involved in this initiative.

Saturday 2nd :

(Commemoration of the Faithful Departed – All Souls’ Day)

Give thanks for the developing friendship between the church families of the Dioceses of Lichfield and of Cork, Cloyne & Ross, established first with the twinning of The Church at Perton and St Mary’s, Carrigaline.  Pray that God would strengthen that link along with the newer links which, within Lichfield Diocese include:

Barton-under-Needwood, Tettenhall Regis, St Thomas’, Aldridge and Brewood. Give thanks for and pray for the continued deepening of the link between the two cathedrals.

Pray also for a new links to be created between St Benedict Biscop, Wombourne and Kinsale, and for the development of links between Fauls, Tilstock and Whitchurch Benefice and St Peters, Little Aston with two parishes in Cork. Ask God to bless the development of friendship, prayer, support, and mutual learning between churches, schools,  chaplaincies and fresh expressions.

Dates for your Diary

Sunday 27th October (tonight!)

Healer Prayer Service 7pm St Mary’s Church

Sunday 3rd November

Parish Gift Day

Saturday 16th November

Youth Group Bowling

Sunday 1st December 

Tractor Run , details nearer the time

Random Notes CDLXXIII

 Lyons Tea Shops and the First Business Computer

This is a story I tell my students every year. I’m now in my 21st year of lecturing in UCC. By the time you read this, I’ll have told it for the 21st time to a group of first year Business Information Systems students.

During the Second World War a small number of computers were developed both in the UK and USA, for decoding German ENIGMA transmissions and also for making calculations concerning the firing of shells from naval vessels. It goes without saying that these first computers were military or at the very least confined to universities. They were very large, very expensive and considerably less powerful than a modern smart watch.

Nevertheless two businessmen from J Lyons & Co were so impressed by the ENIAC electronic computer they saw in America after the war, that they returned to the UK with the idea of building their own business computer.

At the time, Lyons was a successful tea shop and bakery company. However they had two huge business problems – payroll and stock management. Lyons had to make sure that hundreds of tea shops were stocked every day, which meant working out what fresh goods had to be baked and shipped out each night. This was a very onerous and repetitive task, ideal for automation with a computer.

Lyons approached a group in Cambridge who were developing a computer called EDSAC. Lyons sped up EDSAC’s development by providing funding and engineering expertise. In return, Lyons received their own computer, called the Lyons Electronic Office, or LEO for short. The first business application to be run on LEO was Bakery Valuations, which computed the costs of ingredients used in bread and cakes. By 1951, LEO was performing all of these valuations automatically, making stock management much easier. In 1952, Mary Coombs, working on LEO, became the world’s first female commercial programmer. (For the record, ENIAC in the USA was programmed by a group of women, including Donegal woman Kathleen McNulty Antonelli.)

LEO was hugely successful. So much so that Lyons, normally a bakery and tea company, found itself in the business of business computers! Lyons also pioneered outsourcing as it started to do payroll calculations for Ford UK and weather calculations for the Met Office. Lyons produce a number of different models of LEO computers. While these computers were very successful, Lyons made the mistake of underpricing them. Lyons’ LEO business was purchased by English Electric in 1962. Through a series of mergers, English Electric became ICL which was acquired by Fujitsu in 1990. Up until the 1980s, some LEO program code was still running on ICL mainframes.

While LEO no longer exists, I like to think that my students are impressed by the fact that all modern business computing started when a chain of corner tea shops set out to find a more efficient way of making and selling pastries!

SJFW