Nov-Dec 2025

We’re entering one of the busiest periods of the church’s year, as our back cover will tell you. The first major event of the next two months is the Remembrance Service at St Nicolas’ Church on the morning of Sunday 9 November. On page 22, Thelma Mitchell reflects on this annual ritual and on some of the symbols and traditions we associate with it.  

This edition is filled with a sense of the passing of time. Mark Sandilands looks back wistfully (and not for the last time) to a sunny summer holiday spent driving across the Continent. Our gardening writers celebrate the delights of one of the most colourful autumns we have seen in several years. A new contributor with a taste for nostalgia recalls the glory days of 1950s TV comedy. And, seventy years after he first appeared in these pages, a former member of our choir revisits a quieter, simpler Kings Norton that has long since disappeared.  

As I’m sure Mark would appreciate, celebrating Christmas without Advent is like reaching a destination without appreciating the journey. As we approach the end of the year, we resist the forces that would have us rush headlong into Christmas and instead pause for the four weeks of Advent to ponder the divine plan behind it.  

On Sunday 30 November, and throughout the first three Sundays of December, we invite you to join us in revisiting the stories that remind us of the themes of Advent: the hope, joy, peace, and love that break into the world with the coming of Christ, as light breaks into the darkness. We may not be able to offer you a fully heated building this winter, but we can assure you of a very warm welcome.