Arthur and Benjy

​Arthur lived alone, visited regularly by an Anna Chaplain. A bachelor and a retired wildlife photographer, he once lived with his sister but after she died, he remained in the house they shared with only a canary for company. 
When the bird died suddenly one day, Maurice asked the Anna Chaplain if she would go and help him buy another. 

​‘For a moment, I thought to myself, does this really constitute spiritual care?’ she said. ‘But there was no hesitation, really. You soon realise how a living creature affords companionship, especially to someone living alone in their old age. If an Anna Chaplain can help someone continue that kind of sustaining relationship it definitely falls into the job description.’ 
Benjy the canary was replaced in his affections by a white budgie this time- but who is also known as Benjy! 

Pat's Story

​Pat was once a busy full-time mother and vicar’s wife, supporting her husband in his ministry in several parishes before she developed dementia. After her husband died, she agreed with her family that it was best that she move into residential care to be near her son. She reached the stage at one point when her memory was so poor that she repeatedly relived the trauma of discovering that her husband had died. She frequently felt disorientated in the home. But, nevertheless, she very much appreciated the church services led in the home by the local Anna Chaplain. When asked what mattered to her most about the relationship she had with her Anna Chaplain, she replied: ‘She always makes me feel she’s on my side.’

Knitted Holding Crosses

During Covid-19 lockdowns, the Anna Chaplaincy team in Northumbria found it difficult to maintain contact with residents of care homes and those living in sheltered accommodation. During one national Anna Chaplaincy Zoom meeting, one of the Anna Chaplains, Babs Lowes who ministers in Barrow, Cumbria told of a campaign to knit holding crosses for all those in Barrow care homes, assisted living and sheltered accommodation. 

​So, the team in Morpeth thought they might be able to involve local knitters  in making similar crosses for elderly residents. 
‘The Holy Spirit challenged me to ask God to be generous,’ said the Revd Jeremy Cooper, Lead Chaplain for the Morpeth Anna Chaplaincy team, ‘and to pray that we would have enough to give one to each resident of Renwick House, Northlands, St Christopher’s, Hepscott Care Centre, Foxton Court, East Riding, Riverside, Silvas Court and William Turner Court, with some leftover for the housebound whom the churches were in contact with. This would have been a total of about 200 knitted crosses.’ 

Anniversary Hope

On the anniversary of the first lockdown, 23 March, 2021, Newcastle Anna Chaplain, Joan Grenfell, conducted a service of Light, Thanksgiving and Reflection in her local care home, Craghall.
 Joan reported that the service was well attended, with ten residents and four care staff present.
'The emotional response shown by residents and staff is, I think, an indication of how necessary this service was.  The reading out of the names of those residents who had lost their lives to the virus was an especially poignant part of the service.’

​'Some staff members had lost residents they had cared for seven days a week. Sometimes for years. I was conscious of how important this service was for the staff in giving them an opportunity to acknowledge their grief and to put it in a Christian context of future hope.'