Francis Fulford

All Saints' Church Fund Raising Dinner at the Queens Arms - 2011

 

The church and the work that the Revd. Tony Cumberlidge and churchwarden Sally Wright do is at the very heart of the community. As well as the regular Sunday services the church also hosts weddings, christenings and regretfully the odd funeral too. However church activities don’t end there as the Church is forever busy with events such as the Harvest Festival, Mothering Sunday and Rogationtide with many of the projects focusing on the children of the Parish.

However today All Saints’ finds itself severely underfunded and with rising costs and major repairs to consider means that we are constantly needing to strengthen our finances. This dinner is just part of the fund raising effort to ensure that All Saints’ continues to be an integral part of East Garston.

On the evening of 12 May, thirty two people sat down to a superb dinner, with fine wines at the Queens Arms. This was a fundraising experiment, very imaginatively suggested by Freddie Tulloch to bolster church funds. The celebrity speaker was to be Freddie’s brother in law, Francis Fulford of Channel 4 fame.

Francis Fulford is the 23rd Lord Fulford of Great Fulford and lives at Great Fulford Manor, in Devon. His family is one of the oldest noble families of England and occupy the same manor granted to their ancestor by Richard I of England in about 1190 (the same year that All Saints Church dates back to) although there is evidence they pre-date that.

Francis has proved to be delightfully un-politically correct, biased, bigoted and generally out of step with modern life, such as it is. He has a great sense of humour, usually expressed in wonderfully direct language. Both The Revd Tony Cumberlidge and I were, we can confess now, somewhat apprehensive about the event, as Freddie had given us a colourful account of what to expect from his brother in law! 

Unlike his build-up, Francis was exceedingly charming, most correct in his vocabulary and an utterly conventional Englishman.
We all thoroughly enjoyed his speech – “How I would save the church”, even though we may not remember his remedy!

Our Young Families Group parents were much in evidence as were friends from neighbouring parishes. It was the most remarkable evening and a wonderful mix of people that came together to enjoy themselves and also to bolster East Garston Church funds. This they did by the superb sum of £1,648 .

We are indebted to Francis Fulford and his charming wife Kishanda for their generosity in helping us to raise funds for the church and to Freddie and Sue Tulloch for their imagination and willingness to help us. Thank you every one who came.  The evening, hosted by The Revd Tony Cumberlidge, turned out to be a sparkling occasion; the Queens Arms was the perfect venue, with bubbly on the terrace followed by a perfectly chosen menu, which was excellently cooked and served. Thank you Adam and your staff.

 

photos : Martyn Wright
text : Sally Wright   :  Freddie Tulloch

 

 

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