RECOLLECTIONS OF ZION UNITED METHODIST CHURCH,
BATLEY. c.1917-18.

By Vera Rebecca Vivian (Gt Granddaughter of Susannah Blakeley, 1820-1901)
In response to a letter written by Pat Wheeler, 1998.

What a day it was to hear that you went to our beloved "Zion" - isn't it a beautiful church! The architecture added to the atmosphere of the services - the summer sun streaming through the large gallery windows, illuminating the pulpit, choir and organ, made a fitting setting for the sincerity and devotion of the services and the warmth of the full congregation singing. (The church seated some 1200 folk.)

I was fortunate in having a happy childhood but the happiest of all my earliest recollections are of those spent in Batley with my mothers family. In the 1914-18 War, my father was in the Royal Navy and mother and I lived for some months with her parents, David and Rebecca Fox. (David's mother was Susannah Blakeley and we were proud of the connection: Two of my cousins and one in the next generation had "Blakeley" as their second name.) So, for that time, I attended the services and Sunday School at Zion; I look on it as my spiritual "cradle" and am proud of the independant Methodists of our ancestry!

Music was a great part of our life; hymns, anthems and oratorios sung with enjoyment not only in chapel and choral society but in the home. (no radio or T.V. then!) with many songs, ditties and nursery rhymes for the children. One Christmas moment remains clearly in my mind:- On Christmas Eve the choir went out (quite late) and sang carols at members homes, going on until after midnight; I can see myself, a six-year old, sitting at the top of the stairs in my nightie and watching the choir pour into the hall on their way to hot coffee and mince pies. The hymn "Christians awake, salute the happy morn" was the favourite, it was known as "The Christmas Hymn" and always sung right through, all six verses, with the last line of each verse repeated just to add to the enjoyment! I learned the words of that as soon as I learned "Away in a manger" and still try to sing it each Christmas!

The architecture of Zion also made it a wonderful church to sing in, both in congregational and solo works. My aunt Sallie (Sarah Helena Fox), the youngest of the family, had a truly beautiful contralto voice; she was trained by a Mr Hinchcliffe of Bradford, a fine teacher, some of whose pupils became leading opera stars. Sallie was much in demand locally, singing in other churches and concert halls, but she said, to sing from the choir in Zion was a perfect experience, with neither "echoes" nor any feeling of restriction.

For a long time the organ was "blown" by a hydraulic system which gave plenty of power but was a bit temperamental and sometimes didn't start when switched on. My mother was the leading soprano in the choir, but on her wedding day when she arrived as a bride the organ let her down and the first hymn was sung unaccompanied, while various men of the family (in their formal Edwardian frock coats!) disappeared to wrestle with the organs' works!
I have a fleeting memory of sitting with Auntie Sallie in the choir when another hitch occurred and one organist, Jimmy (J.F.) Ineson produced a tiny pitch pipe from his pocket to give the choir its starting note for the hymn!

The central block of pews is unequally divided so that there are longer and shorter pews on each side. Grandpa Fox's was the longest pew of all as they had eight children! Halfway down the right half, the Tomlinson's pew was a little nearer the front on the left side. We children, in Sunday suits, dresses and pretty hats and gloves, went first into the pews then any grown-ups, with Uncle Thomas or Grandpa by the aisle. This meant that Frank and Arthur Tomlinson could look round to share small jokes with those of us in Grandpa's pew - usually Blakeley and Mary Greenwood and me.

Each pew had a shallow cupboard fixed to the back of the pew in front, in which one's own hymn books and psalters were kept. There was a key to the cupboards, usually hidden somewhere underneath, and we children had the task of opening the cupboard and distributing the books.

Grandpa Fox had a "Class" of elderly folk, some of them workers at the mill, and one of the women sometimes sat in the far corner of our pew. Quite often a bag of sweets would be passed along the pew during the sernom provided by Grandma if she was there - sometimes 'Valecia Almonds' (almonds in a hard sugar coating) or occasionally 'Jordan Almonds' coated thinly with toffee and then dark chocolate, and it was said that on one occasion the old lady in the corner sucked the chocolate off her almond and passed them back with the message that she had no teeth!

Of course there were some family jokes to be shared too - favorite hymns were sung with special enjoyment and even fun. Frank and Arthur Tomlinson's mother was my eldest aunt, Susannah, named after Grandpa's mother Susannah Blakeley, so when any hymns had a "Hosanna", of course, we always sang "Susannah"! These shared moments cheered us through the long services and sermons, but we "behaved" without protest, maybe pretending to be 'grown-ups' even if we were sometimes out of our depth in what was being said. We did sometimes make 'Rabitts' out of our hankies and pretend to make them jump; but always quietly and unobtrusively. (Alas! I have completely forgotten how to make 'Rabbits!')

My mother remembered John Tomlinson teaching the Sunday School to sing Reuben Blakeley's 'Yimarue' to 'Above the clear blue sky'. The tune has an unusually long note at the end of the first line and the children tended to start the next line too soon, so John cured this by getting them to sing 'Above the clear blue one two three four' - this became one of our family jokes, often quoted and sung like that.

For some years a great feature of Zion anniversaries was the singing of Reuben's Anthems and his tune 'Shaftesbury' to 'From Greenlands icy mountains'; a typical Victorian tune with the verse "Waft, Waft, ye winds, His glory" sung as a chorus - much longer than the verses and great fun to sing. Anniversaries always meant a full church, relatives and friends deserting their own services for the occasion, and the music at Zion was so famous that to get a seat it was wise to get there 1hr 20mins before the service began. It is said that one of mother's cousins (from her mother's "Purlwell Wesleyans" ) used to ask what hymns were to be sung and said "I'm not going unless they are singing 'Waft, Waft'" !

I wish you could have shared in such a service, everyone sang their hearts out and it was a wonderfull experience. No wonder our hymns mean to much to us Methodists!