My family were very active members of the St Mary’s, Rickmansworth, congregation. My grandad was a churchwarden, and the rest of us were variously involved as altar servers, choir members and bell ringers. Consequently I spent many hours of my childhood and adolescence in the church. Christmas was, of course, a special time. When I was younger I used to love helping to dress the crib – it was exciting to see the figures involved in the nativity story emerging from their boxes and being placed carefully in and around the manger. One year when I was a teenager I was carrying a banner in the procession at the midnight service and managed to get it caught in the decorations hanging across the centre aisle – not my proudest moment!

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