Volunteers come together to clean church ready for Easter

ABOUT 15 members of the congregation volunteered to clean St Mary’s Church in Henley on Saturday morning.

The Hart Street church is deep-cleaned every year during the run-up to both Christmas and Easter.

Volunteers polished the candlesticks and ornaments, cleaned the chairs, pews and windows and vacuumed and cleaned the aisles.

Carol Brook-Partridge, of Elizabeth Road, said: “We’re giving it as good a spring clean as we can manage.

“I’ve done this for several years. It’s lovely to meet other people who go to different timed services.

“Some of them, we don’t perhaps know very well, so it’s nice to be able to get to know them.

“We’re doing as much as we feel needs doing. Dust does settle and it can look a bit dull but by the time we’ve finished it will look a lot brighter.”

Gillian Symons, who does monthly cleans of the church, cleaned the windows and entrance to the church.

She said deep cleans like this could be done more often.

Mrs Symons, who has lived in Henley for six years, said: “It’s a beautiful building and I feel doing this is a contribution.

“If they didn’t have volunteers, it would be very difficult because of the expense.

“When I normally come and do this, I clean the ornaments and when I do the monthly clean, I do the windows. This is much more intensive.

“The monthly clean is rather superficial but it’s important to get the entrance looking clean because it’s a wind tunnel and there are things that blow in.”

Jill Edwards, Penny Golding and Heather and Ian Hay polished the candlesticks from the high altar and other brass ornaments on a table at the back of the church.

Heather Hay, of Vicarage Road, said: “This is part of my worship to be active in the church and to give back.

“I think it’s wonderful to have a clean church for Easter and Christmas and when you come into church it’s uplifting to see how sparkling all the ornaments are. It’s joyful to see the encryption shining.”

Churchwarden Sue Hockley used a hairdryer to melt the old wax on furnishings in the church before using polish and dusters to remove the dirt and add shine.

She said: “Rather than lighting the candle with a taper, people get another candle and then that tips wax so we have to clean it off.

“We have been talking to see if we can make this tri-annual because after March, it’s not done until Christmas again.

“We couldn’t possibly do it just ourselves. Everybody steps up.

“We’re got some extendable brushes to reach high up but we can’t get to the ceiling unfortunately.”

Father Jeremy Tayler, the rector of Henley with Remenham, said the cleaning was a good way of coming together and getting to know one another.

He said: “The church needs a proper good clean from time to time. There are volunteer church cleaners who do it regularly but you need more people for a big clean.

“We want to get the place looking great before the major festivals of the Christian year, Christmas and Easter.

“No one really likes cleaning but it’s lovely to come together and work on something positive and get to know each other a bit.

“There is a dignity in contributing something and feeling that you have contributed something worthwhile.

“So many of the things I work on normally are complex things and you’re never quite sure whether you’re finished doing them or not but with this, you can pick a task, you can do it and it’s done and that’s a really nice feeling.”