by Caroline Andrews
There’s a table in our Quiet Room presented to a Mr. Stonebridge, who was the person ministering at the Church when Dilys Williams, Pat Cole and (later) Trisha Lumm first attended the Church. Dilys and Trisha were both regulars at our Sunday School and Pat Cole was in the Girls’ Life Brigade when Captain Hayden was in charge. It was for 8-15 year-old girls on a Thursday from 6 to 7pm, with band practice on Fridays. Often the girls would go camping. When Trisha was in this she rose to senior office within the Brigade.
The children would walk down by the left-hand side of our Church building, as it is now, through the black iron gates to enter Sunday School. Some of this was damaged by bombing during the war. Someone we know (!) used to play the organ before the Sunday School teacher turned up, as did some of the other children in turn. Quite a large number of children enjoyed Sunday School back in the day.
Pat went to Marlborough Secondary School and met Pat Andrews, who invited her to attend Syon Mission Church, and that was when Pat (Cole) left Isleworth Congregational, only to return some time later!
Mr. Stonebridge, and Mr. Manby from Kilmorey Gardens, were lay preachers. Mr. David Skidmore was the minister who, funnily enough, lived at the home that would be purchased from him by the Andrews family, where Phil grew up and where his mother Pat still lives today.
What a small world!