The Third Sunday in Advent family communion was also the eagerly awaited occasion when Junior Church presented its annual Nativity play.

There were all the usual ingredients, but played to an updated and very funny text. There were two snobbish angels complaining that God was turning everything in heaven and on earth upside down, a comical announcement as in a railway station of the departure to Bethlehem, very perky shepherds extolling the virtue of sheep and three gorgeously attired kings very miffed by the dirt of lowly Bethlehem. “What’s going on?” was a key question, but in the end the answer was Mary and Joseph in the stable with a beautiful, very tiny baby Jesus warm in his manger. The tableau at the end was both moving and beautiful and elicited a warm round of applause from the congregation.

Canon David Miller presided at communion, assisted by the Rev Dorothy Noakes and Betty Booker, lay reader. The music throughout the service and play was played by organist Richard Berry.