PARISH ON THE WATER.

Shannon News, 2 October 1925, Page 4

PARISH ON THE WATER.

VICAR’S SCATTERED FLOCK. AMONG SHIPS AND SAILORS. Vicar of 13,000 souls “ashore and countless thousands afloat, the Rev. W. C. Brown, of St. John’s, Tilbury Docks ,is truly skipper _and parson, too. His floating parish stretches from Greenhithe to the Nore, good 30 miles as the river twists, and every ship that sails the Thames!, from 20,-000-ton P. ond O. liners to lighters and mud hoppers, is a potential memmember of his flock as Tilbury chaplain of the St. Andrew’s Waterside Church Misesion for Sailors. Mr. Brown covers his parish as skipper and wheelman, and sometimes engineer, deck hand and cabin boy, of the mission motor-boat Sir Edward E. Cooper, a fine 42 h.p. craft named After a former Lord Mayor of London whose wife is a member of the mission committee. Wearing a -white naval cap and reefer jacket, his hand on the wheel, his eye on tile horizon, he sails about the lower reaches of the Thames taking the mission right to the sailor instead of leaving the sailor to come to the mission. An engineer and two boys lent from the Gravesend Sea School constitute the crew. "No "matter what the weather is, I am afloat every day except Sundays, getting among the ships and sailors,’’ iMr. Brown said recently. “Last year I visited 4065 vessels. The chief object of the niotoivboat is to enable us to get round the ships with literature and magazines. We try to give them manly Christianity, and give out no tracts. "A great feature of our work is giving out ships’ libraries, consisting of 16 books —13 good novels, with nothing ‘namby-pamby’ about them, a Bible, a Prayer Book, and a Hymnbook. “Next week I am going to the limit of my parish, the Nore Lightship, which I visit several times a year. I shall take a big supply of reading matter and conduct a service, while, as a special treat for the men, I am taking- down a professional singer from London.” 'L'lirough the courtesy of Mr. Brown a representative of the “Daily Chronicle” made a trip to the Sir Edward E. Cooper from Tilbury to Thameskaven and back recently. On this trip one extra good turn was performed. At Thamcshaven the Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union tender, Peter Wright, taking a crew off a tanker, was unable v owing to wind and tide, to get away from the side of the larger vessel. x Going- alongside in a difficult tide, the mission boat threw a rope and towed the tender into clear water, saving 30 men a long, k weary wait until the tide turned in the evening.