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Otago Daily Times, Issue 19069, 15 January 1924, Page 8

An unusual incident brought the eervic« at St. Johns Parish Church, Blackpool, M an abrupt close one evening recently. Th curate, the Rev. F. W. C. Woollett, who v shortly leaving to become vicar of the Chare) of St. Thomas the Apostle, Lecefield, near Oldham, began to speak of personal matten immediately after giving out the text. He said that last July he was told by one of the churchwardens that he (the churchwarden) would be glad when Mr Woollett went away, and that there were other members of the church who would also be glad. He was going on to refer to this matter when the vicar (the Rev. A. W. B. Little) sprang up and said the pulpit in his church could rot be used to ventilate a personal quarrel. Mr Woollett thereupon closed the books and swept out of the pulpit. A hymn was sung, and tie service was brought to an end. Although the Yeldham Oak and the Oowthorpe Oak are both about 1000 years old, the oak cannot boast of holding the premier position for lasting qualities among British trees. This distinction belongs to the yew. It is said, for instance, that a yew at Battle, in Sussex, must have been a very old tree when William the Conqueror landed. It is close on 30ft in girth. The yews at Norbury Park are said to be 2000 years old, so that thev were well grown when Julius Csear landed in 55 b.c. Gilbert White, who wrote the “ History of Selboume*’ believed that the famouh vew in Selbourne churchyard was at least as old as the church itself, which, goes back to Saxon times, and there are many vewa along the Pilgrims’ Way between Winchester and Canterbury which, could they but speak, could describe the scenes which are the subjects of Chaucer’s poems. A crowd of hundreds gathered outside the Weymouth registry office in London to celebrate a wedding which did not take place! The prospective bride is employed at a local brewery, and all her fellow worfcgirls were there armed with confetti, many of them carrying bouquets. After waiting for threequarters of an hour the crowd learned that the " bridegroom,” a travelling showman, said to be in Wales, had failed to arrive at the girl's home, where a car had been ordered for them, and. that the " bride ” had fainted. When the registrar announced that there would be no wedding, the confetti waa directed on the police.