Phillip Biles R.I.P

Sad news today of the death of a member of our Ordinariate Mission. Phillip has been a member of our Bournemouth Group from the very beginning. He had been a long-time member of St Stephen's Bournemouth. On joining the Roman Communion he missed that lovely building very much - one of the great works of J.L.Pearson, architect of such other one-time shrines of Anglo-Catholicism as St John's Upper Norwood and St Michael's Croydon - and he also missed many of those who had worshipped there. Yet he committed himself totally to our Mission in Bournemouth, and was a most loyal member of our Group.  Phillip had been a Server at St Stephen's, and those skills be brought with him into the Ordinariate. He had also been a Churchwarden, serving at one time alongside another of our Ordinariate members, Brian Harrison. He kept contact, though, with many old friends at St Stephen's, and always assured them there would be a great welcome for them in the Ordinariate. As welcomer and sidesman,  lesson reader or server, he was entirely reliable and self-effacing. We shall miss him sorely.

The photograph was taken back in the summer, when we were preparing to meet Fr Allan Hawkins.

Phillip's funeral will, we expect, take place in Our Lady Queen of Peace early in the New Year.
    Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for him, Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for him.
                                                          May he rest in Peace.