In War and Peace

The new incumbent of the Camelon Manse was an Irishman from Newry, County Down. Rev Robert Agnew (above left and pictured with the Kirk Session on the right) was called to his first charge in April 1913 from Portobello where he was assistant and his eight year ministry covered the years of war with all the special difficulties and burdens brought by such calamitous times. But that was in the future and his earliest concern in Camelon was for the deteriorating fabric of the church building which at over seventy years old was beginning to show major signs of wear and tear. Indeed it was at Mr Agnew's first Session meeting four weeks after his arrival that he raised the question and managed to persuade his new colleagues to set aside £162 from their general account as the nucleus of a restoration fund. The argument was simple enough - the building was too small for the growing congregation, its plain oblong form was inadequate for the style of worship they now expected including music in the liturgy, there was a need for proper retiral and session rooms and the building badly needed external and internal repair and redecoration. Mr Agnew convinced the Trustees of the urgency of the need and they agreed to go ahead with a substantial project based on proposals drawn up by one of Scotland's leading architects Dr Peter Macgregor Chalmers who was at the same time engaged in the design of St Modan's Church in Falkirk.

By April 1914 the full details of the restoration plan were complete and they were as radical and ambitious as the Minister had suggested. The old building would be extended by removing the gable wall at the south end behind the pulpit and reconstructing it eighteen feet further back. An aisle with a new gallery above would be added on the East Side and the existing main gallery would be replaced by one covering half of the space below. The estimated cost was £2000 with an additional £250 for a pipe organ and if it had gone ahead the scheme would have added almost 200 additional places. It was a bold and imaginative plan and the sums involved were very considerable at a time when a skilled man earned less than £100 per annum and most of the Camelon congregation substantially less.

The Trustees gave the plan their total support and in addition agreed to buy a piece of land so that a hall might be built at some future dale. But the outbreak of War on 4th August 1914 brought all the planning to a halt and nearly ten years were to pass before the work on the church building was completed. In the meantime the pastoral work continued while more and more young men of the parish left for service in France and elsewhere. The Minister himself left to serve with the Mediterranean forces on two occasions with the blessing of the Session - three months in 1916 and a longer period in early 1918. Strangely enough the official records of the Parish contain relatively few references to the war which in the end was to claim the lives of 265 of her young men. There was a special collection for Belgian refugees organised by the Ladies Work party in 1915 and one short reference to lighting restrictions in 1916 but little more. But one can be fairly sure that the carnage in the trenches of the Somme and Ypres were seldom far from the minds of Minister and people and that the ladies of the congregation were equally active in supporting the men at the front with socks, balaclavas and gloves as their sisters in churches throughout the nation. The photograph on the right is a card sent with a parcel to a member of the congregation serving overseas. The text reads:

Dear Roy, Your friends in Camelon Church who are unable to share your risks want to divide some of their comforts with you in whatever place you are this Christmas and New Year. The desire to say how much they appreciate all that you do to keep the old flag flying where each of you "does his bit" for Faith, King and Native=Land and want to assure you that they on their part are keeping the home fires burning and keeping a warm corner of their hearts for you. An opportunity has come for me to do some little service in the Mediterranean Area, and I can enter with fullest sympathy into your feeling of homesickness. It's fine to get a letter from home, even the old postmark "Feel" on a letter makes one's heart beat faster, and I know just what this parcel with its love and tender thoughts of home mean to you today. May you and I prove worthy of all this love showered on us. May I join with your friends in Camelon who think of you, in wishing you a very serene New Year. God bless you Caddie, Yours brotherly, Robert Agnew. Christmas 1916.

With the war over the Camelon Trustees returned to more routine matters. For some time they had been concerned by the level of the Minister's income and now steps were taken to supplement the allowance by a special subscription of the congregation which raised £60 to be added to the legal stipend provided by the original endowment. Thereafter such supplements were a regular feature of the financial arrangements in the Parish. Some idea of the way such things worked can be gained from the accounts for the year 1919 which show that £58 was collected.

In July 1919 there was one incident which was no doubt keenly felt by the participants at the time but seems amusing in retrospect. The choirmaster complained that the harmonium was in a poor state of repair and needed attention. The matter was raised with the trustees and the following observation appeared in the official records shortly afterwards:

The Chairman of the Trustees expressed the opinion that the harmonium was in good enough order to carry on the services and that the fault lay with the choirmaster himself

Shortly afterwards the choirmaster resigned and within weeks the harmonium was repaired at a cost of £6 10 shillings!

By early 1920 the restoration fund had reached £1,984 but with post war shortages of material and the inevitable rise in prices the proposed changes would now cost over £5,000. It was agreed to modify the plan and aim for a figure of £4,000 and that the balance of the money should be raised by a special congregational subscription. But the Minister who had done so much to inspire the restoration project moved away from Camelon before the work commenced. Mr Agnew left Camelon in January 1921 to accept charge of the Parish of Clackmannan and after a vacancy of just six months he was succeeded by Robert Headrick from Alva (above right) who at the time was acting as assistant minister in Glasgow Catherdral. Mr Headrick had seen active service as a lieutenant in the Scottish Rifles during the war before being invalided out in 1917 and, although he never enjoyed very good health thereafter, he brought considerable energy and determination to his new charge particularly the restoration project which is always associated with his name. He was ordained on 8th June 1921 at the age of twenty-eight and was to serve the people of Camelon of over thirty years. Inevitably the impending reconstruction project dominated the early months of Mr Headrick's ministry though it was far from a one-man show. With the trustees, elders and whole congregation behind the scheme the funds continued to grow and by August 1922 over £3300 had been collected. Work began the following year to a modified design drawn up by architect Jeffrey Waddell of Glasgow who followed the main lines laid out by Macgregor Chalmers in 1913. By the spring of 1924 the rebuilding was complete and the church with its extended nave, fine new chancel and reconstructed gallery was ready for public worship. The whole interior had been refloored and the ceiling removed to create a much improved auditorium, which could now hold a congregation of 800 worshippers. The building was further enhanced by the installation of electric lighting and by the addition of a three-light stained glass window designed by Meredith Williams which was the gift of Miss Bessie Wilson of South Bantaskine as a memorial to her nephew and the other men of Camelon who fell in the great war. Other gifts helped to decorate the restored interior - there was a fine pulpit in fumed oak designed and carved by its donor. Miss Wilson's sister Helen and a matching baptismal font provided by the Allan family of Lime Road. Completing the transformation a two-manual electric pipe organ was installed to one side of the new chancel with session and retiring rooms on the other. The outside stonework was repaired and cleaned and the porch modified and the overall impression was of an edifice of great beauty eminently more suitable for the kind of liturgy then finding favour in churches throughout the land. The rejection of ornamentation and instrumental music which had characterised the church in its early days was set aside for ever and the once dreaded 'kist o' whistles' would now play a central part in the worship of the Camelon congregation.

The final cost of the work including the organ was reported as £5575 but with the help of grants from the Baird Trust and the Church of Scotland the sum raised exceeded expenditure by several hundred pounds. On Sunday 23rd March 1924 the Moderator of the General Assembly Professor George Milligan led the celebration at the first of three packed services during which the restored building, organ, pulpit and font were dedicated. Preaching from Deuteronomy, 'Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations' Dr Milligan reminded the congregation of the debt they owed to those who had worshipped in Camelon over the previous eighty-four years and to the faithful pastors who had served them:

Is it not very impressive when you think that you are here this morning to worship on the very spot where for nigh on three generations the voice of prayer and praise has never been silent. For you as for those who have gone before it is in very truth the House of God, the gate to heaven

At the afternoon service an impressive War Memorial erected by the children of the Sunday school was dedicated by Rev. Robert Agnew minister of the congregation throughout the years of war. In what must have been a grim and moving moment the tablet was unveiled by Pi. John Blackburn of the Camelon Boys Brigade and Mr Headrick read aloud the names of all 265 men of the parish who had perished. Beneath the names was the simple inscription:

'We who loved and honoured them have dedicated this record of the gallant dead ......... the gift of the children of Camelon Parish Sunday school'

The evening service was an altogether lighter affair befitting the air of celebration felt throughout the parish. The church was again packed to capacity to hear the organist Mr W A Henderson, later of Falkirk Old, perform a series of religious and secular works to considerable acclaim and to hear Mr Headrick urge them to celebrate the joy of accomplishment and the joy of beauty which now surrounded them. The following evening a congregational social completed the programme of events when ministers from all over the district joined the Camelon parishioners in one final happy gathering. It was a high point in the story of Camelon and its church for now the congregation in its fine new house could put the painful years of war and deprivation behind them and look to the future with confidence.