Westminster Abbey Garden Party Helps Homeless. By Uncle Monty.

Westminster Abbey Garden

Party Helps Homeless.
Story By Uncle Monty.
Garden Party Photos
By Alex Albion.

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For a thousand years, countless thousands of good
folks from many nations have come together at the
private college garden of England’s world famous
Westminster Abbey. Yet today, only a very tiny trickle

of folks actually get the invited chance to spend an

evening at the abbey’s college garden like I did just

yesterday to the swanky garden party that was held

there to raise much needed and well-deserved funds

for “The Passage.” Such is London’s well-known
and goodly homeless day centre for innumerable

homeless man and woman that seek its constructive
help, its good food, and its most practical, and even
pastoral, open care. At “The Passage,” it is indeed a

'passage' for many of the homeless off the streets

to getting a job again and to find shelter over their
wounded heads from their life’s wary ways and the
ever-present social stigma of homelessness
and raw rejection.
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They came then did 600 supporters of "The Passage" at
paying £25.00 per happy head to enter the Westminster
Abbey swanky garden party that also saw me there!!

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The Duncan Sandys.

Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Westminster.

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Middle-aged women out numbered men.
Some of the professional woman dressed almost
like they were at Royal Ascot and I saw hardly
any "soccer moms" at the garden party for sure.
With their particular sound of making music, the
16-member British Salvation Army Band did
their Christian part in supporting the home-
less fund raiser for "The Passage" by simply
playing their drums, trumpets, and haunting
French horns. Priests, nuns, and Anglican clerics
played their part, too, by their religious presence
at the abbey college garden that provides an
excellent recreational spot for daily use by the
nearby preppies at The Westminster School,
which goes back centuries in giving toff education
to many of the English social elite much like those
at such other renowned British public or prep
schools has are found at Eton, Rugby, and Harrow.
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Mich Clarke, CEO, The Passage.
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While at the garden party, I personally encountered
quite a variety of quite different people such as Rev'd
Monsignor Vladimir Felzman, Audrey Evans, CEO,
of Sans Frontiere; Mich Clarke, CEO, The Passage;
Kate Maree, retired, H.M. Crown Court stenographer
and former homeless volunteer; Tony Platt, Senior
Honourary Steward at Westminster Abbey; Hon.
Claire Higginbottom, Dr. David Davenport, The
Abbey Rev'd Canon Robert P. Reiss (shown below
with your's truly); The Rev'd Canon Jane Hedges,
and Councillor Duncan and Mrs. Mary Sandys
(shown above) in their illustrious role as Lord
Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Westminster.
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Rev'd Monsignor Vladimir Felzmann.
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Each of the above-named people I not only spent
time chatting with, but did also photograph al-
most each and every one of them upfront. Bravo!
And they all had one thing in common: They have
either directly or indirectly done whatever they
can to help the homeless of London. Bravo, again!!
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The 16-Member British Salvation Army Band.
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Kate Maree, Ex-H.M. Crown Court.
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American-Born Mary Brown.
The Mayoress of Westminster.
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Westminster Abbey Minor
Canon Rev'd Jane Hedges.
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Uncle Monty with Westminster Abbey
Minor Canon Rev'd Robert P. Reiss.
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Inside The Private College Garden.
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A summer evening with such 600 supporters
of "The Passage" showed me how powerful the
big issue of homelessness is to those many guests
I met at the garden party. I was pretty impressed
by their presence and especially after talking with
many of them about their desire and dedication
in helping the homeless in the best way they can.
Some of them have devoted a lifetime of human
service and friendship to the marginalised and
excluded people of London and elsewhere. Yet
none of them have seeked a pat on the back nor
a medal of honour nor any pubic recognition for
the good they have already done and they will
continue to do so no matter what at where ever
they are called to serve Christ's others. Without
them, the grim picture of homelessness would
be even grimmer in today's urban jungle of En-
land. But one thing money cannot buy is the
open mind and living spirit to do good works
for our less fortune humankind. The West-
minster Abbey Garden Party was a perfect
example of such good people despite all the
depressing news for those other folkz who
have been shoved aside to make way for to-
day's utterly materialistic and avaricious society
that now gobbles up the Soul of England every
day and much of the western world of
globalization with it ... and the oftentimes
ignored stark reality of global homelessness
of millions of folkz around the human globe.
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The 2009 "A Night Under the Stars" concert is on
Friday, 27 November at The Royal Festival Hall from
7.30pm for "The Passage" Day Centre, which saw last
year's concert raise $80,000- to help the homeless.
The Day Centre's Founding Patron was His Eminence,
the late Cardinal Basil Hume of Great Britain.

http://www.passage.org.uk/

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Squeezing Every Last Penny From
Out of The Big Issue Vendors.
By Uncle Monty.
Photos By Alex Albion.
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Five English pence won't even buy you
peanuts!! But, when the wholesale price of
The Big Issue was increased to its vendors by
5p per copy last Monday the amount of gain
and sheer profit by The Big Issue is staggering
and almost mind-boggling no matter if such
harms whatever its own street vendors may
otherwise make for themselves.
~~~
At that 5p increase per copy at a 149,000 weekly
circulation at say 50 weeks, The Big Issue itself
stands to rake in another £360,000- per annum
in pure profits at least and, of course, at the cold

expense and reduced financial gain of its own nation-

wide street vendors scattered far and wide across

the mindless socialist face of the UK. If ever the

term "Champagne Socialism" bore an ugly face,

then the movers and shakers behind The Big

Issue come out screaming like mad at you ...

and at its victimized vendors!!!
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Read more of my upcoming full story soon on The

Big Issue after now completing herein my brief story

on "The Passage" from yesterday's great garden

party that took place to solely help the homeless

and didn't seek to make any financial profit

or gain out of them, not like some folkz

we know from elsewhere ...
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Do good deeds everyone, Uncle Monty.

+St. Bridget, 2oo9.

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