What Do We Hold When Words Run Out

Spring changes how we move through the world. The evenings stretch, the mornings brighten, and suddenly it feels possible to breathe a little deeper. We lean into that April mood at St Peter Mancroft, but we also follow it straight into the heart of the Christian year: Holy Week. We talk about why Holy Saturday matters, that strange in-between day after the cross and before resurrection, when everyone is left waiting, wondering, and hoping. 

From there, we share a story many visitors miss until they spot them at the back of church: the pocket crosses. Edward chats with Janice Tyra, who has been making these small knitted crosses for around thirty years. Each one sits in a tiny pocket with a prayer, designed to be held quietly rather than displayed, a simple reminder that you are not alone. We hear how the colours often come from donated wool, how particular moments shape what gets made, including blue and yellow crosses with added prayer when the war in Ukraine began, and how donations connected to the crosses support the East Anglian Children’s Hospice. 

We also reflect on holding crosses and what to do when prayer runs out of words. Edward shares the story of a wooden cross made from reclaimed church pew timber and etched with the Great Commandment, a tactile way to hold faith close in anxious moments. Along the way we enjoy quick conversations about church graffiti as a record of ordinary lives, a Norwich pottery exhibition full of imagination and kiln surprises, and the oddly beautiful craft of decorating eggs with onion skins and spring leaves. If you enjoy stories of faith, local history, handmade craft, and everyday hope, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave us a review.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Well, hello and welcome to the April twenty twenty six Be More Mancroft Podcast. I'm Edward Carter. And I'm Judy Ball. And it's lovely you've joined us. Well, April, Judy.

SPEAKER_05 0:15

I know, lovely time of year, isn't it? I think you like April because of the Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

It is like we were we were just saying, yes, how how actually it's lovely the days get longer and I do particularly like a nice light longer evening. And you really notice that the clocks have changed, of course, and suddenly it seems to be light until I don't know eight, nine o'clock before you before you know it. So yeah, I do really like that. Yeah, it makes a big difference to me.

SPEAKER_05 0:41

I like a light morning. But that will change, but only briefly. That will soon uh get it.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well it's lovely and bright, certainly parts of my house, you know, you get lovely morning sunshine coming in. I do too. Yeah, that's good. And of course it's an important time of year at the church as well. Easter is early in April this year and there's lots to prepare for that. Yes, Holy Week, of course, runs up to Easter.

SPEAKER_05 1:04

Lovely time. Sad. Sad in some ways, obviously, because of Good Friday. But and Easter Day, of course. Love Easter day.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Yeah, great celebration. And there's that day just between the two, which is I think holy Saturday is what it's really called, yeah. And it's well, in terms of the story about Jesus, it's a mysterious day because it's after he's died but before he's risen again. And um so some people feel it's a really important day.

SPEAKER_05 1:28

Well, I think it is because everyone was wondering at that time as to what was going to happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:34

Was he going to r or would he rise again? Yes. Or was he completely gone or what was going to happen?

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

And then it was all clarified on the next day. A day of expectation.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

And actually it feels like that at church as well that that Saturday.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

I mean they have the flower rangers in and taking down all the lent veils and things like that, and the whole church will look amazing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but Good Friday, of course, with the cross is the cross is the great Christian symbol.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Um, so that's really important. And I had a I was in church the other day and I got chatting with our friend, good friend Janice, Janice Tyra about the pocket crosses.

SPEAKER_05 2:11

They sell so well people love them.

Pocket Crosses And Their Stories

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Yeah. Let's listen to the interview I I did with her.

SPEAKER_05 2:16

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Well, I'm here in the church and I'm here with Janice, Janice Tyra, who's uh well, Janice, you're a stole member of St. Peter Mancroft over many years, but we're talking about the pocket crosses, which are here at the back. How long have you been helping to make those pocket crosses here?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

It must be at least thirty years. And at first they didn't go very quickly, but over the recent years we've had them in a a dominant place in the church, and people see them and and love them and uh take them for all sorts of reasons.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Yeah, I mean there are always people browsing at them when when I'm here in church. Yeah, they're and they're absolutely beautiful. And so you actually physically make them, do you?

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yes. Now that happened about thirty years ago. We had a women's fellowship in in church at the time and one of the members had been to visit her sister in Wales. And the sisters church had got these pocket across in her pocket. And she brought them back to Norwich to give out some some to some of us. And everybody was very interested, but there weren't enough for everybody. So me being me looked at mine and thought, I think I could make these.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

And that was the beginning of it all.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

So each pocket cross, there's an actual cross and there's a little pocket it goes in, and then a little prayer as well, I think.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Uh yeah, yes, to uh say why you might want to keep a a cross in your pocket to remind you, not not to flaunt that you were a Christian, but something you could feel in your pocket and and know that God was there with you. And uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

That's beautiful, beautiful. And um they they come in all different colours. I notice you make them in different colours. So when you're choosing when you're making a new one, how do you decide what colours to make it?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Well, most of the wool is donated for a start, so it's oddments that people have um had left over from various things. So uh that uh sometimes I see a new colour and I think, oh yes, I must buy buy that. And sometimes we we cho we choose the colour for a particular reason. When the uh Ukraine uh problem started, we did a lot of blue and yellow ones.

SPEAKER_03 4:36

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

And I did put an extra little prayer in for for prayer for for those people suffering in that. And sometimes I'll put an extra little prayer in for a particular reason like for um when Pam wanted uh some crosses made to give to her grandchildren after she had died. And she wants a little message uh from herself personally.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Oh, isn't that lovely, yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

And are there any other stories of people who've perhaps taken a pocket cross away and then you've heard later from them how important it's been for them, or or any other lovely stories about them?

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Yes, we don't usually hear stories afterwards, but sometimes people say why they want them. And a couple of years ago, I I suppose now, we had a young man who used to come in fairly regularly. His mother uh uh w had um an old people's home and a lot of the helpers who she had going were foreigners from other countries who were Christians and uh she used to give them one as a little present when they when they first started work with her.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

And we also had a Roman Catholic, a lady from the Roman Catholic Church. Her daughter was making her first communion and they were having a party afterwards for all her little friends. And so she brought each of them a little cross to give at at the party for them.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

And there must be thousands that have been made over the years, over these thirty odd years.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yes, yes. No, but um the uh the the girl who looks after the finances at the uh each the uh the children's hospice is currently looking back through the records to see if she can uh she can work out uh that that won't be just the crosses, of course, that will be the other things that we have done uh to raise money for them. I mean last year was two thousand that uh we sold in the the year before was seven hundred.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

And so I think you know, we we've averaged over the last few years of hundreds uh 150 to 200 sort of uh for several years.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

That's amazing, yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Yes, and it's all raising funds. People invited us to make a donation, of course, and as you say, for the East Anglian Children's Hospice. So that's a really lovely extra part of it. Yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Well Janice, it's like a kind of ministry, really, making the crosses, and just think of all those people who've got them in their pockets. So think of it as a ministry.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

People have said, Oh, a pound each, you know, you could you could ask more. And I said, No, because I want it to be available for everybody. And uh hopefully they will appreciate it and it will mean something to them.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah. Well, I think it's absolutely wonderful. Um, to have a cross in your pocket is a most precious and glorious thing. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, and thank you for for all the crosses that you've made and all the the joy and delight and comfort that they've given.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

I do some have some help now. Judas, of course, has been helping me now for for ten years.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Um and and and other people have went we we got overwhelmed by the number of people who were coming in and taking them, and uh I thought I'm doing nothing t in my spare time apart from making crosses. So we have got one or two volunteers who who help as well.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

That's great. A great team effort. Janice, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_05 8:12

I didn't realise Janice had been doing it for quite so long, thirty years.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah, amazing.

SPEAKER_05 8:16

But my good, they are so popular.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 8:18

And when I've been on um welcoming duty, I've been quite surprised at the amount of small children that come in that want the crosses. They absolutely love them.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Yeah, yeah. I've noticed that people come in and sometimes people just make a beeline for them, really, don't they? Yes, they do.

SPEAKER_05 8:34

And they're lovely colours.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Beautiful colours. And they're quite small, of course. They really do tuck in a very small pocket. Yeah. Yeah. Have you actually got one?

Holding Crosses For Wordless Prayer

SPEAKER_05 8:43

I have. I've I've had two actually. I lost the first one. I don't know what happened to the first one. But the second one I bought when Janice was doing the Ukrainian colours. So mine is a blue and yellow one. Yeah, yeah. Which is in well, and my handbag actually, not my pocket. My handbag's always with me. Yeah, well that well that's the same thing with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.

unknown 9:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

I've got a wooden holding cross that I always have in my pocket, so it's slightly different to to Janice's crosses in my pocket. Yeah, yeah. But I've had that for well many years.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

And I always have it with me, and I sometimes I don't know if it ever happens to you when you kind of run out of any words to say or even thoughts to think. You just need to hold on to something in a much more basic way. And of course, for Christians, that holding on to the cross is a is a very important thing.

SPEAKER_05 9:28

May I ask how you acquired it? Was did someone give it to you or did you come by it?

SPEAKER_02 9:32

No, well actually it was a really interesting project I was involved with where I was before coming to St. Peter Mancroft.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

Yes.

Visitors Notice Church Graffiti

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Uh I was in in Essex at Chancellor Cathedral and we celebrated the centenary of the diocese and the cathedral, was in 2014. Um I talked to the bishop at some length about how we could mark this. And I came up with this idea of making lots of holding crosses to to give really or to make available for all the different parishes across the diocese. And my idea was that they would be yes, wooden holding crosses made ideally out of because there were some always some churches getting rid of their pews or being shut down. So I wanted to track down some pews that were being thrown out and instead of just chucking them away, try and convert them into holding crosses. Because a pew is where you where you sit or kneel to pray. And it just felt a shame really that that wasn't going to happen anymore. So I thought, well, you can you pray with a holding cross, really. So that would be a new way of using this timber. So the one I've got came from a church somewhere in Essex from made from a pew. Um but the other thing was I found a little workshop that would um laser etch onto the holding crosses once they'd been cut to shape, etch on the great commandment. I'm not going to put you on the spot, Judy, and ask if you remember what it is, but love God and love your neighbour as yourself at at heart, you know, with all your heart, all your strength, all your might. So it's got the Great Commandments written on it, a cross and then down. So not only are you holding on to the cross in a very kind of basic visceral way, but you actually are holding on to those important words of Jesus. Yeah. But I can certainly remember one or two points in life when, well, I've been perhaps really worried about someone n near to m dear to me, and trying to pray for them and for a good outcome and running out of words to use and just holding on quietly with my hand in my literally in my pocket and just uh holding on in prayer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the cross is a is uh obviously at the heart of the the Christian faith. Although Good Friday and the cross only makes sense, I always say, when you also remember Easter, because Easter is the other part of of course of of those uh those important few days at the heart of the Christian year. If if Jesus just died, well that doesn't really help any of us. He needs to rise again, that new life, that new creation, that new promise from God come to fulfilment. So it's really, really important. Yeah, yeah. And then actually all the rest of the Christian story kind of makes sense around that as well. If we believe in the beauty of of creation generally, then we have to look to the the new creation on Easter Day as well, yeah. Yeah, so that's right at the heart of everything that happens really in the church at Mancroft. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what we tell everyone who arrives. Yeah. And actually speaking of that, there was a a nice man who I got chatting with a few days ago. We didn't really talk about crosses and Easter and empty tombs or anything like that. But I had a nice little chat with him and recorded a a tiny interview, so I thought we could maybe just listen to that now for a bit of fun. Yeah. Well, I'm here in the church and a lovely bright spring morning, and someone here visiting. Just wondering what you've enjoyed about being here in the church and scene today.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Hi, yeah, thank you. I I came in a completely on a whim. Fascinating church. I I I did not know anything about bell ringing and uh the history of the first peel. Had no idea about that.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

I absolutely love all these original features, the sculptures, the font coverings, stunning. Yeah. Yeah. I just love all the original features in here as well. Yeah. Fantastic. And the graffiti as well.

unknown 13:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

That's almost the most interesting thing. Yeah. Oh well, it's been brilliant to meet you and thanks for visiting today. You're welcome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:26

That's amazing how that gentleman picked up on the graffiti, found the graffiti.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Yes, I mean there are there is a bit around the church, yeah. Actually, you Judy, you you've never scratched your name in a column anywhere. Have you? Have you done any graffiti in the church?

SPEAKER_05 13:41

No, no, I haven't. But not long after I started serving, which was way back, I was in the choir stalls on Evensong and I suddenly saw Dean Metcalfe written scratched in front of me. And David was a choir boy. Oh, he isn't he was a friend of my son's and uh he was there always. So we're going back for about thirty, forty years. So you scratched his whole memory. And he scratched Dee Metcalf, yes. I don't know whether it's still there, I don't know whether he's still got the choir store when he proved it, but his name was there.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

That must have been a long and boring servant, I should think. Yeah, perhaps it was the sermon when you found it as well. You were looking around for something to distract you. Yes, yes Well, there is some graffiti and there's some in the tower as well as you go up to the ringing chamber. There's certainly various things scratched in the walls there.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Yeah. I always think graffiti's I mean some people f furrow their brows and say how dreadful. But I think it's interesting because it's um ordinary people kind of leaving an imprint of their their lives and just who they were, yeah. And certainly sometimes people who worked on the building, you know, repairing something, they might just s you know, cunningly leave leave their name just tucked somewhere. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well it's all part of that creative human spirit, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And actually I met someone the other day who was really interested in some of the wood carvings, a bit like the gentleman I just interviewed. Um, but they were particularly interested in the old stalls, the Vicar stall and the other the other one or two of the other stalls. And there are a couple, I think, where the seats flip up and you can perch on them if you're you know, if it really is a long, long, long sermon uh or a or a psalm or something. Um and some of them have beautiful carvings on. Um have you ever done wood carving, Judy? No, no, I haven't. Because I know you're very creative.

SPEAKER_05 15:24

Yes, but in other another spheres, not wood carving.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Yeah, because you do you do painting, of course, don't you?

SPEAKER_05 15:29

And my por my cold porcelain, which air dries. I don't have to fire things.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

And that's flowers and things like that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 15:36

Yes, mostly flowers.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah, I think you're doing some new flowers for the you've done some for the Easter cans.

SPEAKER_05 15:42

I'm doing foliage as well this year. I'm just hoping it all works.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Good, yeah. Well, thinking about your the beautiful flowers that you make, I actually found in the undercroft at the top of the market just uh a few days ago, I found a whole exhibition uh of um pottery, all different potters.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

I've never tied it.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Yeah, and you've never had a spinning wheel in front of you with play flying everywhere at the moment. Well, it was the Anglian Potters. Nice and it was their Undercroft Spring Exhibition. I got chatting with one of the potters, so I thought play the interview now. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 16:15

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Well, I'm here in the Undercroft actually, the top of the market, and an amazing exhibition of pottery, which I think is running just into April, and I'm with Liz Chip Chase. Liz, you're one of the one of the potters, one of the artists here.

SPEAKER_04 16:30

That's right. I'm I'm a member of Anglian Potters. We set up these exhibitions. We have one in the Undercroft every year at this time of year.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 16:38

And potters from all over East Anglia come here, but especially ones who are local to Norfolk. And if you come and look at look at what's here, the um range of what you can make with just clay, effectively, if you like playing with mud pies when you were little, you'd love the sort of materials that that we produced here. That's fantastic. And there's all sorts of different things.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean certainly there are pots that have been thrown on a wheel, but all sorts of other things. I think you said they're they're sort of built more, are they, if they're built out of clay?

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Yes, they're called slab built pots. And you can so they you start off with flat sheets of clay and you can make some some people have been making little houses, really nice little houses. Or you can you can you can then bend the clay. Clay is very malleable, so you can make round shapes and you can make cylinders and you can the only thing that stops you is just how much imagination is. You've got how wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

And then you put it in the kiln and then when you open it up, must be an amazing moment.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

It's constant it's it is an amazing moment, but often it's a great disappointment because you have a p picture in your mind of what's going to come out, and you look at it and think, mm, that's not what I was planning. And then you put it on the shelf, and about three months later you look at it again and think, oh that's really rather good. It may not have been what I meant, but it's great.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Well, that creative thing is extraordinary, isn't it? Yeah. So now I think probably things are for sale here as well, aren't they, as part of the exhibition?

SPEAKER_04 18:06

They are indeed, yes. We're we're we're all keen to sell our so we're really as much to make space in our studios to make more uh as to actually try and make money, but yes, we are. And uh we we've actually got one of our members who uh uh recently uh passed uh has got a lot of her stuff here and we're we're selling that in aid as the Suffolk Wildlife Trust because she was a great worker for them.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Brilliant. Well, I think the exhibition here runs just into early April, but um if not this time, then there are always interesting things in the undercroft and um certainly pottery every now and again. Liz, it's lovely to meet you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_05 18:43

It's very nice to have met you, and it's a pleasure. Well, I've never done pottery, as I said, but I was really fascinated listening to all that. And I have been watching a programme on Sunday nights about potter big pottery company, rather like Bake Off, etc., that type of thing with the pottery. And some of the the creations were beautiful. Some of the things they made were really, really very, very clever.

Easter Crafts And Decorated Eggs

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Yes, no, it is extraordinary, yeah, yeah. Making things out of clay, real sort of 3D art, yeah. Well, of course, there are always lots of Easter crafts people talk about, don't they? And so decorating things, doing wonderful things.

SPEAKER_05 19:17

Yes, I remember as a child my mum used to hard boiled some eggs. Oh, yeah. Because we didn't have chocolate eggs then when I was young, it was a long, long time ago. I won't mention the war. And we used to paint the eggs and make beautiful designs of flowers and things on these eggs, and they were they were really lovely. Just ordinary paints. We had children's paints.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, I remember something a bit different when I was young. Just for one year we lived up in the north of England.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

And when I was quite young, about five or six. And we learnt a thing there from some of the other families where what you did was you went and picked just dandelions and other weeds and perhaps uh you know, interesting leaves, shapes, all that sort of thing, which are in the spring are just coming, and they're all nice and fresh. And then you what you do is wrap them around an actual raw egg, and then you put onion skins for lots of sort of dark colour, then you wrap it all in cloth, uh just an old scrap of cloth in string, and you boil it in water for maybe twenty minutes, and then out it comes, and you take off the cloth and you take off the onion skin, which has got all wet, of course, everything, and then you take off the all the flowers and petals which have have become a bit of a mush. And then you reveal this amazingly decorated egg with uh all the the colours from the the you know the natural ingredients. They're kind of boiled into the egg somehow. And they look, when they've cooled down, they they look amazing.

SPEAKER_05 20:43

Now straight now that's very peculiar because I was only talking on Wednesday to Simona, who's a Ukrainian lady who comes to our communion on a Wednesday morning, and she was telling me something very similar about wrapping something around the eggs and boiling them, and uh so that was something she did in Ukraine.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Yeah, well it's uh it's a great thing, and of course the egg and you know represents that new life, new birth, very much an Eastern thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Lovely.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Well, it's been lovely to chat. April and Oh now, St. Peter Mancroft. Now what was he? Have you been asked? No, I've not been asked actually the last week or two. You know, who was St. Peter Mancroft, but who could he be? I wonder the patron saint of the year. Could be, could be. Actually, do you know I think he probably is. I went I went to the Brownie fundraising event a week or two back. Yes and one of the competitions was this big cuddly toy, Bunny. Right. Um, and the the game was you had to name to suggest a name. So I looked down the list, other people have done things like cuddles and fluffy and things like that. And I suggested as a name for this very nice Easter bunny, Mancroft. Um so I wrote Mancroft on my super paper, paid my entry fee, and uh put it in the bucket. I'm not sure if I won or not, but anyway, I think I'll The strength of that, Sir Peter Mancroft absolutely should be the patron saint of Easter Bunny. Perfect. What could be better? Well, it's been lovely to chat as always. And thank you to all of you for joining us for our April podcast. We hope you'll join us again next time. Yes, we hope so.