I have blogged about my Irish grandparents so for balance, a few words inspired by my English ones, Alice and Len Foulger.
I recently attended Mass with my mother, on Zoom, at St Alban the Martyr, in the ecclesiastical parish of St. Alban and St. Patrick, Highgate, Birmingham. This meant a lot to me as my grandparents are buried there, under the church. Len was in their church choir for sixty years. His brother Ralph was also in the choir, as was my uncle Steve. My grandparents were remembered at the Mass, for All Souls Day, as well as Ralph and his wife, Maud.
St Alban’s was founded by (my inverted commas) “a pair of Pollocks” in the 19th Century – James and Thomas Pollock, brothers of Irish extraction. It is a Grade II* listed Parish Church of St. Alban the Martyr (listed building ID 1290539), a Victorian Gothic masterpiece of architect John Loughborough Pearson.
Happily, I was present in person, with my family at the 150th anniversary Mass of the foundation of the church in 2016. It was also the anniversary of St Alban, England’s protomartyr.
