Min & Fred Adams

Minnie Brown & her mother Ellen at Belle Vue

Fred Adams born 1899 was the son of Horace & Rosina Adams

Minnie Brown born 1889 was the daughter of William & Ellen Brown

Fred and Minnie married in 1923

Fred and Minnie had one daughter

Phyllis Adams born 1924 See Bill & Phyllis Dell

Phyllis’s memories as told to Rosemary Mortham.

See Bill & Phyllis Dell for their life story

As a small child, Phillis Adams, born in 1924, used to sit in the choir stalls with her parents at evensong.  They had previously attended the Methodist Chapel and Phyllis can remember that they had very good outings and picnics in the field opposite, where there was a pond.

A CALLING TO CHURCH

Phyllis's mother Min Adams, told her that in 1929 her father Fred had a sudden calling telling him to go to church.  He felt he had to obey, and Minnie decided that she should go with him.   They were to become lifelong supporters of the church.   Fred was Vicar’s churchwarden for 40 years.   Fred Martin was the people’s churchwarden.   Phyllis believes that they may have been founder members of the choir under Reverend Steward.   She cannot recall there being a choir in the time of Reverend Gee.

CHOIR SUPPERS & GAMES

At that time the organ was hand pumped by one of the boys.   The organist was Nancy Hawes, and when the organ was running out of air she would wave her handkerchief to indicate that it required pumping.   The adult choristers enjoyed choir suppers with games in the vicarage.

WHAT FRED & MINNIE DID

Both Fred and Minnie were quite musical.   Fred played violin in Harold Williams' dance band with Ted Tyrell and one other member.  Min played the organ at the Methodist Chapel and did all the church washing.

Hallmark July 1977. A Tribute to Fred Adams. 1899 – 1977. By Vicar Bernard Houghton

Some infants seem to be chosen by God for special tasks in this world. Such was Fred Adams born in 1899, who soon after his eighteenth birthday was pitched into the vile trenches of Flanders in 1917, where he managed to survive at least one assault by a German who nearly strangled him; and at his nineteenth birthday was captured by the Germans and kept as a prisoner until the end of that grim war.

By 1953 he had joined the group of nearly twenty thousand Churchwardens of the Church of England and was soon coping with the duties of the job, when the Rev. Moreton moved and five years later when Robert Sharpe moved. He met me on a cold February afternoon in 1961, showed me round the Church and the empty Vicarage, and said that it would be good to have a Vicar's wife, and even some young children in the house after twenty-two years.

Although he hinted that a few of the congregation had been pulling in different directions, I soon realised that he was being very loyal to the whole parish, and very modest about the way he had shouldered many responsibilities in the village over the past twenty-seven years. On my first Sunday in May he came at 8.00am. to serve at the altar, I then found him next to me in the choir at 11.00am. and again at 6.00pm. and I learned he had repeatedly taken over the Sunday School when there was no Vicar; and that he and Min had usually put up at weekends the visiting clergy, and fed them, for months at a time. I also met him at the Guild meetings of the Servers nearly every month, and again was meeting with him with the School managers when we had to build a new school at Speen, and face £86,000 of new building at Lacey Green in the next fourteen years.

For a lot of this time, he had been Secretary of the Village Hall, and I believe had been helping in the Sports Club, so that almost every day of the week Fred was forwarding the work of the Church and the village, with the tremendous help of a dedicated wife. She, I discovered, had also been washing the Church albs, the altar linen and many surplices for many years, with no rewards; and saving for, working for and cooking for many Mothers' Union efforts over the years.

For 40 years Fred was also a Special Constable in Risborough. During my years here I have met many men who in the last war went through more grim experiences than I have ever had to face, and so I have tried to understand their feelings, with respect. This I have learned about those few who came back from the war in 1919, and who, like this later generation, mostly dropped out of Church life for good. Fred has done my faith a power of good, because I have seen him take on jobs that few men wanted, putting his faith in God into practice with a quiet courage, cheerfulness and unselfishness which over sixty years, since 1917, would not be easy to match. May his soul rest in peace: and he will be another good friend I shall look forward to meeting arain.