The Church at Stainton Le Vale was closed, so I had a look at the grave stones. By chance, the reading on one of them is the same as today’s reading – Saturday for the ninth week in ordinary time.

I have fought the good fight to the end. I have run the race to the finish. I have kept the faith. (Second letter of St. Paul to Timothy)

The people who put this on their gravestone were called Spalding. The writing was so much erased I could not make out their Christian names. They died in their sixties in 1876 and 1881.

Who were they? What race had they won and how? No one will ever know, but I’m sure they were good agricultural folk.