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Good morning. Ten pounds for a family Christmas dinner? Enough to feed six people and with leftovers for Boxing Day? It might sound impossible but that is what a partnership of chef Tom Kerridge and footballer Marcus Rashford say they’ve come up with. Explaining why he challenged Kerridge to create the menu, Rashford speaks of his childhood on the Wythenshawe Housing Estate, close by Manchester Airport, and how visits to the food bank were a necessary part of his family being able to cook a Christmas dinner. I know Wythenshawe well. Not only is it part of my diocese, I also chair the Housing Association that owns many of the properties in which families like Marcus Rashford’s live. It’s an area where many households work in low paid and insecure jobs, battling through the winter months, to afford both food and fuel. Yet, perhaps in consequence of its challenges, it’s a place with an extraordinarily rich social fabric. From the Pride Festival and the Wythenshawe Games that crown the summer, to the community Pantomimes that are a feature of the winter, it’s a place where people come together. Far beyond these big occasions, a flotilla of small, locally led projects and charities, provides a network of mutual support all year round. Wythenshawe understands the value of community and works hard to build it. Unusually, the parish church at the heart of the estate is dedicated not to some biblical hero or mythical early saint but to a twentieth century theologian and bishop, William Temple, a predecessor of mine as Bishop of Manchester. One of the leading lights behind the founding of the post war Welfare State, Temple famously argued that proclaiming the love of God in Jesus Christ, and caring for the practical needs of human beings, go hand in hand. It’s a teaching I’ve seen lived out by the churches in Wythenshawe, whose members work alongside people of all faiths and backgrounds, helping to create a community whose riches are not measured in monetary terms. Our childhood experiences shape the adults we become. The values that Marcus Rashford now expresses in his work to tackle poverty are ones instilled both in the home and the community he grew up in. Fame and fortune appear if anything to have strengthened rather than diminished them. But you don’t need to be a celebrity to live out the values of your family, community and faith. As Christmas draws near, individuals and groups, in places like Wythenshawe, up and down the country, are quietly getting on with their task of helping families not simply to cope but to enjoy the festive season. As they do so, my hope is that they will be producing more young women and men, who life may take elsewhere but who will never forget their origins and the values they learned in the community they grew up in.
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