How I became a hymn book smuggler into the EU

Smuggled hymn books in the boot of my car © Ricky Yates

As I posted here a year ago, since May 2023, I have been officiating at a monthly English-language Anglican service of Evening Prayer held on a Thursday evening in the Unterkirche of the Dresden Frauenkirche. This is in addition to the monthly Sunday evening service in the Hauptraum for which I’ve had responsibility since January 2015.

For my monthly Sunday evening service, the Pfarrbüro produce a twelve-page complete Order of Service based on the text I send them at least a week earlier. Hymns are taken from ‘Hymns Ancient & Modern New Standard’, published in 1983, with the melody line of the tune, as well as all the words, reproduced. As I understand it, the Pfarrbüro was given a copy of this hymn book by the late Rev’d Dr Irene Ahrens when the monthly Sunday evening service began in June 2006. I presume that this was the hymn book used by St George’s, Berlin where she was the Assistant Priest.

For the German-language services held on the other three or four Thursdays each month, only a simple four-page folded A4 sheet with limited text, is produced, with hymns being sung from the Evangelisches Gesangbuch, copies of which are kept on a mobile bookcase in the Unterkirche. I was asked whether I could obtain some English-language hymn books so the same procedure could be adopted for my services.

The Church of England’s Diocese in Europe, has a Dresden Fund, which I can tap into for anything that is ‘ministry in Dresden’. So the cost of purchasing hymn books could be covered. But I had two decisions to make. Which hymn book to choose and how to get copies from the UK to Dresden without incurring huge costs.

Two revised and updated editions of Hymns Ancient & Modern (A&M) have been published since ‘New Standard’ was produced forty-one years ago. ‘Common Praise’ was published in 2000 to coincide with adoption by the Church of England of Common Worship, the liturgy in contemporary English. Then in 2013, reverting to the original title, ‘Ancient & Modern – Hymns & Songs for Refreshing Worship’ was published.

I have a music edition of ‘Common Praise’ but have only once briefly seen the A&M 2013 edition when attending a service at Wimborne Minster in April last year where it was in use. So I sent an email to Norwich Books & Music, the umbrella organisation for A&M, asking if they could send me a complete list of all the hymns contained in the 2013 edition. A prompt reply promised to send me a free sampler booklet, produced back in 2013, which included an alphabetical list of all the hymns.

Before Brexit, that sampler booklet would have dropped into my mail box, five to seven days later. But instead, what did drop into my mail box was a registered letter saying that my free booklet was held by Czech Customs in Prague. If I wanted to have it delivered, I needed to pay CZK 334/GBP 11.25/EUR 13.30 in customs duty and to gain customs clearance. Yet another example of the wonderful benefits of Brexit!

Having reluctantly paid up and then studied the sampler booklet, I decided this was the hymn book I wanted to purchase. But my mind boggled as to what customs duties might be levied on twenty-five copies of the melody edition and three full music editions. And of course, there would be legitimate carriage costs too. Therefore I decided that I would become a hymn book smuggler into the EU 😉

I have to say that Norwich Books & Music were extremely helpful and cooperative. They agreed to treat my services at the Frauenkirche as though they were a congregation in the UK, providing five of the melody editions free – I only had to pay for twenty copies. They also happily agreed to deliver them to my son’s home address in Nottingham. And because of the value of the order, delivery within the UK was carriage free.

In July this year, I drove to the UK to visit my children and grandchildren and to spend a most enjoyable week, exploring sites of religious and historic interest in the Northeast of England with a small group, led by my good friend Ken Dimmick. Whilst staying with my son Phillip, I loaded the two boxes of hymn books into the boot of my car.

I returned to continental Europe by overnight ferry from North Shields to IJmuiden in the Netherlands. At Dutch customs, all the officer wanted to know was whether I was importing large quantities of alcohol. I assured him I wasn’t and, after that, I was free to travel onwards with my hymn book booty 😉 It was a pleasure to sing from these hymn books for the first time at my service on Thursday 1st August.

I’ve written this post to illustrate once again, the absurdity of Brexit and the lengths one now has to go to, in order to mitigate the innumerable problems it has created. Why is it beneficial to the UK for me to be forced to pay CZK 334/GBP 11.25/EUR 13.30 in order to receive a free booklet? Can Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, the Daily Fail, the Daily Excrement, the Daily Torygraph et al, please explain.

A Blogpost about my Blog

Sunflower & a bee © Ricky Yates

Despite promising to be more regular in writing and posting here on my blog, I must yet again apologise that over four and a half months have past since my last post. However, in the last couple of days, I have discovered that, even if I had written and posted a blog post, almost nobody would have read it. Because if you had put my URL into your browser, you would have received a message saying that it was unsafe to proceed because my website had security issues.

Back in February 2024, I renewed the hosting of rickyyates.com with Namecheap.com. Part of that deal was the provision of an SSL certificate showing that my website was secure. This should have downloaded automatically, but it didn’t 🙁 There was . . . → Read More: A Blogpost about my Blog

The Ludwig-Donau-Main-Kanal (LDM)

LDM Canal sign at Kelheim © Ricky Yates

Not only in recent months has there been a relative absence of blog posts here, even when I have managed to put fingers to keyboard, I’ve only usually written about my house, my long argument with Barclays Bank, or my ongoing ministry at the Dresden Frauenkirche. In times past, I’ve often written about my travels, both within and beyond the Czech Republic. This post is my first attempt to return to doing so.

On the weekend of 13th-14th April, I spent two nights in Regensburg, breaking my long drive from Stará Oleška to Beatenberg, Switzerland, where I attended the ICS Chaplains Conference – Monday 15th – Friday 19th April. On that weekend, my love of canals and inland waterways which I have previously written about . . . → Read More: The Ludwig-Donau-Main-Kanal (LDM)

House renovation – the next stage

The little un-renovated ground floor room © Ricky Yates

As I entitled my previous post, ‘The renovation of the ground floor of my house is just about complete‘. But there are two important little phrases in that title – ‘just about’ and ‘ground floor’. And those two phrases are connected.

The photograph on the left shows the one little ground floor room to which nothing has been done, (other than me vacuuming up all the cobwebs before taking the photo 😉 ), hence ‘just about’. And there remain two rooms in the roof space to which also nothing has been done, hence I wrote ‘ground floor’.

Please note, I didn’t say ‘upstairs’, in describing the two rooms in the roof space. Because that is the problem, . . . → Read More: House renovation – the next stage

The renovation of the ground floor of my house is just about complete

Stará Oleška 44 with the first snowfall of the 2023/24 winter, 24th November 2023 © Ricky Yates

Once again, I have to start a blog post with a sincere apology for the absence of any posts for a whole six months – the longest hiatus in the fourteen-year history of this blog. In recent months I have said to myself several times that I must start writing again. But then, there are always other things to do. But enough of my excuses, here is the latest instalment of the renovation of Stará Oleška 44.

Before the extension on the west side of my house was built, (on the left in the photograph), with a new front door into an entrance lobby and what is now my sitting-dining room, the way into the house was up . . . → Read More: The renovation of the ground floor of my house is just about complete