When  Canon William Gibbs asked me to say a few words to-day,   he may not have known that  my first job was that of a fair ground barker  persuading  the often rain sodden people of Southport  that it would be fun to play the game on our stall.  
 
I needed to attract the punters from Madam Morella the palmist.  And, of course, we had some incentives.  “We’ve got bucket bags, hand bags, big dolls, pandas  or any other prize on the stall”   Here to-day I don’t have incentives, but I hope you will lend me your ears for a minute or two.  And for me it makes a change to drying dishes in the Tea Tent.
Great day for Hollowell,   British Steam (Flying Scotsman)  and the World (Nostradamus)
That fair ground training was useful.   For travelling around for the last 35 years or so, I have been trying to persuade people in other countries that Britain is a  place to visit, to do business  with and whose products and  ideas are good value.  
And I found as I travelled around  that  what attracted people to our country  was not  so much our  landscape,  beautiful as it is,  nor our buildings  historic and unique as many of them are,  nor our products good as they are,  and not  of course our weather.
But it’s what we have done,  what we still do and how we think  that makes Britain  an influence in the world. 
Having a hobby - what we do with our spare time - is so much part and parcel of our national life that it is easy to forget that until quite recent times the word in its present meaning did not exist.   Such activities were for  a tiny minority .  The rest of the population were too busy in the struggle of life to have much spare time.     
A major change began  a couple years ago  when a vicar  in Selbourne on Hampshire/Sussex border , Gilbert White,  began  noting what went on in his garden.   His book  “The Natural History of Selbourne”,  the  first of its kind about nature.   And it inspired  all sorts of people including Charles Darwin and started scientific research and spawned all sorts of nature related hobbies  and an interest in nature which we see most  famously in  the television documentaries of Richard Attenborough  and the activities of the thousands who have an interest in nature; bird watching, beekeeping, horse breeding, pigeon fancying. 
What inspired these pioneers was their wish to know more about  the creations of God around them.  
And  many of our hobbies to-day can be seen as  expression of a wish to know more about the world around us or to improve it.
In completely different area from natural history ,  this event  at Hollwell to-day  is a descendant of what happened in Cornwall in 1803 when Richard Trevithick made the first steam locomotive and 26 years later Stephenson built his Rocket. 
These inventors and researchers, and we the more humble enthusiasts, whether we fancy pigeons or bake cakes or raise steam or whatever  are using.  then,  the talents which God gave us and expressing them in our leisure time activities.  
 And we use those talent not only for our own enjoyment but also to help others.
That is what people around the  world admire about Britain.  They may find some of our activities eccentric:  Mad Dogs and Englishmen still do go out in the mid-day sun.  What about the man who ran the length of Death Valley California for charity?
For out of our hobbies  comes a sense of purpose, satisfaction  and worth in our lives.  In raising money for good causes  through what we do with our leisure we are helping to fulfil that second  great commandment of Jesus that we should love our neighbour as ourselves.  Faith hope and  love and the greatest of these as St. Paul told us is love.   
So our national  life,  based on a tolerant Christian philosophy of love ,  has had a profound influence not only here but also on the world as a whole.  
So as you walk around these fields  watching, admiring eating drinking and buying  (Red Cross) to-day I hope you will think about how best to use your God given talents in the service.of all.   We live in a world where there is an awful lot grabbing for those bucket bags hand bags big dolls and pandas:  But the biggest and the best prize comes from using our talents to the glory of our creator and the service of our fellow  human beings .
