Transcript

Cecil Palmer was a working-class man born in 1901 in Stony Stratford, on the edge of what is now Milton Keynes. Cecil was an altar boy at Saint Mary and Saint Giles church. After starting work at fourteen, he continued as an altar server, and went to what he called ‘church dues’, where ballroom dancing continued till late evening. As he danced, Cecil would feel the eyes of the two chaperones on him: the Vicar's wife, and another lady, on the lookout for inappropriateness. In old age, he no longer attended much due to his wife's health, but he still referred to himself as a ‘churchman’. He brought his daughters up as churchgoers. ‘Our children,’ he said, ‘had to do what they were told until they left, but well, that's up to them now’, and he doesn't say whether they did continue his relationship with the church.