From Our Own Correspondent
Mgr. Parker, 0.S.B., Bishop of Northampton, opened and blessed the new parish hall of Our Lady Star of the Sea at Lowestoft, Suffolk, on Friday. The building it to be known as the Stella Mans Hall. The Rev. A. A. Tomlinson, the parish priest, said that if everyone worked with half the spirit of those who had helped voluntarily with the hall the country would not be in the state it was today. The idea of having the hall was mooted three years ago, said Fr. Tomlinson, but the scheme did not begin to take shape until 1947 when the use of ex-Army huts was decided on. These stood on an open Site in a village a few miles away and on Boxing Day in that year 20 volunteers braved a snowstorm to start the work of dismantling. The actual building of the hall had been undertaken by contractors, who had done a splendid job with the salvaged materials. The whole of the decoration had been carried out by men of the church. They had begun with the bare brick and theirs had been an arduous task. From ex-Army materials members of the Catholic Women's League had made the curtains.