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It’s good to return to Bahrain 23 years after being chaplain of St. Christopher’s and Awali in the 1970s. when we left in 1979 I was eventually appointed Anglican chaplain to the English-speaking community in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, and we remained there for ten and a half years.

Luxemburg is a beautiful and very comfortable country in which to live, and it’s understandable that the Luxemburger’s reputed national motto is “We wish to remain as we are”. It’d seem to me that this is a good motto for any locum who’s coming to Bahrain to be preist-in-charge during an interregnum. For the moment there’s much to be said for maintaining the status quo. For my role is certainly not to take you back to my time in the 1970s.

Nor is it for me to move you into November and anticipate Alan Hayday. During my seven weeks with you I’d regard myself as a bridge, spanning the gap which any interregnum inevitably creates. After all, to function as a bridge can be no bad thing for any priest.

The very word “priest” is rooted in the Latin “pontifex”, “pontis”: a bridge. There’ll still be a few familiar faces around which Barbara and I will recognize although, of course, many of you we shall be meeting for the first time.

However, knowing Bahrain, it won’t take long for strangers to become friends, and I’m sure our journey together across the bridge won’t be a boring and uneventful one. No doubt, in no time at all the bridge will be crossed, and we can all look joyfully forward to using James Belgrave’s time-honoured phrase and saying to Alan and Pam, “Welcome to Bahrain”.

Barry J. Simmons