I read an interesting article in , written in September 1985, by a former resident of Menton, Mrs. Evelyn Battye, Ascot, Berkshire, about .

Here is a brief except;

“I recently looked up an old photograph of St John’s in my home town of Menton, France. In the 1920’s and 30’s before Britain went off the Gold Standard and the franc plummeted, there were some six thousand British residents , known to the Mentonnais as, “les hivernants,” for their habit of disappearing during the hot months of the year.

On Sundays, St John’s was packed so much that an extension was built to the rear. There was a full choir, ably tutored by Mr. Pitman, who played the organ. The chaplain for many years was Mr. Greenstreet, his vicarage villa situated up the nearby Borrigo Valley. The pressure of work was such that he was aided by a curate, a different young man sent out from England every season. As the diocese of the Bishop of Gibraltar extended 3000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean to the Caspian Sea, and north to south, 1000 miles across the Mediterranean, his visits to Menton were naturally infrequent, yet in time we children were all confirmed.

The most familiar figure at St John’s was that of the Italian verger, Monsieur Luigi, a white-haired, small moustached, stocky man whom I never saw without his long black cassock.

Although himself a devout Roman Catholic, Luigi, as he was known, worked faithfully at St John’s for 50 years until he retired aged 80. He served at the altar during Holy Communion, only leaving the sanctuary at the consecration. He neatly darned lace vestments , kept the church spotless and the small garden immaculate.

Luigi never learnt to speak English, but his memory was prodigious and when asked, could rattle off the names of the 14 sucessive chaplains he had served with deft gestures imitating each one’s little peculiarity.

Not many years ago I was in Menton again. I found St John’s in a sad state with damp patches on discoloured walls. A handful of English attended matins, kindly taken by an asthmatic wintering clergyman. The service was said and potted music played. The large, solid Victorian building, built in 1873 stands on a valuable site in the busy town.

Who owns these Continental churches and how much longer can they remain decaying memorials to the British?”

Well, 32 years after Mrs Battye’s piece in “Country Life,” St John’s is still standing. It has been closed for seven years, due to flooding caused by the tunneling of an underground car park for a new apartment block, which has been built behind St John’s. The garden has now disappeared,  so has the organ, but St John’s is in the process of renovation.

The extention Mrs Battye mentioned will be removed. There is still an active congregation, albeit much smaller than in the 1920’s or 30’s. Sunday service is held at the Chapel de St Roch; Hopefully, St John’s will reopen to new glory in the not too distant future.

Birgitt McDonagh-Nordbrink