During that time, Haile Selassie was in exile in the UK and lived in Bath.
He visited my town of Woking in 1936 which in those days would have been unusual as the town was not very important at all, but he visited the mosque here. He was not a Muslim, but back then mosques in Britain were few.
What a lovely comment and how interesting Laine. Philip says he remembers noticing it and reading it out to me. Now I think I recall that but was so busy wandering around admiring everything that when I was putting the image up, I forgot.
I appreciate your story and the fact that you were there where I was at another time. We were intrigued by the saint's names in some of the churches ... had never heard of St Nectan and the church right beside our cottage in Petrockstowe was St Petroc.
The seat on the right, beside the opening has a brass plaque and it reads
This Chair was used by
Haile Selassie
Emperor of Ethiopia
who visited this parish
17 August 1938
Also in this church there is a hand drawn plan of all the graves in the churchyard (that could be it at the end of the aisle on the stand ) It was made by a friend who accompanied me to St Nectan's and Hartland Quay when I was visiting in 2014
