MEMBERS of the congregation of All Saints', Fulham, and of the wider community, were shocked when they found that the statue Walking Madonna, in their churchyard in west London, had been vandalised. Cast in bronze, it had been sculpted by Helen Sinclair to mark the Millennium. The immediate response by the congregation was to pray for the vandals, and resolve to replace the statue.

The new statue is in resin, to prevent further desecration, cast in a mould that Ms Sinclair took from another statue. But there was also a strong feeling that the bronze left from the original statue should not be scrapped, but melted down and used for something special so that good could come from evil, and, at the same time, funds could be raised for the new statue.

The metal was enough to make 75 hand-held crosses from a mould in wood, in an original design by Ms Sinclair. They were all blessed at a recent Sunday service by Canon David Tann, and each cross bought by a member of the congregation has a certificate of authenticity.