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Last week’s Did You Know considered the way Becket’s assassins demonstrated their penitence (saying sorry and turning away from sin) after his murder. We continue the focus on penitence this week, as we look at the season of Lent.

Lent is a period extending from Ash Wednesday - the day after Pancake/Shrove Tuesday - to Holy Saturday - the day before Easter Sunday - observed as a time of penance and fasting in the Christian calendar.

In 1981 Ken Makins, the Surveyor of the Fabric, alerted the Cathedral Council that some bricks in the temporary west wall of the cathedral were failing. The utilitarian red brick wall had been hurriedly erected in 1939, when the start of the Second World War halted Sir Charles Nicholson’s extension. Remedial work was begun; but in June 1982 repairs were halted, while discussion proceeded on more substantial changes.

On 7 March 1927, Neville Lovett was appointed as joint Archdeacon of Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, and instituted Vicar of the Church of St Thomas.

Jane Stuart’s memorial stone in the Cathedral bears a most unusual date.

On 19 February 1991, a new memorial stone was unveiled in the Cathedral’s Garden of Remembrance. The stone is dedicated to a little-known and largely unrecognised group of servicemen – the British Nuclear Test Veterans, whose Association (BNTVA) was formed to campaign for the recognition and restitution of servicemen who participated in the British Nuclear Tests, effectively as human ‘guinea-pigs’.