Why the Church of England will die

Posted on 31st August 2021 by Ian

All Saints’ Church, Langport and the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Huish Episcopi are within a few hundred yards of each other, one can walk from one to the other in a few minutes. The parish of Huish Episcopi almost surrounds the small area that comprises the parish of Langport; the bulk of the population of the town lies outside of the Langport parish. Thus it was that in 1994, when falling church attendances meant that keeping the two churches became unsustainable, it was Langport church that was closed.

All Saints’ Church was transferred to the care of a body called the Churches’ Conservation Trust, an organization that might reasonably be assumed to conserve churches.

The Trust’s interpretation of “conservation” seems to be about the fabric rather than the spirit of the place. There seems a lack of sensitivity towards the traditions of a place, or its significance for generations of local people, for why else would they allow a building that witnessed the most profound moments in people’s lives to be used as a campground? The Trust even has a neologism for the activity it is promoting, “champing,” a hybrid word combining “church” and “camping.”

All Saints’ Church, a place that was once an opportunity to sit in silent reflection, a place where there was a connection with centuries of forebears, a place that spoke of the history of the town and its people, has been reduced to a dormitory. The Churches’ Conservation Trust are not even aware that Langport is not a village, but a town of long standing. It trivializes and profanes a sacred place.

https://champing.co.uk/church/langport-somerset-saints/

However, the reduction of a holy place to little more than an indoor campsite is not the responsibility of the Trust, it is the responsibility of the Church of England who have created  the situation of terminal decline.

Worship has been slowly desacralised  by the purveyors of second-rate rock music and banal prayers dressed in open-necked shirts and chinos. The steady contraction of the church has been accompanied by the steady expansion of diocesan supernumeraries, officers for this and that, advisers in diverse fields. Parochial clergy have been withdrawn from rural communities, where the church had retained significance, and given dispiriting multi-parish benefices where people lack a sense of identity with their priest.

“Champing” is a mark of a church that has lost its way, a church without a sense of the goodly heritage with which it was entrusted.

 

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Wet bank holiday Mondays

Posted on 30th August 2021 by Ian

Someone is said to have done research at one point about why it rained so often at weekends and bank holidays. The theory proposed was that vehicle emissions were generally lower on such days, allowing the wet weather fronts to advance across the country, fronts that would otherwise have been held back by the warm air from exhaust fumes.

Probably a dubious piece of science, it was a nice try at rationalising the perverse meteorology that so often caused disappointment. I think I prefer Murphy’s Law as an explanation as to why it is so often wet when we wanted it to be dry – whatever can go wrong will.

There were many childhood experiences of sitting in the car on summer’s days looking out through rain-spattered glass.

Lyme Regis was our favourite place to get wet. Sitting at the seafront, eating Cornish pasties while the rain came in sideways, was a quintessential element of my childhood days. Wet seaside towns still evoke the peppery taste of the meat and potato pasty filling.

There was a stoical English spirit that insisted we make the best of things. I remember walking to the aquarium on Lyme Regis’ Cobb in the teeth of a driving gale. Getting inside the aquarium, I thought that the fish swimming in the tanks were probably in a drier environment than their human onlookers, particularly the conger eel that peered out from a length of pipe at the bottom of its tank.

A rich vein of memories, wet bank holidays also created a sense of needing to resourceful in making the best of a day out. A friend used to say, “There is no such thing as the wrong weather, only the wrong clothes.” It was a sentiment that we had reflected on many wet days. When it rained, it was an opportunity to step out and walk in shapeless, crumpled waterproofs. Of course, the waterproof coats not only kept the rain out, they also caused the warm air trapped within them to condense, so that in twenty minutes they were as damp on the inside and as they were wet on the outside.

There is nothing that so much captures the spirit of a place as to walk on seafronts, harbour walls, and through narrow streets wearing shoes that are soaked by the surface water as water runs down your neck to be caught by an already saturated collar.

 

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Disliking Roger Whittaker

Posted on 29th August 2021 by Ian

Those of a certain age may remember the English folk singer Roger Whittaker, a distinctive voice with distinctive lyrics. One summer, as the end of the holidays approached, he annoyed my teenage self.

I could never ever feel as sanguine about cooler and shorter days as he did when he sang the song, The Last Farewell. His lyrics seemed to suggest autumn was something to be welcomed:

I shall watch the English mist roll in the dale

How could anyone enjoy watching mist roll through a valley?

On autumn mornings in our corner of Somerset, the mist is a blanket of greyness that lies across the low lying moorland. It spreads dampness over every surface it touches. It penetrates and chills and shows a reluctance to go elsewhere. If the temperature drops below zero, the mist might become freezing fog, making progress difficult and dangerous.

Perhaps Whittaker envisaged something gentler. Leaves of ochre, red and gold, the scent of bonfire smoke on crisp mornings, walks through lanes and smoke from cottage chimneys, seemed more the stuff of romantic notions of misty valleys. Damp November mornings in Somerset would hardly have inspired a song lyric.

Had Whittaker sung about mist in the summertime though, the song would have had an altogether different mood. If there had been mist rolling early in an early morning, it would have been the harbinger of a bright day with blue skies. Late summer mist along our Somerset lanes might be cool and damp but it will often fade to reveal lush green meadows or white fields of grain. Going through the mist, there might be glimpses of rabbits and pheasants running for cover from the oncoming car.

Mist can make familiar roads mysterious. Shapes change; houses passed every day have a different air about them. Concentrating on the way ahead, attention can be drawn to things that had been previously slipped by unnoticed. It seems odd that something that obscures things can sharpen awareness of their existence. Mist demands a sharpened concentration, an early morning drive on the M5 motorway can be filled with spectral shapes appearing from behind only to hurry ahead without thought for safety. Pale red lights can mark dark shadows ahead that take on the form of vehicles as you get near.

There is a paradox in the summer weather: mist is a shrouding, but also a foreshadowing of a glorious day. Autumn is just a foreshadowing of winter.

Posted in The stuff of daily life | 2 Comments

Sportswear

Posted on 28th August 2021 by Ian

Cyclists going through the village now seem to regard the wearing of garish coloured Lycra as a necessity for riding a bicycle. Cycling is not the only physical activity that seems to require particular attire; judging by the high street stores, sportswear is a big industry.

An acquaintance from former times would have suggested no-one thus dressed could be considered to be participating in sport. He would have asserted that an activity could only be considered a sport if it could be undertaken wearing tweed.

While it was a comment that would always prompt smiles among those hearing it, there was always a suspicion that he was being serious. A young fogey, he delighted in wearing a tweed cap and jacket and corduroy trousers. He dressed  as writer P.G. Wodehouse’s character Bertie Wooster might have done if he had been invited to play a round of golf or to join a shoot.

If the wearing of tweed was the criterion for an activity to be considered sporting, then sport was the type of leisure that might be pursued by readers of Country Life magazine. The definition of sport would definitely have included hunting and shooting and fishing. Equestrian activity would be possible for the tweed wearer. Horse racing might demand silks for a professional jockey, how else might the riders have been told apart?  However, a country gentleman might have ridden in point-to-point in a tweed sports jacket and  a bowler hat.

Among other sports, golf would, of course, have been on the list, and bicycling would have been a possibility; as would have been the racing of motor cars.

Anything demanding the wearing of shorts would have been excluded from his idea of sport. He was persuaded that ski-ing was possible, but insisted that it could not be considered if it meant wearing luridly coloured, skin-tight body suits.

Indoors, snooker would have seemed a natural sporting activity, although he would probably have thought billiards to be a more appropriate activity for the tweed-clad gentleman. He never mentioned darts.

Definitions of sport vary, but if strength, speed and agility are the standards of the athletic skills that are required, how many activities considered to be sporting are really sports?

But if sport is not about speed, strength or agility, what is it about? If darts and snooker are considered to be sport, then is the definition about physical dexterity?  Is the potential for wearing tweed the real test?

 

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Pots on a ferry

Posted on 27th August 2021 by Ian

On Monday, I crossed the Irish Sea on a Stena Line Ferry. The water was as still as could be imagined and the crossing was so punctual that the deck doors opened at exactly six o’clock. Stena Line ferry trips are always a reminder of “Pots.”

“Pots” came from a town in the deep south of Ireland. His soft brogue was often difficult to pick up by after becoming attuned to the strong consonants of the east coast of Ulster. He lived by himself in a flat at the centre of the town. Always turned out in his grey suit and tie with a distinctive Columbo type overcoat, he was a familiar sight along the streets.

Pots lived a self-contained life; he stewarded carefully his old age pension and was always attracted by the idea of a bargain. There were times when our ideas of what was a bargain might have differed. Sitting one day amongst some of his purchases, I asked why he had bought a Kylie Minogue mirror. The answer should have been easily anticipated, “Because it was cheap”.

Pots never learned to drive. He could get everywhere he wanted by public transport and travelled wide and far by bus. It was travelling by bus that brought me nearest to having words with Pots.

One July day, there was a parish outing to the Butlin’s holiday centre at Ayr in Scotland. It meant getting the party organised for a P&O ferry crossing from Larne to Cairnryan in Scotland and, on arrival at the camp, giving everyone strict instructions about where to meet for the return journey.

There were dozens of buses identical to ours making the journey that day and to catch the wrong one would mean catching the wrong ferry and ending up in the wrong port.

As Pots stepped from the bus, there were stern words to him from the driver, “Don’t you miss this bus.” The warning had an ominous tone; had the driver had previous experience of Pots?

5.30 pm came and everyone was on the bus except Pots. The bus driver was philosophical, “I’ve lost him before”. Frantic inquiries at the security lodge of the holiday centre told us that a man in a grey overcoat had been seen getting on the wrong bus. Later a phone call to the port at Stranraer confirmed that Pots had bought a ticket and was going to board a Stena ferry to Belfast.

“What shall I do with him?” asked the helpful girl at the port. “Leave him be,” I said, “at least he will be on the right side of the sea.”

Pots’ boat was delayed and it was 1.30 am before I managed to collect him from Belfast port. The distinctive overcoat and smile came out through the doorway.

“How did he ever end up in our town?” I asked a companion.

He shook his head and smiled. “Maybe he went on a day trip to Dublin.”

Pots’ name had come from his work in the kitchens of hotels in the town. He had always worked for his living, no matter what the work might be.

Some months after I had left the North and moved to Dublin, a telephone call came from my former parish. Pots was going to hospital for minor surgery and there was nothing to worry about, but the call was just to advise me that I was listed as next of kin. It was a humbling moment.

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