NOTHING LIKE A DAME

Nothing Like a Dame 

One of the more unusual requirements of life as a parish priest, to be photographed alongside Dame Barbara Windsor, with a Chelsea Pensioner and a train. Strictly speaking it was nothing to do with me, but by a circuitous route I got a call from a charming lady from the British Legion in Devon, who was desperate to have some sort of religious act to preface the launch of a drive for more poppy day collectors, and by chance I could be available at 36 hours’ notice and so agreed to help out. So I invented a liturgy, printed it out, and turned up in fancy dress. I had been told that they had a Chelsea Pensioner coming, as well as Royal British Legion standard bearers, so I knew it would be a uniform occasion. I have no white gauntlets or service beret, but managed an MA hood and preaching bands. Dame Barbara wore the largest, glitteriest, poppy I’ve ever seen. She was charming and devout. Everybody was muttering about how good she looks for 79. I was struck by how very small she is, even on four inch heels. It was incredibly difficult not to gaze down at her cleavage, and I was left thinking how much she must have exploited that during her career, because it unquestionably puts her at an advantage (with men, at any rate).

Spare Vicar

In fact my presence was quite redundant, because Great Western Railway has a chaplain, who came along (which was no surprise since he is, quite logically, based at Paddington Station). He very graciously agreed to take part in what I’d concocted, and I think we got on well. But I had no idea he even existed! Nor had my colleague, the Vicar of Paddington, in whose parish the station actually lies. He’s paid by the Railway Mission, of which I’d never heard either. But isn’t it absurd that we should not know about him at all! We had a diocesan study day about chaplaincy a few months ago, but I don’t think anyone mentioned the point that if chaplains aren’t Anglican then there’s no reason why you would know they were there. As we’re the Established Church we tend to assume that requests for chaplaincy will come in our direction, but if an institution has other links it will of course look there (as a Roman Catholic school or hospital will obviously do) and then there are a few long-established industrial chaplaincies which exist quite outside Anglican structures, but I had never heard of the Railway Mission. I have to say, I’m very glad the chaplain’s there, as he is obviously good at the job, and it’s good to know that there’s someone with a real knowledge of the industry who’s there to pick up the pieces.

Not Actually What He Said

After standing around the very evocative GWR war memorial (marvellous sculpture by Charles Sargeant Jagger) to pray, everyone decamped to stand in front of the locomotive power car named after Harry Patch, the last of the Tommies, for publicity photos. This power car is splendidly decked out in computer-printed vinyl with poppies and silhouettes of soldiers, and the famous words of Lawrence Binyon that we say each Remembrance Sunday. The chaplain and I took malicious glee in pointing out to the GWR Area Manager that they’d got the Binyon wrong, though. The locomotive says, “They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old…” but Binyon wrote, “They shall grow not old”. It’s poetry, you see… The general verdict was some computer auto-correct had been at work.

Making Waves

In the really hot weather this summer a magnificent wave of tarmac began to break over the kerb by the bus stop outside Betfred on the Harrow Road. I watched it grow day by day, and was slightly disappointed when I saw that it had been shaved off one day recently. This, as any urban cyclist will tell you, is not an isolated phenomenon. If there is a large pothole contractors will try to fill it with tarmac. However, tarmac does not set solid at all quickly (and in fact flexibility is meant to be a permanent characteristic) and so traffic is allowed on it before it has properly set. This matters most when you have buses standing on the tarmac, as their extreme weight simply squeezes it up. Obviously, the buses are probably responsible for the pothole in the first place. The result is the strange wrinkled surface you get at the side of many major routes in London. It’s another reason we cyclists keep out of the gutter. 

Grammar Schools

No, Mrs May, grammar schools are not the answer. I say this as an old grammar school boy, immensely grateful for the education I received, but even by my day, in the 1970s, they were ceasing to be engines of social mobility, as middle-class children were coached for the 11-plus. Nowadays the educational arms race has spiralled out of control, so tutors are the norm, and in many areas a substantial proportion of grammar school places are taken by children from independent prep schools. In contemporary conditions they won’t produce the social mobility you want, Mrs May. If you heard Justine Greening interviewed on the Today programme you will have been struck by how resolutely she evaded the question about the evidence base for doing this. I suspect that is because Ms Greening is aware of the evidence, which is absolutely clear, that if raising educational standards is what you want, then a truly comprehensive system is the answer. I know this offends what some people regard as “common sense”, but it’s true. There is an absolute international consensus that a truly comprehensive school system always produces the best results for all pupils. You can observe the results from the international comparisons, where countries like Finland and Sweden consistently do best. It is, of course, true that Sweden and Finland are also much less unequal societies than the UK, and that has all sorts of effects, not least on how acceptable comprehensive schools are to the privileged. The trouble is that we live in a society where privilege is entrenched by education, and grammar schools are part of that, because they cater to a desire to keep your children insulated from “the wrong sort”. So, no, opposition to grammar schools is not ideological (though I can’t help feeling, on reflection, that equality of opportunity is a pretty uncontentious ideology to follow) but on the evidence. They don’t work.