PINES EXPRESS

A Coat of Wealthy Firs

I spent a couple of days in Bournemouth, to preach and attend a meeting. This was at the invitation of the Rector of Bournemouth, who is developing a Heritage Lottery Fund bid for the town-centre church, St Peter's, a church designed by G E Street, and with a chapel by Ninian Comper (sound familiar?), and it was a very pleasant stay. St Peter's, Bournemouth, is not Street's most adventurous church in terms of plan, but the details are gorgeous. It is mostly of a pale, silver-grey stone, but the clerestory is cream and red brick. The tower is massive, all of this silver stone, square, with big pinnacles on the parapet bearing statues of saints and holding flying buttresses going back to the spire. The spire is a lot like ours, but with more detailed decoration. The excellent Thomas Earp ("Street's hands") was responsible for lots of fine carving, both inside and out, particularly an exuberant pulpit and a fine churchyard cross. I got particularly excited at the lychgate, which has a rather domestic tiled roof and a series of seven black, ogee-shaped roof braces, which just make a wonderful sight.

The congregation on Sunday was quite large, and laughed generously at my jokes. I reminded them that John Betjeman loved both my church and their town and repeated his famous description of Bournemouth as a recumbent old lady "wearing a coat of fine and wealthy firs" (it's in "First and Last Loves") which is just such a good joke that I had longed to repeat it out loud. Read it, and laugh. I also pointed out various specific similarities between our buildings, and the bizarre coincidence that the choir were singing Durufle's "Cum Jubilo" Mass, which had its English premiere here at Mary Mags.

I made rather a lot in my sermon about Victorian Anglo-Catholics going to Bournemouth to die (which is of course unfair, they went when very ill, hoping to recover) which got a laugh, but it's true. They have a chapel dedicated to the memory of Blessed John Keble, who worshipped there in the winter of 1865-6, when it was his wife who was supposed to be ill, but him who died. They have a plaque on the choir stall in which Mr Gladstone sat for his last Communion in church (he was actually whisked off home to Hawarden to die). And of course, my great predecessor, the founder, Fr Richard Temple West, also went to Bournemouth and died, exhausted by his labours. All those high-church folk went to Bournemouth because they knew they could get sound religion there, which wasn't true of some resorts. Of course it's Brighton that was the famous Anglo-Catholic stronghold (what they called "London, Brighton and South Coast Religion") but actually Fr Wagner didn't transform Brighton's churches until much nearer the end of the century; for the mid-Victorians Bournemouth was the place for exotic religion.


Summer Heat

It has been hot in London the last two days, and madness seems to be in the warmth. Yesterday I watched a young man on a bicycle pull a wheelie down Chippenham Road, from the traffic lights almost to the end. Today a young man on a motorbike was also doing wheelies; I worried that he could not see me as he came towards me in Marylands Road, but that turned out to be fine. Then two minutes later he appeared at the Chippenham Road lights and pulled away, doing a wheelie, whereupon he turned round and came back through the lights at red. Quite bizarre.


No Need To Ask Why

I was struck by a BBC reporter in Manchester struggling over the reason why the terrorist should have killed so many young girls; surely there's no need to ask why. First of all, people were enjoying themselves, which puritans hate. Secondly, it was music, which is forbidden by the puritans. Thirdly, it was a shameless female pop singer encouraging young girls to behave in similarly unsuitable ways. We should never underestimate the deep hatred of these puritans for female liberation. In the bomber's mind, these girls were being corrupted, and their behaviour was shameful; they should have been at home learning to cook and clean and know their place. Remember, they shot Malala for getting an education (and she's actually pretty conservative). Remember the Beslan siege. They aren't sentimental about children like us, which they no doubt regard as one of our weaknesses. So, not difficult to understand. Entirely of a piece with their misogynist ideology.