DAYS AND NIGHTS

Open Day

We weren't able to take part in London Open House this year, as the church was still a building site, but now that we have the building back we are taking pains to show it off. Those who have been volunteering with the Project were among the first to see the restored interior, as we had a reception as a sort of "thank you" to them. That was also the occasion for the premiere of a series of short films made by local young people, responding to significant places in the neighbourhood, which will be shown on the screens in the foyer of the new extension. We had secured a little Arts Council money, which enabled us to employ a professional filmmaker who was able to work with the teenagers to turn their ideas into reality. They were generally interesting new takes on familiar places, with one that wasn't on our list; one group of youngsters made their film about Grenfell Tower, where they had lost friends. It's not Paddington, but it is only down the road, and very definitely a neighbouring community.

So, having given the volunteers privileged access, we threw a community open day, so anyone who fancied could come in, and lots did. My PDT colleagues did all the work, I just led some guided tours, but it was an excellent day. I was amazed at the numbers, and the variety of people who came; the first people I met were a baronet and his lady wife, and then I talked to an Eritrean mother. The conversations went on all afternoon. Among all the family activities (children making things from twigs) we also had a string quartet, and the delightful sight of a little Anglo-Caribbean boy dancing with the violinist as they played the Csardas will stay with me for a long time. We seem to be managing to continue to connect with a rich cross-section of local people, and the trick will be to continue to do that in the events and programmes that we put on when we're properly up and running (Easter, perhaps).


Infinitum Est...

That could be the motto of the building project (and frankly, most building projects) but actually it's the enigmatic message on the plinth of our War Memorial Calvary. An odd one, because it's not an obvious quotation. The Latin is simple enough, it means what it looks like, "It is not finished" or "It is endless/infinite". But the question is, what is "it"? Sometimes in Latin tags the verb is "understood", you don't need to write it because it's obvious, but that's less often the case with nouns, for obvious reasons. Here though, the subject of the sentence, the noun, is understood, though obviously we're not actually understanding it terribly well, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. The two words we have tell us that the subject is singular ("est" is singular) and neuter (the "um" at the end of "infinitum" is the neuter ending) but whereas in English almost every noun is neuter, it's not the same in Latin, where masculine and feminine nouns are more numerous. So we are hunting for a singular neuter noun, that should be obvious when read on the plinth of a crucifix. Perhaps I am being obtuse, but it's proving difficult. Love, mercy, justice, suffering: all feminine. My ancient "O"-level Latin insistently supplies one neuter noun, "bellum" which means war. Could they have really meant that in 1929 when they erected the Calvary? If so, it was horribly prescient. There is a famous cartoon, beloved of historians, which was published at the time of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which shows Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister saying, "Curious, I seem to hear a child weeping," while behind a pillar is the crying child with the label "1940 class". The French general, Foch, famously described the Armistice as, "Not a peace but a twenty-year cease-fire" but I wouldn't have expected that analysis on an English war memorial.

I was rather expecting that someone would ask me what the inscription meant when we rededicated the Calvary the other day, but no-one did. Curious how words we don't understand become invisible. The whole school trooped out into Rowington Close, and I thanked everyone involved (including generous donors). Then the Acting Archdeacon re-hallowed the Calvary, and I led the Act of Remembrance. After the two minutes' silence, Year 4 presented a very affecting performance. I had been a bit concerned when I heard that two of the children were playing rats, but I should not have worried, as it was perfectly judged. Lucy Foster (our community involvement person for the Project) had achieved something really impressive with them. People were genuinely moved, and the children seemed to get the point.We were amazingly fortunate that we did this in the only dry sunny hour of a dark, wet, blustery morning.     


Paradise

Last night I went to another fundraiser for The Avenues Youth Club, this time at the very fancy pub called Paradise in Kilburn Lane. It's a stylish pub, but I hadn't expected a Ten Commandments board on the upstairs landing (so you can check how many you've broken as you wait to collect your coat from the cloakroom?). It's at the Kensal Green end of Kilburn Lane, and so the name is taken from the G.K.Chesterton poem, "The Rolling English Road" ..."we went to paradise by way of Kensal Green." It attracted a very different crowd from the Joan Bakewell/Margaret Drabble evening, with a selection of DJs performing, and very loud music. The place is a rabbit warren, and seemed to absorb a vast number of (mostly trendy young) people. I had expected more dancing, but you can't predict the dynamics of that, I suppose. People seemed to enjoy themselves, and I hope The Avenues did well out of it. I had a good time, anyway.