An Irish Hooley
At the end of May we staged our first big event as a venue, the annual "Irish Hooley" for Irish Music and Dance in London, an admirable organisation devoted to fostering traditional music and dance among the Irish diaspora here in London. They do two things: they put on a festival in the autumn, which used to be in Camden Town (but is now in Cricklewood), for which the Hooley is a fundraiser, and they organise classes for youngsters in traditional Irish music and dance, year-round. We first made contact with them about four years ago, and it seemed to everyone that we would be a suitable venue for their music classes. Not dance, though (not with our tiled floors and their hard shoes and stamping feet!) So, in the interim, they have kindly invited me to the Hooley each year, where I have had a good time, but felt a bit of a fraud. Finally, this year we thought the building would be finished, and it would be a good test event for us, and so it was booked in. As you already know, everything was not finished, but at least we had the loos and the lift working, which was the basic minimum. PDT organised volunteer stewards, and we observed carefully as Tommy and his hugely professional team of riggers turned the nave into a suitable venue for the Kilfenora Ceili Band and 200 people. They started bringing in the staging at 10am, had it up for afternoon sound checks and rehearsals, and took it all down as soon as the performance finished at 10.30pm, and were all out by midnight.
The Ceili Band were the big draw, but the first part of the evening was a showcase for some of the children learning traditional Irish music, who were really good. Their musicianship was really impressive (there was a particularly good young fiddler) and they were obviously well-taught, but clearly nobody was teaching them how to perform in public, as they all looked rather solemn, and one particularly prominent girl looked deeply miserable. It hadn't occurred to me before, but obviously performance does actually need to be taught, as most people are not natural performers.
The Kilfenora Ceili Band were genuinely impressive, and you can understand why their reputation spreads far beyond County Clare. I also learnt a useless fact, which I hope to deploy at a later date: that the first ceilidh took place not in Ireland, but in London, in 1896 at the Bloomsbury Hall (a venue I'm afraid I don't know, but which Fiona assures me is still there).
Ecclesiologists
A few days later, we hosted a visit from the Ecclesiological Society, for whose journal I have written an article about the project. This event was bedevilled by confusion, as much of the content was due to be the same as we had done for the Victorian Society two weeks before, and many people are members of both. They were quite charming about making the arrangements, but charmingly vague; I suppose I have learnt the lesson to get everything nailed down beforehand. It was good to have the lift working, as we had some less mobile ecclesiologists. Bill Jacob, the former Archdeacon, is a member, and was hugely helpful. giving a talk about the genesis of the project. They were all very appreciative, and said kind things about the new building, and our vision.
Giving Thanks
Two days ago it was finally time for our Solemn Pontifical Mass of Thanksgiving for the completion of restoration and building works (notwithstanding the non-completion of those works in reality). 20 choirboys from one prep school, 31 choirboys and adult singers from another prep school, 30 stems of lilies, the Bishop of Fulham, visiting clergy, visiting servers, and about 150 other people in church, participating in one way or another. The Durufle Missa Cum Jubilo was indeed lovely (though I should have checked how long the Sanctus and Benedictus would be) and so was the Notre Pere. The choirs sang very well. James played superbly.The Bishop, unfortunately, had a summer cold; normally he sings much better than me, and he would have benefitted from a mic in the pulpit (another thing we haven't yet done). Still I shall post the text of his sermon on the website. It was a great and joyful occasion. I was delighted that lots of the conservators who worked on the ceilings and doors were there. There were also friends from my old parish in Reading, and people who have worked on the project for years, as well as local supporters of various sorts.
One of the servers said to me, "Father, we live in liturgical luxury!" (delivered in a tone rather like, "Ambassador you are spoiling us") when learning that the Bishop would say the canon quietly while the choir sang the Sanctus. His excitement at learning that we were also doing the traditional blessing of lilies on St Anthony of Padua's Day was visible. I have to confess to enjoying myself there; I found a translation of a traditional responsory of St Anthony, which, with a bit of editing, could be made to fit to Parry's "Jerusalem", so we sang that at the shrine. Very multi-cultural, I felt.
I say shrine, but it's only a statue on a rather grand plinth. The statue has been in my sitting room for the past two years, and didn't come back into church with the others because the table he used to stand on was needed for other purposes. I gave him a bit of a clean and touch-up, but wasn't sure whether he could go back into church. Recently it dawned on me that the base of a portable font that we have recently replaced at St Peter's might serve as a suitable plinth, and so it has proved. A little gold paint has improved things, and no-one recognised it. It fits very well, and we can continue to venerate the excellent St Anthony, whose magnificent shrine in Padua I have visited very happily.
Yesterday
So yesterday, having had the celebration Mass the previous evening, Fiona and I took ourselves down to deepest Surrey for my aunt's hundredth birthday party. A couple of weeks ago my aunt had phoned me, and said that if we caught the 11.03 out of Waterloo there would be transport waiting at the station to take us to the party, as it had been arranged for some other people coming by train from London. So that's what we did, and found ourselves travelling with Gillian Reynolds, the doyenne of radio critics, and three charming people from The Archers staff at the BBC, we came back with them as well, and very amusing travelling companions they proved. The venue was the reception room of a theatre, which if I remember rightly, my aunt opened some years ago. Lunch involved coronation chicken and baked potatoes, so I was always going to be happy. I was very taken aback to be asked to speak at the end of lunch, but my brother and I managed to say a few things, which were well-received. It really didn't matter much what we said, since the focus was Auntie June's speech, delivered standing, without notes, and perfectly audibly, to a roomful of people on her hundredth birthday. Frankly, everyone was in awe. I'm not sure that my aunt entirely appreciates the BBC's description of her as "the world's most durable soap actor", but she was very gracious about it all. She was most apologetic that she was not going to be able to make it to our wedding next week, but my cousin is making sure she has a rest after all this.
