Contractors
Some of us remember when local authorities and other public bodies employed their own workforce to do repairs and maintenance, and indeed work in general. Nowadays all that is contracted out, and private contractors do the work. I remember the justification for the change was that private contractors would be more efficient, having to compete for contracts. In practice, local authorities tend to award contracts for several years at a time, and so contractors often get complacent. They know they are unlikely to have any trouble from the council while they are doing its work, and that their level of performance won't actually matter until their contract comes up for renewal.
This explains why F.M.Conway, Westminster's roads contractor, have a compound occupying road space on Bourne Terrace that has been there for months while no work actually takes place. The compound, which is clearly storing materials, is placed on double yellow lines a few yards in from the junction with the Harrow Road, which makes turning into Bourne Terrace much more difficult than necessary, a situation which is exacerbated by some drivers' fondness for turning off the Harrow Road and stopping there. Complaints from borough councillors seem to have made no difference.
The complacency of contractors is demonstrated by the alacrity with which they get their vans repainted to proclaim that they are working for the council. They wouldn't do it if they were afraid of losing their contact. As I write this I am looking at a Morgan Sindall van, which is also branded City of Westminster, and is parked on a yellow line in Chippenham Road in the middle of the day, a place where it has been parked continuously for more than a week. One day last week I counted four Morgan Sindall vehicles illegally parked at various spots within yards of the crossroads of Elgin Avenue and Chippenham Road. Of course contractors sometimes need to park in abnormal places when doing emergency works, but that is not what is happening here; the drivers know that Westminster's traffic wardens will not bother them, and so they are completely contemptuous of parking regulations, parking where it is convenient to them.
Shameless
I have to say that I have been surprised by public exhibitions of shamelessness recently. A few days ago, walking home from St Peter's, I was passing a set of big black bins, as an employee emerged from business premises carrying large bags of rubbish. He could see me, but was entirely blatant about heaving these bags of rubbish into the household rubbish bin. He was wearing uniform, so I could hardly mistake which business he had come from even if I had not seen him come out of the door, and it was obviously commercial rubbish.
Meanwhile, a couple of hundred yards away, on Shirland Road, I was walking along one teatime when a man emerged from some flats. he was an upright gent in his seventies, with a tweed cap and a stick, and he proceeded to throw a plastic bag of rubbish at the base of a tree. He did this with no subterfuge or embarrassment; in fact the bag flew past me across the pavement, but he didn't turn a hair. I suppose I was the more shocked because he looked like the sort of person who might be vociferous in complaining about such anti-social behaviour, but instead was completely shameless.
This is the more vexing because at St Peter's we are constantly accused of being responsible for bags of rubbish against the trunks of trees. There are quite often bags left along the pavements near the corner, and people (particularly from the flats next door) assume that our hall users are the ones who do it, when in fact they are not. Our regular users know the rules and know that they are to take their rubbish away. In fact they produce little rubbish anyway. So now I am laminating signs to put up on trees asking people not to dump rubbish, which I expect will have as little effect as the ones I put up urging people not to feed the pigeons.
Monday, 6 January 2020
Monday, 30 December 2019
CULTURE AT CHRISTMAS
Another mark of age is the discovery that an event that you think of as quite recent actually occurred thirty-five years ago. This happened to me on Saturday when I visited the current Stubbs exhibition, "George Stubbs: all done from nature", which announced itself as the first major show of the artist's works for thirty-five years. "Surely not," I said, "I went to the last one, at the Tate, and the catalogue is in the sitting room. It wasn't that long ago." So I checked from the catalogue when we got home; the last Stubbs show was indeed at the Tate in 1984 and in Yale in 1985. You may not have noticed the current show, because it is at MK Gallery, the municipal art gallery in Milton Keynes, but make no mistake about it, this is a serious show, put on in collaboration with the Mauritshuis in The Hague, where it moves in a month's time. Sadly, the MK Gallery doesn't seem to have a publicity budget, so the gallery was virtually empty when we went, for a show that in London would be attracting thousands. It's ridiculous, it's only half an hour from Euston on the train (and admittedly a stiff walk up Midsummer Boulevard once you get there) and it's a brilliant show. Go while you can! They've even got the skeleton of Eclipse, the first great racehorse, which I think used to be in the horseracing museum in Newmarket, and which belongs to the Royal Veterinary College. Stubbs painted Eclipse at least twice and as they are showing a lot of the material from his "The Anatomy of the Horse" it is particularly appropriate to have the skeleton in the show. I still remember the impression that the Tate show made on me all those years ago, a great sense of wellbeing flowing from those serene embodiments of Whig Britain, and this show did much the same on Saturday. Stubbs is still a really top-notch artist, persistently undervalued because he painted so many dogs and horses, but he's so exciting with his bold plain backgrounds and radical compositions. Those are classical friezes there. And how on earth does he get aerial perspective while painting in enamels, for goodness' sake? His people are usually convincing portraits, too, but I suspect he found animals rather better company than the Whig landowners he was working for. In the end, a lot of those pictures are just absolutely ravishing, and it will enhance your life to spend a couple of hours looking at them.
Milton Keynes, on the other hand, is not so life-enhancing. It's a demonstration of how far we have come that this place, which seemed so progressive and futuristic in the 1980s now seems like a dinosaur. I remember passing through it by various different routes in the years when I used to take the bus from Oxford to Cambridge (and vice-versa); the bus company seemed not to have settled on the best route, and so you saw different bits of Beds and Bucks each time, but I remember pausing outside Milton Keynes Central more than once. Now the whole place seems hopelessly dated and very uncongenial, totally lacking a human scale, and devoted entirely to the motor car. I would have supposed that it would be a good place for cycling, being flat and spacious, but there was no evidence of that when we were there.
"Rembrandt's Light" at Dulwich was the other recent show. Another excellent piece of work, brilliant curatorship, making something quite special out of quite a small show. The highlight is the Queen's "Christ and Mary Magdalene", which is shown on its own under changing light conditions. The picture of course depicts dawn, and so they bring the lights up to replicate dawn. You see a tremendous amount that way, not least because the lights end up being brighter than you would normally have in a gallery, and so you see things you wouldn't otherwise notice. It's one of my favourite pictures anyway, but I loved that. My friend John painted an "hommage" to it, in the style of Van Gogh, which now hangs in our Sacristy at Mary Mags, as his thank you to us for giving him a show.
Our other Christmas treat was "La Traviata" at Covent Garden, beautiful. Simon Keenlyside on good voice as Germont, and two young Armenians as Alfredo and Violetta. Terrific music, beautifully played, and a great staging (by Richard Eyre, twenty-five years old). I reminisced about seeing the Zeffirelli film, with Placido Domingo as Alfredo, but I knew that was back in the eighties, 1982, as it turns out. We treated ourselves to dinner in the opera house restaurant, and I was amused to see that the menu is ten pounds more for the opera than it is for the ballet. Of course they will be able to justify it, but I rather suppose it's just more expensive because everything connected with opera is routinely more expensive.
Milton Keynes, on the other hand, is not so life-enhancing. It's a demonstration of how far we have come that this place, which seemed so progressive and futuristic in the 1980s now seems like a dinosaur. I remember passing through it by various different routes in the years when I used to take the bus from Oxford to Cambridge (and vice-versa); the bus company seemed not to have settled on the best route, and so you saw different bits of Beds and Bucks each time, but I remember pausing outside Milton Keynes Central more than once. Now the whole place seems hopelessly dated and very uncongenial, totally lacking a human scale, and devoted entirely to the motor car. I would have supposed that it would be a good place for cycling, being flat and spacious, but there was no evidence of that when we were there.
"Rembrandt's Light" at Dulwich was the other recent show. Another excellent piece of work, brilliant curatorship, making something quite special out of quite a small show. The highlight is the Queen's "Christ and Mary Magdalene", which is shown on its own under changing light conditions. The picture of course depicts dawn, and so they bring the lights up to replicate dawn. You see a tremendous amount that way, not least because the lights end up being brighter than you would normally have in a gallery, and so you see things you wouldn't otherwise notice. It's one of my favourite pictures anyway, but I loved that. My friend John painted an "hommage" to it, in the style of Van Gogh, which now hangs in our Sacristy at Mary Mags, as his thank you to us for giving him a show.
Our other Christmas treat was "La Traviata" at Covent Garden, beautiful. Simon Keenlyside on good voice as Germont, and two young Armenians as Alfredo and Violetta. Terrific music, beautifully played, and a great staging (by Richard Eyre, twenty-five years old). I reminisced about seeing the Zeffirelli film, with Placido Domingo as Alfredo, but I knew that was back in the eighties, 1982, as it turns out. We treated ourselves to dinner in the opera house restaurant, and I was amused to see that the menu is ten pounds more for the opera than it is for the ballet. Of course they will be able to justify it, but I rather suppose it's just more expensive because everything connected with opera is routinely more expensive.
Friday, 27 December 2019
I GROW OLD...
Obviously, one of the signs of getting older is that people stand up to give you a seat on the tube, but I am still very surprised when a young woman offers me her seat. Just possibly wearing the collar may have something to do with it as well, but that doesn't seem very likely in contemporary London.
More alarming though, is to discover that your contemporaries are now occupying great offices in the land which are positions of eminence and seniority. This is very concerning when you have always believed, as I have done, that these are positions for grown-ups, who are a distinct species, quite different from you. So, as you can imagine, it was a bit disconcerting to discover that Bishop Stephen Cottrell (the current Bishop of Chelmsford) has been chosen to be the next Archbishop of York, because I knew Stephen very well when we trained together at St Stephen's House. He is two or three years older than me, and was in his final year when I started at Staggers, and he was my group leader. Groups were a feature of institutions in the 1980s; we were all organised into groups across the years, with a tutor vaguely supervising us, and we were expected to socialise and support each other. Mostly, though, it was a way of ensuring that certain domestic tasks got carried out (like serving dinner). You got to know your group pretty well. Your group leader could make your life less than pleasant. Stephen was my bishop for a while in Reading, having been appointed to the post instead of the unfortunate Fr Jeffrey John, when the irony was that their views and theological approach were virtually the same, but Stephen was judged acceptable because he is married with children, while Jeffrey was not because he is a gay man in a (celibate) relationship. From Reading Stephen was advanced to the diocese of Chelmsford, which is his (and my) home diocese, for he grew up in Southend, or rather Anglo-Catholic Leigh-on-Sea (which is posher than Southend). I am slightly surprised that Stephen should be put in charge of the Northern Province, as he has spent almost the whole of his working life in the south-east of England, and has always been rather the professional Londoner, speaking a sort of Estuary English that comes very naturally to him. To be fair, he was diocesan missioner in Wakefield for a while (a diocese which no longer exists), but that's his only contact with the north. I have no doubt that he has been an effective Bishop of Chelmsford, and clearly the Archbishop of Canterbury sees him as a suitable collaborator for York, but you would have expected someone with more experience of the north (especially after Archbishop Sentamu, who is also pretty un-northern). It is amusingly ironic that a life-long Socialist like Stephen should be sent to York at exactly the time that vast swathes of the north turn Tory.
For me, the Archbishop of York should be someone older than me, whom I can respect. Still more does this apply to the Governor of the Bank of England, and I exclaimed with surprise on the tube the other day when I realised from the report in the standard that the Andrew Bailey who has been appointed the next Governor was the same Andrew Bailey whom I knew at university. I remember he was jolly bright, and he was certainly the sort of person who would have gone to work there, but it still came as a jolting surprise, mainly in realising how ancient I must have become. I remember bumping into Andrew in Florence in the summer of 1981, when we were both doing the cultural thing, thanks to cheap student rail fares, but we weren't ever particularly close. We both read History; he was at Queen's, I was at Emma, and he was in the Labour Club while I was in CUCA, but we moved in similar political circles. As I recall, we had common enemies, a coterie of "moderates" in both organisations who hung around together and shared backgrounds of similar wealth and privilege (among them, amusingly, Sir Bernard Jenkin, who is now my brother's MP). We provincial grammar school products gravitated together.
More alarming though, is to discover that your contemporaries are now occupying great offices in the land which are positions of eminence and seniority. This is very concerning when you have always believed, as I have done, that these are positions for grown-ups, who are a distinct species, quite different from you. So, as you can imagine, it was a bit disconcerting to discover that Bishop Stephen Cottrell (the current Bishop of Chelmsford) has been chosen to be the next Archbishop of York, because I knew Stephen very well when we trained together at St Stephen's House. He is two or three years older than me, and was in his final year when I started at Staggers, and he was my group leader. Groups were a feature of institutions in the 1980s; we were all organised into groups across the years, with a tutor vaguely supervising us, and we were expected to socialise and support each other. Mostly, though, it was a way of ensuring that certain domestic tasks got carried out (like serving dinner). You got to know your group pretty well. Your group leader could make your life less than pleasant. Stephen was my bishop for a while in Reading, having been appointed to the post instead of the unfortunate Fr Jeffrey John, when the irony was that their views and theological approach were virtually the same, but Stephen was judged acceptable because he is married with children, while Jeffrey was not because he is a gay man in a (celibate) relationship. From Reading Stephen was advanced to the diocese of Chelmsford, which is his (and my) home diocese, for he grew up in Southend, or rather Anglo-Catholic Leigh-on-Sea (which is posher than Southend). I am slightly surprised that Stephen should be put in charge of the Northern Province, as he has spent almost the whole of his working life in the south-east of England, and has always been rather the professional Londoner, speaking a sort of Estuary English that comes very naturally to him. To be fair, he was diocesan missioner in Wakefield for a while (a diocese which no longer exists), but that's his only contact with the north. I have no doubt that he has been an effective Bishop of Chelmsford, and clearly the Archbishop of Canterbury sees him as a suitable collaborator for York, but you would have expected someone with more experience of the north (especially after Archbishop Sentamu, who is also pretty un-northern). It is amusingly ironic that a life-long Socialist like Stephen should be sent to York at exactly the time that vast swathes of the north turn Tory.
For me, the Archbishop of York should be someone older than me, whom I can respect. Still more does this apply to the Governor of the Bank of England, and I exclaimed with surprise on the tube the other day when I realised from the report in the standard that the Andrew Bailey who has been appointed the next Governor was the same Andrew Bailey whom I knew at university. I remember he was jolly bright, and he was certainly the sort of person who would have gone to work there, but it still came as a jolting surprise, mainly in realising how ancient I must have become. I remember bumping into Andrew in Florence in the summer of 1981, when we were both doing the cultural thing, thanks to cheap student rail fares, but we weren't ever particularly close. We both read History; he was at Queen's, I was at Emma, and he was in the Labour Club while I was in CUCA, but we moved in similar political circles. As I recall, we had common enemies, a coterie of "moderates" in both organisations who hung around together and shared backgrounds of similar wealth and privilege (among them, amusingly, Sir Bernard Jenkin, who is now my brother's MP). We provincial grammar school products gravitated together.
Thursday, 12 December 2019
GUNS AND HOUSES
It was horrible to learn of a shooting on Walterton Road last week, on the edge of the parish. A young man remains in hospital, critically injured, after being shot in the neck by someone passing, apparently on a moped at 8.30 in the evening. Details remain sketchy, and contradictory, as some people thought a car was involved, and either two shots, or seven were mentioned. A member of the congregation who lives on the street had heard and seen nothing unusual. The previous evening we had been told by the local police that our silly youths on the Estate have decided that they want to have their own gang, instead of being disputed territory between the Harrow Road Boys, the Lisson Green Men, and whatever they are called on the Mozart Estate (the virtuosi perhaps?) and so they have taken to taunting other postcode dwellers on social media. The result of these taunts apparently was that ten of the Lisson Green "Men" turned up at the youth club on the Amberley Estate with machetes. We really do not need this. Of course we can reassure people that you are unlikely to have any problem if you are not a young black male, but young black men are actually human beings too, and part of the community.
Bizarrely the line that the Evening Standard chose to take on the shooting was that this was a nice street in prosperous Maida Vale, where "Regency townhouses sell for £3 million". This is laughably misleading. First they need a history lesson; nothing on Walterton Road dates back to the Regency (1811-1820). This area was developed after 1870. And when I looked on Zoopla, the average price of a house was £1.3 million, but that was only an estimate because so few houses are actually sold; almost all the houses are divided into flats, and almost all the property is social housing. Most of the property belongs to our local housing association, WECH (Walterton & Elgin Community Homes, the clue is in the acronym) which is a remarkable thing, a well-run housing association, run for the benefit of the residents. Many of those in Walterton Road are Bangladeshi families, as the older Caribbean families are gradually moving out, but the street is pretty diverse; it was one of the great centres of squatting back in the 1970s, and several of The Clash lived there before they achieved success.
WECH was set up in the wake of the "Homes for Votes" scandal, the notorious episode of gerrymandering by Dame Shirley (later Lady) Porter, when as Leader of Westminster City Council in the 1980s, she moved council tenants out of marginal wards and sold off those properties. Many of those moved out were transferred into the Harrow Road and Westbourne Wards, which were regarded as hopeless, and some homeless people were even housed in two semi-derelict blocks of flats on Elgin Avenue which were full of crumbling asbestos (a fact well-known to council officers). The Thatcher government had created mechanisms to encourage housing associations, and tenant buyouts, but Lady Porter was much discomfited when the council tenants in Elgin Avenue and Walterton Road (and streets round about) organised themselves to acquire the property. So WECH was born, and it has remained tenant-controlled and has worked hard to improve housing conditions (the asbestos-riddled flats were demolished). Lady Porter was found to have acted illegally and ordered to pay a surcharge of over £42 million, but the council later accepted a settlement of £12 million, on the basis that legal action would not be cost-effective. She fled to Israel.
In my experience most housing associations are pretty unresponsive to their tenants' problems, and are in fact more difficult to put pressure on than council housing departments (which at least respond to complaints from councillors) as they are not actually accountable to anyone. They pose as community-focussed organisations, but are in fact raising money by mortgaging their properties and playing the US property market. Anyone involved with community issues in this part of London will tell you horror stories about Genesis and Notting Hill, which have now merged (into an organisation whose two computer systems are incompatible). but they seem to be typical. Sadly, Genesis began life as the Paddington Churches' Housing Association, but the churches gradually lost interest, and the management manipulated the rules to take control from them, with the result that an organisation that had been set up on Christian principles (in the wake of Rachman) turned into an entirely secular and indeed entirely godless company, which asset-stripped former Church property. Both St Peter's and Emmanuel churches are built into blocks of Genesis flats, which gives us endless troubles, as witness the spectacular damp here in St Peter's House, which Notting Hill/Genesis are doing nothing about, as our cupboards fill with mould, and the paint drops off the corridor walls. I'm just glad I don't have to live there, as some of my predecessors did.
Bizarrely the line that the Evening Standard chose to take on the shooting was that this was a nice street in prosperous Maida Vale, where "Regency townhouses sell for £3 million". This is laughably misleading. First they need a history lesson; nothing on Walterton Road dates back to the Regency (1811-1820). This area was developed after 1870. And when I looked on Zoopla, the average price of a house was £1.3 million, but that was only an estimate because so few houses are actually sold; almost all the houses are divided into flats, and almost all the property is social housing. Most of the property belongs to our local housing association, WECH (Walterton & Elgin Community Homes, the clue is in the acronym) which is a remarkable thing, a well-run housing association, run for the benefit of the residents. Many of those in Walterton Road are Bangladeshi families, as the older Caribbean families are gradually moving out, but the street is pretty diverse; it was one of the great centres of squatting back in the 1970s, and several of The Clash lived there before they achieved success.
WECH was set up in the wake of the "Homes for Votes" scandal, the notorious episode of gerrymandering by Dame Shirley (later Lady) Porter, when as Leader of Westminster City Council in the 1980s, she moved council tenants out of marginal wards and sold off those properties. Many of those moved out were transferred into the Harrow Road and Westbourne Wards, which were regarded as hopeless, and some homeless people were even housed in two semi-derelict blocks of flats on Elgin Avenue which were full of crumbling asbestos (a fact well-known to council officers). The Thatcher government had created mechanisms to encourage housing associations, and tenant buyouts, but Lady Porter was much discomfited when the council tenants in Elgin Avenue and Walterton Road (and streets round about) organised themselves to acquire the property. So WECH was born, and it has remained tenant-controlled and has worked hard to improve housing conditions (the asbestos-riddled flats were demolished). Lady Porter was found to have acted illegally and ordered to pay a surcharge of over £42 million, but the council later accepted a settlement of £12 million, on the basis that legal action would not be cost-effective. She fled to Israel.
In my experience most housing associations are pretty unresponsive to their tenants' problems, and are in fact more difficult to put pressure on than council housing departments (which at least respond to complaints from councillors) as they are not actually accountable to anyone. They pose as community-focussed organisations, but are in fact raising money by mortgaging their properties and playing the US property market. Anyone involved with community issues in this part of London will tell you horror stories about Genesis and Notting Hill, which have now merged (into an organisation whose two computer systems are incompatible). but they seem to be typical. Sadly, Genesis began life as the Paddington Churches' Housing Association, but the churches gradually lost interest, and the management manipulated the rules to take control from them, with the result that an organisation that had been set up on Christian principles (in the wake of Rachman) turned into an entirely secular and indeed entirely godless company, which asset-stripped former Church property. Both St Peter's and Emmanuel churches are built into blocks of Genesis flats, which gives us endless troubles, as witness the spectacular damp here in St Peter's House, which Notting Hill/Genesis are doing nothing about, as our cupboards fill with mould, and the paint drops off the corridor walls. I'm just glad I don't have to live there, as some of my predecessors did.
Friday, 15 November 2019
THE DAYS GO QUICKLY
It's been a heavy fortnight. We hosted the AGM of the Ecclesiastical Architects' and Surveyors' Association, which happens alongside a joint awards ceremony with the National Churches Trust, and I had to speak to them, with Biba Dow, our architect, about the Project. We were also shortlisted for the Presidents' Award, which we didn't get. The winner was St Augustine's Priory Church, in Fulham Palace Road, which was a worthy winner. The field was a lot stronger than last year, though I do think it is hard to judge new work inside old buildings against whole new buildings. Last year I thought the runner-up, a lovely brand new church in Scotland, which was the only actual new building, should have won. This year there were beautiful refurbishments, like the winner and St Andrew's, Holborn, as well as whole new buildings, like the runner-up, in Bethnal Green, and ourselves, all of high quality, so I wasn't surprised no to win (though obviously I thought we should have done). The logistics of this event were very complex, involving keeping the people just coming for the awards ceremony separate from the EASA members' AGM, and feeding them first, so that EASA members could look at the shortlisted projects in their lunch break, along with the Duke of Gloucester and Prince Nicholas von Preussen, the chief judges. Obviously, HRH had to have special provision as well. All went off very smoothly, (though the royal protection officers grumbled about the size of lunch) and people were very kind about our talk. NCT still like us, which is very good.
The next day we had the boys of Sussex House School rehearsing for their processions at the Requiem, which is always a bit of a circus. This year, they have a new music master, much younger and less scary than his predecessor, so some of the dynamics were different. Then the excellent Sheila, who arranges flowers and cleans, had to be let into the church (and let out again) late at night to prepare for the Requiem. I successfully unset and reset alarms, and Sheila made wonderful, huge flower arrangements. The Requiem is always a little easier when All Souls' Day falls on a Saturday, as it did this time, because you can devote the day to preparations, and also we do it at 6pm, rather than the normal 7.30pm, and so clearing up afterwards is much less traumatic. They sang Durufle, which is lovely, and I was joined by the Vicar of St Augustine's, Kilburn, who brought a competent thurifer with him. All very good. The sanctus and benedictus of this setting work tremendously well with the canon of the Mass in the (deeply old-fashioned, but authentic) way we do it. The only down-side of Saturday is that fewer of the Sussex House families turn up than they would on a weekday. Still, it was a big congregation, and a superb act of worship. Also our new heating worked wonderfully well.
Then on the Sunday, after our own worship, we went along to All Saints, Margaret Street, for Fr Alan Moses's final service, Solemn Evensong and Benediction. Fr Alan has been there a long time, and has always been a good friend to St Mary Mags, looking after our huge monstrance when there was nowhere secure to store it here (and kindly restoring the lunette). There was a real sense of reverence and joy about the worship, although I was sorry not to be able to hear much of the sermon, seated at the back of the nave. The preacher was Bishop Allen Shin, who is suffragan bishop of New York, and was attached to All Saints twenty years ago. He was Chaplain of Keble when I first came here, so he presented me when I was licensed. Fr George Bush, seated at the side, but mush closer to the pulpit, heard it all, and said I didn't miss much. I thought it was a problem with the sound system, but old members of All Saints said they could never understand what he said when he was a regular preacher.
On the Monday morning after that, it was straight off to France for the Two Cities Area Clergy Conference, held at Merville, near Lille, in what had been the seminary of the Archdiocese of Lille, a vast, echoing brick pile of the 1920s. The rather handsome chapel had clearly been stripped of all decoration in the reforms, and there were a couple of mosaics in corridors just to tantalize you with how it might have been, but it suited our gathering, seventy clergy from the cities of London and Westminster. It was a surprisingly enjoyable few days with excellent input from Malcolm Guite, poet and Chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge.
Straight off the Eurostar I put on smart clothes and mingled with donors at an Emmanuel College drinks party in St Mary Mags. I arrived just in time to give a little talk about the Project, which the Master, Dame Fiona Reynolds (who used to run the National Trust) was very kind about. The lead up to this had been bizarre, as the Emma development office had arranged the event with our caterers without realising that it was my church, and then didn't invite me. I sent in a donation I had long promised, but the penny didn't drop until Robert Folkes emailed them to point it out. I was in France when the development office finally emailed me to invite me along, so I thought I should make the effort. There were a couple of old faces I knew, and other people were kind about our works.
This week we hosted a visit from the Ancient Monuments Society, who had to be divided into three groups, so many of them were there, so Oliver Caroe (our conservation architect) and I had to do our tours three times over, as well as an introductory double-act. This was good fun, but it would have been more enjoyable had it not been arranged for the same day as the Grand Junction Launch Party, which meant that preparations for that were going on around us. Still, AMS said they wanted to see the church at work, and they certainly did.
The Launch Party was well-attended, and everyone enjoyed themselves. Blondel Cluff CBE spoke for the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and we were very impressed with her (except that she continually referred to us as "St Mary's"). Bill Jacob did the thanks, and I just welcomed everyone and reminded them how far we had come. The community team had produced a nice little 3 minute film about the community projects. The Area Dean, Fr Paul Thomas, spoke for the Diocese, and the excellent Graham King spoke for Westminster City Council. At least some of the major donors were there, which was good, along with lots of our volunteers. We had a singer and a poet perform, before an interval at which most people left, which was a shame, as we then had a hip-hop artist called Kitch, who was quite remarkable, as he had a terrible stammer when speaking, but became entirely articulate when rapping. The last band were just a bit weird for my taste. A fair amount was drunk, and lots of the people involved with the Project were there and were able to celebrate together, which was nice. One of the designers presented me with two little tiles, uniform with our signage, of my initials, which was sweet.
In the meantime, I have had two PCC meetings, a management board meeting, First Communion preparation and anxious discussions with a school head about the mental health of a member of staff. Now I've got a funeral to arrange.
The next day we had the boys of Sussex House School rehearsing for their processions at the Requiem, which is always a bit of a circus. This year, they have a new music master, much younger and less scary than his predecessor, so some of the dynamics were different. Then the excellent Sheila, who arranges flowers and cleans, had to be let into the church (and let out again) late at night to prepare for the Requiem. I successfully unset and reset alarms, and Sheila made wonderful, huge flower arrangements. The Requiem is always a little easier when All Souls' Day falls on a Saturday, as it did this time, because you can devote the day to preparations, and also we do it at 6pm, rather than the normal 7.30pm, and so clearing up afterwards is much less traumatic. They sang Durufle, which is lovely, and I was joined by the Vicar of St Augustine's, Kilburn, who brought a competent thurifer with him. All very good. The sanctus and benedictus of this setting work tremendously well with the canon of the Mass in the (deeply old-fashioned, but authentic) way we do it. The only down-side of Saturday is that fewer of the Sussex House families turn up than they would on a weekday. Still, it was a big congregation, and a superb act of worship. Also our new heating worked wonderfully well.
Then on the Sunday, after our own worship, we went along to All Saints, Margaret Street, for Fr Alan Moses's final service, Solemn Evensong and Benediction. Fr Alan has been there a long time, and has always been a good friend to St Mary Mags, looking after our huge monstrance when there was nowhere secure to store it here (and kindly restoring the lunette). There was a real sense of reverence and joy about the worship, although I was sorry not to be able to hear much of the sermon, seated at the back of the nave. The preacher was Bishop Allen Shin, who is suffragan bishop of New York, and was attached to All Saints twenty years ago. He was Chaplain of Keble when I first came here, so he presented me when I was licensed. Fr George Bush, seated at the side, but mush closer to the pulpit, heard it all, and said I didn't miss much. I thought it was a problem with the sound system, but old members of All Saints said they could never understand what he said when he was a regular preacher.
On the Monday morning after that, it was straight off to France for the Two Cities Area Clergy Conference, held at Merville, near Lille, in what had been the seminary of the Archdiocese of Lille, a vast, echoing brick pile of the 1920s. The rather handsome chapel had clearly been stripped of all decoration in the reforms, and there were a couple of mosaics in corridors just to tantalize you with how it might have been, but it suited our gathering, seventy clergy from the cities of London and Westminster. It was a surprisingly enjoyable few days with excellent input from Malcolm Guite, poet and Chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge.
Straight off the Eurostar I put on smart clothes and mingled with donors at an Emmanuel College drinks party in St Mary Mags. I arrived just in time to give a little talk about the Project, which the Master, Dame Fiona Reynolds (who used to run the National Trust) was very kind about. The lead up to this had been bizarre, as the Emma development office had arranged the event with our caterers without realising that it was my church, and then didn't invite me. I sent in a donation I had long promised, but the penny didn't drop until Robert Folkes emailed them to point it out. I was in France when the development office finally emailed me to invite me along, so I thought I should make the effort. There were a couple of old faces I knew, and other people were kind about our works.
This week we hosted a visit from the Ancient Monuments Society, who had to be divided into three groups, so many of them were there, so Oliver Caroe (our conservation architect) and I had to do our tours three times over, as well as an introductory double-act. This was good fun, but it would have been more enjoyable had it not been arranged for the same day as the Grand Junction Launch Party, which meant that preparations for that were going on around us. Still, AMS said they wanted to see the church at work, and they certainly did.
The Launch Party was well-attended, and everyone enjoyed themselves. Blondel Cluff CBE spoke for the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and we were very impressed with her (except that she continually referred to us as "St Mary's"). Bill Jacob did the thanks, and I just welcomed everyone and reminded them how far we had come. The community team had produced a nice little 3 minute film about the community projects. The Area Dean, Fr Paul Thomas, spoke for the Diocese, and the excellent Graham King spoke for Westminster City Council. At least some of the major donors were there, which was good, along with lots of our volunteers. We had a singer and a poet perform, before an interval at which most people left, which was a shame, as we then had a hip-hop artist called Kitch, who was quite remarkable, as he had a terrible stammer when speaking, but became entirely articulate when rapping. The last band were just a bit weird for my taste. A fair amount was drunk, and lots of the people involved with the Project were there and were able to celebrate together, which was nice. One of the designers presented me with two little tiles, uniform with our signage, of my initials, which was sweet.
In the meantime, I have had two PCC meetings, a management board meeting, First Communion preparation and anxious discussions with a school head about the mental health of a member of staff. Now I've got a funeral to arrange.
Wednesday, 30 October 2019
OF LIFE AND DEATH
Yesterday the carcass of a dead Canada goose was lumped on the towpath, bedraggled and broken. A sad sight. I can only suppose a fox killed it, but it had clearly been in the water and been fished out. Rather odd.
A new goose has appeared, just a little larger than a Canada goose, and very similar, but with a white neck,white markings on the head, and orange bill and legs. I suspect it is a cross between a Canada goose and a white farm goose; but how has this happened? And how did it end up on our canal?
Today a colleague told of a firm of undertakers who didn't pay him, saying after the funeral, "Oh, we thought it was up to you to sort that out." No! It certainly isn't. The undertaker is meant to "undertake" all the arrangements on your behalf, and pay all the bills for you (the clue is in the name). That's how it has always worked. A rather alarming development if they are routinely doing that. I was also told there is a firm of undertakers whom the crem will only take a booking from if paid upfront.
A fox has started excavating my garden, but I can't understand why. It doesn't seem to be digging a hole to live in, nor is it succeeding in digging anything up, but it's certainly turning over a lot of earth. I don't want Casimir to disturb it, though he'd probably send it packing. He is a little subdued at present after getting a nasty wound in a vicious fight last week. I imagine the other cat had wounds at least as bad, as Casimir seemed to be winning, and chased the other when it made its getaway. Still, two nasty tooth marks in his cheek have resulted in antibiotics that need to be smuggled into his food. I also bathe it with saline. Of course we didn't see the wound until it started to suppurate and stink. Lovely creatures, pussy-cats!
I was in Sainsburys at Maida Hill the other Sunday, collecting my paper, and was queued up behind a young woman with two baskets of shopping, food and cleaning materials, that suggested to me that she had just moved into a new home. We were some time waiting for a person to negotiate for cigarettes and pay, and during this time a large woman with a plastic carrier bag appeared at the far end of the tills and hovered. When the till was free the Sainsburys employee called the young woman in front of me forward, but the large hovering woman immediately marched in front of her. The employee said, "There's a queue," and pointed, but the large woman said to the young woman, "Oh, but I was here first before you pushed in." The young woman was understandably taken aback and said, "Did I push in?" to which she got the reply, "Well I was here. Don't get upset." The Sainsburys employee clearly didn't want to serve her, but she was occupying the till, removing items from the random plastic bags she was carrying, and the young woman just shrugged, being told again, "Don't get upset." She was eventually served after the large woman left, and with that a second till was opened; as I presented my paper, I leaned across and said to her, "Welcome to the Harrow Road." It really was a thoroughly Harrow Road incident, with an eccentric claiming black is white and making you feel guilty for being rational.
The roads are now being dug up for fibre broadband, in a sudden outbreak of activity. At least the contractors seem to work quickly, but they just appear out of nowhere, and suddenly your route has turned single-track. It's quite disconcerting to return from an appointment to find this has happened. I'm sure it will be a good thing, but will it actually make any difference if your actual connection from your house to the network is old-fashioned copper wire?
We are preparing for our big event of the year on Saturday, the Requiem for All Souls' Day, with choirs and orchestra. This year our neighbours at St Augustine's, Kilburn, are joining us to commemorate all the faithful departed, which will be good. Some people don't approve of prayer for the dead, but it makes perfect sense to me: we pray for everyone we care about, living or dead, and are linked with them all in that great network of prayer. People regularly say how moved they have been by the service, using great music in its proper spiritual context. We always have a French Romantic setting of the Requiem Mass: sometimes it is a little-known one, but sometimes it is a great setting. This year we are using the setting by Durufle (who was president of the St Mary Magdalene Music Society in the 1960s). It should be a powerful act of worship.
A new goose has appeared, just a little larger than a Canada goose, and very similar, but with a white neck,white markings on the head, and orange bill and legs. I suspect it is a cross between a Canada goose and a white farm goose; but how has this happened? And how did it end up on our canal?
Today a colleague told of a firm of undertakers who didn't pay him, saying after the funeral, "Oh, we thought it was up to you to sort that out." No! It certainly isn't. The undertaker is meant to "undertake" all the arrangements on your behalf, and pay all the bills for you (the clue is in the name). That's how it has always worked. A rather alarming development if they are routinely doing that. I was also told there is a firm of undertakers whom the crem will only take a booking from if paid upfront.
A fox has started excavating my garden, but I can't understand why. It doesn't seem to be digging a hole to live in, nor is it succeeding in digging anything up, but it's certainly turning over a lot of earth. I don't want Casimir to disturb it, though he'd probably send it packing. He is a little subdued at present after getting a nasty wound in a vicious fight last week. I imagine the other cat had wounds at least as bad, as Casimir seemed to be winning, and chased the other when it made its getaway. Still, two nasty tooth marks in his cheek have resulted in antibiotics that need to be smuggled into his food. I also bathe it with saline. Of course we didn't see the wound until it started to suppurate and stink. Lovely creatures, pussy-cats!
I was in Sainsburys at Maida Hill the other Sunday, collecting my paper, and was queued up behind a young woman with two baskets of shopping, food and cleaning materials, that suggested to me that she had just moved into a new home. We were some time waiting for a person to negotiate for cigarettes and pay, and during this time a large woman with a plastic carrier bag appeared at the far end of the tills and hovered. When the till was free the Sainsburys employee called the young woman in front of me forward, but the large hovering woman immediately marched in front of her. The employee said, "There's a queue," and pointed, but the large woman said to the young woman, "Oh, but I was here first before you pushed in." The young woman was understandably taken aback and said, "Did I push in?" to which she got the reply, "Well I was here. Don't get upset." The Sainsburys employee clearly didn't want to serve her, but she was occupying the till, removing items from the random plastic bags she was carrying, and the young woman just shrugged, being told again, "Don't get upset." She was eventually served after the large woman left, and with that a second till was opened; as I presented my paper, I leaned across and said to her, "Welcome to the Harrow Road." It really was a thoroughly Harrow Road incident, with an eccentric claiming black is white and making you feel guilty for being rational.
The roads are now being dug up for fibre broadband, in a sudden outbreak of activity. At least the contractors seem to work quickly, but they just appear out of nowhere, and suddenly your route has turned single-track. It's quite disconcerting to return from an appointment to find this has happened. I'm sure it will be a good thing, but will it actually make any difference if your actual connection from your house to the network is old-fashioned copper wire?
We are preparing for our big event of the year on Saturday, the Requiem for All Souls' Day, with choirs and orchestra. This year our neighbours at St Augustine's, Kilburn, are joining us to commemorate all the faithful departed, which will be good. Some people don't approve of prayer for the dead, but it makes perfect sense to me: we pray for everyone we care about, living or dead, and are linked with them all in that great network of prayer. People regularly say how moved they have been by the service, using great music in its proper spiritual context. We always have a French Romantic setting of the Requiem Mass: sometimes it is a little-known one, but sometimes it is a great setting. This year we are using the setting by Durufle (who was president of the St Mary Magdalene Music Society in the 1960s). It should be a powerful act of worship.
Wednesday, 23 October 2019
THE HEART OF THE NATION
Migration Watch
There were two Home Office immigration enforcement vans parked in Goldney Road yesterday. I saw no activity, but no doubt the Border Force officers were in a flat somewhere. A few weeks ago I saw a similar van cruising along the Harrow Road. I wonder whether they are regular visitors to Belgravia as well?
Meanwhile, the Anglican Communion Office at the United Nations (who knew there was such a thing?) urges us to pray for forced migration because of climate change. This causes me some discomfort, as it is frankly tendentious. Most of the world's migrants are looking for a better life, or fleeing war or civil strife. Anyone migrating because of climate change at the moment (and I'm not sure there is anyone) is choosing to do so, not being forced. If Bangladesh or the Seychelles are flooded, then people will certainly be forced to migrate, but unless I've missed it, I don't think this has happened yet. It is the case that people are being forced to leave their homes on the Suffolk coast as they fall into the sea (as they have been doing for hundreds of years) but that's not what we're being asked to pray about. Our friends at the Anglican Communion Office are attempting to establish the notion that climate change is responsible for migration, and that therefore we in the West are guilty, and so can't complain. We are expected to feel guilty for the effects of colonialism, which have been alleged to be responsible for migration in the past, and now for climate change as well, and so the idea is being presented that we should just accept migration as the consequences of our own sinfulness. Well, I'm all in favour of a generous immigration regime, but I'm afraid I don't buy the guilt. In fact, people choose to migrate to the West because these are prosperous, peaceful and relatively uncorrupt countries where people have a chance of getting on in life. That's fine. Most Western countries need immigration for economic reasons thanks to our low birth-rate, and it's of course our duty to give refuge to people fleeing war or tyranny, but none of this adds up to a completely open door imposed on us as a punishment for sin.
This morning comes the news of thirty-nine migrants found dead in the back of a lorry in Thurrock. That really is a sin. People-trafficking is thoroughly evil, and those who seek to maintain national borders are not responsible for it. The callous criminals who do it are totally responsible. One of the main pieces of learning I took away from our involvement with looking after migrants in Reading, was that these people are totally heartless and deeply manipulative.
The Abbey Habit
We went in pilgrimage to the Abbey on Saturday, and changed our route to avoid the "People's Vote" march, but fortunately we started a lot earlier than them. There were already people around in silly blue berets, and I noticed that there were enterprising sellers of merchandise, rather like a pop festival, but during the morning they were easy to avoid. Most of the time that we were in the Abbey we weren't conscious of them, even as they filled Parliament Square next door, but when we went out into the College Garden at lunchtime we were conscious of a sort of hum beyond the garden wall. It was rather surreal to think that we were immediately behind the BBC's tent. When we were sitting waiting for Evensong to begin there came a loud cheer which was clearly audible, which was for the passage of the Letwin amendment. After that the remainers went home happy.
Our parish party was smaller than last year, which was a shame since the weather was so good, but I had enthused some Deanery colleagues, so Paddington Deanery was well-represented. It is great to see the Abbey given over to worship and prayer, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Picnics in the Cloister were very jolly (something that of course is normally verboten). The Abbey makes much of its position offering faith at the heart of the nation, but it genuinely felt like that, with this strange juxtaposition. The Archbishop of Canterbury preached, not very well. It was mostly about leadership, and he didn't really seem to have embraced the occasion, which was a shame. I guess he was thinking about what was going on across the road, but didn't dare say anything clear. His chaplain had not embraced the occasion to the extent of sitting there in scarf and hood when everyone else was wearing a stole. Oddly ungracious. I hope she enjoyed the copious quantities of incense!
There were two Home Office immigration enforcement vans parked in Goldney Road yesterday. I saw no activity, but no doubt the Border Force officers were in a flat somewhere. A few weeks ago I saw a similar van cruising along the Harrow Road. I wonder whether they are regular visitors to Belgravia as well?
Meanwhile, the Anglican Communion Office at the United Nations (who knew there was such a thing?) urges us to pray for forced migration because of climate change. This causes me some discomfort, as it is frankly tendentious. Most of the world's migrants are looking for a better life, or fleeing war or civil strife. Anyone migrating because of climate change at the moment (and I'm not sure there is anyone) is choosing to do so, not being forced. If Bangladesh or the Seychelles are flooded, then people will certainly be forced to migrate, but unless I've missed it, I don't think this has happened yet. It is the case that people are being forced to leave their homes on the Suffolk coast as they fall into the sea (as they have been doing for hundreds of years) but that's not what we're being asked to pray about. Our friends at the Anglican Communion Office are attempting to establish the notion that climate change is responsible for migration, and that therefore we in the West are guilty, and so can't complain. We are expected to feel guilty for the effects of colonialism, which have been alleged to be responsible for migration in the past, and now for climate change as well, and so the idea is being presented that we should just accept migration as the consequences of our own sinfulness. Well, I'm all in favour of a generous immigration regime, but I'm afraid I don't buy the guilt. In fact, people choose to migrate to the West because these are prosperous, peaceful and relatively uncorrupt countries where people have a chance of getting on in life. That's fine. Most Western countries need immigration for economic reasons thanks to our low birth-rate, and it's of course our duty to give refuge to people fleeing war or tyranny, but none of this adds up to a completely open door imposed on us as a punishment for sin.
This morning comes the news of thirty-nine migrants found dead in the back of a lorry in Thurrock. That really is a sin. People-trafficking is thoroughly evil, and those who seek to maintain national borders are not responsible for it. The callous criminals who do it are totally responsible. One of the main pieces of learning I took away from our involvement with looking after migrants in Reading, was that these people are totally heartless and deeply manipulative.
The Abbey Habit
We went in pilgrimage to the Abbey on Saturday, and changed our route to avoid the "People's Vote" march, but fortunately we started a lot earlier than them. There were already people around in silly blue berets, and I noticed that there were enterprising sellers of merchandise, rather like a pop festival, but during the morning they were easy to avoid. Most of the time that we were in the Abbey we weren't conscious of them, even as they filled Parliament Square next door, but when we went out into the College Garden at lunchtime we were conscious of a sort of hum beyond the garden wall. It was rather surreal to think that we were immediately behind the BBC's tent. When we were sitting waiting for Evensong to begin there came a loud cheer which was clearly audible, which was for the passage of the Letwin amendment. After that the remainers went home happy.
Our parish party was smaller than last year, which was a shame since the weather was so good, but I had enthused some Deanery colleagues, so Paddington Deanery was well-represented. It is great to see the Abbey given over to worship and prayer, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Picnics in the Cloister were very jolly (something that of course is normally verboten). The Abbey makes much of its position offering faith at the heart of the nation, but it genuinely felt like that, with this strange juxtaposition. The Archbishop of Canterbury preached, not very well. It was mostly about leadership, and he didn't really seem to have embraced the occasion, which was a shame. I guess he was thinking about what was going on across the road, but didn't dare say anything clear. His chaplain had not embraced the occasion to the extent of sitting there in scarf and hood when everyone else was wearing a stole. Oddly ungracious. I hope she enjoyed the copious quantities of incense!
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