CARNIVAL TIME

No, Don't...

If you are a long-term reader of this blog you may remember that the former MP for Kensington, Lady Borwick, was a great opponent of the Notting Hill Carnival, but did not succeed in her aim to at least re-route it, if not suppress it. This year's Carnival, though, had the strangest build-up in recent years, as there was a real question of whether it was appropriate so soon after the Grenfell Tower disaster. Now anybody I spoke to who was actually from the Latimer Road area  seemed clear that the Carnival should certainly go ahead, as an expression of community solidarity and resilience, which is indeed what happened, but it was good to see that outsiders were sensitive to the idea that they might be dancing on people's graves. I didn't envy the police their task, though, because on top of the usual public order issues with a million people on the streets there was talk of some North London gang, one of whose members was shot a few days before, coming down to exact revenge, and then there was the obvious terrorist threat. I'm not sure what the correct name is for the enormous steel obstacles that they put in place at the end of Westbourne Grove, but the journalistic "ring of steel" sums it up. All in all it seems to have gone well, with the best weather for years.


Scaffolding Goes Up

Meanwhile, the scaffolding creeps up around St Mary Mags. Last weekend we found that the nice open area outside the Vestry was now full of scaffold legs, which was a bit intimidating, but we could still reach the door. As I watched it go up along the south side I became increasingly fretful, as I thought we had cut back the scaffolding from what was originally planned, as we had economised on the external brick and stone repairs as we were trying to cut the cost back to fit the budget. The scaffold that was going up looked like the original design, not the cheaper one. When I expressed my anxiety about this, I was told that we had discovered that our conservative costing policy had actually meant that we had the money to do it as originally planned, and so it was going ahead. No mistake. No problem. No word to the client, though!


The Gas Man Cometh

The first works that have to be done are in the school. Obviously they need to be done before the children come back, next week. This has not been going well. Most spectacularly, the gas contractors are giving us real grief. You may not be familiar with Cadent, but they are the gas main bit of National Grid, rebranded, and we have been in contact with them since March because we need to move the gas main and the school's meters. When they came to cut off the old supply they managed to discover that this supply only fed the boilers, and not the kitchen, so at that point they just went away. Our contractors then found the second main, and we got them back. So both were purged and capped. Now they are back on site to do the new connection, at the last possible minute. They have managed to cut through the electricity supply to the school gate, but that's a small matter compared to the slowness of their working. A separate organisation then has to come and install the meters, which no-one told us until three weeks ago. Fortunately we were able to get them to come, but they are booked for tomorrow, and it won't be ready for tomorrow, so now we shall have to book them again, and when will they come? When will the school have its gas supply back? We had a very uncomfortable meeting with the Head Teacher, who was understandably agitated and displeased. It is very unpleasant being responsible for something going wrong that is entirely out of your control.   

ON SITE

Stolen Property

If someone offers you some cheap four-by-two in the pub tonight, please don’t take him up on it, but pass his name on to your local police. I had heard mutterings about how big a deal theft from building sites is, but now I know for myself. I presume someone had been watching as our site developed, so on Sunday morning I came to church to find a panel of Heras fencing alarmingly overhanging the steps down to the vestry. On investigating, I found that several panels of fencing had been lifted from their bases and heaved up to allow access to the building materials stored behind the fence. A couple of (vast) sheets of plywood were sitting disconsolately in the grass. A churchwarden and I manoeuvred the fencing back into position, as best we could, but one panel was horribly twisted; it had been chained to our railings, and that fixing had held secure, but then the whole thing had been rotated around that. I texted the Site Manager to let him know. This morning he told me that there had been a quantity of timber stored there which had totally vanished. Ironically, it’s the timber they are using to build the proper hoarding around the site to make it more secure. You can see through Heras fencing, you see, and be tempted, whereas a nice old-fashioned solid hoarding doesn’t present the same temptations.

Budding Banksies

The drawback with a proper hoarding is that it provides a fine blank canvas for graffiti artists, and indeed our new hoarding acquired its first graffiti at the weekend. Our strategy there is to fix up on the hoarding panels that have been painted by local people. At the Westbourne Festival, at the beginning of July, we had a workshop for local young people, which was led by a graffiti artist, creating all sorts of strange images to go up on the hoarding. The artist came back later and finished it all off, and just now the panels are waiting to be fixed onto the hoarding. It will be a lot more interesting than a blank hoarding, and the hope is that what is essentially graffiti art should not attract further graffiti. I hope it works.

Enter the Scaffolders   

Today, things are getting very serious. The scaffolders are on site, starting to erect the exterior scaffolding (which needs to be done before the hoarding is finished). This is a trivial job compared to the interior scaffolding, which is going to take weeks to put up. I have to say that they are very quiet at the moment, certainly compared to other scaffolders of whom I’ve had experience; everyone involved in the construction industry regards scaffolders as a breed apart, and they seem to do their best to live up to expectations.

Organ Builders Too

The organ builders have also turned up to dismantle a few pipes, take down the ornamental pipes, and seal up the opening of the organ chamber that contains the main banks of pipes. Getting them here has been a bit of a pantomime, as they and the contractors exchanged mutually uncomprehending messages. They seemed very resistant to the idea that they had to have proper protective clothing since it was now a building site, but they’ve clearly been allowed on site, so I presume they came with the proper gear after all. I now need to retrieve from them the three sets of keys to the church that they have held onto; they like to have their own keys so that they can come and go at their convenience, but that won’t work in the future. In the short term, we need to make sure that access to the site is controlled so that we don’t invalidate our insurance, but when the work is done, the church will be in use far more, and it won’t be possible for them to turn up to tune the organ when it suits them, as they have been accustomed to do. They will need to arrange visits properly with the building manager. Organ tuners get very proprietorial about the organs that they look after, and I can understand that, but they do sometimes make you feel that they are doing you a favour by allowing you to use the organ for something as trivial as accompanying services.

Furniture To The Third World

Meanwhile the school’s dining tables are being removed. We have had to reconfigure the school kitchen slightly to enable us to build the new wing, but that has reduced the space in which to store the dining tables. After struggling with various expensive options, our architect, with a brilliant piece of lateral thinking, discovered that more efficient tables were available. So now the new tables have arrived, and the old tables (with integral seating) are going to be shipped to Africa by a charity that specialises in this sort of thing. With them are going a load of church chairs, not nice enough for any congregation here, but still functional. I had hoped they would go to Jamaica (as we have a number of Jamaicans living locally) but it seems they’ve finished that project, and so they will be going somewhere in Africa. We are desperate to know where.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Men At Work

First, a mountain of chipboard was delivered. Some of this was then put down on the nave floor, which, as things were progressively removed, gradually got covered. I came in and saw a small golden arch leaning against a pillar, and wondered excitedly what it could be; it was only when I saw it from another angle that I realised that it was the frame of a grand piano, now completely destroyed. The labourers seem to be quite efficient at smashing things up. Then the carpenters moved in and started constructing boxes, so the marble balustrade (Martin Travers, 1923) got boxed in, along with the chancel steps. At this point, all the furniture marked for storage had been moved downstairs into the Comper Chapel, awaiting the arrival of the container in which it is to be stored.

Then, on Tuesday, the containers arrived. I don't think I had been conscious of how many there were to be, or how much space they would really occupy. I had looked at the plans of the site compound, but somehow never really put it together in my head. So, they came at a nice quiet time of day, and just two parking suspensions did the job to enable the lorries to get access. That all happened smoothly, and quietly. We are undeniably occupying quite a big portion of the park, though a portion that no-one actually uses for anything. We have had to be terribly careful about the trees, despite the fact that the trees are a public nuisance, and ought to be cut down and replaced. They are black poplars, which are notorious for dropping boughs without warning, which in my view makes them unsuitable to line a path through a park. As a cyclist on that cycle path you really feel threatened whenever the wind blows, but the alarming thing is the way that boughs drop off without warning when it isn't windy. I have a particular dislike of the one tree which is out of alignment with the others (which are along the path) because it deposits lots of leaves in our gutters, and until it was pruned recently had a branch which threatened our north wall. I can't prove that it was this tree's roots that were found in our old drains, blocking them, but I am morally certain of it.

The last couple of days have become noisy, though. Pneumatic drills and Kango hammers have appeared now,  as the steps down into the school yard have been deconstructed, and the hideous wall closing in the north porch has been demolished. This is undeniably noisy, and it is good to get it done during the holiday. Last week the surface of the school yard was taken up, and a climbing frame taken down, to be relocated, but those weren't particularly noisy


Welcome Visitors

Oddly, this week we have had a couple of last-minute visitors wanting to see the church. One was a charming man in publishing, who lives locally, and I don't entirely understand how he had missed all the public open days and events which we've put on, let alone the simple method of asking me for a visit. Anyway, he came via PDT, and Toby and I had a pleasant time showing him round despite the onward march of the chipboard. He very kindly gave us macaroons as a thank you. Then, out of the blue, Fr Graeme Rowlands, from St Silas, Kentish Town, called to ask whether he could bring a server and show him the church. They had a whole day of visiting great Anglo-Catholic churches, of which we were the last (I scheduled them for after the builders would have gone home). It was good to see the lad's enthusiasm. Fr Rowlands told me that he had first sought the church out after seeing photos of it in a book called "This Our Sacrifice", illustrating how Low Mass was celebrated using the old ritual. The book title rang bells for me, and I went home and duly found it in my study. Clearly I had not looked at it in more than ten years, as I had no idea the pictures were of us. The photos illustrate the sanctuary in 1949, which is fascinating to see (contemporary with "The Blue Lamp" being filmed outside). We still use the chasuble that is being used, and I have just found the altar cards (though they are much decayed). It was pleasing to see the tabernacle unveiled, so my leaving the veils off has good precedent.


Visitors

Some of my regular callers have reappeared rather surprisingly.The Man With A Stab Wound has tracked me down, whereas he only used to come to the Office. This is not helpful. Vouchers and Foodbank referrals are kept at the Office, not at home. He is unable to accept the answer "No". The Pakistani Christian has also reappeared, making a speciality of Sunday evening, when I expect a ring on the doorbell to be the tenant church. It seems he is being housed, which is very good news. He still wants me to pay for an Oyster card. I don't query the logic of asking me when he is supposed to be in Hounslow. The Small Irishman has also reappeared, and says he is being housed in Enfield; it is reassuring to see him, as he had disappeared for a couple of years, and I thought he might be dead. He insists that I take his cashcard to reimburse what I lend him. When I try to do so the PIN doesn't work. And then there is The Small Angry Woman With Dog, who has kept clear of us for a couple of years, since we had to get the police to remove her from a PCC meeting. Suddenly she has reappeared, spectacularly at the end of the Mass on St Mary Magdalene's Day, complete with what appears to be a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy, which she cannot control. Her problems have not changed. Sometimes one has to accept that there are situations which one cannot solve. Offering a bit of care is about the best we can do, and pray.