TOWN AND COUNTRY

Red Kites

Those of us who used to drive along the M40 in the 1990s would get really excited when we saw red kites soaring over the motorway, initially around Stokenchurch, the point where the road goes over the top of the Chiltern escarpment, because it was there that the birds were first reintroduced, back in 1989. Helen used regularly to tell me to keep my eyes on the road, as I became childishly excited at seeing the magnificent birds, but I confess that with the passage of time we all became a bit blasé, and accustomed to them. It was a feature of our last couple of years in Reading that one began to see red kites over the town centre, so that would have been in maybe 2005 or 2006. Everyone living in Berkshire was aware that the red kites were expanding their range, and I imagine that most people shared my delight at that. Not all, though; a friend taught at a village school in West Berkshire and recalls a boy cheerfully saying, “My dad shoots them!”

This week I went and stayed in Reading while visiting the Wantage Sisters, and so drove from Reading to Wantage (a delightful drive) a couple of mornings. I was delighted to see three red kites over farmland just east of Blewbury, which my friends tell me is as far west as they have heard of them. It is perfectly logical that the kites should pass from the Chilterns to the Berkshire Downs at Goring, but perhaps the absence of woodland makes it less attractive. The thought occurred to me that by now they might be approaching London, since they have certainly colonized most of the Chilterns, but they seem not to be heading this way. Famously red kites were commonplace in London in Shakespeare’s time, but after the development of shooting as a sport for the wealthy in the eighteenth century their numbers began to fall. The modern red kite seems reluctant to venture too far into an urban environment, and I’m sure London must look terrifying from the air, with only occasional green oases. In India, though, there are plenty of urban kites (black kites) who seem totally at home. The big difference of course is that our waste disposal is much more efficient, and so there is not much for a large scavenger to eat in the city. Herring gulls and foxes would provide solid competition, so I don’t suppose London is that attractive for the red kites today, but I keep looking up when I go west, just in case.

Sisters

Anyone who knows the history of the catholic revival in Anglicanism during the nineteenth century will remember the pleasing statistic that there were more religious sisters in England in 1900 than there were at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. It was one of the striking features of Anglo-Catholicism that the religious life was revived, despite bitter opposition, and of course this was mostly among women. Women’s communities pre-dated men’s, and always outperformed them; there have always been more Anglican sisters than monks. The point that modern feminist scholarship has grasped is that religious sisterhoods were actually empowering for women in Victorian England, as they gave educated women the chance to work, and to take agency in their lives, and not be the chattels of men, which is one reason why they were so hated.

I went to Wantage to look at the archives of the Community of St Mary the Virgin (CSMV) to see what I could find out about the history of St Mary Magdalene’s, because the sisters were here in Paddington from 1870 to 1944 (and then came back for a few years after the War). For most of their time they lived in Delamere Terrace, in the house that Dirk Bogarde emerges from towards the end of “The Blue Lamp”. They ran all sorts of parish organisations, as well as being in charge of visiting, and must have made a tremendous difference to the parish. Most importantly perhaps, they ran a mother-and-baby home (which eventually moved to Stamford Hill) and a home for women alcoholics (which moved to Spelthorne). The main vocation of CSMV was to work in education (and they did some of that in Paddington as well) but here they were mostly engaged in what we would call social work (at one point they ran a home for women thieves, which they moved out to Ealing). One of our volunteers with the Heritage Project is intending to research the sisters, and my trip was to check out the material. It is clear that there will be plenty of stories to tell.

A Visit from our Sponsors

Officers from the Heritage Lottery Fund came to see us this week, and clambered up the scaffolding to see the progress on the cleaning of the ceilings. I am pleased to say that they were suitably impressed. Rightly, because it is impressive. They also peered over the edge to see the great hole in the ground, into which concrete is imminently to be poured. I got excited a couple of weeks ago when I saw a concrete mixer arrive, but it turned out that this was just laying a slab for other concrete mixers to come and park on (because our site is getting to look like Passchendaele). This week, however, four tons of steel reinforcing rods have been delivered, so concrete is genuinely imminent. We had managed to fix a sign to the hoarding advertising HLF's support a couple of hours before they came; the trouble is that those signs are not very robust, as the second one we had was carried off by a gale and smashed to pieces against my garden fence.   

And the Geese..

Last Sunday as I went to prepare the Vestry for our Sunday worship, I saw the pair of Egyptian geese on the grass moving towards Senior Street, heading for Royal Oak, and one of them was honking very loudly. They almost never honk, and you never see them out of sight of the Canal, so that was doubly mystifying. I thought perhaps the honking meant that they were lost, so I tried to herd them back towards the Canal. I moved them twenty yards or so north, but then they shrewdly split up, and herding became impossible, so I left them there. Later, when I actually went over for Mass, I could hear the honking again, but couldn't see them. I spent a few moments checking, and then saw them, both in the topmost branches of a leafless tree on the corner of Delamere Terrace, from which no doubt they could see the Canal very well. I suspect the honking was all about mating, though it seems a bit unnecessary when they are already a couple (unless there's more going on here than I have begun to imagine).