TURN OF THE YEAR

RIP Gavin Stamp

They say that you should never meet your heroes, but Gavin Stamp was a hero of mine for nearly forty years, and when I finally got to meet him, in the last couple of years, he was charming, generous and supportive. It is a real blow to the St Mary Magdalene's Project that he has died, as he was an eloquent (and influential) supporter of everything we are trying to do. He wrote the "Nooks and Corners" section in "Private Eye" every fortnight (under the nom-de-plume "Piloti"), having inherited the column from Sir John Betjeman, and used it to expose the neglect and exploitation of our country's architectural heritage. I began reading the Eye as a teenager, and was exhilarated by the vigour of his architectural opinions, and the courage with which he exposed the dodgy dealings of property developers and local councils. He was also (along with the author A.N.Wilson) one of the most prominent "young fogeys" in the mid 1980s, which was a concept I felt very comfortable with. He was a scourge of insensitive development, and particularly the needless destruction of fine old buildings, and so gained a reputation as a reactionary, which was not really deserved. It is worth emphasizing that he has spoken forthrightly both on the London DAC and in public about the virtues of the new building, designed by Biba Dow, that we are constructing next to St Mary Magdalene's, when it might have been supposed that he would instinctively oppose it. In fact Gavin recognised good design when he saw it, and he saw it in Biba Dow's design for our new building.

In 2016 Gavin came to St Mary Mags to speak at a celebratory event organised by the War Memorials Trust, who are part-funding the restoration of our rather grand war memorial Calvary. War memorials were a special interest of his (he wrote the definitive book about Lutyens' Somme Memorial at Thiepval), and I expect the WMT expected him to speak about them, but in fact he spoke about the great beauty of St Mary Mags, and with great humility suggested that I knew much more about it than him. His charm and eloquence impressed all who heard him, but most of all his real enthusiasm for great buildings. He spoke very approvingly of how exciting our Project was, combining conservation, high quality new building and community use. He had agreed to be on our committee of reference supervising the conservation decisions around the Comper Chapel, and I was hoping to persuade him to come and give a lecture as part of our programme of events once the work is complete. We shall certainly miss him.


Christmas Treats

I don't think I mentioned that at the Carol Service one parishioner managed to set herself on fire, twice. The children at our Christingle managed to get by with no fire-raising, but that enlivened the Carol Service. The Christingle went off well, but quietly; we normally do it at 5pm on Christmas Eve (a strategically useful time for families, we have found) but with Christmas Eve being Sunday I felt no-one would come, and so moved it to Friday 22nd, in the hope that we might catch some people before they left town. I'm not sure that we did. It is a feature of Christmas in London that lots of people seem to vanish to their relations, which is a bit sad for the rest of us.

The school Christingle had featured brass players, as well as ukuleles, and they were really good. I was reminded of a couple of years ago when they had one Year 6 girl play the first verse of "Once in Royal" solo on the trumpet, which was spine-tingling, the more so because we knew the girl (and her circumstances) well. In fact, a little later she asked to be baptized, and it was clear that she was perfectly serious about the faith. Unfortunately her family circumstances made it impossible for her to come to church at 9.30 on Sundays, so I was delighted to be asked by her secondary school chaplain to come along to her confirmation subsequently. She is thoroughly involved in school worship there, and it is a joy to see her.

Midnight Mass passed off without incident. No-one caught fire. No drunks interrupted the service. No-one needed driving home afterwards. Not as atmospheric as St Mary Mags, but it was still lovely at St Peter's, with a different selection of people we hardly knew, joining enthusiastic regulars. On Christmas morning the Archdeacon joined us, which saved me a sermon, and proceeded to tweet photos of the Magi in our crib set, impressed that our Magi are Chinese, classical Greek and Indian (which is an unusual combination). I had insisted I had no idea who would turn up, but in the end it was a very respectable number (having been about five with three minutes to go to start time).

One of the Lunch Club regulars, severely disabled, came along last Sunday, which was great, even if his carer thought he wouldn't keep quiet for more than half the service. The Lunch Club Christmas Party was another successful occasion, but has rather faded from the memory. Our Brazilian tenants grumbled about Lunch Club members still being in the Hall enjoying themselves when they came to worship that evening, which was a bit lacking in Christmas spirit, I felt.

My brother-in-law came for Christmas, and my present was to be taken to Wembley to see Tottenham play on Boxing Day, which turned out to be very entertaining. So we saw Harry Kane's record-breaking hat-trick, which was very satisfying. Wembley is all a bit clinical, though, and the crowd doesn't generate much noise, certainly not with lots of tourists and neutrals like us in the upper sections. It was a super match, and good fun, but Kempton Park is more exciting.

I am now surrounded by chocolates and wine, which will take a long time to get through. Still, the bottle of champagne was consumed on New Year's Eve!