hampshire parson

Black Horse

2012-03-04T11:08:00.002Z

Seeking the Promised Land

2012-02-25T23:18:00.001Z

The year is turning and spring calls. The frogs are heeding the call. Yesterday afternoon, I escorted three frogs across Ashford Lane. They were crossing in the same direction, making for their spring spawning ponds on the other side of the lane. Two had already mated up, with the male hitching a free ride on the bulbous female. No cars intervened, and I have done my bit to hasten them to their Promised Land.

Gamekeepers

2012-02-24T12:09:00.003Z

What is it with literary men and gamekeepers? H E Bates in 'Through the Woods' devotes a whole chapter ('The Villain') to describe his dislike of gamekeepers; Robert Frost nearly came to blows with a gamekeeper, and Edward Thomas felt himself a coward for not having tackled one. The gamekeepers I have met have are quiet country men. Evan Rogers, in his memoir of 68 years spent as a keeper on the same Herefordshire estate, comes across as a grounded and decent man, not given to marching round the estate with a loaded rifle. So maybe the problem is with the literary men.

David Shrigley exhibition

2012-02-11T23:24:00.002Z

David Shrigley drawing

In London this week for a meeting of the Rural Theology Association. It was odd to meet in Southwark, in the shadow of St George's Cathedral, in a group discussing rural church life. But then London is easy to reach. On the way back to catch the train at Waterloo, I looked at the David Shrigley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. It was quirky, funny and thoroughly enjoyable and cheered me up on a cold and wintry day. I joined other visitors in quietly laughing at the drawings and animated films. But there is a bleaker side to some of the humour, seen in his drawing above.

A Dog-Lover's Prayer

2012-02-02T15:12:00.000Z

A dog lover told me this prayer:
May God make me as nice a person as my dog thinks I am.
Amen to that, Barney!

mud mud glorious mud.....

2012-01-30T10:15:00.000Z

At this time of year, living in the countryside means living with lots of mud. The villages rest on thick clay, topped by thin soil, so when it rains, the mud soon appears. Shoes and clothes are quickly smeared. When I've attended meetings with city dwellers, I have looked enviously at their clean and unsplattered clothes. People talked about mud in earlier years, when horses were used for travel. I came across an entry written by a 19th century diarist - I think it was the Revd John Skinner, rector of Camerton in Somerset - who on a country road came across a man who had come off his horse and had fallen into a mud hole. Only the man's head was to be seen. The rest of him was buried in the hole. It's not yet that bad in Steep.

Mass Breakout

2012-01-21T11:33:00.000Z

Mark and I were in the study discussing the tradition of theosis in Eastern Orthodox theology. (Mark is preparing to be ordained in the C of E.) My wife called: The pigs are out! And out they were, churning up the garden with their snouts, peering through the dining room windows with pig like curiosity, and investigating the flower borders with rather more than detached interest. In the pitch black evening, Mark and I donned wellington boots and spent 20 minutes cajoling, shouting, herding and whistling. We succeeded in getting the electric fencing restored and the pigs safely back in their pen. Afterwards, we sat down in the study and resumed the topic: Deification in the Eastern tradition. Mark will make a willing vicar.

Grave digging

2012-01-13T10:10:00.000Z

Gary digs all his graves by hand, using spade and fork. He has always done it that way, and prefers to continue the old method. While the younger men bring in mini mechanical diggers, Gary reckons he can do the job better in the traditional way. So yesterday and today, he has been turning out the heavy clay of Steep churchyard to make a new grave. At one end of the churchyard, the clay belt starts to merge into yellow clay sand. A few months back, when Gary was digging in that part of the churchyard, he finished his work at dusk one late autumn day, and walked round to the front of the church. He was streaked from head to foot in yellow mud, and looked startling enough to be a Dickensian villain. I was glad the children at the village school opposite had gone home, otherwise Gary's appearance might have frightened some of the younger ones.

A New Year Message

2012-01-05T12:56:00.002Z

A visit to Lowestoft to visit my elderly mother. After my visit, I walked back along the sea front to catch the train, through what is left of old Lowestoft, until the 1953 east coast floods swept much of it away. The parish church of Christ Church is still there, and is proudly sporting two enormous posters in dayglo orange:
GOD GIVES AND FORGIVES - PEOPLE GET AND FORGET
This manages to write off the whole of humankind as being a bad lot. {God does a little better.} In the biting east wind, I would have gladly settled for 'Have a Happy New Year.'

iPhones........

2011-12-28T20:17:00.001Z

I was out walking the dog today and passed a family group of three walkers, of whom two were completely absorbed in reading the screens of their iPhones. A cheery dog brought up the rear, and he seemed to be the only one who was actually enjoying a woodland walk during Christmas week. I count myself lucky I have a £5 mobile phone with a tiny screen, which will, with an effort, display black and white text.

Carols at Minstead

2011-12-23T21:33:00.000Z

Minstead Church in the New Forest is like a church out of one of the novels of Thomas Hardy. It has a musicians' gallery, simple hand worked furniture, and a wonky gothic stone arch. It smells of history. The stone door step is worn down three inches in the middle by the countless feet which have walked on it over the centuries. Minstead Training Project held its carol service in the church today. The young people on the scheme, all of whom have learning difficulties and special needs, fill the church, together with supporters, volunteers and parents. The nativity readings are read stumblingly but with real feeling, and the carols are sung a bit out of tune, but with genuine enthusiasm. There's a strong family feeling in the Minstead community, with a great feeling of acceptance. I came away feeling that Christmas has started.

Rev

2011-12-16T12:26:00.002Z

Tom Hollander as the Rev Adam Smallbone in BBC's comedy 'Rev' is convincing in his role as a vicar. The whole series captures the ethos of the Church of England in a remarkable way. It is called a comedy but has some pretty stunning moments of pathos alongside the humour. The latest offering explores clerical ambition, as well as Adam's hopes for his marriage. The local Archdeacon, until recently no more than a caricature, is rounded out to become a man with the ambition to be a bishop. This is a C of E world I recognise: sometimes mad, frequently baffling, often ineffective, and yet still, at times, offering moments of awe and wonder in response to the contrariness of life.

Confirmation in Portsmouth Cathedral

2011-12-09T10:26:00.000Z

School Lunches, Nativities & Assemblies

2011-12-09T10:20:00.000Z

Only 1500 people live in Steep Village but I've found here that the country vicar has many more community contacts than I did when ministering in urban Southampton. Currently it is a round of school assemblies, school Christmas lunches, and nativities in church. Yesterday there was also a redundancy committee hearing for a part time member of staff at a school in a neighbouring village. The hearing stretched to four hours, and consequently I was late for Christmas Lunch with the children in the other village school. But Jackie the school cook had saved me a turkey roast in the oven and when I eventually arrived I was able to track it down in the empty kitchen, long after afternoon classes had started. Then out onto the Hampshire Hangers to walk the dog for an hour before a meeting with one of the churchwardens, followed by a Nativity Service in church.

I used to think that vicars do nothing of economic value, until an estate agent told me that it is a good selling point if the village has an active church. It apparently raises house prices. So I am doing my bit for God and Mammon.

Incense and Ritual, N6

2011-11-30T01:44:00.001Z

Incense was in use in plenty at St Augustine's, Archway Road, north London where I baptised my grandson at last Sunday's Mass. It's an Anglo Catholic Church with attitude. The service used the revised Roman Rite. I'm more used now to small country churches, but parading in ceremony at the Altar, with two other priests, and with plenty of genuflections and reverences, was a reminder of my earlier years. The Church of England has an amazing variety of worship, from band-led worship through to High Anglicanism, as on Sunday. Fr Philip, the parish priest at St Augustine's, told me before the service that Anglo Catholic chaos would be likely to break out during the course of the ceremonies, but that all would be well. A glass of wine followed the service afterwards to celebrate the baptism. It was a good way of beginning Advent.

Ghana link

2011-11-24T23:54:00.003Z

A long Church Council meeting this week which dragged on. Church Councils air views but rarely take decisions. It's a fault of the system, rather than the members of the council. Somebody made a sly reference to the church meetings in the Vicar of Dibley tv series. Under discussion this week was how the village churches in this benefice of two parishes could link better with their counterparts in Ghana. The problem is that it is difficult to make regular contact with fellow Christian priests in Ghana. They move parishes every 4 years or so, and although mobile phones are widespread in Africa, our priests are not into texting, and their broadband networks aren't good. If we go over to Ghana for a face to face visit, it costs £1000 per person. If Ghanians come here, their travel costs need to be met. So the council talked round what might be possible and what could be done. Everyone agreed that for small rural UK parishes, a Ghanian church link is a way to avoid becoming too cosy and insular. But there's more discussion ahead.

Posada

2011-11-16T00:17:00.001Z

The church has no crib set so we bought this one, which arrived today. It is made of resin, and was produced in Italy. The angel is suspended from the ceiling by string. I asked Dick if he would make a stable to house the figures. He has set to work with enthusiasm, and plans to finish it by next week. Meanwhile, Suzi has called and has taken all the figures and is arranging to send them around different homes in the village during Advent. Posada is popular in South America. It seems to work here too.

Bacon

2011-11-11T16:45:00.001Z

The Eurozone may be in crisis but here in the villages, among the small holders, the talk is about how to get colour into home cured bacon. Brian's bacon is tasty, but is a curious yellowish hue. Sarah in Froxfield is using the traditional method of colouring bacon by rubbing saltpetre into it. She says that she got some strained enquiries at the chemists when she asked for saltpetre. Meanwhile, Brian's seven turkeys are reduced by one, after a visit by the fox. Each night, one or other of the turkeys manages to fly over the electric fence. Brian is adept at doing late night rugby tackles on unsuspecting turkeys and hopes that the neighbours are not watching.

St Paul's

2011-11-02T11:48:00.000Z

'What's happening at St Paul's Cathedral, then?' In quiet country places that's the question which I am being asked. And it's often people with no membership and few attendance links to the Church of England who are most interested. For some the intricacy of church politics attracts them. For others, it is the puzzle of how the church can get itself into such a mess (albeit a holy one). For some, the episode highlights the ambiguous relationship between the financial establishment and the church. And all this in a country where Christianity is becoming the religion of the minority. The church has life in her yet.

Postman Pat

2011-10-31T14:52:00.002Z

Living in a small village is sometimes like being in a Postman Pat animation. Yesterday morning, at 950, I came out of the vicarage, fully uniformed, to walk to church to conduct the Sunday service. Terry, a local farmer, at that moment drove by in his tractor. A hand of greeting was raised through the open window accompanied by: 'Hello John!' In response, I did a high five and shouted back, 'Morning, Terry'. Being known and knowing others in a small community is what makes rural life special.

Life of Brian

2011-10-21T00:15:00.009+01:00

Last night BBC4 re-ran the 1979 discussion on 'Life of Brian' between Mervyn Stockwood, the then Bishop of Southwark, Malcolm Muggeridge, John Cleese and Michael Palin. Stockwood veered between menacing charm, headmasterly condescension and petulant outburst. Muggeridge was himself, speaking in tortured sentences with many sub-clauses. Both men were aggressive towards Palin and Cleese. Palin came across as the most socially skilled but was visibly angered by the bishop's atttitude. Everyone looked nervous.

I can remember the outrage caused by 'Life of Brian', especially by the closing Crucifixion scene set to 'Look on the bright side of life' ('we were making light of death not of Jesus' - Palin). Stockwood said that the Python team wouldn't have dared make such a film about another religion, like Islam. But that was perhaps his best shot. The two older men belittled 'Life of Brian' as a film of no worth which would not last, but watching the discussion thirty years on, it is Muggeridge and Stockwood who seem part of a vanished era - the young Cleese and Palin still speak and sound like people of today. John Cleese said of the encounter, "I always felt we won that one by behaving better than the Christians".

Chainsaws

2011-10-20T00:28:00.000+01:00

Chuck, who owns the woods behind the vicarage, has a team of men working there, thinning and felling the trees. It's a job which only needs doing every forty years. The noise of chainsaws can be heard over the village as the hazels and ashes are coppiced, and the large oak standards removed. Some villagers are unhappy with the extent of the felling. But up to the time of the Great War, woods of this sort used to be busy and noisy places, teeming with men, when charcoal burning, coppicing, and timber production went on for much of the year. Now the overcrowded and dark woods have been opened up to reveal light airy spaces, in which groundcover and animal and bird life will flourish. Next spring the bluebells will be a sight worth seeing.

Harvest stream

2011-10-10T21:55:00.002+01:00

Steep Church, Sunday, 730 am. The smell of ripe apples, tomatoes, carrots and flowers greeted me when I swung open the church door. It was the day of the Harvest Festival. Pauline had left milk churns on a bale of straw near the lectern. The harvest beauty of the Norman building was stunning, more so since I had been away on Saturday and had seen none of the preparations. Clergy and bishops these days have mission statements and strategic plans sometimes fuelled by careerism in the church, but actually, these things are superficial. Deep in English rural life there still runs a stream of religiosity in which village people decorate their church at Harvest and Christmas, regardless of who happens to be their vicar at the time. It's wordless, sometimes inarticulate, and out of kilter with today's mission minded church. But I would bet that in 50 years' time it will still be happening, long after our ecclesiastical strategy documents have been pulped and forgotten.

Tutorial group

2011-10-06T00:03:00.004+01:00

I met with two ordination candidates on the STETS course this evening. We shall be spending three years together in term time weekly meetings, unpacking their theological studies, which they do by distance learning. During the day they have their jobs, and they have busy family lives as well. It's incredible that they manage to squeeze in 12 to 15 hours of study each week. They're committed, and believe in what they are doing. At STETS they are taught to be reflective, and to look at questions from all angles, providing evidence for their opinions and views. But unfortunately, today's church isn't always distinguished by these qualities of thoughtfulness and intelligence.

Taking leave

2011-10-01T20:55:00.000+01:00

The sun shone warmly on the garden outside, and late flowering dahlias added colour to the lawns as I said some departure prayers at the bedside in the residential home. Family members were gathered round. I paraphrased a prayer I remembered asking that angels would guard and protect the dying person on her journey, and I made the sign of the cross on her forehead. Afterwards, stepping outside into the bright sunlight, I hoped that when my time comes, I too will have a person to say some prayers to wish me well for the journey ahead.

Abattoir

2011-09-27T00:11:00.001+01:00

The time had come and today I took my two pigs to the abattoir. Seven months of growing in the back garden, and each pig weighed in at 55 kilos. My neighbours helped me to get the pigs out of the woodland at the bottom of the garden. One pig went easily; the other had to be forcibly walked backwards with a bucket held on its head. Brian, Eni and I struggled to keep her from running off back to her pen. A sow of 55 kilos is more than a match for a strong man. We took a raft of official forms to the abattoir giving notice of pig movements and once the legal stuff was done, the pigs were loaded into waiting bays before they were moved through to the despatch rooms. A friendly Polish slaughterman, speaking broken English, had a nice manner in unloading the pigs off the trailer. In two days' time I am due to collect the carcases, to take to a local butcher. Then the joints and sausages will appear and the harvest will be enjoyed. A number of people have wrinkled their noses in distaste and asked, 'How could you eat your own pigs?' But it's not as if the vacuum packed meat on supermarket shelves has come from anywhere else other than the abattoir and butchery.

Bishop's Conference

2011-09-23T15:02:00.007+01:00

The summons came from the Bishop for clergy to attend a three day residential conference. A coach was provided to Hoddesden, the conference venue. So I left my pigs, chickens and bees in the care of a neighbour. Nearly 200 people from across Hampshire, both clergy and readers, attended. Three speakers addressed the gathering, each with their own insights on how the church might engage more effectively with the nation today. Strategic direction came from the platform, together with lots of laughter and good humour from the clergy (clergy do tend to laugh noisily when in public). I guess that beneath the surface there is institutional anxiety about the changing fortunes of the church. Martin Luther provided the antidote to strategic overdrive when he said: While I sip my glass of Wittenberg beer, the gospel runs its course.

Portsmouth

2011-09-17T22:55:00.000+01:00

I attended the Readers' Licensing Service today in Portsmouth Cathedral. Caroline was re-licensed to our local parishes. The parish services of the C of E would collapse were it not for the calibre and commitment of readers.

Salisbury

2011-09-16T23:55:00.004+01:00

An overnight course at Sarum College, Salisbury. Thirty years ago I trained there to become a C of E minister, in the days when it was a residental theological college to prepare men for ordination into the church. The bedrooms are now en suite and the facilities are much improved, including the refectory food. I felt I could still hear conversations of the young men who once filled the building, imbued with heady idealism as we looked to our futures in England's parishes. Communion in the Cathedral at 730 this morning. Nicholas Holtam, the new bishop of Salisbury, also attended: consecrated but not yet on official duties until October. Sean Henry statues are all around the cathedral. In the cloisters a girl stares over the grass, while outside on the west end, a full sized statue of a suited man drinking coffee stands in one of the niches once reserved for a long gone stone saint. My camera's shutter jammed in taking a photograph, as the unseeing statues looked on.

L'Arche at Greenbelt

2011-09-06T23:16:00.003+01:00

I took my annual fix of camping at the Greenbelt Festival at Cheltenham Race Course over the bank holiday. No churchy Christianity on display there. The L'Arche Community held a Sunday service which I attended with my daughter. We crowded into a room with people from the Community as well as other Festival goers. In groups of ten, we were invited, after songs and drama, to wash the feet of one another. The person receiving the foot washing then blessed the person who did the foot washing. In a room of adults with learning difficulties it was somehow very moving to be a part of such a gathering. Henri Nouwen spent some years in a L'Arche Community, and when he gave learned talks on spirituality in universities and colleges, he would take some members of the community with him. While he lectured, they sat behind him on the rostrum, shuffling in their chairs, picking their noses, and were wholly unimpressed by his erudition. He said later that it was good to have them there to remind him not to have too grand an impression of himself.

Bee home

2011-08-31T13:50:00.000+01:00

Russell from the local beekeepers phoned to say there was a swarm on a stud near Cheriton. When I reached the farm, I found, not a swarm, but a nest in a tree which had been taken down. The chainsaw had cut through a bee colony which had nested inside its hollow. The tree surgeons at that point had wisely beat a hasty retreat. The bees were now docile, perhaps as a result of having lost their queen, and I scooped them out into a spare hive. At dusk I returned to take the bees home and the new occupants of the hive seem to have settled.

Largest Duvet Machine

2011-08-25T23:10:00.000+01:00

Who knew that Sheringham boasts the largest Duvet Machine in North Norfolk? East Hampshire must be told.

Porthgain, Pembrokeshire

2011-08-05T14:54:00.003+01:00

A holiday week at Porthgain, west Wales. Some of Southampton's road fill came from the now defunct quarry there. The quarry started off producing roof slate in the 1880s, then as the supply dried up, the owners diversified into brick making, followed by stone for road fill along the UK's south coast. The stone was shipped out from the sheltered harbour. Now the quarry and derelict train sheds are to be seen on the Pembrokeshire coastal path. When the quarry came to a halt in the 1930s, an ex-quarryman was employed to keep the machinery and winding gear in working order in case the whole place sprang back into commercial production. He patrolled daily, presumably with oil can in hand. Rebirth never came. So the site is now on the industrial heritage trial. It provided two working generations with income and livelihoods. At the time, for those working families, it must have seemed as if it would go on for ever.

Organ failure

2011-07-13T17:28:00.003+01:00

The lights flickered in church last Sunday and I was reminded of the time I conducted a wedding, when a power cut struck. The electric organ bellows stopped, and the hymn wheezily came to a slow end. George, at that time verger, stepped up to the organ, disappeared round the back, and set to in using the hand bellows. We creakily got through the rest of the hymn with varying tempo. Afterwards George told me that when he was a boy, 70 years earlier, he remembers the vicar smelling cigarette smoke in church during Sunday service. It seemed to be coming from behind the organ where a 14 year old was pumping the bellows. The unsuspecting lad was having a quick cigarette, and the smoke was wafting through the organ pipes. The vicar stopping the congregation in the middle of the hymn, surprised the unfortunate youth and clipped him round the ear, before resuming 'Love divine, all loves excelling.'

Work shadow

2011-07-01T00:22:00.004+01:00

I was work shadowed by Guy and Kath, who followed me round from church to church, service to service, and visit to visit. Why did you want to shadow a vicar? I asked. Well, they replied, the choice was a bit limited at their school when the work shadow day was proposed. I'm aware how distinctly odd is the job of a vicar when two pairs of eyes and ears are following every movement. Morning Prayer was followed by a one hour visit to Langrish Primary School, with a visit to the Reception Class plus a whole school assembly added in for good measure. For the older ones, we talked about the communion service (Ugh! Drinking blood is not very nice) and then did it together, sharing bread and water. Then over to Jenny's retreat house for lunch, while a thunderstorm raged. A quick visit to a residential care home, followed by walking the dog and pig feeding, with another school assembly in the afternoon. Kath and Guy were good shadowers. Years ago, John Morton, then starting out on a fledgling career as a tv and radio script writer, shadowed me for a day. Out of his observations, he wrote a script portraying an indecisive vicar meeting up with the parish administrator, in which everything oozed with churchy niceness. Kath and Guy were much kinder.

Roses and Bats

2011-06-16T17:32:00.003+01:00

Andrew lives in a cottage festooned with roses and with their scents wafting over his garden. It's an oasis of calm and quiet rural ebullience: the rambling rector has rooted itself in several different places and now blossoms cascade from the trees which frame the boundaries of his garden. Andrew tells me that of a summer's evening he likes to come out as dusk falls, lean on the gate at the front of the cottage, and watch the bats twisting and turning against the darkening sky. He finds their movements swift and entrancing. He has managed to retain into old age an impressive sense of wonder at the natural world around him.

St Francis has nothing to say

2011-06-12T13:34:00.002+01:00

Francis got up to preach in the cathedral one Sunday, and it was packed with people who had come to hear him. He got up, having spent all night trying to write something, and just opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish. Eventually, he said, 'Amen', and sat down. When they asked him why he hadn't said anything, he said: 'God didn't give me anything to say.' Some preachers could benefit from that story, perhaps.
(From the Church Times, 10 June)

Ratko Mladic - beekeeper

2011-06-03T00:24:00.003+01:00

General Ratko Mladic has been extradited to the Hague to stand trial on war crimes. He reportedly kept goats and bees while living a rural life hidden away in Serbia. His goats were named after his adversaries, including Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State. His beekeeping comes as a surprise. Bees have been revered since ancient times for their creation of perfect community within the hive, where each individual has an honoured place and works for the good of all. Abbe Warre quotes Henry Bordeaux in his book on bees: 'What I admire most in the bee colony is the bee's total disregard for itself; she gives herself wholly to to a job she will not enjoy - joy in the effort and giving of herself.' By all accounts, the general did his ruthless best to achieve the opposite. His bees will not have mourned his departure.

Escape

2011-05-17T23:23:00.002+01:00

The local almshouses have a vacancy and I was due to meet with some applicants. They are not quite the poor men of the village proposed by Mr Eames, the Victorian benefactor of the houses, since both are female, but in every respect I think he would have been pleased that the trustees are carrying out his wishes over a century later. Just before the first applicant was due to arrive, our dog made a determined bolt for freedom. He ran down the village street, sky high on adolescent hormones, in pursuit of a canine friendship (perhaps more). I grabbed my bike and followed; the culprit was apprehended at the entrance to Bedales School. A vicar friend of mine once kept a large black labrador called Moses. On the vicarage gate was a sign which read: 'Please keep this gate shut, otherwise Moses will escape to the delights of the Promised Land.'

Bees drinking water

2011-05-07T20:58:00.004+01:00

A neighbour has noticed bees apparently taking small amounts of clay from the sides of her pond. We watched the bees today, on a warm dry afternoon and they did indeed appear to be taking tiny amounts of clay and water. I thought at first they must be mason bees, which make tiny cells out of clay, as well as honey thimbles, but these appeared to be honey bees. So our conclusion was that the bees were not taking the clay, but were sucking water from it and then taking it back to their hive/s in order to dilute the honey, or perhaps cool the hive down. In googling, I came across Jean Henri-Fabre's observations from the 1800s on mason bees and clay.

Royal Wedding Celebration

2011-05-01T21:49:00.008+01:00

Marooned in bank holidays and post Easter haze, I was up late yesterday. Still padding round in my dressing gown at 9 am when a cake was delivered to the house ready for Steep's version of a street party. {Robert Dolling, Anglo-Catholic priest in a Portsmouth slum in the 1890s used to get up at 530 each morning in order to waken the men and boys who lived in his house, and get them off to work; he then went back to bed to read or write sermons, before celebrating Holy Communion at 7 am. Dolling died at 51, from exhaustion}. The afternoon on Steep Common attracted a couple of hundred people; Rachel wore her own wedding dress; there was a very nice barrel of Bowman's beer - it all went), lots of tea and cakes and the sun shone throughout. Our dog came fifth in a dog competition ('dog you would most like to take home'). It was a retro event which made everyone feel better.

Easter Day

2011-04-24T22:36:00.002+01:00

Ellie, a church member, was confirmed in Portsmouth Cathedral last night. The Easter Liturgy is an impressive service which begins with a fire being lit outside the cathedral doors; the Easter Candle is ceremonally lit from the new fire, and then carried into the dark interior with the congregation following. Christ is risen! sings the Deacon, carrying the candle, and the people respond: He is risen indeed! There's a re-connection with the basic human need for warmth and light in this annual ritual of awakened hope. We left the cathedral at 1130 pm and returned home; a few hours sleep and I was up at 5 am for the Dawn Communion in the hamlet of Froxfield Green. In spite of tiptoeing around, I awakened both my grand daughter and the family spaniel in leaving the house. It has been a great day of celebration, with sparkling wine following one of the Easter services. It reinforces my conviction that Resurrection is an experience, not a concept looking for proof. Alleluia!

Land Rover repairs

2011-04-07T21:49:00.004+01:00

My Land Rover, after 40 years of active service, is in need of more than TLC. So I bought 1/4 of a new chassis online - you can buy 1/2 a chassis, or a full one - and with the help of Kevin, 6' 2" and a skilled welder, have replaced the rear end of the chassis. The tools of the trade are: two heavy hammers; an angle grinder; 2 large monkey wrenches; welding equipment; copious cups of tea. The end result is impressive and makes me look forward to a pre-Easter jaunt down winding Hampshire lanes, driving my refurbished monster. When working with Kevin one recent spring afternoon, I was reminded of William's Law: 'There is no mechanical problem so difficult that it cannot be solved by brute force and ignorance.'

Cutlers, Skinners and Haberdashers

2011-03-30T00:17:00.008+01:00

To London to attend a memorial service for the late David Sime, a local resident, who was several times Master of the Haberdashers in London. {When David met Prince Philip, the duke said to him: 'You don't look like a haberdasher'}. The reception was held in the Haberdashers Hall. I've now been to the halls of the Cutlers, the Skinners and the Haberdashers. Richard, our churchwarden, and a former Master of the Cutlers, tells me there are approximately 103 livery companies. The Haberdasher's hall is a fine place - built on its present site in 2001, it is directly opposite St Bart's Hospital but few people would know it was there. A fine spring day in London and I walked back to the train via the Barbican Centre. Visited the 1970s exhibition of Gordon Matta-Clark photos and exhibits. One exhibit was a disco stage set up with keyboard, chair and amplifying equipment. Decrepit flourescent tubes on the stage had been programmed to flicker noisily in the way that they did (familiar to anyone over the age of 50). The chair moved across the stage by itself at 30 second intervals. It was like the start of a washed out colour sci-fi film from the 70s. Weird and provoking.

Self portrait, Gordon Matta-Clark

Steep Pig Association

2011-03-22T17:41:00.003Z

That's the name Brian has suggested should go up at the entrance to Steep village. So many of us are now starting to keep pigs in our back gardens that we think of starting a pig association of national importance. There's me; there's Brian, a few doors away; there's Alistair and Peter over the road at Bedales. Within a few days we shall take delivery of our pigs. And then the sign, in bright lights, will go up over the village. And Steep Pig Association, the Home of Quality Pork, will achieve the recognition it so richly deserves.

Rumi

2011-03-12T23:12:00.006Z

An enthusiastic speaker at Sarum College, Salisbury this week introduced us to Rumi, the thirteenth century philosopher and poet. His poems are found to be of help today in inter-faith dialogue. Living roughly at the same time as St Francis, this Muslim mystic has a similar charisma and attractiveness for today. The Penguin paraphrase of his poems has some gems:

An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: for loving a true love.
Legs: to run after.

And this:

Which is worth more, a crowd of thousands,
or your own genuine solitude?
Freedom, or power over an entire nation?
A little while in your own room
will prove more valuable than anything else
that could ever be given you.

Room of Quietness, Berlin

2011-02-27T00:37:00.003Z

A small room nestles in part of the Brandenburg Gate: a place for prayer, silence, restoration, as you choose. As I sat in the room, I read the provided words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which speak of the clarity and purification of silence. Twenty two years after the fall of the East-West Wall, Berlin still remains an extraordinary city of contrasts.

Dalai Lama

2011-02-19T21:37:00.001Z

A speaker at Portsmouth Diocesan Synod today quoted the Dalai Lama: "If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito."

Piglets

2011-02-08T13:44:00.005Z

Philip phoned at 9 pm last night. Autumn was giving birth. I went round to have a look, driving through the moonlit lanes. Number 9 had just been born when I arrived, its cord trailing on the floor. Nine piglets, with one still born. Autumn lay, like a beached whale, while her offspring clambered to get a suck from one of her fourteen teats. An hour old, and they were already climbing, running and squealing. Decidedly pig-like, in fact.

Kenneth Stevenson's funeral

2011-01-28T12:09:00.003Z

I attended Bishop Kenneth Stevenson's funeral in Portsmouth Cathedral. Every seat was taken; I stood alongside a pillar in company with others. Kenneth was a big man in every way - 'Wagnerian' as someone described him. After the service, champagne was served in plastic cups. It was his favourite drink, and one he enjoyed on his last evening, surrounded by his family. He referred to it as 'shampoo' and gave instructions for it to be served at his funeral. It was his final joke, and a good one. One could almost hear his laugh echoing round the cathedral.

C'est la vie!

2011-01-21T21:15:00.003Z

I had been trying to arrange a meeting with a friend and the dates we arranged were later torpedoed by subsequent events crowding in. After the second such attempt had failed he emailed back: C'est la vie! Presumably he did it with a Gallic shrug. By way of contrast with the Slavonic temperament, I was reminded of the Russian poet, who, when he was asked how he was feeling, replied: 'Worse than yesterday, but better than tomorrow'. That presumably, should be said with a shot of vodka to hand.

2011-01-16T15:01:00.003Z

The Guardian gave this film the thumbs up and suggested that even the most ardent republican would leave the film with tears in the eyes. When I saw it in a packed Winchester cinema there was a spontaneous round of applause at the end. And it is very moving. Colin Firth's angry, diffident but warm hearted king invites you to feel protective of him, and to sympathise with his speech impediment, and the cost of overcoming it. We sat on the front row - there being no other seats available - gazing up at the main screen. I balanced a glass of beer on my stomach and found by sitting on the small of my back I could just about get the screen into view. It was a thoroughly undignified way of watching royalty.

New Year virility

2011-01-02T10:42:00.007Z

A recommended Bible reading for the New Year is Joshua chapter 1. I came across an alternative, which I am not brave enough to introduce into a C of E service. My mother in law sent me a 2011 year planner produced by Farming Life of Northern Ireland. One of the adverts on the planner is from a UK bull stud. It goes straight for the message: Great bulls. Great semen. Great value. www.cogentuk.com. Hmm.

South Bank

2010-12-30T23:15:00.003Z

Took train for a quick foray into London. Reminded of Edward Thomas who needed to meet up regularly with his friends in the capital but was always glad to escape back to Steep and the countryside. At the South Bank I passed Simon Callow and momentarily wanted to congratulate him on having played a vicar in touch with his feelings in a televised version of Forster's 'Howard End' some years ago. I recovered in time to spare the poor fellow one of those encounters he must endure every hour of the day when in public. Over to the National Gallery, which was thronged with festive if tired looking visitors, to take a quick look at George Stubbs' champion stallion, Whistlejacket, 1762. The painting notes said that Stubbs was uniquely English in his subject matter. That pleased me as I returned home to Hampshire.

Church Road, Steep

2010-12-19T14:16:00.002Z

Snow run

2010-12-18T23:23:00.003Z

530 am and the snow began to fall slowly and silently. I had a run at 9 am through empty lanes, as the snow continued, calling in at the turkey farm in the Ashford Hangers. 'Where are they all?' I asked. I was shown the trussed birds on the tables, awaiting collection, as six men dressed and prepared the remaining carcases. It was the turn of the geese to meet their end this morning and join the turkeys, in readiness for the days leading up to the 25th. Then back to the house, where I dug out the chicken run from under 6 inches of snow. The birds were reluctant to come outside until enticed with straw bedding and pellets. They looked disdainfully up at the sky, did the avian equivalent of a shrug, then ventured out of their coop.

Ministry of Presence

2010-12-10T10:23:00.002Z

In my training days, it was called 'loitering with intent'. This practice is the opposite of intense, activity-driven ministry, with clear targets and expectations (the sort of ministry which is increasingly harder to practice today). You just share in the life going on around you, wearing a dog collar for high visibility. It seems to me to work. This week I went along to Steep Primary's Christmas lunch; I sat on the tiny school benches and in the din of excited children, managed to hear about 50% of the cracker jokes read out to me. In church last night, I attended the school's nativity service and led two prayers at the end. The children were enthusiastic and animated and told the Christmas story with poise and charm. The special value for me is in the talking with parents and children afterwards: the 'hanging around' until the last person has left the building. It's in those relaxed and waiting moments that something is confided; something is said which wouldn't otherwise be said or done in a more formal setting. It's great that I get a stipend to do it.

2010-11-24T13:47:00.004Z

24 days of growing and my MOVEMBER moustache is distinguished by its light wispy appearance and general lack of virility. It's a sad effort, but my own. Terry down the road sports a good example of upper lip facial hair, while Jeremy, churchwarden, is magnificent and could pass muster as a retired army officer. I took a school assembly this morning and felt the need to explain myself to the children. But the cause remains a good one. Roll on 30 November; the blades are ready.

Rural Life Conference

2010-11-14T13:37:00.004Z

I attended a rural church life conference in Derbyshire last week. The Archbishop of Canterbury passed through on the last day and agreed to join an Any Questions panel. One of the questions asked was: What are the chief characteristics of the rural church community? The answer Rowan Williams gave was: (1) Community - in the countryside people know one another and derive support from the local community; (2) Continuity - there is a sense of place and time which are lacking in the suburban/urban areas; (3) Mortality - every village has its own churchyard where we can see what is the human condition and where we are all heading.
Somebody then asked him whether David Cameron's idea of 'Big Society' was a good one. The Archbishop paused and then said, 'Well, in the absence of any other ideas, it is.'

Harrow Pumpkin Competition

2010-10-26T23:27:00.004+01:00

A judge was required of impeccable moral background in order to judge the pumpkin competition at the Harrow Inn, Steep. My credentials were apparently sufficient to get the job. The winning pumpkin is judged solely on weight, but the length of stalk left on each provokes comment - especially say, if it is plugged with lead shot in order to illegally increase the weight. {There were no illegal entries last night.} Rollo wheeled in his offering in a child's toy barrow, complete with the words HARROW etched into the skin. We borrowed Claire's bathroom scales to weigh these monsters, in stones and pounds. Dave was the winner, with a beauty weighing nearly 4 stone.

South Downs Bloodhounds

2010-10-17T23:21:00.003+01:00

A bright sunny morning after a cold start. On the way home after morning service, I passed a hunting meet in Froxfield - the South Downs Bloodhounds were gathering, and port was being shared around before the hunt began. The human quarry was waiting patiently before being driven to the starting point. The hounds can pick up a human scent for up to eight days afterwards. Since the hunting ban, events like these attract a wide cross section of people - and it's hard not to be impressed by its warm community spirit.

Steep Bonfire

2010-10-13T12:04:00.002+01:00

Paul is master minding the building of Steep Village's 5th November bonfire once again. It is a work of art, lovingly nurtured by scientific knowledge. Paul says that for two seasons, he smoked out the hundreds of people who gather on the Common for the annual bonfire and fireworks. Heavy smoke cascaded down on them, filling their eyes with the wrong sort of smoke, rather like the wrong sort of leaves on railway lines. All that is now a thing of the past. Paul starts by building a substantial wooden framed chimney on 2" x 2" timber. The combustible material is then brought to the frame - but the trick is, he says, to drag the wood up through the chimney and build the bonfire outwards from the centre. The result is a huge bonfire which burns out 20 minutes after lighting with but a small amount of smoke - however wet the weather is in the run up to November 5th. And will the trees of the Common catch light as a result of this annual conflagration? 'There is always that possibility' says Paul.

Parson naturalists

2010-09-30T22:13:00.003+01:00

In Southampton and browsed in a second hand bookshop. I came across a thick volume by a nineteenth century clerical naturalist on the flora of the British Isles. The author had a living in Newbury in the 1880s, and moved on to found his own school. In between he managed to study the local natural history, compose this book among many others, and produce his own line drawings to accompany the text. He was pretty typical of a whole class of bright, scientifically minded nineteenth century English clergy who were riding the wave of natural history discoveries. Nowadays the clergy think they should specialise in religion, it being their profession, whereas these fellas from an earlier age were fascinated by the opportunities in learning they found all around them.

Caldey Island

2010-08-24T15:39:00.007+01:00

This rusting British monster is for sale. It sits, unloved, on Caldey Island, west Wales, near the monastery. It needs an expensive restoration and was powered originally by Rolls Royce engines. If it had been restored, it would have joined the working German amphibious vehicle which takes passengers off the boats from Tenby to the Island. The sound of the two V8 engines which now power the German vehicle is thrilling - a magnificent deep throated roar. One would imagine that the monks saying their daily offices must hear the sound from behind the secluded walls. A friend of mine put a V8 inside his old Land Rover, partly because he liked to leave cars standing on the motorway, and catch a glimpse of astonishment on other drivers' faces.

Virgil on Bees

2010-06-29T23:44:00.003+01:00

Virgil, in 29 BC, advises how best to keep bees: 'First seek a settled home for your bees, whither the winds may find no access - for the winds let them not carry home their food - where no ewes or sportive kids may trample the flowers, nor straying heifer brush off the dew from the mead and bruise the springing blade.' He knew the bees' habits but perhaps not so very closely. He thought, in common with other observers, that the bees' leader was a male monarch. This persisted until the Revd Charles Butler, living in a poor and forgotten parish near Basingstoke, and watching his own straw skep hives more closely, came to the conclusion that the king was, in fact, a queen. In 'The Feminine Monarchie' of 1623, Butler broke new ground. Now we think it commonplace that there should be a queen bee in every hive. It took an awful long time for humankind to realise that this is so.

Dora's Field

2010-06-18T22:36:00.006+01:00

A rural church conference at Rydal Hall, Windermere. Next door to the conference hall is Rydal Mount, where Wordsworth and his family lived for over three decades. After the conference was over, and before my train left Windermere Station, I looked around the terraced garden and house. Feted for his poetry, there is another side to Wordsworth's life: that of family grief and loss. Dora, his daughter, had ill health throughout her life, and in her early 40s, she returned home to Rydal to be nursed by her ageing parents. She died in the small upstairs bedroom. William and Mary, aged 77, had the stamina and determination to plant a neighbouring field with daffodil bulbs in memory of her. Dora's field in spring is now covered by daffodils.

At London Waterloo, on the way back, I saw a man resplendent in a blue cord jacket, and complimented him. As I did so, I wondered whether he might take it amiss. He didn't. The pleasure on his face said he knew a compliment when he heard one.

Rich and poor

2010-06-05T16:57:00.004+01:00

At the Weald & Downland Museum in Sussex is a 16th century peasant's cottage - a small garden for medicinal plants, and tiny rooms for a large and hungry family. There are no surviving artifacts from the original inhabitant of the cottage, and the few he had would not have been thought worth saving. All that hard life and living has to be imagined. The next day I visited Ham House on the banks of the Thames near Richmond, a house which William Murray acquired in 1626. The house 'offers an unparalleled example of 17th century courtly taste'. Well, yes it does, as do the extensive gardens, copied in part from the great French gardens of the time. We know the names of these people, what they looked like, as well as their tastes, the detail of their balance sheets from year to year, and how their life histories panned out. Murray & Co have left a hefty footprint, unlike the Sussex landless peasant who raised his family not that much earlier, in complete anonymity. The rich and the poor always seem to have walked in different paths.

Sheep Castration actually

2010-05-26T16:35:00.002+01:00

In four days I have had two conversations about sheep castration. The second time was last night in the Harrow, when I was talking to a shepherd, and over a pint she explained (as one does) that an elastic loop is placed over the scrotum and snaps tight, restricting the blood supply, and hey presto, the equipment withers on the vine. It struck me as a jolly sight less painful than the razor slitting ops they did on pigs not so long ago, in local villages.

Timber working

2010-05-17T13:13:00.003+01:00

Chuck, who owns the woods behind the house, has been doing some clearing. A few mis-shapen stander oaks have been felled, ready for carting away. Getting the timber out would have been done by heavy horse in days gone by, but now tractors are used. The woods were heavily worked in earlier years - much of it for coppicing, and presumably with an itinerant charcoal burner, who would have set up camp for a few days. I tried my hand at starting a coppice fence. It is much more difficult than it looks, and requires the right flexibility of timber, together with a keen eye for exactly where to bend and cut.

2010-04-23T15:14:00.002+01:00

A sea of blue signs is present in the villages, and the surrounding fields, but broken up by significant patches of yellow. It is said that rural communities are naturally conservative and Conservative voting, but that alignment is not automatic. I hear on the grapevine that one of the silent agreements made in return for supporting the Conservatives, is that there will be a free vote on rescinding the Hunting Ban in the UK, if a Conservative Government is elected. I say 'silent' because this topic seems to get no public airing in current political debates, and I guess many candidates, whether Labour or Conservative, would prefer not to be asked their views.

Battle of the Somme

2010-04-09T10:06:00.002+01:00

A funeral of a 95 year old woman in Steep Church yesterday brings a poignant reminder of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. At the funeral, her grandson gave a tribute, and told us that his grandmother never saw her own father. Her father was killed at the Somme, along with 420,000 other British soldiers, in the Great War's most notorious battle. I wondered whether her mother had ever remarried. It was unlikely, given the virtual wipe out of young men of that generation in the Great War. Nowadays we rightly agonise over the number of deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan. It's hard though, to grasp the scale and human cost of First World War battles, when 60,000 men were killed on the first day of the Somme in July 1916. And that is for British casualties alone, quite apart from the French and German losses.

2010-03-31T13:07:00.004+01:00

To Portsmouth No 6 Cinema last night to see 'Into Great Silence'. In 1984, Philip Groning asked permission to film a documentary on life inside the Grande Charteuse in the French Alps, where the Carthusian Order of monks are based. 'Not yet' was the reply; 'we are not ready'. Sixteen years later they contacted him: 'We are ready now.' Shot on a hand held camera in grainy colour film in natural lighting, the film is hypnotic. No added sounds are on the track; there is no music other than the monks' chanting. The most powerful shots for me were the facial close-ups of some of the monks: young men, middle-aged, and elderly. They returned the scrutiny, without smiling, but without hostility. They didn't need the affirmation of the viewer, and were indifferent to it. A bitterly cold night in Portsmouth. Fish and chips on the way back. I couldn't be a monk.

2010-03-09T22:57:00.003Z

Sunday 7th March was the Edward Thomas Birthday Walk. Members of the Edward Thomas Fellowship gather annually in Steep village in the morning, ready to walk to the memorial stone to Thomas on the Shoulder of Mutton Hill. The poet's presence still sits on the landscape and amongst the local houses where he lived: Berryfield Cottage in 1906, followed by The Red House, and finally, 2 Yew Tree Cottage. His children went to Bedales School in the village. I saw a friend from a sixth form college, who reckons that Thomas left a group of about eight poems which are the core to his poetry. I need to engage with them in order to avoid the fate of being like those who live in London, but somehow never manage to visit any of the attractions for which the capital is famed.

New bishop

2010-02-19T00:01:00.005Z

Christopher Foster has been appointed the new Bishop of Portsmouth. He is currently in St Alban's Diocese. Robert Runcie, when he was Bishop of St Albans, used to keep pigs as a pastime, supposedly, he said, to take his mind off ecclesiastical responsibilities. I suppose everyone needs a hinterland of interests if they are to survive in the gaze of perpetual publicity. Denis Healey, who coined that memorable phrase, used to work off steam by felling trees and clearing scrub land at week ends, away from his Chancellor's duties. He followed in a long line of tree-fellers, of whom Gladstone was a notable example. William Carlyle had given the whole activity intellectual respectability with his picture of the thinking politician as one who could wield an axe and put his back into hard physical work. It belongs to another era of thought. Maybe the new Bishop of Portsmouth will follow in the same tradition. But keeping pigs would be a kinder expression of hinterland.

Hymns at the Chaplaincy

2010-01-22T14:28:00.005Z

I met with two mature students on the STETS ordination training course this week. We meet in Southampton University Chaplaincy Centre, since it is about half way from our homes. As we were working through the current study unit (John's Gospel) we were serenaded? by loud hymn singing from the room below. A group of students was belting out hymns around the piano, with beer to hand. It was exams week at the uni, and this, I was told, was the de-stressing response of the Christian students. Interested as I am in the Johannine gospel, I felt pleasantly distracted by hearing 'Lord of the Dance' and wanted to join in. It reminded me of the time, decades ago, when I was part of a youth fellowship, with its blend of fun, innocence, and expectation.

2010-01-08T21:23:00.005Z

This robin called in at the church porch in Steep this morning when I was clearing the snow from the church path. I had gone along to say morning prayer in church and had taken a spade. The snow clearance - of 12 inches depth - took longer than I thought it would. Half way through, I sat down in the porch to read the prayers. It was at that point that the robin stepped in. I was reminded of a story from St Francis, who talked of the birds singing the morning office by their dawn chorus in the trees. (I am not in danger of confusing myself with St Francis, edifying as this observation undoubtedly is).

2009-12-28T20:28:00.002Z

We lost the battle to save the 400 year old tree on the Hangers Way. And that is a pity and a cause for regret.

2009-12-28T20:10:00.002Z

It was called a Boxing Day Fun Run, but actually, running up to Edward Thomas' Memorial Stone on the steepest part of the hanger is NOT fun. So we walked up this bit. Thomas liked to look down over Steep and Petersfield from this vantage point, and after his untimely death, it was the obvious place on which to place a sarsen memorial stone. We were back at Steep Church at 11 am, ready to continue the long week of festivity between Christmas and New Year.

Village post card

2009-12-18T10:23:00.001Z

Froxfield Infants School - 1666

2009-12-17T00:34:00.000Z

Froxfield Infants School did a dressing up day, wearing the clothes of 1666, and exploring the impact of the Great Fire of London. These children are stars.

Carol singing in Froxfield

2009-12-17T00:06:00.000Z

Travelled around on a farm trailer with 30 other parishioners, singing carols in the villages. Mulled wine and mince pies en route, ending up at the Trooper Inn. More carols followed, and a couple of Happy Birthdays were sung to surprised patrons, after a barman's tip off. They took it gracefully. After a pint, it was time to leave. We calculated that with a second pint, the singing was not likely to improve.

Oak Tree Felling, Steep

2009-12-16T00:45:00.001Z

Back in the 1800s, Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem of lament for the felled poplars he loved. Village opinion has been similarly distressed by the proposed felling of a four hundred year old oak tree on Hangers Way, not far from the Edward Thomas memorial stone. The oak has had the misfortune to be on part of the route of a new tarmac road to a rebuilt house. It has some disease, but would, in the manner of old oaks, probably live on for decades. On Monday I joined village protestors at the site, when felling was due to take place. We managed to get the treemen called off; today, a further protest, which turned a little sour, with some manhandling of protestors. A compromise scheme, proposed by the house builders, which involved taking off a third of the tree crown, looked promising. But we have learnt that the tree is to be felled tomorrow, and the compromise is to be abandoned. A great shame, and sad that even in this newly designated National Park, it is difficult to get old trees protected. See Steep village website for more details