Storyteller’s World

Last post of 2005, then.

I’ve just been exploring the new admin pages of WordPress 2.0 this evening, and so far I like what I see. The “Import” function also seems to have worked, and imported all my old Blogger posts, along with returning a “fatal error” message about something or other. So do let me know if you find anything that doesn’t look as it should.

And a very Happy New Year to anyone who’s still awake at midnight.

WordPress 2.0 is out and I’m a sucker for upgrades, especially when they’re free. (The price is right, as Homer Simpson says.)

For the time being we’re back to Default theme, with the image of Wayland’s Smithy, while I work out how much I want to mess with theme editors and what not.

Think I’ll explore how WordPress 2.0 admin works, before I mess too much.

Back in the 17th century, at the time of the Commonwealth, the Puritans tried to ban Christmas. For several years it was illegal to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th; John Evelyn records in his Diary how he attended an illegal celebration of Holy Communion on that day, from the Book of Common Prayer. In the middle of the service troops entered the house and surrounded them. They did not arrest or shoot the illegal worshippers, but Evelyn and his fellow-Anglicans did find themselves receiving the Sacrament with loaded muskets pointed at their heads.

It’s not entirely clear whether the Puritans objected more to the use of the BCP, the superstitious observance of a day, or the fun the common people had in celebrating Christmas. Whatever the motive, their ban on Christmas was one of the most unpopular and ill-conceived of their “reforms”, and one of the first to be overturned when they fell from power.

How astonishing, then, to find that where the Puritans failed, the “New Puritanism” of the consumer society has succeeded. Shops open on Christmas Day, and winter sales begin on Boxing Day. Among the most depressing news items of the holiday, was the report of people queuing outside stores from 3 a.m. in order to be the first inside when the sales began. It is not Puritanism that has destroyed the religious observance of Christmas Day, and the enjoyment people have in the season, but the idolatrous cult of Mammon. Stealing faith and joy, and giving nothing but shopping in return. Some might argue that this is what modern people want and enjoy. I say, that’s just further proof of the evil deceptiveness of false gods: making their devotees believe they actually want, and benefit from, the tawdry rewards their gods offer them.

Waterstone’s are selling the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (£95) half price; and I have enough Christmas book tokens for it. What more need I say?

We have been exploring new ways of Doing Christmas, and new combinations of family presences. Tom and Annie, keeping their first married Christmas together, decided to have Christmas Day at home alone, and visit the two sets of parents before and after. Sun and Rufus resolved the question through the simple circumstance that our Christmas meal is at lunchtime, while Rufus’ family eat in the evening. So they ate Christmas lunch with us, and went on for their second Christmas meal there. Li and Alex were with us for Christmas Day, with his family for Boxing Day. Tui and Dave were apart, each with their own families, but planning to spend New Year together.

It all made me think back, trying to remember what Alison and I did when we were first married, and before we had children. Most of the time, church was a central part of it, and family visits had to be fitted in around that. I think it probably looked like this:

1974 and 1975, we were living in Barnet, and after going to the service at St James’ New Barnet, we went to Mum and Dad’s in Winchmore Hill for the rest of Christmas Day.

1976, we had moved to Durham for my theological training. Alison was working as a hospital pharmacist, and at the end of her morning shift on Christmas Eve, we drove down to her mother’s home in Dartmouth in our little Mini. It took about 10 hours, the last two of which I was driving more or less in my sleep. No church that year, I think.

1977, we stayed in Durham where Tom was born three days before Christmas, and spent Christmas visiting the maternity ward. Alison’s mum and I spent some happy hours on Christmas Eve shopping for food at M & S.

1978, we stayed with one-year old Tom at Mum and Dad’s. This was the Christmas when he was just on the brink of walking, and made his way around the furniture, draining the dregs from everyone’s sherry or G & T glasses.

By 1979, we were back in St Albans where I was curate, and working Christmas Days before going to Mum and Dad’s (when they were near enough) for the rest of the day.

What makes you vote the way you do? According to this fascinating story in the Guardian, it’s not our parents, but our children:

This paper provides evidence that daughters make people more leftwing. Having sons, by contrast, makes them more rightwing … the paper ends with a conjecture: leftwing individuals are people who comes from families into which, over recent past generations, many females have been born.

I’m proud to admit that I have two sisters, and three daughters.

(But hang on a minute: I thought there were more girls being born than boys? How come we’re not becoming more left-wing as a society?)

You might not guess the author of this one:

Who can consciously embrace anything that does not delight him?

(more…)

I’ve been astonished, and really quite moved, by the attendance at church this Christmas. As well as the record numbers at Elsfield on Friday evening, the wardens reckoned there were about 300 in church at Marston last night for Family Carols (more than the church holds, I think), and about 130 for the Family Communion this morning. Considering so many people had told me they were going to be away, that I thought congregations would be smaller than usual, I was surprised and pleased.

What would be nice, would be to see more of these lovely people all the rest of the year.

Never mind.

We also have some great family news this weekend: Alex popped the question to Li yesterday, and she said Yes, so they’re now engaged too. Congratulations to both.

And Christmas greetings to all.

Two Carol Services into the celebrations, and everything is going very well so far.

Yesterday was the Elsfield Carol Service, with the largest congregation we have seen there: about 100 altogether. In a parish whose population is only about 100, that’s not bad - though it was augmented by 12 singers from over by Witney, and about 12 from Marston, plus various friends, relatives, former parishioners, etc. First outing for Harriet Hitchcock, in the case of Harriet Hitchcock and the Agnus Mirabilis (is that shades of Oxford, or just of Harry Potter?) This is the “dress rehearsal” for the same story at this evening’s Family Carols in Marston.

Last Sunday evening was the more traditional service of Nine Lessons and Carols at Marston. I was interested to hear again, at the end of it, the comment from several people, that they wished there had been a sermon. I reflect on what this is about? I know many in the congregation like to hear the sound of my voice. But I don’t know that what I have to say can contribute all that much to the words of Holy Scripture, or the tried and true meditation in carols that have stood the test of time, and just about say all that needs to be said. Or that whatever “effect” they desire to have produced, is more likely to be achieved by what the vicar has to say? Maybe they have more faith in preaching than I do?

Following my earlier post about the terminology to use when registering a Civil Partnership (Bachelor? Spinster? Or Other?) I was curious to know whether there was a form of words to be used at these occasions. What are the partners signing up for? Is there any kind of promise or commitment (till death us do part?), to go with the new legal rights?

So I had a look at the General Register Office website, and found the following:

Can we include a ceremony in our civil partnership registration?

You will have the opportunity to say a set form of words before you sign the schedule. You will need to bring with you at least two other people who are prepared to witness the registration and sign the civil partnership schedule.

Civil partnership registration is an entirely secular process, and the Civil Partnership Act prevents any religious service from taking place during the registration of a civil partnership.

The Civil Partnership Act does not provide for a ceremony. Couples who wish to arrange for one at the time of registration should discuss this with the registration authority where the registration will be taking place when the initial arrangements are made.

I appreciate that “set form of words” is not the same as “ceremony”, which can include actions, exchange of rings, etc. But I’d love to see what the local registrars have been issued with, when couples ask for a ceremony, or for that opportunity to say a set form of words.

Anyone got any information about this?

Some people put on silly Santa hats for Christmas.

I thought maybe Storyteller’s World would put on Regulus by Binary Moon for a while.

(But I’ve tweaked the style sheet so the main text is black, rather than some scrubby grey. Old eyes!)

In a flurry of activity, builders and other tradesmen have been swarming over our garage in an effort to get it “finished” before Christmas.

Earlier in the week the window and side-door fitters came. Our new garage has double glazing! Presumably because these are the only kind of window units that you can obtain nowadays. God forbid that anyone should actually have to fit a window frame and then put glass in it (though even I, Mr Non-DIY as I am, have replaced broken window glass in my time). Nowadays, windows are made in factories. Good job I sold my shares in putty…

Today it was the turn of the roofers. I looked out of my bedroom window to see a man standing on the garage roof with a dirty great propane gas cylinder, the size of Bandobras Took, and a flame thrower. With this device he was melting the tar adhesive on his rolls of material and unrolling them over the roof. To a man whose garage went up in flames six months ago, this was a distinctly unnerving sight. Replace an arsonised building with a new one made out of just as inflammable materials? Of course, what an obvious and great idea!

After the roofers, the garage door fitters. The moment of truth has arrived, when we discover that the correct size of door really was ordered - or the correct size of doorway built. And then we are handed the keys: to the front and side doors. The garage is more secure than we have ever known; but we can’t use it yet, because it’s got all the builders’ stuff inside, which they are going to collect in the New Year when they start work again. Nice to know it’s safe till then, at least.

And we wouldn’t be wanting to leave an actual car in the garage, anyway. Last time we did that, it got conflagrated.

It was not even 70 years ago - within the lifetime of my own parents. Yet it seems like a distant, long-ago time, when familiar places and events are strangely recognisable yet alien. That’s the impression you get of British society, as Jan Struther describes it in Mrs Miniver.

Consider things like:

Having servants

And Mrs Miniver, with a little sigh of contentment, rang for tea.

Owning a car - before the Second World War (in my family we didn’t own one till 1955; in Alison’s, till the mid-60s)

A car, nowadays, was such an integral part of one’s life … Even through the rushing of the [bath] water she could hear the old Leadbetter coming down the square: a garage-hand brought it round every morning just before nine.

Changes in language:
[Invitation from Lady Chervil:]

My dear Mrs. Miniver,
Chervil and I shall be delighted if you and your Husband will stay with us from Friday 19th to Monday 22nd November.

(She would have gone to the guillotine sooner than use the expression “week-end.”)

Oxford Street
Mrs Miniver finishes her Christmas shopping and gets into her car - in Oxford Street - and:

Getting home was evidently going to be a long job. The usual six o’clock home-going stream was in spate with Christmas crowds, and Oxford Street was a solid jam.

Air transport

The sky was black and sagging, like an old tarpaulin. A big cross-channel plane was labouring unsteadily southward against the gale, flying so low that it looked as though it would barely clear the chimneys.

Unfamiliar slang

“I wish to goodness,” said Clem, “we were as brave as old Lady J. She simply asks all the nice halves [of married couples] to one party and all the boaks to another.”

“I know. And as often as not she has a cold and cancels the boak party at the last minute.”

Boak? The only dictionary definition that comes near this is a verb boke or boak, a Scottish term meaning “to vomit, throw up”. It looks as if Struther uses it as a noun with the meaning “a bore”. According to the Scottish Vernacular Dictionary, a “dry boak” is an “intense form of scunner”.

Whatever did they find to do with themselves?

The children were away [from London], and so were the maids; Mrs Burchett came in every morning to do their breakfast, and they had the rest of their meals out.

Going to war

But it oughtn’t to need a war to make a nation paint its kerbstones white, carry rear-lamps on its bicycles, and give all its slum children a holiday in the country. And it oughtn’t to need a war to make us talk to each other in buses, and invent our own amusements in the evenings, and live simply, and eat sparingly, and recover the use of our legs, and get up early enough to see the sun rise. However, it has needed one: which is about the severest criticism our civilization could have.

It’s the little touches like this, that make this book, apart from anything else about it, a fascinating piece of social history.

Found this in Mrs Miniver, which provides further evidence for the ongoing consideration of badgers and theology:

“Professor Badgecumbe has just telephoned to say that he is very sorry indeed, but he can’t get back for another twenty minutes.” Behind his secretary’s air of apology crouched a protective tigress, ready to spring if Mrs Miniver showed the least sign of vexation. To Miss Perrin Badger was a god, and luncheon guests whom he kept waiting had no right whatever to complain. The privilege of knowing him ought to be enough for them.

Here’s a chilling glimpse of life in this corner of Britain, in 2005.

My walk into Oxford this afternoon took me past the site of the Oxford Animal Lab, dogged by protest and delay. Now work on the building has resumed, and the site is surrounded by a ten-foot high fence, topped with razor wire. There are barriers to prevent vehicles stopping on the road outside it, security men at each entrance, and the workmen are not only wearing hard hats, but face masks to prevent themselves from being identified. This because “animal rights” terrorists have issued a blanket death threat against anyone who works on the project, and their families. Their past record of indiscriminate bombing, grave robbery, and attempted murder, leaves no doubt that they are entirely capable of attempting to carry out these threats.

I haven’t felt so much under siege by the forces of evil, while living in my own country, since I visited Armagh in 1997 and saw, for the first time, the heavily fortified police stations, and armed soldiers at the roadside.

I can’t believe that people can still be considered to have the right of free speech to protest against this, when they are complicit with groups that have abandoned the responsibility to value others’ lives. I can’t believe that the continuing protesters are not being arrested and questioned about what they know about the death threats etc. I can’t believe that their opinions carry more weight than any of the people who are actually in favour of the animal lab, just because they threaten to kill people and the rest of us don’t.

And in the mean time, what does any of this serve? Britain already has probably the most stringent legislation to cover experiments on animals, and ensure that animals are well looked after. Animal experiments are still being conducted in all sorts of other places (Cambridge, for example). It’s just that Oxford, for some reason, has the most vociferous terrorist fringe, that aims constantly to hold back the progress of this University, and the advancement of knowledge.

Link: Research Defence Society blog

It’s strange to discover just what a remarkable woman the writer of those limpid, favourite hymns really was. To start with, she was a lifelong agnostic. As a long-time exile from the UK, she once described feeling “an almost physical ache to hear … a peal of bells from an English church tower (so long as she wouldn’t have to go to the service!)”

She was definitely out of the top drawer of English society. Her maternal grandfather was a baron, her mother a society hostess and her father a one-time MP whose career failed to fulfil its early promise. She didn’t attend school as a child, but went to Classes with a private teacher. One of the other girls attending the same Classes was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later the wife of King George VI, and later still the Queen Mother.

Joyce Anstruther, as she then was, “came out” as a debutante into the society marriage market. She was always rebellious, kicking against the established ways of doing things, and one of the forms this took was marrying in haste, and for love, one of the first men who came along: Anthony Maxtone Graham. He shared her unconventional love of rude words and dirty jokes. (I’ve no way of knowing how blue these might be by modern standards.) They were married, not entirely with the approval of all the family, and for several years had a happy and successful family life. Joyce was both a highly traditional upper middle-class woman, in that she left most of the care of her three children to the nanny, and a very “modern” woman in her pursuit of her own career as a writer. She wrote poems, short pieces for many newspapers and journals, and of course, the hymns, which were commissioned by Percy Dearmer for his new collection of modern hymns, Songs of Praise. Jan Struther, an abbreviation of her maiden name, was the pen name which she used.

By the later 1930s, she and Tony were growing apart: he had become the heir to a Scottish lairdship, on the death of his uncle, and wanted more of the country life of big houses, entertaining, and shooting. She was becoming more left-wing in her political sympathies, and wanting to pursue an artistic, almost bohemian lifestyle. In 1939 she met an Austrian Jewish emigré, Dolf Placzek, and they embarked on a passionate affair.

The “Mrs Miniver” pieces, which Jan was asked to write for the Court page of the Times, depicted an idyllically happy middle class London family’s life. It was the life Jan herself no longer had, but maybe once had, or possibly still aspired to. They took the country by storm, because they expressed in clear, aphoristic prose, not only the attitudes and lifestyle of a particular class, but insights and emotions about ordinary everyday life which a much broader spectrum of society could identify with. Publishers vied with each other to publish them in book form, when there were enough of them, and Jan accepted the offer of Chatto and Windus. Mrs Miniver was published in 1939.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, there was talk of an American edition. Jan was invited to travel to the States for the launch of the book, and although torn by guilt about leaving the country when she should stay and “do her bit”, she took advantage of the opportunity to take her two youngest children to safety, and to be reunited with Dolf who had by then obtained an American entry visa. In the event, her wartime service was as an unofficial ambassadress, talking to the American people about what the War was like for ordinary British families, the wives and children of the men away on active service, and all on the Home Front. She did this by promoting her book, by broadcasting, and by extensive lecture tours all over the States. Winston Churchill reckoned that Mrs Miniver - the book, and the Hollywood film that was based on it (emphasis on “based on”) - was of incalculable value in gaining US support even before Pearl Harbor.

All this time, the affair with Dolf had to be kept a closely guarded secret. It was impossible to persuade people that Mrs Miniver was a fictional character, and not an autobiographical representation of Jan herself. It would have been fatal to the appeal of Mrs Miniver if it had been revealed that the perfect, happily-married, wife and mother was in reality an adulteress.

Meanwhile husband Tony was a POW first of the Italians, then the Germans. When he was released at the end of the War, Jan returned to Britain with her children. It was clear that the marriage could not be revived, and after some attempts to “give it a try”, the Anstruthers were divorced, and Jan was able to return to New York and marry Dolf.

She had been suffering increasingly with bouts of depression, accompanied by an inability to write, since the early 1940s. This depression was to dog her for the remaining years of her life, and she died of breast cancer, in 1953.

Her biography, written by her granddaughter Ysenda Maxtone Graham, depicts her as a beautiful, lively, passionate, physical, witty, creative woman, who was always more at ease in the company of men than of women. The kind of woman you think it would be good to know.

Sometimes Google searches lead you to places so nauseating, you wish you hadn’t started. One such place is Behold His Glory. (Be warned: do not follow this link!) It’s a company which produces bed linen with “the Word of God” printed on it.

“Most Christians have a Bible, but they don’t read it, and we need God’s Word like we need food.”
Bernadette Clayborne, founder and CEO of Behold His Glory, Inc., has made it easy for everyone to read the Bible. She has designed unique bedding sets that will literally blanket the home with the Word of God. The six designs marketed through Behold His Glory, Inc., are filled with scriptures related to the themes of Healing, Love, Prosperity, Protection, and the Blessings of God. Available pieces include comforters, sheets, throw pillows, pillowcases, shams and chair quilts. The designs are also offered in crib sizes.

This seems to me a good example of how some Christians actually cheapen, and bring into utter contempt, what they claim to value (unless, of course, it’s all simply a cynical marketing ploy?) I’m pretty sure that if you brought out a range of sheets and pillow cases with texts from the Koran printed on it, it would be considered blasphemous. How come Christians don’t call it that, when it’s the Bible being treated this way?

You could hardly imagine a more wimpish, un-macho boy than I was. Yet one of my favourite hymns when I was at school, was Jan Struther’s When A Knight Won His Spurs:

When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold;
With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand
For God and for valour he rode through the land.

No charger have I, and no sword by my side,
Yet still to adventure and battle I ride,
Though back into storyland giants have fled,
And the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.

Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
‘Gainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free, with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness the power of the truth.

I wasn’t in the least inclined to go out actually being physical and brave, or doing any kind of smiting of dragons, or rescuing damsels in distress. And no doubt in real life I wouldn’t even have been a squire, but one of the peasants or serfs being ridden into the ditch. It was the idea of chivalry and courage that appealed. And that imaginative attraction is still the strongest appeal of Christianity; it’s the reason why Narnia and Middle Earth - both worlds of the imagination created by Christian dreamers - are still so popular. How strange, then, that the sections of the Church which seem to be most “successful” at the moment - or at least, the most noisy - are also the most literalistic, and least imaginative, of all. Is this why people turn to Lewis and Tolkien: because they provide a kind of ersatz Gospel, when the message presented by so much of the Christian church is such bad news?

Sometimes, if you look intently enough at those tiny distant light-sources in far galaxies away in the Darkness, you could almost imagine that they were growing bigger, nearer.

Postman Dave is one of those stars. He is one of the genuine treasures of the Royal Mail. Year in, year out, in all seasons and all weathers, hot and cold, rain and dry, he delivers our mail on his workhorse of a bicycle. I’ve known him for many years, and we’ve greeted each other as we both go our rounds, but at first he only delivered to the other end of the village. Now, thanks to some reordering of these things, he delivers to us too. When it’s pouring with rain and he’s soaked through, he can look a bit dour; but apart from that I’ve never known him to be anything other than cheerful, helpful and happy with his lot.

I met him this morning as I was walking down the village to visit a bereaved family.

“Good morning,” we exchanged.

“It’s a Cold one,” I said.

“Yes,” he agreed, “but it’s a beautiful winter’s morning.”

And it was a beautiful winter’s morning. I had been screwing my face up so much because I couldn’t see anything in the glare, that I hadn’t noticed. The sun shining, in a perfect blue December sky.

So here’s a little progress report about the gathering Darkness (and the occasional flashes of light that pierce it like stars in some distant galaxy, millions of light years away).

Tui is home for Christmas, so once again there’s the patter of, well, other feet about the house. Since Li moved out, there’s no longer a second TV set in the house, which means that Tui will either have to watch with us - a pretty unheard of experience, these days - or go without. But I notice that already, after only a couple of hours at home, she has commandeered Li’s empty room, with its vacant computer desk, for her own computer, and is borrowing every likely-looking DVD in the house to watch on it.

I did not enjoy driving to Nottingham and back to collect her. Although driving conditions were better than normal, apart from a bright low sun, I was more aware than usual that motorway driving is an insanely dangerous pursuit. I begin to think you should approach it like Columbus crossing the Ocean: get a Bishop to bless you before you set off, and to give thanks when you return safely.

Meanwhile the Two Buildings continue to progress like a slow-bicycle race. The new vestry (started August 1, projected completion date October 31) is just beginning to get its roof on. Barring the postponement of Christmas for about two months, Tom is likely to collect on his £5 bet with Guy that we wouldn’t be using it for any of the Christmas services this year. And our garage (rising from the ashes, remember?) is also gaining a roof, though even this may not be completed next week. And the two different teams who will be installing the side door and window, and the car door, will probably not appear until the New Year. There was a time when I would have blogged all this stuff, like I did last year with the work on the house. But to tell you the truth, I’ve got total builder fatigue. I no longer find it even exasperating; just profoundly symptomatic of the total breakdown of any responsibility or accountability for anything. The road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions any longer, but with people shrugging and saying, “What you gonna do about it?”

Somewhere in my mind is the nagging fear that sometime, very soon, I will be expected to say something interesting and inspiring and encouraging about the birth of a Baby. And right now I feel not a grain of creativity, imagination or inspiration. It is all just dark, dry, desolate, dead; rather like the world, without the man that Baby became. Only, I seem to be the only person who feels it.

Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.