A Chatty Post

I’m sorry it has been such a long time since my last post. The bronchitis which troubled me recently became so persistent that my GP referred me to a cardiologist. Between the two of them, I have undergone a range of non-surgical tests to make sure my heart is pumping properly, which I’m happy to say it is. The cardiologist is now going to hand me over to a lung specialist, so there is more fun in store for me. As the weeks progress I am gradually feeling better, and am able to get out and about with no difficulty.

We have been having glorious weather. Yesterday I went on the bus to the lovely little Cotswold town of Painswick. It was for a sad reason: the Requiem Mass of a person who was well-known and highly respected, involved in many interests and remembered with great affection by all who knew her. The small Catholic church was packed for the occasion.

As I made my way to the Catholic church, a wonderful peal of bells rang out from the nearby Anglican parish church. There is something rather magical about the musicality of English church bells. The traditional skill attracts ringers of many faiths and none. I was not surprised to learn during the Mass that the deceased had been a member of the team and that the bells had been rung specially in her honour.

Many of you may know that Painswick Church, pictured above, is one of the most famous in the Cotswolds; beautiful in itself, and famed also for the amazing number of clipped yew-trees in the churchyard. Some have grown so close to one another that they have been allowed to form arches. I seem to recall a saying that every time an attempt is made to count the yews a different total results.

After the Mass, while waiting for the return bus, I found the sun so warm that I took off my coat. I sat on the bench, listening to a blackbird singing from a tree in the churchyard, and enjoying what seemed more like a pleasant summer’s day instead of only the 25th of March, the Feast of the Annunciation, with the clocks still on winter time. An unexpected pleasure on a poignant day.

I hope to post again in a few days’ time, all being well.

Times gone by: Iconoclasm in an English village church

The pretty village of Aldbourne, in Wiltshire, is near enough to our home to make a pleasant day out, with a good lunch at one of the village pubs. The picture is courtesy of Wiltshire County Council.

The village, and the exterior of the church, came to fame in 1971 as the location of one of Doctor Who ’s adventures; for it was here, as enthusiasts will recall, that Jon Pertwee encountered The Daemons. If you are nervous, perhaps it’s best not to open the link !

There are two family monuments in the church. One, which includes two kneeling figures, is here:



The other, designed originally for two people, contains a group of six figures:



According to the parish leaflet, the figures appear to be unrelated to the family for whom the monument was built. Whether this is the case or not, someone evidently thought them worth keeping; and thank goodness, because they are very fine.

They are arranged as a family of father, mother, three sons and a daughter. As was customary, the little figures of the sons, however young they were when they died, are complete with full moustaches and beards.

It is not unusual to find in pre-Reformation English churches that iconoclasts have been at work, either during the Protestant Reformation or during Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth. Here you can see a particularly distressing example.

On each monument, every figure’s hands, originally joined in prayer, have been hacked away. Judging by the costumes, which date, I think, from the late 16th century, the damage appears to have been perpetrated during the Commonwealth, or perhaps earlier, during the Civil War, which the county of Wiltshire did not escape.

What sort of spirit would possess any kind of Christian, that he or she could do such a thing? That they should be so convinced of the evils of popery that the sight of hands joined in prayer should so enrage them?

I hope you will find this interesting. I think these mutilated figures speak to us, in their poignant state, of a far better faith than that of their attackers. In this respect, the iconoclasts did not succeed.