Down memory lane

I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning, and then after an early lunch Clare, Rachel and I drove to Bristol to visit Amanda. She told us how the care agency which now looks after her is managed and staffed by Muslim care workers, who have been most attentive to her needs, so that now she gets taken in her wheelchair to the Parish Eucharist in St Stephen's Southmead on Sunday mornings. Her carer sits at the back or goes outside during the service, and pops in now and then to check she's OK. The congregation is friendly and welcoming towards them both, and having a burka wearing care worker in church regularly offers a low key opportunity for growing respect and trust in an area not exactly renowned for tolerance.

Amanda, always outgoing and curious, has been learning from her carers about muslim culture and faith practices, as well as explaining her own. She has given them permission, should they need to while they are with her, to take a few moments time out for prayer in another room. Through this kind of everyday inter-faith dialogue, grass roots progress can be made in learning how best to live together with our differences.

At Rachel's request on our return trip we drive across the old Severn Bridge and visited Chepstow, where we lived for seven years when she was in primary school. We walked down the Dell to the Castle, along the west bank of the river Wye and back up through the older streets of the town. It was no surprise that Rachel should find a chippie open and buy a bag of chips to share. Chips over in Chepstow (aka 'Chipstow') was a regular treat when we lived in St Paul's Bristol, and crossed the bridge to visit the Wye Valley for some respite from the concrete jungle. Happy days back then over, thirty years ago.

    

Chepstow - re-visited from a different angle.

I went into College to do some report writing this morning, then into town by car for a change, to collect Ashley for a visit to the headquarters of our radio equipment supplier, PMR products, at their Chepstow home base. The company office is in the vicinity of Chepstow railway station. Trains to Birmingham pass through there and a few local trains stop daily. The old grey stone station buildings are now occupied by commercial companies, as they are surplus to the requirement of current railway use. They testify to a much busier era, when the wonderful scenic line up the Wye Valley was still open. What a tragedy it was ever closed, when it had such potential for development as a tourism resource.

Our initial task for the day was to agree a deal on the purchase of a batch of radio handsets at an attractive price which can be of particular operational usefulness to CBS. Once that was done, we were given a demonstration of the GPS tracking facility inherent in our radio handset's operating system. A mapping display of the area ibn question can be superimposed with location data - just like on the movies! Is it as good, as accurate and speedy in updating? My experience in GPS enabled digital cameras left me with doubts. 

A clear account of this handset function by Adrian, PMR's chief programmer, was reassuring. Then I became part of the demo, sent out into the wilds of Chepstow with a live handset to be tracked on screen by Adrian and Ashley. Every now and then I would report my location and have it confirmed by Adrian from the map on-screen, or else, he would tell me where the screen reported I was standing, and I would confirm it. It was quicker than I'd imagined, plus, I  discovered that the GPS update speed was configurable - useful in a sudden emergency. Just like the movies!

My brisk walk around lower Chepstow was a nostalgic affair, revisiting part of the town where we'd lived as the family was growing up and I'd been working for USPG. It looks a lot cleaner and tidier than it did in those days. It's gratifying to see how many of its 18th and 19th century houses have been restored, rather than swept away in the cause of progress. There's a new Tesco's. Town centre shops and eating houses have been up-graded. It's a nicer place to live now that it was when we lived there in the eighties, but nowadays, I suspect we couldn't afford it.