It's Bazaar or Fayre time again

A late start to the day, but pancakes for breakfast once more this morning. Then I walked to Cowbridge Road and caught a C1 bus over to West Grove, a five minute walk from St German's for their Christmas bazaar. Walking the last stretch took me past the former St James' church whose closure I had to oversee in 2007, now being converted into fourteen apartments. The advertisement hoarding facing on to Newport Road simply says 'St James' with the strap-line 'Divinely Re-invented' - amusing, clever. I wonder what the Church in Wales Bench of Bishops has to say about that?

It was good to see and chat at the bazaar with old friends from St Michael's in Whitchurch Road, one of the churches in this ministry area, people I've known since I was Team Rector of Central Cardiff, looking after St Michael's, and St Teilo's. We talked or should I say lamented about the changes in the dioceses, and our hope to see a new Bishop elected with a pastoral heart, and healing touch, and a long standing personal knowledge of ministry and mission in Llandaff diocese. Pushing through so many changes in recent years has gone against the grain for some, and demoralised many. The churches need recovery time to come to terms with all that's happened and adjust to much diminished resources and membership.

I bought a hot dog and chips and some mince pies for lunch, and my raffle ticket purchase won me a small bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon and a wine glass to drink it from, in the presentation box. I seldom win anything in raffles. Clare has won wine in a raffle twice in the past year. Third time lucky and this time it's me!

I caught a 49 electric bus along Newport Road and across the city centre to the Westgate Hotel, and then a 25 up Cathedral Road to Llandaff Fields, so I was at home by three. Clare arrived shortly after me, having gone to the Steiner School Christmas Fayre while I was out. I then walked for an hour and a half around the park, and when I get back, fell asleep listening to the five o'clock news, and slept deeply for over an hour, making up for going to bed late last night.

After supper, I watched several more episodes of 'London Kills', with more twists and turns than an Alpine Mountain Pass. One investigation per episode and a background story of a disappearance running through them all, so it keeps your attention. Earlier to be tonight, as it's Sunday tomorrow.

Nearly ready to go

Returning home from St German's yesterday passing the former St James' church building, I noticed the security fence enclosing the site on the  Newport Road side has been taken down to reveal the north face of the building for the first time since it was bought and the developers started working on proposals, thirteen years ago. A plan to convert the place into fourteen apartments has finally come to completion. Not long after the building was bought, the banking crash occurred and the flow of credit to all sorts of projects dried up, and work halted. Now there's a big sign outside and an advertisement for apartments for sale. I'd love to have a look what's been done inside the building since the Parish lost it in 2007.

Monday's housework routine was disrupted this morning by my urgent need to make an enquiry call about travel insurance cover, following up on last night's premium quotation obtained on-line. I had to wait an hour and then had a forty minute conversation enabling me to purchase cover for the next year. I paid £148 which is £37 more than the 2020 pre covid price, but then a big increase was something I expected. 

While I was waiting for the call, I worked on texts for the next Morning Prayer to pass the time, and answered a few emails about chaplaincy arrangements for next week. Clare was out at a Pilates class, so I cooked lunch. Then we drove over to Rumney for a hairdressing session with Chris - both of us. 

On our way home we called in Currys superstore to look for an electric waffle iron. It seems they don't stock them. In fact none of the big retailers of domestic goods stock them. If you want one, you have to go on-line to buy from Amazon. Is this a matter of something being out of fashion? No longer any demand? Incredible.

After supper I started checking in for my flight on-line, in response to a prompt email from Vueling, but I couldn't complete the process and get my boarding pass, as the free random seat assignation option doesn't start until tomorrow.

It's pretty certain we won't see Jasmine now, even though she's not yet tested positive for covid, but she's still in the company of people who do have it, and to reach Cardiff, whether she is driven all the way or driven to catch a Cardiff train by her covid stricken Dad, the risk of infection escalates. In my flight check-in procedure was quite a detailed notification about not flying if you've got covid or been in close contact with someone who has it within ten days. It's even stricter than I imagined, so there's no way either Clare or I should see Jasmine, just in case. So sad.

After supper, I finished my share of the housework and then watched this week's episode of Blacklist. It's an extremely dark and violent mix of criminal conspiracies and spy fiction in which vengeance is the persistent threat and the message seems to be that however nasty, the end justifies the means. A bit like Putin's mob, only these are all American Feds verses a cosmopolitan global underworld, or something. I watch to see if there'll ever be any point to the series of case stories making up the episodes.

Remembering St James' Tredegarville

It's St James' day today, and when I was saying Morning Prayer I started thinking about the church I had to close some fourteen years ago, wondering about the people, how many of the mainly elderly remnant of a once large thriving community are still alive. I know of three, there may be more. We struggled to keep it open, but the building itself was too large and unsustainable for fifteen people to finance and maintain. Our initiative to develop the interior for community use as well as worship foundered when euro-funding streams were diverted to less prosperous regions.

In the third quarter of the nineteenth century before Tredegarville became a town centre residential area with artisan and middle class housing areas, it had been occupied by the early waves of poor migrants, living in squatter settlements. St John's City Parish Church started to work with mothers and children, living in appalling social conditions, built a mission church which also served as a social centre and school. On the back of wealth generated by the development of Cardiff docks as a coal exporting port, and the steel works in nearby Tremorfa, houses were built, a proper school building and a big Gothic church with a spire that would seat over five hundred. It was very well attended until after the second world war, when middle class and artisan populations moved further out to green field suburban housing estates. 

By the 1970s, congregational decline set in irreversibly, and in 2006 the decision was taken to close the church. Its bell was taken out and hung in another church tower. The organ was unsaleable apart from for its scrap metal value. Pews were sold off for their scrap wood value, a fine reredos full of saints was removed and re-installed in a Port Talbot church, where it fitted rather better, but the  plain reredos it replaced, was dumped in St James' tower porch, too large to be taken into the church itself. The tin tabernacle church hall which had been the original mission hut was demolished and the space freed was added to Tredegarville Church school playground adjacent.

Clearing the church, of other items to make it ready for sale was left to me as Vicar, as thankless a task as house clearing after the death of a distant relative. So many tired old broken books to be got rid of un-managed archive materials, war memorial plaques, sacred vessels, brass candlesticks and other ecclesial furnishings. The font was translated to the porch of the church school, where it still sits. Until I retired, I conducted services in the church school hall. Communion on Sunday afternoon for the faithful few remaining, and an informal Family Service next day, called 'God on Mondays' which attracted several dozen parents and children in term time. Neither survived my retirement. I was unimpressed by the support practical or pastoral we received from the diocese. This was the loss of a landmark city centre church, an experience of bereavement, but nobody wanted to know. 

After a lengthy gap, the building was sold to a property developer, with a conversion plan for fourteen apartments. The work started, but stopped, as a result of the banking crisis, promises of development loans were withdrawn. Fourteen years on from then, I have no idea if interior work has resumed or whether everything is still on hold. The same happened in many Valleys towns during the era 'when Coal was King'. Surplus wealth led to many ambitious prestige church construction projects which haven't stood the test of time. At least nowadays, for the time being, we think more of the church in terms of people gathering, rather than grand edifices to identify with. Everywhere in Europe and the UK church congregations a faithful remnants of once great numbers. For the past four months when gathering was impossible, the remnant itself was scattered, and stayed linked up and relating to each other via internet prayers. 

Many more people than regular worshippers have taken an interest in on-line services these past few months. Is this the start of something new? Will it be reflected in a return to worship in such buildings as can be maintained and safely opened for prayer? We shall see.

A peep over the fence

I went over to St German's again on foot this morning to celebrate the midweek Eucharist with a dozen communicants and the year four class of children from Tredegarville school. The children are amazingly quiet and well behaved, a tribute to the good nurturing the receive and high expectations of them on the part of their teachers. We kept a belated St Matthew's day, and I led them in a few short songs, although I'm not exactly sure if they do that on a regular basis any longer. Well, all I can do  is be myself and engage with them in the best possible way I know. On the way there a went into school at the end of morning assembly and met head teacher Emma for the first time. I'll need to have a planning meeting with her to arrange the Harvst Festival all-school service pretty soon.

On my walk back to the town centre I passed the former St James' church, now converted, or being converted into apartments. There's a tall grey hoarding right around the grounds. Whether it's just a security measure or an enclosure for a garden is difficult to say. It's certainly a good way of reducing the amount of rubbish that can be dumped there and protects the stained glass windows from further damage, but it doesn't look good, so I'm wondering if there's planning permission for this. Also there is nothing by way of a notice board or advertising hoarding to describe what's happening, if anything within the old church building. What was noticeable was the appearance of the two beautiful angels with censer bas reliefs surmounting the north porch entrance. Their stonework has been scrubbed clean and the doors renovated. I'd love to know what work is going on there now. I must ask when I am next in school.

After lunch, I spent the afternoon writing a circular email reading for distribution to RadioNet users, with news about the BCRP, also picking up the threads of the database migration job before going into the office. It took so long, I ended up not going in at all. It will be a relief to put this into action and get on with something else. I have more copy writing to do, and neglected website re-building to do or get done. There are things which I have 'left undone which I ought to have done' and now they are beginning to crowd in on me, with obligations to learn more new things I've been avoiding. I feel quite impatient with myself.