Installation Day

When the doorbell rang at eight thirty, I wasn't long out of bed and Clare hadn't yet surfaced. The engineer from OpenReach had come to install our new fast fibre broadband. I sped downstairs to acknowledge his arrival and ask a few questions. Most importantly, the location of the new fibre optic network socket.

I was bemused to learn that the existing hole in the wall drilled by NTLWorld at the turn of the century for their first generation fibre-optic cable installation couldn't be used by another service provider, obliging OpenReach to drill their own. I've never imagined a defunct cable network provider owning a hole in our wall!

Anyway the fibre optic broadband line came in from the same pole in the street as the landline - set to be abandoned for no good reason in two years time in favour of an all digital system that doesn't work if there's a power outage. The broadband line is strapped with cable ties to the back of the drainpipe - fine as long as we don't have a drainpipe disaster! A hole was drilled through into the corner of the front room just above the abandoned NTLWorld socket to accomodate the new fibre optic line. 

A new improved router attaches to the fibre optic socket and all works just fine. The only flaws in the grand scheme of things are 1) the distance from the nearest electrical socket and 2) a standard two metre network cable, which isn't long enough to reach the wall socket for attaching to a powerline adaptor, essential for equal internet access around the house in places not reachable by wi-fi. Domestic power extensions needed juggling with to get everything neat and tidy. 

I walked over to Wilson's Electrical Wholesaler's store the other end of the parish and bought a five metre network cable to use for £3.20. All works perfectly, and we have a download speed of 75mbps and upload of 20mbps. This will make a real difference to uploading pictures, as well as having a dozen devices at a time attached to our router. Best of all, it'll cost us less, for the next 18 months at least, but worthwhile in any case to have high quality connectivity.

I had a call from Pidgeon's about a funeral in early January, the first I've done that I can recall since being in Cardiff of Social Services making the arrangements as the man and his next of kin couldn't afford to pay - what used to be referred to when I was young as 'a funeral on the rates' rather than a pauper's funeral. I recall doing several when I was in St Paul's Bristol forty years ago, when there were no next of kin and the deceased was old and poor. Sometimes there would only be me and the funeral director out of respect there in attendance, but we still gave the person a full service.  

After lunch, I drove to Llandough Hospital for an ultrasound scan. I arrived on time and within fifteen minutes I was on my way back to the car, and free to call in to Lidl's for some wine on my way home. No change in the 400mm gallstone, and the gall bladder shows no sign of inflammation. It functions but at a low level of efficiency, as it can never produce enough bile to deal with dairy fats. It would be better to have the gall bladder extracted, in case some random or accidental factor caused it to go out of control. As it's not critical, I suspect there'll be a long queue, but there's no harm in getting my name on the list.

By the time I got back, it was dark, which meant that I had to walk for an hour in the dark before supper. Preparation for the scan meant I had to fast for six hours, but I waited until after my walk to eat what had been cooked for lunch by Clare - it was most welcome indeed. I didn't have much to do in the evening and ended up sleeping in the chair in front of the telly although I had no reason to feel extra tired.

Partners in MIssion recalled

Another cold dry mostly overcast day. After breakfast and prayers, I resumed work on transcribing my Jordanian travel diary after several weeks inattention. It was interesting to realise how much detail of that trip I've forgotten. 

I finally received an email this morning confirming receipt of my messages about the incorrectly written cheque, asking me to return this to the funeral director at the crem. It turned out he'd not been briefed. The chapel attendant who briefed me on arrival I hadn't met before. She told me proudly that none of the staff at Thornhill had gone sick with covid over the past year, despite the throughput of hundreds of mourners daily. Kudos to the city's bereavement services team for staying on top of the Health and Safety demands in the work place.

When I returned from a funeral, I sent a message to the funeral arranger say I'd handed over the cheque, and received an email to say a new one would be in the post. I mention this in full, because it's the first time in decades of officiating at funerals that a glitch like this has occurred. All my emails carry my full name and contact details, so I wonder who slipped up?

This evening, I came across an obituary for Bishop Humphrey Taylor, who died on Ash Wednesday. I first met him when I was a University Chaplain and he became the national coordinator of Chaplaincy work in Higher Education in the early 1970s. He'd been a mission priest in Malawi, expelled by the authoritarian government for his pastoral work among prisoners. We met up again fifteen years later when I worked for USPG and he was a staff member, and then General Secretary of the Society. He went on from there to be Bishop of Selby until he retired. He was a quiet wise thoughtful man with a wry sense of humour, a passion for racial justice and he was a champion of women's ordination. 

His predecessor as chaplaincy coordinator, John Dudley Davies had been expelled from South Africa for witnessing against apartheid. He then went on to be Principal of USPG's College of the Ascension on the Selly Oak mission campus at the same time Humphrey was in charge. John later went on to be Bishop of Shrewsbury. Co-incidentally both had done national service in the RAF. I'm still in touch with John, in his nineties, still writing books with a cutting edge, and getting them published. I'm grateful to have served alongside both, and in their company to have learned what being a missionary priest means for today.

I also learned this evening that church marriage registration is going digital in May this year. No longer will clergy have the painstaking onerous task of filling out church registers in duplicate, with a spare paper copy to send quarterly to the Chief Registrar's office, and all for a pittance. This will be replaced by a form containing all the legally required details, which will then be sent for entry into a national digital database.

Records in their present format date back to the Marriage Act of 1820, and maintaining duplicate church registers was always part of the cleric's duty when solemnising marriages. Prior to that there may have been a separate parish register of marriages maintained, or else marriage entries were made, along with baptisms, burials and regular worship events in one grand service register. Ancient parishes like Cardiff St John the Baptist have records dating back to the restoration of the monarchy, still kept in a great fireproof iron document safe in the vestry. 

I very much regret that documentation of this kind becomes redundant in favour of an exclusive digital record. No doubt a signing the register ritual photo opportunity will persist, even if only a paper record is to be signed. I wonder what the carbon footprint is of a register which may have an active life of ten to fifty years depending on frequency of church weddings in a parish, and the combined carbon footprint of an equivalent set of digitized register entries, held on multiple servers in perpetuity? OK, let's say 400 years, as long as some current registers have been preserved. Just for fun, I have emailed the BBC Radio Four 'More or Less' programme team to pose this question to them. 

Another funeral, another outing

This morning, another funeral at St German's, another full church, another occasion to put my digital sound workaround through its paces. The fact that it worked fine wasn't as important to me as whether I can officiate in a calm and relaxed manner and operate the devices without feeling under pressure. Sure it's always possible to involve someone else to work the sound system, but the acid test is operating on one's own. It doesn't happen to me here in St German's, but I recall times in the past when I've had to cope single handed with a church funeral - 'Be Prepared' - old Boy Scout motto still holds good for me.

At the crematorium there was a music and photo presentation of the life of the deceased during the brief committal ceremony, appreciated by all present, from the reactions to it. The display screens used are positioned well enough for the congregation, but not for the officiating minister who is left looking at a sharp uncomfortable angle, once positioned, close to the front row of mourners. I mentioned this to the crematorium manager, who just happened to be on duty this afternoon. She thanked me for my feedback and said that the Bereavement Services team was reviewing the layout prior to refurbishing the chapel. The last makeover happened in 2000 at the time the smaller Briwnant chapel was added to give more capacity, so it was all new to me when I returned to work in Cardiff in 2002. The video screens were added around the time I retired, if my memory serves me well.

I was home again in time for lunch, and then went to Motorpoint to collect Ashley for another trip to the RadioNet suppliers in Chepstow. Once again we had pleasant weather for the journey, and despite it being a Bank Holiday weekend, little delay either way. In the evenings this week I continue to watch episodes of 'Inspector Borowski', learning new things as I go about life and social issues in Germany today. Apart from visiting Connie and Udo three years ago and Leipzig in November 1989, we've spent little time there since we were first married, as our connection with Clare's teenage pen friend faded away. All that would change if Owain were ever to move to Berlin to work. Still, in the meanwhile, it's comforting to discover that with a little concentration spoken German still makes some sense to me.
 

Accompanying Travellers

Yesterday was a quiet uneventful day, apart from an afternoon walk in the rain to St Catherine's to open up for a group of women who wanted to arrange flowers and decorate for the funeral of a fourteen year old girl from a Traveller family. They used mainly pink flowers and pink ribbon for bows on pew ends, giving the church a festive appearance as if for a wedding. It took a couple of hours to complete, but when they'd finished, the church looked beautiful. Much thought had been given to preparing the place, and to planning the service, as I discovered over the past week of making arrangements with a young cousin of the deceased in charge of making everything happen. He was impressively well organised.

This morning, I was picked up and driven across town to the Shirenewton Caravan park, the home base for the Traveller community in the Wentloog coastal plain east of Cardiff, to join the family vigil over the girl's white casket and pray with them. The park was crowded with cars, vans, and several lorries carrying floral tributes. Over a hundred people of all ages gathered outside the family home waiting in silence while I prayed inside. Then I was asked to pray with those gathered outside, before the casket was closed and brought outside by six young bearers, brothers and cousins all smartly dressed in grey, wearing matching pink ties. Other male mourners also wore pink ties. We walked with the casket through the site to the hearse at the main gate, a slow 250 metres, for the six young bearers going bravely all the way without respite. I was ferried back to St Catherine's ahead of the cortege, to make sure all was ready. Already mourners were arriving from places other than the park. By midday about three hundred people were in church, and we were able to start on time. 

Dominic, one of our Parish placement students joined me in taking the service, sharing the readings and prayers, and we had a choir of five to sing the hymns, as the congregation was unused to singing hymns in church, we were told. I read a brief eulogy prepared by a family member, plus a couple of moving thoughtful poems written for the occasion by a family member. A couple of thoughtfully chosen Country and Western songs were played on a portable karaoke machine, which produced the only awkward anomaly in the service. The device was being controlled from a smartphone. On two occasions the signal dropped, and when control was re-established it broadcast a loud digital 'Connected' message, during the the readings. Fortunately Dominic had enough presence of mind not to be distracted. It was definitely a Keep Calm and Carry on' moment. 

Afterwards, when we arrived a Western Cemetery ahead of the cortege the place was already crowded with mourners. Another group from further afield, had gone there directly, perhaps aware of the large number that would be attending church. The route taken by the cortege passed outside Ty Gwyn special school which the girl had attended since she was three. I was told that pupils had created a special 'photo wall' in remembrance of their departed classmate. Such an outpouring of love for the child by family and community in every way. It was a privilege to play a small part in this with them.

While we waited for the cortege to arrive, we sheltered from the drizzle in the cemetery manager's office and donned our robes there. He told us that he's now responsible for four Council run cemeteries across the city, and has to oversee interments in them all, which must present problems sometimes. The work team preparing for burials is a quarter of the size now that it was a decade ago, and probably not as strong, as workers enlisted when they were a lot younger come up towards retirement and may not be able to do the job physically as they used to. Redeploying them can be problematic, even more so when the pool of manual workers employed has been drastically reduced by budget cuts.

As many as five hundred people were around the grave for the interment. Doves and balloons were released, after the Committal, and many pink flowers were cast into the grave along with pink ties, shed by gentlemen mourners present. The mourners themselves filled in the grave once the formalities were over. We didn't stay for that, as we could have been there another hour in the drizzle to no good purpose. The crowd was quiet and orderly, occupied with comforting and supporting each other, having played our part, there was nothing more we could offer. Many children were present, quiet and well behaved standing with their parents or siblings, no fidgeting or messing about, used to being included. 

It struck me throughout how remarkable this gathering of people was. Despite the weather, regardless of appearances, I felt I could have been in a crowd at a public event in Spain. Clare made an insightful comment when I mentioned this to her later. "Isn't this a community used to living a great deal more of their lives together in the open air?" It's a community which sticks to its traditions, and treasures its distinctiveness, even as it evolves its way of life in response to new challenges to earn a living. Some still move around, though many now live more settled domestic lives, except in the world of work that still calls for them to move around and be active outdoors.

It's been a memorable day of thought provoking experience, another first for me after forty eight years of public ministry. 

Not curtains

My back hurts, it's stiff and painful after lugging paving stones around yesterday. I'm unused to such intense physical activity. I had a funeral at Thornhill Crematorium mid-morning, an elderly lady whose husband's funeral I'd officiated at three and a half years ago. There were eight people there. When I pressed the button at the end of the Committal the curtains didn't close around the coffin. I pressed again. Nothing. So I carried on to the end as if it was meant to be the way it was despite feeling disconcerted.

After saying farewell to the family, I returned to the chapel to inform the attendant, and found him and his colleague inspecting the lectern and the switching device. He'd told me earlier it was his first day back. What had the others been up to in his absence, he must have been wondering. The director of the next incoming funeral was hovering in the background, surprised to have found the curtain open. He looked at me and said: "It's not the first time it's happened. It'll take a week to get fixed."Blamed on budget cuts, no doubt.

I went into the office in the afternoon, but didn't stay long as I had my usual Chu Gung class to go to early evening. I was pleased to be able to manage it, despite my groaning back.

  

In a hole on Friday the Thirteenth

It was a horribly rainy day today. Clare's old friend Marion from St Paul's days thirty years ago came over for lunch. Afterwards I was taken to Danescourt cemetery for an interment of ashes, following a funeral I officiated at three months ago. It rained throughout. The little casket was placed in a hole at the foot of an existing family grave, just outside its kerb stones. After the ceremony, some of those present began discussing the reason for this location stating, rather too late, that the preferred site was inside the kerbstones. But apparently this wasn't possible because a concrete base had been placed over the grave and the kerbstones set into it. 

The family agreed they wanted the earth beneath the base to be dug out to receive the casket. If only they'd said before the ceremony, it could have been put on hold while this was negotiated. The cemetery manager and the funeral assistant who'd driven me there both got out their mobile phones and talked to their bosses. But once I'd formally committed the casket  to the ground, it couldn't be lifted out or relocated without an exhumation license, as the act of committal has legal force behind it. 

The supervisor wouldn't give permission to 'undermine' the concrete slab, removing the earth with a trowel and making a niche to accommodate the casket. The hole made was large enough to permit this to be done without needing to remove it. The obvious and commonsense solution to spare the family any further discomfort was ignored, with the insistence that proper procedure be followed. The rain continued and the family left. The hole with the irremovable casket in remained covered but unfilled for the moment, and as there was nothing more I could do, I left, explaining to the bewildered funeral assistant that while there was good reason for the law to exist, that didn't always mean that the application of the law made decent sense. Anyway, it was the afternoon of Friday the Thirteenth.

I got home and struggled on the phone to Ashley to edit corrections into a document I needed to get off before going out. It was a hair tearing disaster, because I had a bad attack of 'version control' and started working from the wrong file. Finally, we drove in driving rain to Bristol to see Amanda, as tomorrow is her birthday. 

Now she's got regular daily care and weekly visits to a hydrotherapy pool, she's far less stressed and coping better with her crippling condition. However, many of her carers seem to have personal problems and they off-load them on her because she's such a good listener, and that's both tiring and frustrating. Still, she's in a much better condition than last time I saw her. It was late by the time we got home. The only parking space in our neighbourhood was less than a foot longer than the car. How I parked without bumper squeezing I don't know. The manouverability of the old style VW Golf is truly remarkable.

  

Crematorium video botch

By the time done seven letters and twenty three emails with attached letters to invite people to our CBS stakeholder meeting next week yesterday morning, my brain was scrambled. I couldn't face doing more, so I went home and did very little until it was time to eat supper and drive to Tai Chi class. The preparation tasks are not yet complete so I counted on a physical workout to re-balance me, and was not disappointed.

This morning I had a funeral service to take at St David's in Ely, concluding at Thornhill Crematorium's Briwnant chapel, the smaller of the two. Since my last visit there, some months ago, a video display screen has been installed above the altar, suspended in front of the curtain serving as a decorative backdrop. 

I understand this building is used by people of all faiths and none. A video screen can be used to show religious symbols (or not). It can be used to show a photo of the deceased, play a last music video request, or even a video message from the deceased at the service. These days, the range of bereavement consumer choices is immense and goes far beyond the simple dignified reticence of traditional rites of passage. A municipal facility needs to keep up with what rate payers ask for.

What irked me was the aesthetic incongruity of this innovation. The alignment of the screen was not perfectly symmetrical in relation to the curtain it was hung in front of. Indeed the folds in the curtain would have made this difficult to achieve, so the outcome looks ill-considered. Was the architect/interior designer consulted about this? As there's blank wall to the right of the curtain, above and behind the officiating minister's head, there was sufficient space for a less intrusive but equally visible installation.

After saying farewell to the mourners, I raised the matter with the crematorium attendants, and was told it had been installed without soliciting their ideas about location suitability. Nothing could now be done, as a hole had been cut in the (very expensive) curtain hanging for the screen's mounting arm and cables. 

In a year's time I shall ask a local councillor to enquire of Bereavement Services how often funeral arrangers have requested use of this screen, and how often staff have displayed palliative default images on their own initiative, because they found the empty screen above the altar in distractingly poor taste. All in the interests of learning if this is value for money - of course.