Walls that tell stories

It rained yesterday morning, but the weekly grocery shopping needed to be done so I donned the new pair of waterproof trousers sent me by my sister June, with my elderly jacket, given new life by Clare with a waterproofing solution in our washing machine, and went about my business. Rain was promised after lunch when I went for my afternoon outing in the park, so I dressed up again, but this time it didn't rain. Our weather is ever unpredictable!

As I wait for the next op, a week Thursday, each day it seems that the condition of the wound improves slightly. Most noticeably, I can sit for longer without pain or discomfort. Three hours watching telly on the sofa instead of giving up after a short while and retiring to bed to watch on my tablet instead.

This morning Clare had an X-ray appointment at Cardiff Royal Infirmary, as she has problems with a 'clicky' right hip, maybe due to joint wear and tear. For once I was able to sit comfortably in the car on the way there, and drove back without discomfort. I used a special dense foam cushion to protect me from the ravages of the shaped seat. I've tried using it in the car several times before and it was of no use at all, due to pressure on the open wound. It's healed to such an extent that it can now bear pressure when I'm sitting down. This is real progress as far as I'm concerned. Sure, it's still open, leaking gunk from inside me, but far less so, and much easier to manage in everyday life. It makes the wait bearable.

The CRI, as the old central Cardiff hospital is known, is a sprawling ensemble of fine Victorian stone and brick buildings running along the south side of Newport Road. The emergency out of hours GP service is located in one section, and a local GP surgery in another, plus an assortment of specialist services, dealing with mental health, substance abuse, and sexual health which in my seminary days was commonly known as The Pox clinic. There's also an X-ray facility there to which GPs refer patients.

Once we'd found the waiting room, I went hunting for a toilet along the very long corridor which is the building's backbone, and was impressed by the variety of plaques on the walls commemorating the patrons and major donors who funded hospital's construction starting with a Dispensary in 1822. There's one very large marble plaque containing scores of donor names, from a major public fund raising drive between 1840 and 1880. It includes donations from a succession of Mayors, landowners, and clergy including the Bishop of Llandaff. 

One clerical name I especially looked for and found was that of the Rev Charles Thompson. In those days he was Vicar of St John's City Parish Church within whose parish boundaries lay the hospital and nearby Cardiff Gaol, plus the city's military barracks out in Maindy. Thompson was the incumbent at a time of huge population expansion. He took initiatives to start six mission churches, and the addition of side aisles and a chancel to St John's, to accommodate the population increase. 

His name appears near the end of the long list. He can't have been all that long in post at the time the fund raising drive ended. The names of many of the City's great and good in the heyday of Victorian prosperity and expansion are recorded on those donation plaques, so many lives intersecting in a major community humanitarian project. A veritable Victorian Who's Who of Cardiff.

Fortunately there was no delay in Clare's appointment, and by half past ten she was dropping me off in Canton to walk home while she went to her weekly study group. I went home and did some writing until she returned for lunch.

During my afternoon walk along the Taff, I came across two men with cameras near Blackweir Bridge, one of them in a wheelchair. Birdwatchers. In the grassy riverbed patch below the path, among the masses of gulls were an egret and the older heron. We chatted, naturally, and they told me they'd seen and snapped the older and younger heron together. And a Kingfisher, in perfect lighting condition for good photos, on the willow at the water's edge. I saw some of their photos and was pleased for them. Now I know the Kingfisher is a visitor to this spot, I'll keep a keen eye out in future, hoping for a lucky sighting with a camera in hand.

Then, a lady came up the path, declaring her pleasure in seeing a heron further downstream. It was probably the young bird of the pair. I pointed out the egret and the heron, and shared the delight of the moment. It's gratifying that so many people take pleasure in this surprising wildlife sanctuary, so close to the city centre.

Ascension contention

This morning I down walked to St John's to celebrate the Eucharist with a dozen people. A stranger in the congregation told me afterwards that he was visiting from Latvia. He sat quietly on the front row,  standing at the appropriate moments, and refused the offer of a service book to follow. A bit like me when I'm abroad, and not confident about joining in the congregational responses aloud, if I'm unsure about reading them and pronouncing them properly. The structure of the Eucharist is after all familiar enough for people with a traditional Christian background. He spoke reasonable English, and I think I have seen him in church before, so there may be more to his story than is apparent on the surface.

Clare went into town to do some shopping, and called into St John's city Parish church to see if there was a morning service she could attend. She was surprised and disappointed to discover there was no Eucharist on this particular high day. No special service is added into the regular menu of offerings. In some European countries this is a public holiday, but everywhere it seems to be losing its place as a religious observance. 

Did Vatican II reforms accelerate the process by acknowledging the trend, and making full provision for it in the Sunday liturgy following? I noticed in the on-line Roman Breviary that today is marked as no more than the sixth Thursday in Easter-tide, and if custom dictates, it can be observed as the Solemnity of the Ascension, and next Sunday's readings used. There's probably a set of options so you don't have to read the same ones on Sunday as on Thursday. Even if we think many Roman liturgical innovations are worth adopting, the point of the reformation was daring to think and act differently as a church. The church has gone along with the secularisation of most religious holidays. What good has it done, apart from greater convenience I wonder? 

Fortunately, Llandaff Cathedral was offering an evening Solemn Eucharist, at a suitable time for folk to get home from work, eat and turn up on time. So that was where we went to together later in the day, and rejoiced in the singing of an early Mozart Missa Brevis, Psalm and Anthem with loud organ accompanying rousing hymns, suitable for this early summer fiesta, and traditionally Anglican. There were fifty in the congregation and as many again in choir with the Cathedral Consort singers, servers and priests. The recently installed Canon Chancellor Jan van der Lely preached, a different refreshing voice adding diversity to the core team at the heart of the Cathedral's ministry to city and diocese. We are most fortunate to live just twenty minutes walk away from here. It's a splendid complement to living and worshipping regularly in a lively grass-roots urban parish.

  

May meetings

This morning I celebrated the midweek Eucharist at St Catherine's with nine others. Not only did we remember Saints Philip and James, but also St Mark the Evangelist and St George the Martyr whose feast days were transferred from Easter Week to this week. As there were no weekday services in the Benefice last week it was an opportunity not to forget them.

Then, after popping home for an unusually late morning dressing change, I went into town to meet Laura at St John's City Parish Church. The Eucharist was just ending there, and she was sitting at the front of the nave absorbing the celebration prayerfully. I met half a dozen of the church's regulars over lunch in the tea room afterwards, and learned that the Governing Body of the Church in Wales had held its opening Eucharist in church earlier in the morning. Apparently the two day meeting is taking place in City Hall, as it did for the first time a couple of years ago.

Since her last visit, Laura's father died, aged 82. He was an Orthodox priest and a holy man. The last two months of his life were spent in the hospital where she works. For her, this was a profound inspiring experience, bringing them closer together than ever before, and changing how she sees her medical vocation. Sadly, she'll only be able to visit Sheila, the other inspirational elder in her life to say farewell at Roath Court funeral home. Laura has given me a beeswax candle from back home to light and burn at the altar at Sheila's funeral service.


  

Anniversary separation

Monday was our wedding anniversary, but Clare was at the Welsh National Eisteddfod in Cardiff, attending the Crowning of the Bard ceremony. Beforehand, she attended Pauline Grainger's funeral at St John's City Parish Church. The place was full, with a large number of her 'choir friends' taking part, singing anthems in her memory. First with Mike and now Pauline, it's the second time this year I've been out of the country, unable to attend the funeral of a good friend. Then there were also Roy Damary and John Meredith's funerals, people I'd worked with in Geneva, dying within weeks of each other. I didn't find out about either of them until after they were laid to rest. All I could do was remember in prayer Pauline, as I did the others during the day. Not being there with the mourners never feels enough, however, to do justice to their passing.

There was shopping to do, in preparation for the arrival of Ann and Clare, but I also walked to the Chateau de Chillon. Unsurprisingly, given the heat, there were more people than usual swimming in the lake. The sound of numerous grebe chicks cheeping loudly offshore was noticeable as I walked. Come to think of it, I'm here nearly a fortnight earlier, this August, so the chicks are younger and more vocal in their demands.

Unchanging things - for good and for ill

I went to St John's City Parish Church this morning to celebrate the noon Eucharist, for Canon Sarah as she needed to be away. There were only five of us, and a couple of people seated out in the nave, who didn't join in, but stayed quietly, while others came and went. It's seven and a half years since I left, but it was as if time had stood still when I looked out over the altar into the church. That's not so much about remembering the past and the people who were here with me then. It's more about that persistent sense of presence, despite the noise of people coming and going outside, or a busking saxophonist bleating romantic melodies somewhere behind the East window. It's as if the building is silently listening to the passing world, and gently drawing you in, persuading to you pay attention, despite the bubble and clamour of thoughts and feelings within yourself.  It's such a gift to the city.

I went home for lunch, then later returned to town and visited the office for a couple of hours, to work on another document for Ashley, and discuss the current state of affairs, now that a competing security radio system has been foisted on users without anyone realising what problems this is likely to cause for city security and safety, not least because of the way this has come about, to the discredit of those entrusted with the welfare of this city. It has caused me lose respect for our local government and leading public 'servants'. I have heard people who know well how other cities in Britain operate declare that behind the illusions of modernity, nothing much has changed in Cardiff in forty years. Despite pretence and public relations exercises, power is still being exercised without genuine accountability. Nowadays, for better and for worse, we have social media. When people get fed up with being used and manipulated, who knows what'll come out next?

    

A two Mass Wednesday

How nice, a Bank Holiday Monday, with nothing to do apart from a walk around Pontcanna Fields, and look for the Mallard family out and about on the Taff. Even better, another two Mallard families were to be seen out on the river. Apart from this, an unremarkable day.

Nothing to say about Tuesday either, except I made the effort to get to this week's Tai Chi class, despite having done little apart from occasional Chi Gung during the past few weeks, while nursing a shoulder complaining of mis-treatment after sleeping awkwardly. I came away feeling guilty of indolence, failing to memorise moves that I already knew.

Today's midweek Mass at St German's was in the quietness of the Lady Chapel. A late night email from Emma, head teacher of Tredegarville, advised us that the children were doing their SATS tests all day, so we contented ourselves with praying for kids, abused by governmental obsession with academic performance, manipulating the anxieties of parents as well as children into thinking that such results really matter in relation to eternity, let alone eventual adulthood. 

Before the world gets to be run by artificial intelligence, children get to be turned into organic robots by an education system which puts faith in achieving performance above the development of the gifts of the whole person. It's awful that dedicated teachers are no longer trusted to educate children without this horrible intrusion, which so distorts the formative process, and doesn't readily enable children to develop in their own way and at their own pace. We'll be sorry in the long run.

After the Mass, I stayed in the hall long enough to drink a cup of coffee, then walked into the city centre to celebrate the Eucharist for a dozen worshippers a second time at St John's city Parish Church, at the request of Vicar, Sarah Rowland Jones, who's away this week, as is Rhian her part time curate. There were several in the congregation who were there when I was Vicar. It's always a pleasure to worship with them again. It was also a delight to meet Randa, a Lebanese Maronite Christian, who assisted at the altar. She came and made her home here in Cardiff as a refugee many years ago, and eventually she found St John's. 

I met another Sarah too, an asylum seeker belonging to the Church of Pakistan, part of the Anglican Communion, who'd fled Pashawar because of hostility towards Christians there, and the indifference of the the state towards the implementation of its own secular constitution. It gave me such pleasure to find the church which gave so much to me in my eight years there as Vicar, still fulfilling its vocation as a community and a sacred place where all the world is warmly welcomed.

Before returning to St German's to get the car and drive home, I had lunch with Norma in the church tearoom, looking bright and spruce, and now returned to being run by a rota of church volunteers after a break of several years. I'm tempted to offer my services again as table clearer and dish washer, to help rebuild the volunteer team! 

Easter reunion

I wasn't called on to celebrate at St John's yesterday, as there are no weekday services in Easter week, to free the Parish clergy to take time off, so I had a lazy morning, with a walk around the park in the afternoon, without taking a rubbish collecting bag with me, for a change. I collected and binned half a dozen bottles and cans during my hour's walk anyway, but the park was unusually tidy after the Easter weekend and bank holiday.

I drove over to Ely for a bereavement visit at six, relating to the first of two funerals I'll be taking in St German's next week. Unusually, both are for people in their sixties, i.e. just a bit younger than me. Most of those I do are of people ten to twenty years older than me, as the average lifespan has risen so much during my lifetime in ministry.

I went to St John's city Parish Church for the midday Eucharist this morning, and a lunch date with my Romanian friend Dr. Laura Ciobanu, on a flying visit to see old friends and colleagues in Cardiff. I missed the bus that would have taken me there in time for the start of the service, and sat quietly in the nave, resisting the temptation (and the invitation of the Vicar) to make a disruptive late entry. It's better sometimes just to sit quietly and receive in silence.

Laura and I ate and chatted in the church tea room, re-branded 'The TeaSpot' these days. I'm glad to see it's open regularly again, with new volunteer teams. Vicar Sarah Rowland Jones and Curate Rhian Lineker shared the service, as Sarah's voice was cracking up after a busy few weeks. She recruited me to take a midweek Eucharist on her behalf when both of them are away in the first week of May. That'll be nice. Many of those still attending were regulars when I was the Vicar there - already seven years ago at the end of this month. It's always a pleasure to go there and be greeted by friends, old like me.

It's good to see there's been an exhibition of prints on themes taken from the Stations of the Cross in the north aisle exhibition area these past few weeks by local artist Wendy Batey Roberts. The aisle also still hosts a charity card shop in November and December, and church social events. Getting rid of old redundant chairs to clear the space and keep it free of clutter during my time was well worth the effort, though the credit for taking the initiative and maintaining the area clutter free belongs to organist Phil Thomas. The cleared north aisle came in handy for storing organ pipes during the period when the Father Willis instrument was being restored to its early glory, It's still going strong and the monthly Friday organ recitals continue, with healthy audiences.

After parting company with Laura at three, I wondered around the shops aimlessly for a while, then headed home for tea and a dull evening in front of the telly.

Unrestful days

A few precious days at home to savour, though not without a visit to the CBS office late yesterday, as this is a time of year when our business taxes are due. Getting the details correct is vital, and for me nerve wracking, as any error will only make hassles for others to sort out later.

Already today I am packing and re-organising my luggage to make sure I have everything I need. On my next trip I will need to take my own PC, as a printer is supplied there but not a computer. I'd rather use my own, as long as I don't have printer problems as a result. If only I could just take my Chromebook I'd be fine, but getting documents printed out from a Chromebook is an uncertain process, whatever is claimed by Google. Just take a Windows PC, no matter how much extra maintenance they demand, and at least getting a (fairly modern) printer attached is less of a problem. 

Given the uncertainties about printing, today I have completed and printed off a Harvest Sunday sermon text - blind - given that I have no idea of the kind of audience or context I'll face. At least I have a start point to work from. Also among my tasks to get done while home was making a CD of all files relating to St John's City Parish Church guidebook, produced under my editorial hand in 2009. Sarah the current Vicar wants to do another print run, or ideally a route to producing a revised edition. 

Thankfully, I have an archive of all the material, editable or finalised pages, relating to the production version, 180mb of 'stuff', which I'm now able to pass on to her and her team to work on. It wasn't hard to find the relevant file folder, as I'd left it in a place where it couldn't easily get wiped.

Despite much hunting around town, I was unable to find a new battery for my Blackberry Q10. How soon this basic commodity passes from being a regular item to a specilialized variety to be hunted for on the internet. Upgrading to a new phone could be less hassle, regardless that the phone I use is more than fit for purpose; i.e. it suits me and my work pattern just fine. But all the time we are being pressured to adopt new devices we neither need or want, in ordeer to keep the system going. Surely, there is something wrong here?

  

St John's reprise

I went to the CBS office this morning for the month's RadioNet User group meeting, which was Ian's introduction to the 'guys on the ground' in retail security. Three members of the city centre neighbourhood policing team attended as well. Having a full time worker in our organisation promises to be really beneficial as time goes on.

At lunchtime I met with a St German's congregation member for a bowl of soup and a chat at St John's tea room. It's now re-branded as 'The TeaSpot', with new furniture and decor to brighten the place up. I was a little amused to sit looking at a wall decked with old photos, and see myself there with Archbishop Barry, taken after a civic service 6-7 years ago. I don't go into St John's very often these days, and didn't see anybody around that I remember from my days there as Vicar. Time passes, faces change too, but there are many faces that are still vivid, attached to treasured happy memories.

Then, I returned to the office for a couple of hours to deal with a batch of crime reports which arrived in the wake this morning's meeting. Once the job was done, I header home for supper and a quiet evening with Clare watching the latest episode of 'Silent Witness'. The themes in the new series are bang up to date with current affairs, and sometimes offer telling insights into background lives of some of the characters involved.

Confident accountability

I went into the CBS office earlier than usual this morning to meet up with Ashley, as we had a meeting scheduled with the City Council's Scrutiny Committee across lunchtime down in County Hall. The committee is reviewing the Council's engagement in support of the night time economy, or NTE as it's referred to in bureaucratic circles. CBS supplies half of its radios to those working evenings and nights. Restaurants, pubs and clubs comprise about forty percent, and ten per cent are public service or pro bono users like the Street Pastors, Ambulance and Alcohol Treatment Centre users. 

It was pleasing that we were, for the first time, invited to give an account of the contribution made by CBS, to inform the committee of the level of resources the NTE demands of the City. The question is: does the City cover the cost of this commitment. If not, how can it? None of our business. We just run a voluntary social enterprise that benefits the NTE as much as the daytime economy, and supports, at the point of need, others making an effort and giving their services. All is funded from the revenue radio subscribers provide. All radio users are stakeholders in making Cardiff a better place to be in, and trade in. Without the support of so many volunteers, it wouldn't be nearly so good.

I joined CBS when I retired as an expression of appreciation for the supply of a pro bono radio to St John's tea room, after a spate of thefts from handbags in church over the previous year. The radio is still there, still in use. The thief was caught by other means, but the fact that the radio was there  to provide a link to help from the outside world in one small quiet corner, was a confidence booster for volunteers. This was the first of more than a dozen radios now in the hands of city centre volunteers. I can't hide my satisfaction at applying admin and management skills I learned as a parish priest to the task of building a company back office, and enabling it to deliver a service, driven not by personal profit motive, but by the creative energy of voluntary goodwill, for the benefit of the city. 

This impulse has, down the ages, been part of city life, recognised or not, and it has everything to do with ensuring citizens' welfare, safety and security - not for personal gain, but building a community worth living in. It's similar to the impulse that drives people into the local political area, volunteering themselves for election as councillors in pursuit of the common good, regardless of the criticism they have to endure. It's not about personal gain or status, but about ensuring the common good through personal service. Thank heavens so many are prepared to commit themselves to make this effort!

   

In memoriam Bill John

Clare emailed me this afternoon to tell me of the death in his late eighties of Bill John, lifelong member and one of the stalwarts of St John's City Parish Church, and Lay Reader Emeritus. Sadly he didn't live to meet the new priest in charge: Canon Sarah Rowland Jones, inducted just a week ago.

Bill was a Burma Star veteran, one of the last remaining, and took part in their annual service, as long as he was fit to do so. At the end of World War Two, before he was repatriated, he lost a kidney, and did well to have survived to such a great age.

This for me is a personal loss, not only because he was the eminence grise gently offering wide and sound advice during my time at St John's, but back in my youth, from 1956-61 he was a Grammar School History teacher in Pengam and taught me up to O level - I think I learned perspective as part of understanding life's affairs from him. During our latter years together at St John's I was able to thank him for that.

Sadly, I won't be around in person to share in celebrating his life and passing, but with his life-long involvement in the Church in Wales, its education programme and its governance, there will be no shortage of distinguished people there, from the Archbishop downwards.

His welcome ministry to parishioners and visitors to St John's, always at the door after services to meet and greet people went back decades, and in a way has left its mark on the building. The west porch has lately been transformed, must to everybody's delight. Bill didn't see it completed. He stood next to the old porch every Sunday he was at church greeting people with his kind smile. 

Ironically his fall and the broken hip he sustained in the very spot where he stood, often warning others of the trip hazard, was a catalyst that started an urgent project which took five years to complete. Common sense and duty of care were overshadowed by due process. But Bill did everything by due process, and counselled patient compliance with regulations.

You didn't argue with that. He was one of those who'd put his life on the line for the freedom to do things properly, both in the church and the world. He was a great educator - the kind we need more than ever today.

May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
  

Busy Sunday and a happy meeting

A very early start this morning, twenty five past seven to get to Holy Cross Cowbridge for eight o'clock Communion. Just before I reached the turning to descend Primrose Hill from the A48 into town I was stopped by Police motorcycle escort riders accompanying a very large wide slow moving vehicle which was climbing the by-pass road ahead of me. I was warned that it could be ten minutes delay, and began to worry it could make me late. 

I took a side road in the hope that it would take me on a back lane and avoid delay, but the un-metalled potholed road terminated in a walking track, and I had to return to the main road, fortunately, just as the giant vehicle was passing. A low loader lorry was carrying a huge silvery metal capsule, towering thirty feet above the road, and twenty five feet feet wide. I guess it was a reactor vessel destined for a chemical plant, possibly in Barry. I can't imagine what route it would take to avoid bridges. Anyway, I arrived with five minutes to spare and then proceeded to Llandough for nine fifteen and then to Ystradowen for eleven o'clock services. Last Sunday, former incumbent Stanley Mogford's death was announced. This week the deaths had to be announced of Llansannor Churchwarden and organist Margaret Edwards, and former St Hilary Churchwarden and deputy Lord Lieutenant John Curteis - the latter quite unexpected while at a meeting. Cowbridge benefice will certainly miss two such good and faithful servants.

It wasn't raining when I arrived at Ystradowen, so I left my mac in the car. By the time I came out at midday it was pouring down, so I had to run precariously down the slope of the church path to avoid a soaking. Today, the Riverside Market Garden, located in Coed Hills, just outside St Hilary, was holding an open day for supporters with lunch provided. Instead of shopping for veggies in town as usual, Clare found herself a lift and we met up there in one of the greenhouse poly-tunnels.

 The rain didn't stop until after we'd finished lunch in Coed Hills House. It's an amazing fertile and bio-diverse location, with a huge field given over to organic horticulture. It has developed remarkably well in the three years since the project was launched and there's more to come. Already forty families obtain their weekly veggy box order from there. We  returned with several bags of vegetables taken straight from the ground. Beetroot, fennel, broccoli, leeks, squashes among them.

We then went out to meet Sarah Rowland Jones, the Vicar designate of St John's city parish, at the invitation of Glenys, who is giving her hospitality during her flying visit from Cape Town where she's currently working as an advisor to the Archbishop. She has a strong background in international affairs from being a British diplomat before ordination, and activity in global Anglican and ecumenical affairs since then. Last week she was at a World Council of Churches meeting in Geneva. She's just the kind of person who can flourish at St John's and continue to participate on behalf of the Church in Wales and the Anglican Communion in international affairs. She has the kind of enthusiasm that will go down well with a congregation that will take an interest in her wider role. And that's not something you can say of every church in these uncertain times.

After supper and 'the Archers', we watched the second episode of 'Young Montalbano' from BBC iPlayer with laptop connected to the TV via the cheap HDMI cable I bought last weekend from Asda. It works a treat, and provides a low resource alternative to subscribing for digital TV recording services. We could afford it, but it's hardly value for money when you have so little spare time for entertainment on demand and such a satisfying life without it.

Lammas Day farewell

Yesterday morning I celebrated the midweek Eucharist for a group of fifteen at St John's Canton. Among the readings, Gradual Psalm 8, awakened a memory of standing with my class in school assembly, at the same age as Rhiannon now is, reciting this by heart together. And it wasn't even a church school, although Mr Jeffreys-Jones the headmaster was a strong chapel goer, if my memory serves me right.

I shared this recollection with the congregation and spoke about the value of memorising scripture as a great asset in the spiritual life. There were two women dressed in saris in the congregation, and I noticed them nodding agreement and smiling. We chatted after the service and they recalled learning scripture by heart in Tamil at Sunday School, before going on to learn scripture in English at school - as must have happened to those who attended Welsh language chapels down the centuries. In Welsh Youth Eisteddfod events, there still exists a competition for public recitation of a scripture passage. It's good to know that the tradition is alive and well.

I went on into town straight from St John the Evangelist Canton, to St John the Baptist city Parish Church - the two neighbouring St John's with a shared Parish boundary easily confused by those unfamiliar with Cardiff. I was due for the funeral of Mary Lewis at one, and needed to be there in good time to prepare. A good day for a funeral, Lammas Day, the traditional celebration of the start of the wheat harvest, blessing God for the first-fruits of the summer land.

There was a hiccup at the start of the service, as the cortege was unable to gain access to the pedestrian area, even though I knew from the office that arrangements were booked in the city centre management diary. The Council worker to whom the barrier opening task had been assigned failed to show up on time. The cortege had to reverse out of the agreed access area and head for another gate where there was a telephone line to the control room. It meant they arrived at church with no time to spare. Escorting elderly mourners to their places couldn't be rushed. 

None of us in church were aware of this. The organ started, the choir entered, I entered and welcomed a hundred strong congregation before realising the chief mourners hadn't yet taken their places. It was soon put right, and the requiem Mass that followed all went according to Mary's request. It was my privilege to remember her and reflect on her Christian life and witness. I realised I was out of practice at leading a service in the church where I'd been so at home for eight years. It's a large space with different people doing different things at the same time in different places at key moments, all needing to hold together, to make it happen as intended. Not quite as on the ball as I used to be.

In bright warm sunshine, we buried Mary's body in the same grave as Herbert her husband was buried in ten years ago. Over the decade, the entirety of what was then a new sector of cemetery has filled up and an adjacent field has been laid out with paths and put into use. Afterwards I went with the chief mourners and friends from church over to the 'Ffynnon Wen' pub for refreshments and chat. Churchwarden Richard gave me a lift back into town to spend the rest of the afternoon in the office. In exchange, I promised him an obituary article for the church magazine. This took me most of the evening after supper, but by half past midnight, the text was on its way to him by email to meet this weekend's publishing deadline.

 

St John's tower porch transformation - at last!

On my way into the office this afternoon, I walked from the bus stop through Church Street, not my usual route, but I saw signs of building work going on at the foot of St John's tower and decided to investigate. To my great pleasure, I discovered that a start was being made on re-modelling the tower porch entrance to install glass doors and alter the position of the step down into the church, to make it safe for visitors unfamiliar with the building to enter with less risk of falling and hurting themselves.

With 50,000 or more visitors a year entering the church through the tower porch, there was always a measure of risk that someone would lose their footing, as they passed through the stylish 1960s wooden porch, not noticing the step down that followed. Accidents happened while I was Vicar and the Parochial Church Council took very seriously its responsibility to make it as safe as possible and make changes to minimise the risk to the vastly increased number of visitors in the past decade. 

A plan was devised three years before I retired to remove the porch, install armoured glass doors and change the position of the step down into the church. It stalled, however, just before I left, as there was an objection to our application for a Faculty (church planning permission) from the Twentieth Century Conservation Society, concerned about the removal of the porch, which had been expertly designed by the architect George Pace, responsible for adding inside the church a kitchen, choir vestry and toilets.

The 'Pace Vestry block' has served the church well over the past fifty years, this is indisputable. However nicely designed for its purpose at the time,  it is a brutalist modern insertion (in architecture-speak) into a fine fifteenth century building and looks ugly in context unless you know the story of the building. The south aisle in which the vestry block stands isn't fifteenth but a late nineteenth century extension, which happens to have been expertly built and furnished to a high quality, in other words fake gothic. 

Architect George Pace knew this, but lived in an era when the new could assert itself against the old in the name of functionality and modernity. As the south aisle wasn't fifteenth century but a mere seventy years old then, any argument on aesthetic or conservation grounds could be easily overcome. The Pace vestry block may contradict current values and policy, but it stands as a witness to the debate about the church environment and pastoral requirements in the 1960s, just as much as the removal of rood lofts and chancel screens did in the sixteenth century, and their debatable restoration three centuries later. 

So an argument can be made to keep things the way they are, as a snapshot of what happened in the middle of the twentieth century. The tower porch with its Pace doors is part of this equation. But what happens when the porch becomes a risk factor in the health and safety equation? Three years delay that's what. It's never easy to implement plans during an interregnum, and now St John's is in an interregnum for the second time in three years. It's a tribute to the Church Council and the authorities responsible for Faculties that negotiations about the planning objection were completed and that the project is finally under way. All this I missed out on by retiring punctually. Frankly, the Vicar's worry of coping with an unsafe environment and authorities that didn't seem to understand the urgency of the matter were among  the factors that ensured my timely departure into my present circumstances.

A year before we left, the church's excellent building contractor Peter Bricknell went into liquidation due to recession conditions. I was glad to see his name on the contractors' site hoarding closing off the tower entrance for the building work. It means his outfit is back in business, and that makes it so much easier for everyone involved in bringing to completion a plan first mooted nearly seven years ago.

I popped into church and met first Norma and then churchwarden Richard, who arrived while Norma and I chatted. It was good to share my delight that work had finally started. I learned from them of the recent death of one of St John's long standing stalwarts, Mary Lewis, aged 83. Just ten years ago I gave her husband Herbert the last rites and conducted his funeral. "I hope you'll do the same for me one day." she said afterwards. In retirement, we often met in the St David's Centre. She was there most days sitting on the bench outside Debenhams, knowing she'd meet her friends there. I stopped and chatted with her on my way to or from work in the CBS office. Now, I must make it my business to be there to celebrate her life with all those from her life at Aberdare Hall and St John's who treasure her friendship over many years. May she rest in peace with him whom she loved but saw no longer.

  

London in the rain

I was up at five and out of the house walking to the coach station by six to go to London to stay with my sister June. Unfortunately it was raining by the time I arrived, but that didn't prevent June from dispatching me with great enthusiasm to see a Royal Academy exhibition of paintings from turn of the twentieth century New York by an artist I'd not heard of before, George Bellows.

What a remarkable mix of subject material attracted his attention. He was interested in all kinds of things. His strongly realist paintings includ domestic portraits, city life along the New York shore line, the construction site for Pensylvania station, depictions of first world war incidents, and a series of some remarkable oil paintings of boxing matches also some lithographs of them which reminded me of Hogarth's work a century earlier. It was worth getting wet feet to go back into the city from Wandsworth to see.

Before returning to June's in Wandsworth, I slipped into nearby St James' Piccadilly to take a brief look. It's decades since I was last there. The churchyard is presently being used for a craft market, but with such heavy rain today it had very few customers indeed.

St James' is a city centre church with a lively liberal inclusive hospitable tradition which presents its offer of ministry very thoughtfully. It's rather a pity that the model considered as most appropriate to imitate for the future development of Cardiff's City Parish Church of St John the Baptist after my retirement was that of St Martin in the Fields, rather than St James' Piccadilly. There are far more lines of comparison that can be made between their locations and the ministries developed in both.