IN THE SHADE

 

As I write, it’s only a week until the Coronation of King Charles when earthly and heavenly kingdoms will seem to touch.  Charles officially becomes Head of the Church of England. We state our allegiance to him, fingers crossed or not. He re-states his allegiance to almighty God. On the day, most people watching probably won’t be thinking much about any of this. Rather more perhaps about the expression on the Duke of Sussex’ face, or what Katharine’s wearing.

Travel guide

The geography of the Kingdom

Is complicated.

As you know,

There are rivers of mercy and

Unexpected springs of grace.

The fields are invariably white unto harvest

And the views from the heights unparalleled.

But.

Every valley is likely to be exalted.

At short notice

Every mountain and hill may be made low.

The rough places may look plain but

Stumbling and falling

In these green pastures is not unknown.

Suddenly

You may find yourself out of your depth,

And crying out

From the apparently still waters.

 

The population

Are a very mixed bunch.

Some you’ll like and some

Are simply bloody impossible,

Failing to agree on the least thing.

The economics are hopeless.

Everyone believes they know the value of everything

While evidently knowing the price of nothing.

 

And above all this – the King!

Extraordinary, elusive, magical even.

But when he speaks, what does he mean?

When he goes walkabout

How can he be followed?

 

But I’ll tell you something.

This is a fascinating country.

I’d rather be nowhere else.

The last place we visited was dreadful.

(Dedicated to Mike Town, organist, Christian and geographer, who as he’s done for many others, nurtured in me a love of walking I might otherwise have mislaid.)

 

Is King’s Cliffe a village or a small town?  Once it was definitely the latter, the ‘Candleford’ to a number of ‘Lark Rises’. There’s a splendid variety of Georgian architecture, and the inhabitants are obviously and justly enthusiastic about their heritage. The railway came here slightly later than it did elsewhere, but with a population of over twelve hundred people in Victorian times it was always relatively substantial and independent. When I was a young R.E. teacher, there was a subject Resources Centre in Northampton but also one in King’s Cliffe - not Oundle, nor Brackley – so even then it had recently been acknowledged as an Important Place. However, post-Beeching, KC was already receding into the sticks. 

Shops in villages mostly disappeared a long time ago. Our previous house in Weston Favell was designed and built by lovely Maurice Walton, architect and priest, in the space Dixon’s the butcher had occupied not so long before. The enterprise shown in establishing and maintaining the Barrowden village shop in Rutland is an exception to the rule about local amenities, but it survives on volunteer assistance.  In King’s Cliffe there’s a Londis supermarket, a greengrocer, a café, and  a few pubs. There are three working churches too.

 

Tea-room in Nassington

Increasingly retail is being flung out from our towns to soul-less shopping parks on the perimeters. Northampton’s character has changed hugely: apart from the students accommodated there, a large proportion of footfall into the town centre will henceforth be due to those wishing to drink or gamble. In consequence the place feels increasingly menacing by day and - especially - by night. I feel the maudlin spirit of Philip Larkin descending upon me…

 King’s Cliffe

What makes a town ‘a town’?

Is it a mayor?

Or a little statue

Stuck up in the square?

Is it the trade

By which it’s known

Shoes, or hats, or fancy lace

Setting it above

Your average place?

And what of its church?

Is it well-attended, grand,

Coiffed and choired,

Precise and planned?

Is it still a little sun

Round which its satellites

Spin and run

Awed by splendour

Of function and form?

No.

Old patterns of thought

Have ceased to be the norm.

 

Intermediate size won’t pay the bills.

Each individual demands his way

To express herself.

Towns are done,

A new age begun.

Only I and the city signify.

The middle ground is in decay.

It’s falling asleep and soon will die.

Tomorrow perhaps

Or the following day.

In the above poem I’m thinking of the Church in rural areas too. Unsurprisingly people are affectionate about their immediate parish. And good on them! Ecological considerations alone ought to drive us (lol) to walk to our C. of E. local. The current sparse, intermittent footfall in so many churches is insufficient to sustain them financially.  ‘It’s our weekend with the grandchildren…’. So, even if it’s not official policy, the C. of E. will effectively pressure congregations to amalgamate, or at worst to de-camp to the nearest town. Inevitably some folk will stay at home instead and reduce their religion to Songs of Praise, and in any case (see above!) the town centres are in trouble. They’re not necessarily the best places for the elderly and vulnerable to go on a cold winter’s night. Some, maybe not only evangelicals, will rejoice and say that of course the Faith must return to its roots: we must worship where the people are - in bright school halls, community centres or industrial units. But what of those ancient buildings, prominent in the village landscapes, testimonies to so many centuries of witness and discipleship?  What will those communities feel when the church windows go dark? Won’t everyone feel reduced, believers or not? Scarcely visible spider’s threads of connection to Jesus among the more elusive names on our electoral rolls will be destroyed.

Fineshade 

Fineshade is fair, is green, yet sad.

Trees compensate for glories past

Whispering hints at what lies here

                         Beneath the grass.

 

Fineshade was hearth, was home, was all

To devotees of prayer and fast.

And pious bones are buried here

                       Beneath the grass.

 

Fineshade speaks, is eloquent, is clear

That foolish finery at last

For all its excess is lost

                      Beneath the grass.

 

Fineshade still joy, still light, still balm.

Celebrates but holds a glass

To our youthful, lissom, careless play

                         Upon the grass.

Would the poem be better without the third stanza?  The ‘rule of three’ is such a powerful device in literature and comedy, and like the difference between a three legged stool and a four legged chair – the one always stable, the other not - four stanzas doesn’t seem quite right, even if it feels necessary for the story-telling.

Beyond King’s Cliffe lies one of the largest tracts of ancient forest still extant round here. On its far side, near the A43 at Fineshade, is the site of what was successively 1) a Stephen and Matilda-era castle 2) an Abbey, relatively gently re-purposed into 3) a stately home after Henry. This burned down and was replaced by a Georgian pile which was finally delapidated in the 1960s.   In recent years there’s been quite a struggle to prevent holiday development adjacent to the Abbey site. There’s a jolly caravan park. You can eat a Forestry Commission ice-cream in the Visitors’ Centre, and buy your pooch things he will love. Be careful not to turn it into Center Parcs #2 guys…

 

Apethorpe – King’s Cliffe – Fineshade – King’s Cliffe – Apethorpe  via a figure of eight route. 18 km. 5 hrs. max 17 degrees – rather remarkably, the warmest day so far this year. At times quite boggy and difficult underfoot particularly in the lower (best) part of Westhay Wood. A couple of shy cuckoo calls. A muntjac bearing towards me, then veering sharply away on the forest break in upper Westhay, like a misbegotten cross between a sheep and a wolf. A great walk – one of the best in Northamptonshire IMO. No adders – they’re there, but hiding. As you know the UK’s only venomous snake is hard to find. I’ve never seen one alive in the wild.

‘I think I take after my mum…’ observed a bloke eating his sandwich at Fineshade’s ‘Top Lodge (well, I think we’ll be the judge on the accuracy of its ‘topness’!). This reminded me of an ex-pupil of mine, sixteen years old at the time, who once said in rather shocked/disturbed tones, ‘Vince, (that was the way it could be between teachers and pupils in the nineteen-seventies!) this morning I looked in the mirror and saw my dad looking back at me…’ We Christians tend to spiritualise everything, but how I wish this were true…