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 ‘So here it is, Merry Coronation,

Have a slice of quiche.

Look to the future

Where we’re none of us so ri-i-ich….’

 (…to be sung to the chorus of Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas, everybody’)

 

If you’ve had your fill of coronating (sic) look away for a paragraph or two.

Over the last seven years’ blogging, I’ve briefly commented on major public and state events, generally rather blandly - out of respect for any readers. Brexit was the exception. I felt then and think now it was a self-harming aberration fuelled by a minority opinion within one political party, perhaps assisted by foreign ‘bad actors’. Eventually that history will be written, and professional commentators will make their judgments, but not in time for someone like me to say ‘I told you so’, or for my opinions to be proved wrong.

And here we are today watching on telly an occasion most of us haven’t witnessed before, and may well not see again. This time there’s direct relevance to this blog, because my writing is focused on the Church of England. Charles is its Head, whether or not he is entirely comfortable with that. It appears he may be more at peace with the role than once he was.

What a strange moment for him! He’s been opening red boxes for months now, doing the work of a monarch, and now we finally get round to saying ‘OK, mate, you’re it’. Has he been on a kind of probation?  Thinking about the soap opera of abdication nearly ninety years ago, perhaps so. I wouldn’t think he’d go into today worried about the ceremonial or not dropping the orb and sceptre – that’s been his life - but he might have had a sleepless night fearing public disorder, or even for his and Camilla’s personal safety. 

In this age of social media, there’s been the expected froth about expense, easy republicanism, and apathy. At times there’s been the feeling people can’t wait to get today over so they can concentrate on the more important business of Eurovision. The Archbishop of Canterbury has been in the liturgical firing line, notably yesterday from Jonathan Dimbleby, who spectacularly missed the point about the invitation to the public to give vocal support to the King during the service. What do you think singing the National Anthem is about, Jonathan?  Surely this could also be proscribed on similar grounds. The aim was to modernise the ceremony, and by shortening it, improve it, removing the sight of the landed gentry (aka ‘the barons’) giving personal allegiance to their ‘new’ king in full, anachronistic attire.

The Church of which Charles is Supreme Governor is in trouble. ‘Gafcon’ has recently pronounced its anathema upon us from a conference in Kigali. They say they cannot be in communion with the mainstream C. of E. or even have meaningful dialogue, because we’re in apostasy over same-sex relationships (and possibly the role of women). William Taylor, Rector of St. Helen’s Bishopsgate said a week or so ago that we of the Continuity Church of England (my phrase!) are about as much use as a ‘garden shed in a field of turnips’. Leaving aside the peculiarity of the image, this is a level of abuse – and there’s a lot more where that came from - directed by one point of view towards another which is far from Christian. There may not be another Coronation of this sort again, not because the monarchy is abolished, but because the C. of E., fatally divided, has disestablished itself. 

Many of us may be unsure about the monarchy, but – Putin? Erdogan? Xi?.  Republicanism isn’t setting a great example of how to do statehood. And perhaps I should have added Trump/Biden to that. Our prayers for Charles this weekend are for gentleness and quiet wisdom. Amen.

 

The countryside is undulating now. The Nene is away to the south (and how annoying was it to switch on the telly yesterday evening and hear John Sargeant yet again refer to ‘The Neen’?  It’s only that east of Peterborough. To the west it’s ‘The Nenn’. If you don’t know that, you’re definitely ‘not from around ‘ere’). Mind you, this was Channel 5, from a fairly footling programme about travelling by ‘steam’. A promo caption suggested one could find Thomas the Tank Engine in a village called ‘Wandsford’, so production standards weren’t exactly careful.

I’m crossing the ridge of Wakerley Forest into the land of the Welland, which is a younger river at this point, so to speak. The valley sides are a little bit steeper, and on the top the quarryable stone is near the surface, so here I am on the ‘Jurassic Way’, which follows the limestone south-west to north-east from Banbury to Stamford.

The signing of the Jurassic in Wakerley Woods hasn’t been updated in a while: some waymarks are obscured or missing. A compass may come in handy as a failsafe. I come across a couple with their four-year-old grandson. Later I’ll know them as Sally and Roger. Will is the little boy. He’s been leading them in a wander around the numerous paths, and they’ve lost bearings on the car park. In fact, it’s only 200 metres away up the track.  At its entrance I see a lady well dressed for walking, waving a plastic union flag. She ushers three cars past her into the parking area. I say hello. She’s whipper-in for the Peterborough Ramblers. It seems her fellow-members aren’t always so good at map reading. Even from the cocoons of their motors, they apparently can’t find a party in a party factory. Good humouredly she reports that the club offers regular opportunities for polishing this skill, but takers are few. Perhaps getting lost adds a little extra spice to people’s walking. When the Ramblers have had a stroll today, they’re going to enjoy a Coronation Tea together. Quiche will doubtless be involved. 

I drop down across the road Mick George built to take HGV’s off the local lanes, and skirt the field into the churchyard of St. John the Baptist, Wakerley, one of our benefice’s six churches. These days it’s under the care of the CCT, and only host to occasional festival services. I’ve played for a few of them in the last eighteen months while Simon Piggott or one of his family has hand-pumped the organ bellows. Beside the pump handle are graffiti dating from the 1940s scratched by those pressed into service, probably choirboys. As yet Simon hasn’t added any of his own. The door to the tower’s spiral staircase is open, but I decline the opportunity. Health and safety, you know!

 

As I enjoy a cup of tea on a churchyard bench, there are Roger, Sally and Will again. I’m relieved to see they found their car and escaped from the forest. Around me as I sit are cowslips, which would have been a rarity twenty years ago, but are now common again. Further up the lane they’ve begun to colonise a Mick George spoil heap.

On I go past the covered remains of Robert Cecil’s once gracious house and gardens overlooking the Welland into Barrowden with its expanse of lovely village greens, and up the lane and over the ridge towards South Luffenham. And here’s Sally and Roger’s car, overtaking me as I climb to the A47. Roger asks if I’d like a lift – a sure sign my gait is now ponderous and my breathing heavy. ‘He’s on foot’, says Sally with a touch of impatience. I assume they’ll now wend their way home, but once I get to St. Mary’s in South Luffenham, there they are a fourth time. I tell them they’re on a ‘church crawl’, and we finally talk properly. Roger plays guitar for services at their house church. We chat about Will’s imminent induction at a local primary school. He’s a bright kid, and polite too. He’ll be tired out at the end of the afternoon’s activities, the way Roger and Sally have been going at it.  Sally is disappointed at the lack of bunting in the local villages. But she should go to Pilton, a few miles away. The little village there is always a picture in spring with aubretia cascading over walls into the road, and loads of pink and white blossom, this year oddly harmonising with the many strings of red, white and blue attached to the corners of every building.

During ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ in 2021, the nine days of prayer leading up to Pentecost, I wrote and then revised the following about the parishes in our Welland Foss benefice. I have come to love the place. At this point then, the first of my pilgrimage walks has brought me home to Morcott, before I strike out west towards Leicester.

 

St. Mary's Morcott

Morcott One

The tower’s mortar doesn’t lie:

it speaks of common sense.

A trinity of candles mark the

present, past and future tense.

There will be infelicities but

we the enlisted gather here

safe in the hold of Morcott’s ship.

We trust the master mariner to steer,

while high above, around the tower

the storms renew with devilish power.

 

Welland Foss

Tixover and Luffenham,

Duddington and Barrowden,

Each a wonder and a solace,

Casting blessings from a high place,

On their rivers as they flow.

 

Roman custom long persisting,

Now in Christian doctrine resting:

Holy water signifying,

That it’s me not mine that dies,

In the current’s undertow.

 

In our Church’s human torment,

Peace and promise ever present,

Like the mist that clothes these rivers,

Like the singing that delivers

Resolution to all woe.

 

Tixover and Luffenham,

Duddington and Barrowden,

Each a wonder and a solace,

Casting blessings from a high place,

On their rivers as they flow.

 

Morcott Two

Those who do not pray

think us very strange.

They say we self-delude

in granting point to existence.

 

I wish to move my arm.

It does, but why or how?

It seems (but only seems) that

I am acting at a distance.

 

The odds seemed very slim

that time I met my dad

in a Bond Street shop

by coincidence. Coincidence?

                                               -

Today I will not sit

in the Morcott cave.

Would my little whisper

add power to their prayer?

Is the weather better

Are the mountains nearer

Are the sick and needy

better saved

if I join them there?

 

Wakerley 

I like the path to Wakerley church

through the tunnel of trees.

After rain

they bend in benediction

to baptise the visitor,

sprinkling an invitation

even as the feet stumble

on stones slippery

where generations have trod and

smoothed away the grip,

ascending to make their

supplications in the sanctuary.

As we do now

Though more infrequently.

 

It matters that we keep this place alive.

Else will the quarry

entirely own the ridge.

 

The Eve of Pentecost

We whoop the lane to Barrowden

Flame out our Santa Pod.

The Street in Luffenham resounds

Ecstatically to God.

Sermons spill from the Duddington stones.

Tixover sheep dream of Lambs and thrones.

 

Expect the new in a heavenly shower,

Hope for a thousand gifts to flower,

The Foss transformed by Holy Power.

Now praise Him!

 

Morcott – Barrowden – Wakerley – Fineshade – Wakerley – Barrowden – South Luffenham – Morcott. 

19 km.  5.5 hrs.  Sunny and dry with a lively, cooling easterly breeze. 18 degrees.

Postscript

I don’t know what you thought of it, and this isn’t a review – which would truly be laisse majesté. For me the Coronation was magnificent, stunning even just at the level of a concert, under Andrew Nethsingha’s calming expressive hands. But oh, so much more than that. No doubt the detractors will soon begin to do their thing. On the Beeb David Olusaga was already talking of contradictions between the service’s context and the experience of the people, though in relatively measured terms. We shall see.  Public opinion, unbiddable as the weather, can make unexpected shifts of direction. Every forecaster gets things wrong once in a while. Remember poor Michael Fish?