11th November

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them: no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

This lad - a neighbour of my grandmother in Carlisle - joined the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. He was known in the neigbourhood as ‘Little Isaac’ . He was wounded in 1918, and repatriated. He died, aged 21, on 9th November, two days before the end of the 1st World War.

A couple of days later, my mother, who was a small child at the time, remembers seeing the coffin being passed out of the front ground-floor window of the small terrace house where Isaac’s family lived, en route to his funeral. As this was happening, the church bells rang out to mark the Armistice.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes,
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.
Anthem for Doomed Youth. Wilfred Owen

These sentimental postcards were produced during the First World War for soldiers and their girlfriends. (But I suppose they had much to be sentimental about)

'Nobody reads my Blog'

No time to blog this week - so I'm cheating a bit:


T-shirt for despairing bloggers from: http://www.jinx.com/scripts/details.asp?affid=-1&productID=483

Mug, cushion and sweatshirt ('Everything you do can and will be used as blog material')

from www.cafepress.com/buy/blogging

Gunpowder , Treason & Plot

Remember, remember

the fifth of November -

Gunpowder treason and Plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot

In the early '70s I bought this old prayerbook in a junk shop in Fleet Road, near South End Green, Hampstead. It was printed in Cambridge in 1766 during the reign of George III. (On the endpapers of the book are various handwritten names and snippets from previous owners - but that's another story)

Frontispiece. Book of Common Prayer, 1766

The book includes a form of prayer - long since dropped - to be used on the 5th of November as a thanksgiving for the deliverance of King James from the gunpowder plot.

The service includes this contemporary prayer - strange to think that the sentiments expressed were 'politically correct' at the time!

Almighty God, who hast in all ages shewed thy power and mercy,

in the miraculous and gracious deliverances of thy Church,

and in the protection of righteous and religious Kings and States,

professing thy holy and eternal truth, from the wicked conspiracies, and malicious practices of all the enemies thereof:

We yield thee our unfeigned thanks and praise for the wonderful and mighty deliverance

of our gracious Sovereign King James the First, the Queen,

the Prince, and all the Royal Branches, with the Nobility,

Clergy and Commons of England, then assembled in Parliament,

by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter,
in a most barbarous and savage manner,

beyond the examples of former ages....

There is also this prayer thanking God for the arrival of William of Orange in 1688 (also on 5th November):

..God...didst likewise upon this Day wonderfully conduct thy servant King William

and bring him safely unto England , to preserve us from the attempts of our enemies

to bereave us of our Religion and Laws...

It is hard to imagine such prayers being uttered in churches today.

Read about the Gunpowder Plot here:

http://www.gunpowderplot.parliament.uk/

The Plotters:

The Outcome:

Hanged, drawn & quartered

Bonfire Night

When I was around 6, we still lived in the town. One Bonfire night, Dad was working late, so on that dark, clear evening Mum and Auntie Gwen lit the fireworks for my sister and I. We oohed and aahed at the pretty showers of Roman Candles, felt the frisson of danger at a ‘Volcano’ and held fizzing sparklers aloft. Bangers were outlawed - we were gentle creatures then - but we agreed to just one Jumping Jack which we watched from a safe distance as it darted about in its random path.

At the bottom of the box lay a rocket. A small benign-looking affair.
‘No, Mum - too scary,’ we chorused.
But, egged on by the giggling Gwen, Mum stood the rocket in a milk bottle and lit the touch paper.
‘Quick, back to the house,’ We retreated to watch from behind the French-window. Swoosh. Silence. Then the crash and tinkle of broken glass.


Lights went on in the bedroom of the H’s house that our garden backed on to, and we could see the jagged hole in one of the panes.


‘Right - shut the window,’ Mum gasped, ‘Put the lights out.’


Hands to mouths, we stood shivering in the dark. We waited for the Knock on the Door.
When it came, Mum snapped back into Sensible Grown-up Mode. Patting her hair and straightening her dress, she put on a brave face and switching on the hall light, went to answer the door.







The next day Dad arranged for a glazier to fix the H’s window and neighbourly harmony was restored.


But I had learnt something about grown-ups.: Mum had been as scared as a naughty child. And for a moment had been prepared to take the ‘dishonest’ path, and to pretend that it was not our fault.


I’m glad she thought better of it!

When the Saints go marching in

Hard on the heels of All Hallows’ Eve comes All Saints’ Day
We have some interesting, though fairly obscure, British saints.


Here are the fun bits of a few of them:


St. Kentigern - the patron saint of the church in my home village. He is known in Scotland as Mungo . Kentigern’s mother was Tenew, an unmarried Scottish woman who is said to have had an affair with her cousin. The penalty for such behaviour (only for the woman, of course!) was that she be flung off a nearby hill. Somehow, the poor lady survived the fall, and she was then cast adrift in a coracle - an almost circular primitive little boat - which floated off and landed at Culross. Here a saintly monk, Serf, found her and took care of her and of her baby son. The boy was educated by Serf, and became a religious leader himself, and later a Bishop. He travelled around Scotland, Cumbria (Northern England) and to Wales.
A fuller version of the life of Kentigern/Mungo is here:
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/plaza/aaj50/mungo.htm
St. Kentigern’s church in my home village in Cumbria can be seen here:
http://www.visitcumbria.com/churches/irthington.htm







St. Swithun (or Swithin)

Swithun became Bishop of Winchester in 852 AD. He built many churches and when he died he was buried at Winchester. Later his body was removed to a more splendid golden shrine in the cathedral; this move, on 15th July, was delayed by inclement weather, so arose the weather rhyme that the weather on the festival would prevail for 40 days:

"St. Swithun's day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain;
St. Swithun's day, if thou be fair,
For forty days 'twill rain na mair."

More about Swithun here: http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/adversaries/bios/swithun.html





St. Frideswide (c.665-735) It is thought that Frideswide was born in Oxford.


When she heard that a persistant suitor was planning to carry her off, Frideswide who had by now made a vow of celibacy, fled to the river Thames where she found a boat. She drifted to a ’place of controversial location’ (thought to be Bampton or Frilsham). There she lived in a deserted pig-stye. Through her prayers, a fountain sprang up providing her with the means to live undetected in the forest for several years.
More here: http://www.berkshirehistory.com/bios/frideswide.html




There are many many more less well-known British saints - a surprisingly full list is to be found here: http://www.britannia.com/bios/saints/