Things you notice in a cemetery

The local town cemetery adjoins the old churchyard in Poulton-le-Sands. Closed to new burials for some years, there is only now a slight possibility of remaining space being claimed. In there somewhere are buried various relatives of Thora Hurd and Eric Morecambe as well as the great and the good of long ago.

The cemetery is more like a local park now, thanks to good work by the council and volunteers. It attracts dog-walkers and the occasional person pursuing family history. The one burial I did there caught people by surprise and I still remember people hurrying out of the way as our little procession went down the main path. They were genuinely surprised to see a burial in a graveyard!

Just every now and then I spot something interesting in there. A headstone with some music manuscript etched on it, an entertainer from Japan buried in a corner of Lancashire. This stone caught my eye one day.

The first bit of the inscription is written in the first person, by Edith about her husband, Oswald. Nearly 52 years later, she was buried on the same spot - the inscription changes to 3rd person. There's a story there.

Happy Anniversary, Dr Beeching

Today is 50 years since the publication of Reshaping of Britain's Railways - the Beeching Report. You can download a copy and the maps if you follow the link. Notorious amongst railway fans, he became the bad guy in the story of the closure of thousands of miles of railways routes around the country.

As someone who is quite a rail fan, it is a sad period. In the 60s, lines were closed, and there was something quite poignant about the site of old lines gathering weeds, the track being taken up, and eventually bridges over roads disappearing. I remember as a kid going with my dad to a sale of railway surplus near Derby station. We came home with several bits and pieces, including a clock from Rockingham station.

Beeching is always quoted as the baddie, and reluctant as I am to clear his name, he probably needs his case put. He was given a brief to make the railways pay, and some of what he proposed was necessary. There were sleepy branch-lines with hardly any traffic, and the 'modernisation' plans that BR put in place hadn't kept up with the upgrades on the continent. They were still making steam locos at the end of the 50s. Merger of rail companies had meant lines were duplicated, so some simplification made sense under one operator. In fact a lower level of closures had been steadily underway for years prior to Beeching.

Of course Beeching couldn't just close lines on his own authority and whim. This was a report, and it needed government support for implementation. At the time of his appointment, Marples was Minister of Transport - a man with a history of links to the road industry, and this aroused suspicion. However, many closures happened during the Wilson Labour government, although not all the proposed closures were implemented.

However, the stories abound. railwaymen have told me about people with clipboards recording passenger numbers at very quiet times of the day to ensure the statistics favoured closure. Another one told me of the internal rivalries between people who had been employed by different companies. For example the ex-LNER Nottingham Victoria to Marylebone route was better engineered than the older ex-LMS route from Nottingham Midland. Once it came under Midland region, the Victoria route was doomed.

The success or failure of Beeching is still debatable. The financial savings were not as great as expected, partly due to unforseen increases in costs, and partly due to passenger revenue dropping on main lines due them no longer being fed so well by branch lines. Some lines were closed for being in deficit, but the deficit was so small, it made hardly any difference to the overall total.

Perhaps the biggest problem was the failure to put measures in place to protect the right-of-way in case circumstances changed in the future. Property was sold off - probably very cheaply - without regard to possible future use for transport. Building developments have closed off many routes, either frustrating preservation enthusiasts on heritage lines, or preventing a rail solution being implemented for traffic and travel congestion. The high price of HS2 shows what it costs if you have to start from scratch.

However, some Beeching closures have been reversed. He proposed closing Nottingham-Worksop, and some of that route only survived in order to serve collieries. Now it is a passenger line again, having had the gaps reinstated. In Scotland, a substantial section of the Edinburgh-Hawick route is being reconstructed, and other re-openings may yet be seen 50 years on.

Beeching probably doesn't deserve the wholehearted condemnation he receives from railway enthusiasts, but with the 20:20 vision of hindsight, a lot of infrastructure removed as a result of his report would be very helpful to have today.

Wolf Hall

I have finally got round to reading the prize-winning Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Historical novels can often be rather stodgy affairs, feeling it necessary to fill you in with lots of history in a way that blocks the action. A strategy adopted by some is to make this palatable is to create a whodunnit - in very different ways the Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom and Ellis Peters' Cadfael books do this.

In Wolf Hall, Mantel majors on the rise of Thomas Cromwell, during the time of Henry VIII without having to resort to either of these methods. She portrays Cromwell more sympathetically than other accounts, and to some extent tries to explain his flaws and attitudes. She doesn't overdo the gruesome or the primitive aspects of Tudor London, but still manages to place the reader in a world that is very different from ours. Crucially, the people involved seem very real. They speak an English we understand, although the occasional Tudor word or phrase drops by, and they have feelings and instincts we can relate to.

If you are one of the few people left who haven't got round to it yet, it's well worth a fiver or so to get hold of a copy.

Heritage

Walking over to Iona Abbey from the McLeod centre, on Iona, you can clearly see the vallum or boundary earthwork and wall of the original monastery set up by St Columba. It gives you a remarkable sense of connection with generations of Christians who have come to this place before you.

Before his body was removed for safety from Viking raids, there was a shrine to Columba, and a small Chapel marks the probable spot, near the door of the present Abbey buildings. Marking the path to the Chapel were several "high crosses". Some are now preserved in the museum, a replica of St John's cross stands outside St Columba's Chapel, but this is St Martin's cross. Given we used to be St Martin's College, I couldn't resist taking a photo!

This cross is 8th or 9th century (depending who you read on the subject!) but that means it has stood as a witness to the Christian faith and to Columba's work for over a thousand years.

I find this stuff fascinating and compelling. The Book of Kells may have been created on Iona, many Scottish kings are buried there, including probably Duncan and Macbeth. Then there was a priory and a nunnery and still it survives after Vikings, Reformation and hundreds of years of Hebridean weather.

I was also quite interested in the arrangement that the Iona Community have with Heritage Scotland. The Abbey is now looked after by Heritage Scotland, and they charge admission, etc throughout the day. However, the community have the use of the abbey for worship, and to house musical resources, etc. It seemed better to keep the heritage / maintenance / admission charges handling administered separately from the people responsible for the worship. Didn't have the same feel as the cathedral itself demanding money at tills by the door.

Given the ongoing prospects for the Church's finances, I expect the Church of England will probably have to consider similar arrangements for its cathedrals with English Heritage probably within the next few decades. It may prove to be very liberating.

Where were you when...?

Quite an interesting little meme. Five events and a chance to record the impact they had on you:

Princess Diana's death - Sunday 31 August 1997
That morning, I got up to the news and had to readjust what we did at the 10am morning communion service at the Church where I was priest-in-charge (St James', Whitley). Was aware that a number of people were experiencing the news with much more distress than I was. It was sad, of course, but it tapped into other events in people's lives and awakened those feelings.

Margaret Thatcher's resignation - Thursday 22 November 1990
I don't remember what I was doing, but I remember my relief that for the first time in my voting life (I wasn't quite old enough to vote in the 1979 election) Mrs Thatcher would not be PM. She should have lost earlier elections, but there's nothing like a war to rally people round. Actually, that didn't work for Tony Blair....

Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001
Was in my office at the Vicarage, and Debbie came in having collected Jonathan from school. One of the mums at the gate said something had happened with a plane. We turned on the news, and watched as initially the towers burned and then one after the other collapsed. I remember fearing what would happen next.

England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany in - 4 July 1990
Hmm. The Wednesday after I was ordained in Southwell minster. Think I watched this in my new home on a 14" colour portable, which served as my telly for a few years. Frustration, narrow misses and the inevitable penalty disaster

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963
No recollection of this, owing to being only 2 years old.

Thanks to Steve for this. can't think of enough people old enough to nominate.

An Apocryphal Wedding Story

Image via Wikipedia

A clergy colleague in Nottingham once told the story of a wedding where the couple requested the theme from Robin Hood (ie Bryan Adams' Everything I do...) for the organist to play as the bride entered. However the organist made the quite understandable error of playing the theme from the TV series from the 1950s:

Sing up

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men
Feared by the bad, loved by the good;
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood!


He called the greatest archers to a tavern on the green,
They vowed to help the people of the king,
They settled all the trouble on the English country scene,
And still found plenty of time to sing...


If it happened, it must have been a bit difficult for the couple, but I bet you hope it really did take place.

 

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• Robin Hood: the seven best on screen (telegraph.co.uk)

A History of wars

A frind of mine emailed this URL. It's an animated presentation of the empires of the middle east from about 3000BC. Nothing ever changes!

http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/EMPIRE17.swf

Sofa update

Now have inherited sofa. It's a bit faded, very dusty, but has a really cool drop-down arm at one end. Now faced with the tricky question as to how we can keep it, and whether to spend money on reupholstering. Possessions - they're a liability.

inheritance

Inherited a sofa recently - just went down to Nottingham yesterday to collect it. Apparently the the frame dates back to my great-great-grandmother. Even the most recent upholstery looks a bit tired now. However, I feel irrationally attached to it, so will keep it in the hope of a job that comes with a house big enough to have 2 sofas!