Voice from the past
I HAVE been doing a series of lunchtime lectures in Winchester
recently. They call them "Space in the City", and, over the years -
at any rate, until this year - they have had a distinguished
speaker on a specific topic. I am not really into "lectures", but I
have been doing some talks on my current subject, which is the
small matter of being old, and how all of us, whatever our age,
deal with issues related to it.
A gratifyingly large audience has made its way through gales,
storms, and downpours to support the venture - many of them, though
by no means all, with a more than academic interest in the
subject.
After the first "lecture" I got an email from a woman who began
(as many do) "You won't remember me, but . . .". She went on to
remark that I seemed as enthusiastic about expounding the Bible now
as I was in unfolding the wonder of Shakespeare 55 years ago, when
she wasin my A-level English group at a school in Tottenham.
"If I shut my eyes," she said, "you sound exactly the same." I
took it as a compliment, although I was not sure about the closed
eyes bit.
Comprehensively good
LATER in the series, I was to meet her husband, a student at the
same school, now an MEP and prominent in local government. I was
never in favour of selection at 11-plus, but I must concede that
the old grammar schools did give many young people from "ordinary"
backgrounds, like me, a chance to pursue career opportunities
undreamed of by my father's generation.
I'm just glad that many young people today, like my own
grand-children, are being given - whatever some of the papers say -
an equally good but more widely available education in so many
excellent state comprehensive schools up and down the land.
The way he tells them
I WAS asked to talk to our men's breakfast - coffee, bacon
butties, and toast - on the subject of humour in the Bible. Heaven
knows why I accepted, but at least it provoked me to look again at
bits of the Bible that make me laugh, such as Balaam's ass, or the
serpent in the Garden of Eden, both of which, a learned rabbi once
assured me, were always regarded by Jews as comic characters (even
if the events turned out to be tragic).
I also looked at the way Jesus used irony with devastating
effect; what wouldn't I give for a video of him teaching, to see
when a wicked grin creased the divine features.
I ended, as you can at a men's breakfast after they have
finished eating, with Paul's very rude joke at the expense of the
Judaisers who were pestering the Galatians to be circumcised. I
remarked that even today a preacher would be taking a huge risk to
tell a joke like that from the pulpit, or even over coffee
afterwards.
You can find it (if you wish to) in Galatians 5.12, but I have
yet to find a translation that seems to me to capture the sheer
crudity of Paul's language. The NRSV offers a piece of pure
Bowdler: "I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!"
Oh, come on!
A walk in the park
I RECORDED an interview for Songs of Praise on one of
the coldest and windiest days of the year so far. The bulk of the
interview was done in a nice, warm studio, but the producer needs
some linking and establishing shots - the sort where you see the
interviewee strollingby a river, playing the organ, or climbing a
bell-tower. Perhaps in deference to my age, all they asked me to do
was walk around a park next to the National Army Museum in
Chelsea.
As a general rule, about 25-30 seconds of this filming would be
used in the programme, but those few seconds took one of the
coldest hours I have ever spent to translate into satisfactory
film. Maybe I don't walk very well, especially when I can barely
feel my feet. Everybody was friendly and helpful, but it reminded
me forcibly why, having worked in both media, I much prefer radio
production.
Always praising
ANYWAY, it was finally done, and I could then thaw out and be
interviewed by Pam Rhodes, whom I had not met for several years.
She is, of course, currently the longest-running presenter of
Songs of Praise, which has been on the air for almost 50
years. We spoke of Geoffrey Wheeler, whose death had just been
reported, and of the palmy days when Songs had a regular
spot and an audience of seven million.
It is, remarkably, still there, holding its godly head high
among the hundreds of television channels a person might choose
from on a Sunday afternoon, and still one of the most widely
watched religious programmes in the world: it has regular
screenings in many English-speaking lands.
Pam, meanwhile, has carved herself a back-up career as a writer
of light-hearted but literate novels about church life. If you've
never sampled the Dunbridge Chronicles (Lion Hudson), then you
won't know what you are missing: heart-throb curates, passion in
the pews, romance in the choir, and robust leadership from the
rector, Margaret.
"Light and amusing", the Irish Catholic said, "but
dealing with serious issues of faith, friendship and family". Just
like St Paul, really.
Canon David Winter is a retired cleric in the diocese of
Oxford, and a former head of religious broadcasting at the
BBC.