Person of interest
I HAVE recently undergone a five-hour operation under general anaesthetic to remove two large stones from my left parotid gland. The scar runs from the top of my ear, around the lobe, and halfway down my chin. My friend Peter in Presteigne Delicatessen said, “Oh, you look so distinguished.” The churchwarden at St Andrew’s asked if they’d thought of using a bolt.
Worcester Royal maxillo-facial department kept me in for 24 hours afterwards, and I was visited by at least half a dozen surgeons who had either been involved, or merely been there to observe what is still a highly unusual procedure. “It was very interesting,” they told me, shaking my hand.
The operating “theatre” is so called because the first one, in Padua, had banks of seats for students watching anatomical dissections. Well, it’s better to interest your doctors than to bore them, I guess. And I’m very glad that the operation didn’t end up as a dissection.
Held in prayer
MANY of my friends in the congregation at St Andrew’s had told me that I would be in their prayers, and I know that’s true of most of my family, too — even the ones who don’t usually pray. I know I prayed as hard as I ever have, as I was wheeled down to the theatre.
Afterwards, though, and in the slow weeks of recovery from such a major (and interesting) operation, I wondered what we were praying for. Would the skill of the surgeons have been lessened if I hadn’t prayed for the steadiness of their hands? Is God’s grace not available to the unprayed-for?
On reflection, for which I had plenty of time after the operation, I realised that the whys and wherefores of intercessory prayer are so far above my understanding that all I need to do is say “Thank you” to the doctors and nurses. And to my friends for all their prayers. And to the Lord, for holding my hand.
Inheritance track
BEFORE admission, I spent a cheerful afternoon writing my letter of wishes for what happens when death does come knocking. Although, in a very real sense, I won’t be there for my funeral, I do want family and friends to have an interesting time. Most of the people I know are either un- or never-churched; so there seems little point in mining recondite corners of scripture.
A priest friend showed me a list of the most popular readings, which included Ecclesiastes 3.1-8, and — although I stand in danger of losing the interest of my clergy friends who might get to the event — this is the one I’ve gone for. Given that I need to engage the interest of all the old rockers with whom I’ve played over the years, I chose “Turn, turn, turn” rather than an actual reading.
Antediluvian hipsters of my vintage, asked to choose between the Beatles and the Stones, will often mutter “The Byrds, actually”, and so I know that the elderly musos who constitute a large percentage of my pals will be on side from the start.
Faithful remnants
ONE thing in life which seems to be a constant is going to school concerts to hear your children perform. If an LP turns at 33 1/3 rpm, I’m two LPs old, and my eldest daughter is a seven-inch single. She sings in her children’s school choral society, even though neither of my granddaughters does; but I’m still there, sitting on hard chairs, beaming with pride.
Last year, their big performance was in Hereford Cathedral, but this year it was in Dore Abbey, conveniently located in Abbeydore in the Golden Valley, a 50-minute drive south from Presteigne. They were performing Vivaldi’s Gloria, and it was lovely. Cold; but lovely.
Dore Abbey is an extraordinary building: not just one of Simon Jenkins’s Best Thousand Churches, but one of his Top One Hundred. It’s the hulking remnant of a Cistercian monastery, the nave long gone, though the arcaded chancel and transept more than make up for it. There’s a proper west gallery, too, from where the (school-age) soloists performed.
The churchwarden was kind enough to spare me a few moments of her time in the interval, and she talked me through some of the wall-paintings, and the Laudian wood-carvings; it’s always nice to see the coat of arms of Charles I. “It reminds me of Stow Minster in Lincolnshire,” I said. “It’s built on the same kind of scale, but they still have a nave. Problem is, they only have a regular congregation of 12.”
I had mistaken a school-concert crowd for a congregation. “Our regular congregation is four,” she said.
Museum piece
IN THE next village to Presteigne, the small brick-built Methodist chapel in the middle of the village has been declared surplus to requirements, and is for sale. The Strawberry Hill Gothic parish church is next to the “big house”, a 15-minute uphill walk from the village centre; regular congregation, four or five. The church is kept alive only by a dedicated preservation trust.
Something seems a bit askew to me, every time I drive past the chapel. The rural church still has work to do, above and beyond museum curation. Buy the chapel in the heart of the village, I think, and leave Strawberry Hill Gothic to preservation trusts and English Heritage. Why the C of E doesn’t do this is beyond my understanding — like intercessory prayer.
Ian Marchant is an author and broadcaster, and the founder of Radio Free Radnorshire.