Wombling free
IN THE bio I supplied for the Church Times, several years ago, it says that I’m the founder of Radio Free Radnorshire, which sounds grand; but no one has ever asked me what it is. It was once an internet streaming radio station, until I realised that what I was doing (playing popular music without proper permissions) was really rather illegal.
It then became little more than a Spotify playlist — until I left Spotify in a huff at the same time and for the same reasons as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell did (Diary, 18 March 2022), but with very much less effect. So, it became a Qubuz playlist: a French streaming service, much more ethically sound, with higher-res tracks, which is good, though I currently have only one follower, which is bad.
But, this month, I’m launching the Radio Free Radnorshire Roadshow as a live event, with music, chit-chat, guests, and games. I’ve taken inspiration from the legendary 1975 Radio 1 Roadshow at Mallory Park, where the Bay City Rollers played on an island in a lake, and many of their fans in the crowd started trying to swim out to the island, until the Wombles, unannounced, came by in a speedboat.
This sounds like a fever dream, but it really happened, and it’s this anarchic vibe that I’m after.
Senior service
MY MAIN broadcasting career has been working for Radio 4 as an occasional presenter, but my real relationship with radio has been as a listener, for as long as I can remember. These days, I stick with Radio 4, with the odd jaunt over to Radios 3 or 6.
I listened on FM, until we got a DAB radio a few years back — and I was always puzzled when, at 9.45 a.m., the presenter would announce that the Daily Service was due to start, and it never did. It had been left as a remnant on Long Wave, where it can still be found if need be.
But then, earlier this year, it appeared on Radio 4 Extra, available at the press of a button, and I’ve become a regular listener. I thought it might not be to my taste, but it very much is. There’s sacred music (sometimes proper gospel, praise the Lord!), prayers, readings, and a short talk, and I like it very much. If you have yet to track it down, or re-track it down, it’s almost certainly better than you thought it was going to be, and much easier to find than it has been for years.
App-osite prayer
P. G. WODEHOUSE asserted, of Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle and the telephone, that he was “not an expert performer on that instrument”, and I empathise, especially with regard to my smartphone; but I like to think I’m ahead of the curve when it comes to the use of prayer apps.
For some time, I’ve had on my phone Tuia, an excellent prayer app run by the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. It seems to follow the lectionary readings, and is based on the New Zealand Prayer Book. It has morning and evening prayer, and an examen, which I often feel too hypocritical to try. (Only today, for example, I was moaning at my wife for not being ready for her dentist’s appointment — to which I was driving her — at the exact same moment as my editor at the Church Times emailed to say that I was late with my copy. I had it composed, of course, but I had neglected to do the “wording in”, as Simon Brett calls the process of actual writing.)
Now, the Church of England has launched what promises to be an excellent app for daily use, Everyday Faith, which takes as its starting point the prayer apps that the Church has used for Lent and Advent. Each day has a theme instead of following the lectionary. There is a reading, a reflection, and a prayer; and I’m enjoying it very much. It’s not quite a month old, and I’m not sure if it’s had an official launch, but it’s just the thing to help one elderly hypocrite keep up to speed with his Bible study.
Wood from the trees
APPS, and even the radio, are all right as far as they go, but ours is one of the religions of the Book, and, to this end, can I beat even the supermarkets in being the first to mention Christmas? This is because anyone with an interest in churches needs to have a copy of Old Parish Life: A guide for the curious, edited by Justin Lovill, and published by the Bunbury Press.
It’s a wonderful compendium of fun facts, crammed with illustrations of what some might think of as trifles, gathered from 400 years of churchwardens’ accounts; and it puts me in mind of Miss Dorothy Hartley’s books about England. At 20 quid, it’s practically free.
It also gave me a chance to practise one-upmanship at a recent PCC meeting. A churchyard tree had fallen into a neighbour’s garden, and a conversation ensued as to who now owned the wood. The churchwardens asserted that the wood belonged to the vicar, but, thanks to my reading of Old Parish Life, I knew that — according to a judgment of Edward I in 1307 — this is only true so long as the vicar uses the wood to repair the chancel.
No one took any notice, obviously, but it’s always good to know that you are right.
Ian Marchant is an author and broadcaster, and the founder of Radio Free Radnorshire.