Monthly Archives: June 2010

Pain in silence

For the fainthearted . . .

“Tell me about xxxx”.

“Do you know the stories about Mr xxxx?”.

“I do”.

“Then you can draw your own conclusions”.

I called with xxxx.  He has been in psychiatric care for years.

“Did you know Mr xxxx?” he asks.

“I didn’t”.

“He’s dead now”.

“He is”.

Researching Mr xxxx, there is only one reference to him on the Internet, on a family history website.  An inquirer names Mr xxxx; the response could have been anticipated,

My family and I are in the process of creating our family tree .

…

There was a man in the pub

For the fainthearted . . .

The strains of My Lagan Love smoothed away having to crawl along behind trailers stacked high with round bales. Three decades ago, it was a beautiful escape from the realities along the banks of the Lagan, not that there were many places where a Protestant would have heard traditional music being played.

Across the water, it was much easier.  No-one asked who you were; no-one was interested in what you were, as long as you paid for your beer.  There were two pubs in Manchester we would go for music; …

Liberals in danger

For the fainthearted . . .

At the end of the First World War, Liberal Prime Minister Lloyd George, anxious to retain power at the head of a National Government, threw in his lot with the Conservatives, splitting his party but retaining the premiership in a coalition.  In the previous, pre-war General Election, the Liberal Party had won 272 seats against 271 for the Conservatives; in 1918 Lloyd George’s Coalition Liberals won just 127 seats, while 36 more were won by Liberals opposed to the Coalition  – a net loss of more than a hundred Liberal …

Rectors past

For the fainthearted . . .

Walking the dogs in the two acre garden that comes with the house, there is a realisation that the grass is getting out of hand and that the back part of the garden is becoming an impenetrable jungle.  Tomorrow, the day off, there will have to be a concerted attack on the weeds.  A friend who lived here in the 1950s tells stories of cutting the grass with a scythe; there are pangs of conscience now when turning the key in the ride on mower.

It’s hard to imagine life …

Sermon for Sunday, 27th June 2010 (Fourth Sunday after Trinity/Proper 8)

For the fainthearted . . .

"Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit". Galatians 13:25

In one parish in the North, we had a Canadian family as members of the church for eighteen months. Rod had been a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada for 38 years prior to his retirement; he and his wife Susan had two teenage children. They were at once the most charming and the most disarming people I knew. They were very always warm and friendly but they would come up with questions …

On being English during the World Cup

For the fainthearted . . .

There is an American comedy film called ‘National Lampoon’s European Vacation’; in it an American family travel around Europe, spreading a trail of chaos and destruction wherever they go. In each city they visit they cause some grave misfortune to an English tourist played by Eric Idle, and each time the Englishman apologises, how careless of him to be in the way of their car when they ran him over, and so on.

Idle’s character is a caricature of Englishness, but it makes the point that there was a tradition …