Winchester Cathedral Last Weekend

Tags

choir screen, commemoration, Eucharist, floral tributes, frontal, George Gilbert Scott, Hampshire, Her Majesty the Queen, high altar, Mourning period, Winchester Cathedral

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Winchester Cathedral

Tags

death of Queen, Elizabeth II, flag half mast, Hampshire, Mourning period, Winchester Cathedral

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Foibles and Fancies

Tags

Duraglit, Holy Dusters, Mary Crawford, St Nicholas, Tournai font, Winchester Cathedral

The final -for now – utterance from Jane Austen’s position under the floor of Winchester Cathedral.

Isn’t it incroyable that I can see the theme from one of my most famous novels visually sculpted on the face of the Tournai font, just opposite my place of rest?  Yes, dear Reader, it shows an impoverished nobleman who cannot afford to give his multiple daughters a grand dowry.  St Nicholas steps in and saves the day. (Not saves the bacon: that is shown on the other face, where the boys are preserved from becoming sausages, organic or otherwise.  I did not like to borrow that particular myth for any of my novels, however.)

I am aware that I have the best social position- a place that may not be recognised by the critical Mary Crawfords of this world, who know nothing of worship, who speak insolently of men of the cloth and who seat themselves prematurely during processionals.

I still scrub up well, as the Holy Dusters employ some vim and vigour in polishing my brass plaque with Duraglit and elbow grease.  Shadows of the clergy and laity cast their shades across my stone, revealing in their rites and rituals the universal foibles and fancies of humankind.  My joy in observing how we all rub along together has been passed down, along with my writer’s mantle to my handmaiden, Candia.  Hear her and follow her blog with due diligence and  enthusiastic approval, for I being dead yet speak!

Manners Makyth Man

Tags

assessment objectives, Blue Badge Guide, Camelot, Clueless, Colin Firth, Dr Johnson, Elinor Dashwood, feretory, Harriet Smith, Jane Austen, Keats, Lady Bertram, Mary Tudor, Occam's razor, Ockham's Razor, Ode to Autumn, ossuaries, Philip of Spain, St Cross, Winchester Cathedral, Wykeham Arms

The third and possibly penultimate excerpt from Jane Austen’s musings from beneath the floor of Winchester Cathedral.

Today an insolent hussy stood on my stone and shrieked to her companion:

Wow!  Get a load of this!  We are standing on that woman whose book we had to read for GCSE.  Except that our teacher just let us watch the DVD.  We had to compare it with “Clueless”, to show evidence of certain assessment objectives, but I got mixed up and was marked down.  It was the teacher’s fault.  She shouldn’t have confused me. My mum appealed, though, and I re-wrote that bit where Mr Thingy exits the lake in a wet t-shirt.  Mum said it was really cool.  Later she came here to give thanks for my success and slipped in a couple of prayer requests to The God of Camelot and a personal one that she might meet Colin Firth, with or without his wet clothing.

All of this was expressed in spite of a metal contraption which was attached to her teeth, so that I was as showered with saliva drops and my stone wetted, as if the Bishop had sprayed me with the rosemary twigs he uses at baptisms.  It isn’t always the best spot here, near the font.

But, at least we haven’t sunk to those adult total immersions yet.

Then the young woman proceeded to light a candle for me, muttering about there being no vanilla or blueberry-scented ones available.

Before I could utter the immortal phrase: It is a truth universally.. she was off, determined to see the feretory, as she loved those furry little creatures- or were they meerkats?  Simples is not the word.

Sometimes I raise my eyes to the metal hooks on the vasty pillars whose original function was to display the nuptial banners of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain.  Since I cannot suspend myself thereby, I resort to turning over in my grave.  Someone should remind these youngsters of the motto of their local college:  Manners Makyth Man.  (And that is a generic, inclusive term.)

I try not to mind when tourists seem more interested in where Keats precisely commenced his walk to St Cross, before composing Ode to Autumn. 

I could easily interrupt the Blue Badge Guide and inform them that he first procured nuncheon and a pint of porter at The Wykeham Arms.  However, like my creation, Elinor Dashwood, I feel like commenting on his Romantic versification:

It is not everyone who shares your passion for dead leaves!

But, maybe this is somewhat scathing, even for me.

I still feel that a sermon well delivered is as rare as hens’ teeth.  The Evangelical varieties seem livelier, though hardly calculated to earn their exponents a succession to a stall in Westminster.

Some of the homilies could do with a firm shave by the venerable Occam’s razor, since they can be as mangled as the regal bones in the choir ossuaries and as dusty as the said receptacles themselves.  They might do well to remember the less intellectually endowed Harriet Smiths of this world, who do not always decipher obscure riddles and charades.  As Fielding said, however:

Clergy are men as well as other folks.

Personally, I have been able to touch and affect a heterogeneous audience and consequently often have more than half a mind to rise and preach myself, though I heed Dr Johnson’s astute aphorisms regarding the fairer sex and sermonising:

A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs.  It is not done well: but you are surprised to find it done at all.

I know that I can be eloquent on points in which my own conduct would have borne ill examination.  However, greater opportunity for inward reflection has led me to direct more of my sense of irony towards my own failings.  As the good doctor also said:

As I know more of mankind, I expect less and less of them and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

However, I who have gently mocked the aspirations of others have been glad to be sheltered in the bosom of this place, as comfortably as Lady Bertram’s pug upon her chaise, but- prenez soin!  I am sometimes yet inclined to bare my needle sharp teeth and to sink them into some unsuspecting ankles- metaphorically, of course!

Cathedral Whispers

Tags

agapanthus, Alan Bennett, Alan Tichmarsh, Alethea, bidding prayers, Catherine Morland, designer handbags, Eastleigh, Echinacea, Glucosamine, Lady Catherine de Burgh, Sandbanks, St Cross, Talking Heads, Venus Fly Traps, Winchester Cathedral

(A continuation of our previous musings on Jane Austen’s eavesdroppings culled from her position beneath the floor of Winchester Cathedral.)

There have been seasonal floral displays in various churches in the Hampshire region, including St Cross, over the years.  The last word on flower arranging was probably given by Alan Bennett in his Talking Heads 1 monologue Bed Among the Lentils, about Mrs Shrubsole and the precise placement of a fir cone in her floral arrangement, Forest Murmurs.

Nevertheless I can imagine Jane Austen tuning into covert cathedral discussions being conducted, though masked by arrangements of Venus Fly Traps and burgeoning bocage.

Flower Arranger 1:

I daresay floral occupations are always desirable in girls of your girth, as a means of affording you fresh air and more exercise than you would normally take.  A passion for agapanthus may be deemed somewhat amateurish, but Alan Tichmarsh may yet attend and then, who can tell where your newfound skills may lead?

Arranger 2:

Ah Pansy, you enquired as to when my grand passion first surfaced, so to speak.  It developed gradually, but particularly after my first visit to my paramour’s enormous estate in Eastleigh. 

Pansy :

Unfortunate that the more vulgar might rhyme, or connote that once verdant lea with “beastly.”

Arranger 2:

Ita vero.  Sadly, he is a fit and extremely healthy older man, notwithstanding his vast cache of stocks and shares and general lack of penetration.  I could endeavour to live with him, however minimal his funds, providing that I should have access to them all.  I would aspire to Winchester, but  a villa in Sandbanks would, of course, be preferable and might prove an initial rung on the property ladder.

Arranger 1: Indeed, it would be wrong to marry for money, but foolhardy to marry without it.

Jane Austen:

How I would love to expose those furtive rummagers in designer handbags who rapidly switch off their mobiles before the bidding prayers, lest their lovers interrupt their devotions, or who use their fumbling as an avoidance technique when the offertory bags circulate.

At some of the local school services, one often hears some young prodigy, called Alethea or otherwise, make a smug, sententious remark to her doting mater. Through over-attention, the chit’s natural self-confidence has been honed into haughty assurance.  Catherine Morland’s conviction still stands -ie/ that there is a violent and uncertain life which lurks beneath the veneer  of society.

I am constantly privy to rehearsals of the accomplishments and marvels of female students, who all play musical instruments, achieve A*s and who compete in equine sports at the highest level.  Yet, I have never heard a young lady spoken of, for the first time, without her being lauded to the Empyrean.  Yet, deficiency of nature is often little assisted by education or society.  A greater influence seems to be perpetrated by the expectation of property, usually acquired through trade, or, dare I suggest, a lottery ticket.

Nowadays, such nouveaux positively display themselves in society magazines, besporting themselves at various charitable functions of questionable taste.  Their double-barrelled nomenclatures can scarcely be fitted into the copy without a prodigious profligacy of paper and ink.

Self-appointed, knowledgeable women offer their medical knowledge to others, whether invited to declaim, or not.  They remind me of Lady Catherine de Burgh, when she held forth:

Ah, yes, my experience of the lifelong care of my valetudinarian husband has led me to recommend Echinacea during the winter months and Glucosamine throughout the year.

Their nerves command a high respect, as they have evidently been old friends with whom they have been intimately acquainted for a number of years.  Truly these are women whom one cannot regard with too much deference.

And so we must leave Jane at the moment as she is a little fatigued by this peroration , but she promises to continue to amuse us on the morrow.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

She Being Dead Yet Speaketh

Tags

Alcuin, Alexander Pope, Anthony Gormley, campanology, Cassandra Austen, cathedral Close, Chawton, global warning, Great expectations, Harris Bigg- Wither, Henry Tilney, Izaak Walton, Jane Austen, St Swithun, Winchester Cathedral

An old series which may re-pay another airing:

 As the most famous Hampshire novelist remarked: We can all go through the somewhat embarrassing motions of offering each other the Peace for a few moments at Sunday Eucharist, but it is keeping it throughout the week that is the true challenge.

 Whenever I am in Winchester Cathedral, I am conscious that the Blessed Jane lies beneath our feet.  I mean, of course, Jane Austen and it is significant that she was not praised for her literary talents on her ledger stone, but rather lauded for her virtue.

 

 

 

Occasionally I fantasise that she is eavesdropping on snippets and gobbets of conversation that are echoes of those which formed the foundation to her writing at Chawton, where, in a more constrained square meterage, she still found plenty of grist to her mill.

The types still exist with their universal foibles and characteristics and you could deem her to have an excellent position from which to amass fragments for her personal notebook.  Her neighbours are interesting too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Jane’s internment took place early in the morning, perhaps to avoid comment from the faithful on the rectitude of a resting place having been given to one whose relation had been imprisoned for petty theft and whose cousin’s husband had been guillotined.

I wonder what our novelist would have made of discussions on women bishops and gay marriage?

Would she still count eighty seven women passing by, without there being a tolerable physiognomy among them?

(Some people are worth seeing, but not worth going to see.)

However, as stated, she does not have to move at all. To be the unseen guest at baptisms, ordinations, weddings and confirmations must delight her.  Even those alliances which are the triumphs of hope over experience must provide entertainment enough for any spinster.  The voice of the people is the voice of God, said Alcuin – vox populi vox dei.

Being witness to so many unions, does she ever regret turning down Harris Bigg- Wither?  Nay, she was delighted to have spared herself any lifelong conjunction with that particular large and awkward youth.  Whenever she had experienced a broken engagement, failed seaside romance or unsatisfactory flirtation, she consoled herself in her sister’s company and they shared a game of rubbers, or played a few duets.  Next to being married, a girl liked to be disappointed in love a little, now and then.  It gave one a sort of distinction among friends and one’s mother an opportunity to remedy the situation.

When a baby grizzles during the Intercessions, does it irritate her?  No, not at all, for Jane was the seventh child of eight and loved boisterous games of baseball and cricket.  She does not mind the troops of schoolchildren, brandishing clipboards with attached worksheets on Global Warning and St Swithun, who mark their territory by expelling curious deposits of masticated material on the ancient stones.

She is amused when itinerant latter-day pilgrims are riveted to the spot. Teacher:  Well done, Merlot!  Now that you have ticked all the boxes we can enter you for the Win a Cathedral Roof Tour on a Windy Day prize draw.

Rinaldo, why don’t you go down to the crypt and see if you can spot the virtualangel? Don’t hurry back.  Have a little paddle. That was quick!  No, that wasn’t the angel.  It was the sculpture by Anthony Gormless.

No, children do not bother her, but she is disturbed and aggrieved by members of the congregation who show no discretion in the timing of their personal coughs and who would be ideal members of the cast of some stage representation of Great Expectorations. Perhaps they could be induced to retire to the Fisherman’s Chapel to meditate on the Izaak Walton stained glass injunction contained therein, whose vitrine injunction is:  Study to be Quiet.

A restoration appeal for £19 million was launched and so Jane hopes that the ancient roof will no longer threaten to tumble around her ears from the vibrations of deaf loops, microphones, county brayings and excessive campanology.

Her single regret may be that she misses her dear sister’s company. As Mrs Austen once said to her: If Cassie were to have her head cut off, you would insist on joining her. And Jane’s father often quoted Pope: The proper study of mankind is Man.

So, here she is dignified with as much learning in the University of Life as her brothers experienced in their various careers.  Persuasion, pride, prejudice, sense and sensibility are paraded over these flagstones every day, in as compressed a social milieu as any novelist could desire to inhabit.

Henry Tilney once observed: The Close is surrounded by a neighbourhoodof voluntary spies.

Certainly, Jane would have avowed that its grapevine is as efficient a system of instant gratification as the pew sheet or Internet, whatever that organ of gossip may be.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012

 

Waiting for the Wistaria

Tags

Cana, Priors Gate, Winchester Cathedral, wistaria

A re-blog, as every year I get a kick out of

seeing the magnificent wistaria at the entrance

to The Cathedral Close in Winchester:

WAITING FOR THE WISTARIA

Waiting weeks for wistaria’s welter

of tendrils, to titivate Prior’s Gate;

to flourish its purple helter-skelter

ear-rings.  For Winchester, it seems quite late;

elsewhere trailers blossomed against bright brick

facades, yet soon their petals will be spent.

But this one saves its special party trick

till last-like choice Cana wine, heaven scent.

All Saints’ Day

Tags

All Saints Day, ark, cathedral stillness, coelacanth, pilgrims, pyx, quarterdeck, Winchester Cathedral

A re-blog from two years ago!

This is a serious poem appropriate for All Saints’ Day.  I composed it after I had attended a stillness session at Winchester Cathedral a couple of years ago.  I hadn’t known what to expect, so just opened up to the experience as our small group walked around in the evening darkness, with only a candle to light our individual progress.

Sea Change

Pilgrims embark, shedding light to shed light

and float in dim wickpools. Beneath are depths

plumbed by past divers, who probed the darkness

to fix this navicular skeleton,

till all passengers have scaled the gangway.

Hull’s expansive ribcage is still on stocks,

uncaulked and so the sea provides the wash

which is empyrean: all height and depth.

We flicker on skystones below the space

where gopher deck might materialise.

Speleological shipyard of beams,

how can we discern form in your shadows?

Your ark seems empty: no bats or mice squeak

in the black corners where life disappears –

but for uncharted realms of coelacanths.

Footloose, we reach the transept quarterdeck

where somnolent sailors snooze on stone bunks,

waiting for faded colours to be raised.

Myriads will peer from the multi-decks

and will welcome Love from their balconies.

And now we’re in the Captain’s gallery

where He invites voyagers to His table,

to join His golden company. Behind

His gaze stand all His crew in niche relief,

His figurehead the prow that carves the waves.

Our articles of faith lie in pyxes,

shipwright-wrought, withstanding storms, vortices.

We navigate the bridge by His compass

and try to brave tempestuous elements,

buoyed, anchored by the steerage of our course.

Drowning worlds may have returned the raven;

have ceased to speculate on whereabouts.

But the dove entered once, bringing its Branch

and when it comes again, it will lodge here,

as all restraints are loosed, the vessel launched.

All Saints’ Day

Tags

All Saints Day, ark, pilgrims, sea change, Stillness, Winchester Cathedral

Hi!  It’s Candia again.  Just a poem today as we are all busy getting ready for Clammie and Tristram’s Guy Fawkes party.

This is a serious poem appropriate for All Saints’ Day, which is today.  I composed it after I had attended a stillness session at Winchester Cathedral a couple of years ago.  I hadn’t known what to expect, so just opened up to the experience as our small group walked around in the evening darkness, with only a candle to light our individual progress.

Sea Change

Pilgrims embark, shedding light to shed light

and float in dim wickpools. Beneath are depths

plumbed by past divers, who probed the darkness

to fix this navicular skeleton,

till all passengers have scaled the gangway.

Hull’s expansive ribcage is still on stocks,

uncaulked and so the sea provides the wash

which is empyrean: all height and depth.

We flicker on skystones below the space

where gopher deck might materialise.

Speleological shipyard of beams,

how can we discern form in your shadows?

Your ark seems empty: no bats or mice squeak

in the black corners where life disappears –

but for uncharted realms of coelacanths.

Footloose, we reach the transept quarterdeck

where somnolent sailors snooze on stone bunks,

waiting for faded colours to be raised.

Myriads will peer from the multi-decks

and will welcome Love from their balconies.

And now we’re in the Captain’s gallery

where He invites voyagers to His table,

to join His golden company. Behind

His gaze stand all His crew in niche relief,

His figurehead the prow that carves the waves.

Our articles of faith lie in pyxes,

shipwright-wrought, withstanding storms, vortices.

We navigate the bridge by His compass

and try to brave tempestuous elements,

buoyed, anchored by the steerage of our course.

Drowning worlds may have returned the raven;

have ceased to speculate on whereabouts.

But the dove entered once, bringing its Branch

and when it comes again, it will lodge here,

as all restraints are loosed, the vessel launched.

Construction (Crucifixion) Homage to Mondrian by Barbara Hepworth

Tags

crucifixion, Hepworth, Mondrian, Pilgrims School, Winchester Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral Close

I went to Winchester Cathedral last Sunday and observed the Close beginning its preparations for Christmas.  This somewhat detracted from the Keatsian ambience of Autumnal peace.  Still, there are many pragmatists who, in a similar manner to Elinor Dashwood’s dismissal of her sister Marianne’s Romantic sensibility regarding  Ode to Autumn-type expressions, might utter:

It is not everyone who shares your passion for dead leaves!

Still, there is a sacred spot on Meribel lawn, in front of Pilgrims School, where the sculpture by Barbara Hepworth draws one in to another space.  This artwork intrigued me for some time, but then I was affected by its presence and impact and this is what it said to me:

 

CONSTRUCTION ( CRUCIFIXION ) HOMAGE TO MONDRIAN,1996 BY BARBARA HEPWORTH

All stresses are counterbalanced: cancer,

the carnage of two marriages, cruel death

of her beloved son.  Tried in the fire,

forged in the foundry of longsuffering,

three crosses stand against a cedar tree,

which may have sprouted from a mustard seed.

A faceless Christ haloes the deanery.

Meribel Close is stamped with Mondrian’s

grid-like shadows and our chequered lives.

Strong shoulders are the lintel of the Door.

Still people pass by on the other side,

embarrassed by their incomprehension,

smelted at the thought of a direct look.

Some gaze at alchemy’s transmutation.

The corm of caritas takes root in them.