Tears of Love

Of your charity, 

oh my Lord, 

let me weep.

For tears touched 

by the magic of sunlight 

become diamonds,

and golden memories

light up my dark road.

In your compassion, 

oh my Lady,

let me flourish 

like a Chinese plum tree

that blooms in winter,

flowers of pink and red,

bright with bitter ice

melting into love. 

I offer you thanks,

oh my Father,

for your sweet angel

who led me away

from self destruction

to a great high plain,

where the circle whirls

and life has no ending.

My spirit may rest now,

your heart in mine,

and mine in yours.

Washed by soft tears,

my eyes will no more

recognise deep despair,

for here is the place

of everlasting love.

                                     Naomi

The Blood-Sweeten'd Beverage

The Blood-Sweeten’d Beverage

Bristol Tea Parties 1778

So many words desperate and tumbling

but failing to achieve any clear meaning

in a city of slaves and of teatime protesting

telling the horrors of of savage dogs hunting.

Rust sailed galleys and black hearts pounding,

shackles clanking and brain shattered yearning

for freedom ebbing away on the tide lapping

on shingle and shell and never returning.

Gown black preacher earnestly preaching

pleading for freedom but the wrack is turning

its iron cold hands in the ache of an evening

to smother the shame of a master’s objecting.

But still the tea party’s challenge is thriving

in the cold dark of a city’s feigned weeping. 

                                                                                    Naomi

Bristol traders were at the heart of the C18 slave-trade, 

as were the many fierce Bristol objectors to the hated trade.  

In 1778 Hannah Moore a Bristol teacher and passionate anti slaver, 

a friend of both William Wilberforce and  Thomas Clarkson, 

joined  the organised boycott of slave-produced West Indian sugar, 

thus avoiding any contact with what the poet Robert Southey 

later described as “…the blood-sweeten’d beverage…”  

St Martin's Summer

Broadstairs, Autumn 2017

Today the fierce heat of high noon
is gone like feathers in the wind,
wheeling and dancing bravely into
the chill sea fret outside my window,
while circling gulls are crying out
for bright summer to return once more.

Turnstone birds have already flown south
from the winter of their Arctic home,
a thousand or more windswept miles each day,
to find here beneath seaweed and stones
a welcome feast of mollusc and shrimp,
their own unique St Martin's Summer.

Come Autumn we too feel the warmth
and comfort of this holy season,
for the Saint has split his cloak once more
to share with a shivering beggar,
cast off his armour and sheafed his sword,
radiant with love, compassion and peace.

October's dark clouds are pierced with gold,
and our souls overflow with the Saint's love.
The brightening sky sings out in praise
for the man who, with gentle hands held high,
comforts us, blesses us and prays for us.
God be praised for Saint Martin de Tours.
                 
                                                   Naomi

March Hares

I met an old man in my wanderings,

with thin grey hair and pale aged eyes, 

who smiled at me as we passed

through the kissing gate at the end 

of the path down from the high town.

By his side a dog of indiscriminate 

parentage, brown inquisitive face, 

ragged ears, eyes as dark and deep

as waves which caress the old jetty.

His nose pushed into my hand, he

bestowed wet kisses on my fingers.

“Privileged creatures dogs -  further 

than a mere man would dare go

with a stranger.” his master said.

He blew me a kiss and went away 

whistling a sad haunting tune,

but his step was brisk and the set

of his head that of a happy man. 

On a bank at the edge of a field

newly greened beneath the wall 

of the old town, two hares boxed

on the March snow dusted turf.

They circled, hind legs erect, 

feet en demi point, long ears

akimbo, front legs curved high

into the sky, two peasant dancers 

in a dizzy rural pas de deux

whirling, bobbing, wheeling,  

then subdued he bowed to her,

and docile followed after her. 

I watched them, two brown

snowflakes, Eostre’s children

who melted away invisible 

among the old trees, their once

exuberant presence marked 

only by faint tracks in the snow. 

I stood at the open graveside

where the old man lay in his coffin,

his small brown dog beside me

long nose resting on brown paws.

‘Eternal rest grant unto him

Light perpetual shine upon him’

The dog, sighing, licked my hand. 

Together we walked the path 

down from the old high town,

past the old dark forest where

young leverets sleep and play

and white wood anemones bloom.

On to the beach amongst the

blue sea holly and grey leafed kale

are two new March Hares running

headlong into the new spring sun.

Brown Dog barks, and chases 

a flock of teetering sandpipers,

while I hold up my arms to

radiant Phoebus, dazzling symbol 

of Love and Light come again.

                                       Naomi

A tenebris ad lucem

From darkness to light

"And so my dearest Aunt I have to tell you

I have been given an old manuscript

of A Tenebris ad Lucem, which I must study

eating my way through its covers and leaves.

Its oak boards would be my book cover of choice,

 but on each vellum leaf of text the miniatures 

 of bright malachite and lapis lazuli, 

of gold and cinnabar, show stories so shocking

that it seems I am embarking on a journey

through a land of diabolical horrors.

"I walk now in a dark forest where dense foliage

overwhelms the light, and the stony path

leads only into a miasma of despair.

I peer out between massive trees to see

a site both of tragedy and savage beauty.

A great wall of water, Leviathan risen

from the ocean, pounds inexorably across

the land destroying everything in its path,

whole villages smashed, animals and men

tossed into the air like feathers in the wind.

"Across endless fields of battle, I hear nations

mourning their dead, the flowers of many forests

are cut down and shattered by mine and gun,

enemies attack in an unseemly dance

of cracking sinew, hot blood and broken bone.

The little Forest Owlet cries out for his home

disappeared under the blade of an illicit axe,

an Amoy Tiger roars in vain for his lost mate

while a single Great Humped Back Whale sings

his eerie threnody to a long empty sea.

"It is as if all the oppressed and dispossessed

of this land are gathered at my back with 

voices raised in a great Anthem of Destruction

which almost completely overwhelms me.

Numb, I shrink back into my orange shell,

fold my six legs and await my gruesome fate.

But the dark canopy falls away and tall figures

clothed in light glide across a sunlit plain,

proclaiming that love alone heals loss and sorrow,

and brings fresh hope into a world of fear.

"Boys who once carried rifles on their shoulders

play again in green fields beside the river,

the starving and the homeless are sheltered and fed,

prisoners are set free and old enemies embrace.

An Amoy Tigress comes out of the forest

two new cubs playing like kittens around her heels,

flowers wash the ground where blood once was spilled,

eager saplings spring from craters of devastation. 

It is a new song this shining world now sings,

a soaring Hosannah of love and joy.

"I make my way along the path through soft grass

into the golden light of a new day, 

through the final leaf of my book to find

the old oak board, gateway back to my home.

As I pass the figures of light, one with eyes

deep and dark as the waters of Bethesda,

gives me a blessing and I see that his wrists

are deeply scarred where nails were driven through.

And I bow low to this Man of Light and Peace.

 Meanwhile,

I remain as ever your most affectionate nephew,

Apollonius Bostrichus Capucinus”

Naomi

The Mark of Love

He sits in my bleak cold garden

perched lordly on the old oak table.

He does not move but stares unblinking,

not asking but demanding more

of the flame raisins he has found

in the cracked old Japanese bowl.

I watch him as he cocks his head

turning from one side to the other,

the dark eyes intelligent and sharp

reminding me of the rare talents

and avian persistence lodged

in this small being of brown and red.

“I am the little bird” he says,

“who, come the Spring, pours out his song

like a nightingale in the hedgerow

singing beneath the silver moon,

rich notes ringing through the warm night

to summon my love back to our nest.

“But once I flew into a cold stable

where a swaddled new born baby lay.

Ox and donkey slept soundly there, 

while the baby shivered in his bed

and his mother stretched out her soft hand

to caress my brown feathered coat.

‘Bird’ she said, ‘can you rebuild the fire?

For the night is icy and I fear

for my baby so helpless and so young.’

I flapped my wings like small bellows

and sang to her until the flames

leaped like fiery darts into the sky

“Consumed with a rare love for the child,

too close I went to the roaring fire

and the dull brown feathers of my coat

smouldered blood red bright in the darkness.

But the boy smiled in a deep sleep

and his mother offered me her thanks.

“She looked tenderly at my burned

feathers, and blessed me with a kiss

to set as a seal upon my heart.

I have fought for my territory,

and beak stabbed my feathered brothers

but still I carry the Lady’s mark of love.”

I remember now his constant harrying 

of the hungry Blue Tits, but how

can I resist those pleading eyes?

So I fill up the old bowl with fruit.

and, as he sits beside me to take it,

‘God bless you my little Red Breast’ I pray.

                                               Naomi

Remembrance

Two Poppies

At the beginning of November

I bought two poppies.

One, with its blood red petals sharp edged symbols 

of pain and death, its thin green drooping leaf and wiry stalk 

wound about with flimsy ribbons of dull green plastic, 

I pinned into my button hole. 

The other flower, soft and white like a velvet star in the sky,

I pinned above my heart, and asked the God of Mercy

to lead us in our search for peace.

Waking to the dawning of the eleventh day 

of the eleventh month,

I looked up at a sky where the sun wove

thick reddening clouds into an empyrean landscape

of poppies, mimicking dark fields saturated

with the life blood of men who, like early rotting corn

untimely harvested, lay scattered across the fields of death.

Beneath this wine red canopy, I asked the God of Hope

that he might bring us out of darkness into light.

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day

of the eleventh month

I stood not in a church, nor beside a cenotaph,

but on a bitter cold cliff rising high above the coast of Kent.

There when I listened to the  wind I heard the echoing thud of guns,

there in the rain I felt on my hands warm rivulets of blood,

there, as I remembered them and honoured them,

I wept for all those who died, for every widow who mourned,

and for every sorrowing fatherless child.

Our world today is still wracked with unceasing bloody slaughter,

and in the name of the Man of Peace I ask the God of Love

that we may some day offer to all our enemies

the gentle white poppy of peace.

Amen  So may it be

Fragments of Time

A young shepherd, leading his sheep,

climbed the mountain to see a bush

burning perpetually bright,

heard in his heart the voice of God:

'Moses, you are chosen to lead

my people to their Promised Land.'

Lightning flashed in the searing heat

and choking dust on the long road

from Jerusalem to Damascus,

where Saul became Paul, and met

with his God in the thin place

between earth and eternity.

Blake in his mind’s eye saw a world

complete in a speck of warm sand 

and Heaven in a cool primrose, 

a microcosm of Creation

neither a dream nor a nonsense,

but a gift from almighty God.

Some seventy odd years ago

on the wings of an unseen bird

a blind man flew up in the sky

to sing with the stars and dance 

again in the streets of heaven,

there to touch the face of his God.

A child on the hillside opened 

a window into Paradise

where the sun shines eternally,

but she was afraid that soon she

must die and never find again

this fragment of time out of time. 

But the fragment is eternal

and bleak despair slowly departs,

as she comes to understand that

in the mystery of his presence 

the soul may find eternal joy

in the glory and love of God.

Amen  So may it be

                            Naomi

Into this bright morning

Into this bright morning 

when birds are singing

may I walk with God;

When worry and confusion 

attack at noon day

may I talk with God;

In the heat of the afternoon

weary already of the day

may I put my trust in God;

In the cool of the evening

as the light fades from the sky

may I give praise to God;

In the kindly dark of the night

may my soul take its rest 

in the heart and love of God.

                                 Naomi

I Name this Slug ... 
or,  After the Referendum

I found a slug in my garden

this dull grey morning;

an undulating brown body

this damp grey morning;

with swivel eyes and evil smile

this cold grey morning;

shouting loud his success to all

this bleak grey morning;

offering the world to his clan

this dire grey morning;

his very presence an insult

this sad grey morning.

Oh unloved and unlovely slug,

I think your name is Nigel.

Naomi

June 23rd 2016

The Red Kite

Milvus milvus - the Red Kite, Wales 1980

I stand, still as a stone in the dark shadows

leaning my back against the rough cottage wall,

spellbound by the unfolding drama above

where the Red Kites hover in the sunlit sky.

Circling on the upward thermal they keep guard

above the oak tree where they have made their home,

a wide nest of stout twigs lined with soft sheep wool,

a first brood for this cwm since many a year.      

The cock bird flies high, then dives toward the nest

his long slim body like some bronze feathered spear,

pale grey head, then russet sleek to wide forked tail.

Golden eyes searching out dangers threatening,

he scans the sky for crows, ready to defend

the high empty nest against their predations,

looking for humans who hide in the bracken

with sinister khaki canvas collecting bags.

But, just one small old man, deerstalker hatted

sits on a small stool near the foot of the tree,

today’s sentry to keep safe the precious pair,

no black crows intruding, no thieves lie waiting.

As the Kites settle down, more dangers will come,

illegal poisons, and arrogant hunters

who see themselves as the lords of creation

presuming mere birds to be their rightful prey

As our Kites rise together on the thermal

they dance in a circle of love, fluttering,

mewing and calling to announce their union,

for Red Kites are loyal and will pair for life.

For forty long days she will sit on her eggs

while he takes care of her and hunts for their food,

fresh fish and a rabbit, mole-crickets and frogs.

An earthly marriage, but one made in heaven.

Watching the Red Kites, their pinioned elegance,

their muted dignity and effortless flight,

reminds me that a bird may be a miracle 

whose beauty can outshine that of a woman,

with loyalty greater than that of a man.

As they rise upwards towards the sun I pray 

that we may love these our brothers and sisters

for all earth’s creatures are the children of God.

                                      Naomi                                                     

Working for the Church

Working for the Church

Who sweeps a room as for thy laws,

                     Makes that and th’action fine.                      

                                                         George Herbert       

In 1947 I had had my first sight of what Ruskin described as  "… out and out the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles and roughly speaking worth any two other cathedrals we have."  My father drove us up from Hertfordshire past the airy fancifulness of Ely Cathedral’s Octagon and the solid masculinity of Peterborough Cathedral and there on the long straight Roman Road from Sleaford to Lincoln standing out on top of the Castle Hill the triple towers of Lincoln Cathedral rode the horizon like a great stone galleon just out of port. The excitement of that first sighting and the overwhelming sense of wonder at its etherial grace have never diminished, but little did I know then that, some 27 years later, the city of Lincoln would become my home and the cathedral my most loved and exciting place of work.

The Dean and Chapter’s 10,000 printed books and nearly 300 medieval manuscripts were housed largely above the north aisle of the Cloister in a lovely classical gallery designed by Christopher Wren  - the young architect’s first library.  The new gallery led out of the only remaining bay of the earlier half-timbered medieval library room.  Two hundred and thirty years later a pleasant two storey Edwardian library annex was added to the east of the medieval library and it it was here I had my very commodious office and the more modern working books were housed.  The manuscripts and printed books kept upstairs in the Wren Library were fascinating, often amazingly beautiful, frighteningly rare, and some of them literally priceless.

My masters, the Dean and Residentiary Canons, all dead now, were good men, hard working and full of fun, albeit in the case of the scholarly Sub-Dean somewhat dry and ecclesiastical.  My colleagues were the virgers, Cecil the Chapter Clerk, Albert the gentle carpenter, Roger the Deputy Organist, Tony the raucous electrician, George the aged cadaverous cleaner and clock winder, and Mr Jahn my elderly sub-Librarian, he of the ill fitting false teeth and a kindness of heart above the price of rubies.  All of them made me welcome and, all too often, nudged me along the path of hilarious chaos.

Visitors to the Library were made welcome, and over the years their numbers greatly increased.  I had been to a conference where one of the principal speakers, the Dean of St Paul’s, had exhorted his audience of Cathedral librarians, archivists and keepers of ecclesiastical treasures to “Make your libraries and your Treasuries a part of your mission.”  I never forgot this, and entertaining and educating visitors became a main stay of my work.  My clients varied from groups of children often from primary schools to professional librarians, from local clubs and civic organisations, to individual scholars of national and international reputation.

When I had first arrived at the Cathedral I knew very little about old and rare printed books and manuscripts. Well to be absolutely honest, I knew almost nothing at all.  But I read widely, assiduously attended courses and conferences, drew extensively on the expertise and advice always so generously offered by a variety of senior persons from the British Museum, the British Library and the other great national libraries, as well as some of the small highly specialist institutions, and eventually went back part time to university to study and formally qualify as a full time librarian and archivist.  As time went on I became increasingly competent in my new trade, and my talks and lectures began to sound authoritative, even if their foundations had been laid on the sands of ignorance.  I enjoyed working with any group or individual visitor who turned up by appointment at the door to the medieval library, but nothing gave me more pleasure than the visits from teachers and children, some as young as seven years old and from as far away as Oxford or London.  These particular visits I felt were a very special part of my mission within the Cathedral.  

The young students’ interests ranged from why are books always that shape Miss, to why are so many of them in a funny language, to who were the scribes who wrote and illustrated the wonderful manuscripts and what did they get out of it?  Books are that shape, I explained, because if you skin a sheep or other animal whose skin is going to be made into the leaves of a book, once the legs, tail and head are cut away you will invariably have an approximately 3:2 rectangle of vellum which however many times you fold it will remain a rectangle.  The only general exception I can think of to this rule of thumb is the quarto - the second folding - which tends to be almost a square, far from the 3:2 proportions. Until late in the seventeenth century Latin was still commonly used as the language both of the Catholic Church and amongst scholars throughout Europe, reflecting a certain universalism both in religion and learning. There were professional secular scribes and printers who worked to earn an honest penny, and monks who devoted the whole of their working lives to the greater glory and understanding of almighty God, whether by tending the sick and the poor, labouring in the fields or turning their monasteries into centres of contemplation and study rooted in their ever expanding libraries.  

For me one particularly memorable visit was made by a group of Cambridge librarians who had booked in for the group's annual summer outing.  They had planned a quick tour of the Cathedral, a good lunch at The Wig and Mitre, and then a fairly lengthy session with me in the Wren Library. This, their secretary wrote, “will be the High Point of our day.” I was not so sure about this High Point.  A coven of Cambridge librarians could include, and usually did include almost anyone from the most humble of issue clerks working in one of the city’s small branch libraries to the Director of the great University Library.  

However I laid out a good number of manuscripts and printed books, the centre piece of which was a gigantic volume - one of a series of three volumes of maps published in Amsterdam in 1647.  Like most custodians of a small rare books library I had had to learn a little about a great number of things, but I had become especially interested in old maps, particularly the marvellously engraved, exquisitely hand-coloured works of the Dutch cartographers and colourists.  Each map lay within a multi coloured decorated frame; small wind cherubs blew into horns made of shells; miniature boats beat across the oceans giving a wide birth to schools of whales and amazingly savage sea monsters; and a caravan of tiny camels marched eternally across North Africa.  The colouring of the plates was exquisite almost beyond belief.  My lecturette on the techniques of sixteenth and seventeenth century mapmaking and illustration had, I felt, become the best item in my repertoire.  

The Cambridge group, well fortified against the rigours of the afternoon by the strong ale of The Wig and Mitre duly arrived and set out to enjoy its collective self.  Towards the end of a long and lively session, I ushered the party to the map table where, completely intoxicated by the force and brilliance of my own rhetoric, I delivered what seemed to me a dazzling  account of the lives and times of the Amsterdam cartographers, colourists and publishers.  I was particularly flattered by the open-mouthed attention and admiration shewn by a very respectable navy suited middle-aged gentleman who from time to time added most helpful comments to my peroration. Eventually the various members of the party took themselves away down the Library stairs and meandered slowly out into the calm of a late summer afternoon.  I stopped the only member of the group whom I actually knew, a young whiz kid from the University Library whom I had met the previous Easter at a course in the University of Leeds.

“Who,” I asked “is that nice chap who seemed so interested in the Blaeu maps?”

He smiled, a mixture of patronage and sarcasm spreading across his face.

“That nice chap” he said “is the Director of the University Map Room.  You could learn a lot from him.”  I certainly had.

Amongst our manuscripts was an anthology compiled in the fifteenth century by Robert Thornton landowner of the manor of East Newton, Stonegrave in the North Riding of Yorkshire.  Thornton appears to have made this collection of Middle English literature - various Arthurian romances including the long alliterative poem Morte Arthure,  religious and medical works - for the use and pleasure of his family as well as for himself.  This manuscript miscellany was very large, came to Lincoln perhaps towards the end of the seventeenth century, was exceptionally rare with some unique items and had been very heavily used.  To compound its agony, it had been very tightly rebound in the 1830’s and was in an extremely poor and now almost unusable condition.  A work so prized by scholars had I believed to be properly conserved and rebound so that it could safely be used again.  

With money eventually in place and the agreement of the Dean and Chapter I began to look for a really top class binder/conservator to whom the work could be entrusted.  My search eventually led me to Sandy Cockerell, one of the most skillful and distinguished conservators and binders of the twentieth century who ran his world famous bindery in Grantchester not far away from Lincoln.  Sandy did not really like priests, with the exception of one of his sons in law and Victor de Waal the Canon Chancellor of Lincoln, but he did love and respect the stream of extraordinary ecclesiastical manuscripts which continually flowed into his bindery seeking their own particular salvation.  Thus began my wonderful friendship with Sandy and his wife Elizabeth and the most fruitful period of my professional career.  The volume was to go backwards and forwards between Lincoln and Grantchester and then to travel disbound in an old but reinforced waterproof zip up shopping bag on the train with me from Lincoln to the Scolar Press at Ilkley for specialised photography ready for the publication of a great facsimile edition.  I had some excellent days out and some very good lunches in its company.  

For me, one of the most satisfying of my projects at Lincoln was the successful setting up of a permanent Library Exhibition in the small medieval library room, open each afternoon throughout the spring and summer months, secure, discretely housed and lit, and staffed by enthusiastic and well trained volunteers. These were local folk usually well able to help visiting rare books librarians and keepers of manuscripts as well as entertaining the casual visitor who had just wondered if it were possible to have a look round and perhaps ask a few questions about the rare and beautiful volumes on display. 

The centre piece of this exhibition was to be the show casing of the Cathedral’s exemplar of Magna Carta, one of the only four known extant copies remaining from the many exemplars circulated in 1215 after King John had capitulated in the face of the lords spiritual and temporal of England.  The Lincoln exemplar is, in appearance, a rather insignificant document, but it has still an enormous significance in the hearts and minds of English speaking peoples.  Since its rediscovery in a chest in the nineteenth century Chapter Clerk’s office it has exercised this emotional power over thousands of visitors to the Cathedral and on the many more thousands who have had the opportunity to gaze at it on temporary display both in Australia and the USA.

Before the Charter could be displayed in the Library there were months of discussion, constant comings and goings by experts in conservation, in the protection of priceless and irreplaceable objects and in the safe transport of such objects.   The Charter was to go in a few months time to the USA to tour the West coast.  There was a great expenditure of money most of it provided by the Standard Chartered Bank the sponsors of the American expedition, largely at the discretion of a delightful young director, one John Major.

Eventually an absolutely monumental display case was designed, fireproof, waterproof, burglar proof and bomb proof, and with base and lid protected in every way. The resulting edifice besides being to my mind incredibly ugly was also unbelievably heavy.  To raise the lid there was a fairly simple counter-weight system which after an initial tug at the handle hauled itself up or let itself down with alarming speed.  So that in careless or criminal hands this device should not become some macabre ecclesiastical guillotine, the lid when open was locked in place by an enormous padlock, for which there was only one key which was always in the possession of myself or my Deputy.  

The day before the Grand Opening of the Exhibition the Dean, the Canon Chancellor and I did a dry run, opening and shutting the case several times until the bell rang for Evensong and I was left alone with my baby in its wide open case.  I had to put the finishing touches to the rest of the exhibition, lock the case, set all the Library alarms and go home.  But I did not seem to have about my person the key to the padlock.  Although the case was permanently protected by a special wired-direct-to-the-nick alarm, the security experts had decreed that while the lid was open the Library must always be attended by a member of staff who should never be more than a few feet away from the also wired-direct-to-the-nick panic button.  I did not relish the prospect of sitting up all night beside the open lid and the panic button.

Having decided to share the problem and perhaps the responsibility as well, I picked up the phone and dialled.

     “The Deanery”.  The unmistakable dark brown voice of the Dean.

     “Oliver,” I said, “some unprintable person has pinched the key to my padlock and I can’t shut the case.”

     “I am that unprintable person, and your key is sitting right here on my desk.  Would you care to come over and collect it, and take a glass of sherry?”

For several seasons several thousand pairs of feet had trekked up the Library stairs to view the Exhibition and Magna Carta.  And had trekked down again.  Great quantities of dust had been raised and had become impacted in the cracks of the old treads until the whole area looked very neglected and uninviting.  George the Clockwinder who was also the cleaner seemed to be saving all his energies for his daily foray up the South West Tower to tend his beloved clock, and not a lot of cleaning was being done. There was a simple solution to the problem - do it myself.  I assembled soap, cloths, brush and bucket, and made a start. It was very hard work, and the staircase was very long.  Suddenly a voice boomed behind me:  “Good morning ma’am.”

I was so startled that I dropped the brush into the bucket and showered myself with disgusting grimy water.  I stood up, turned round and looked up into the face of a tall elegantly dressed American.  He wore a pale pink shirt with very fine gold cufflinks, pale grey trousers and pale grey patent shoes.

     “Yes?” I said.

     “Dr Julius Finkelheim ma’am.  I have an appointment with the Librarian.  Can you tell me where I might locate him?”

I wiped my filthy hands on the seat of my scruffy jeans and drew myself up to my full height of five foot one.

     “Dr Finkelheim” I said, “I am he … I mean she.  And in case you are wondering, I am also the Chief Library Scrubber!” 

Looking back now on some of these memories I am struck by the abiding underlying importance of the Cathedral and of everything that was provided and undertaken there.  It was not a place where saints dwelt in gilded cages, it was a family with all the substrata of bickering and misunderstandings and old grudges experienced by any ordinary family.  But the Cathedral community itself was supportive and loving to its members, righteous and rogue alike.  It was supportive of individuals, alms and advice were given, confessions were heard and souls were eased of some of their burden of guilt.  Strangers were comforted and the hungry fed.  It was supportive of the community at large.  The building was available for concerts, drama, dance - sacred or profane.  Visitors of every nationality and religion and none were made welcome, it was a vital bustling place yet with space enough for quiet contemplation, for meeting with friends, for respite from the darkness and the unhappiness of a cold and uncaring world.  And it was so often a place of laughter. 

Most of us discovered that any work, however humble, if it were for the good of the religious community, for the building, for the wider community of city, for country and the whole world, is action made fine. This wonderful stunningly beautiful building and its traditions of service was, and is, the most amazing legacy from a far anonymous past which I believe demands that it should be faithfully cherished and maintained.  To work in Lincoln Cathedral was a privilege and a joy.  I can only pray that I gave some small service back both to the community and to God who had given me so much.  

At the end of one of my educational sessions with a party of 11 year olds from a Catford primary school, a quiet little girl came up to me and asked: 

     “Like what you said about the monks, Miss - do you do all this work to the glory of God, Miss?”

I thought for a moment, and then I said:

     “I do try to, but I’m not always very good at it.”  

     “Don’t worry, miss, God’ll forgive you.”

Amen to that.

           Naomi