Just being a tourist
Sunday 19 November, 2018
My weather prognostications from yesterday came true: as soon as I put my head out the door this morning, I realised the temperature had dropped. Winter has arrived in the UK and the less reputable papers (anything owned by Rupert) are already talking about a “mini beast from the East”. Bonkers, really, as the temperatures in the south are not meant to fall below 6º, but with the wind, it was a different coast.
I tossed up whether to be an Anglican or a Catholic for the purposes of mass, feeling that I should offer up thanks for safe arrival. The Minster is apparently full of happy clappers, so that wasn’t an option. The anglo-catholic parish is St Peters – ironically, so is the Catholic Cathedral – but then I remembered R.F. Delderfield’s God is an Englishman and that settled it. Out of interest, there are a couple of web-sites in the UK which review churches, especially from a liturgical standpoint, very useful if you are trying to figure out whether the churchmanship of the parish you are visiting is going to clash with your sensibilities!
St Peter’s is part of a Mission parish, which is the latest move by the good old C of E to recover its relevance in England; and the parish has a close association with the Society of the Holy Cross, which also has an association with Christ Church St Laurence. The SSCs were priests in the poor parts of London in the 1850s, when no respectable parish would touch the “ritualisers” and the Anglo-Catholics were subject to legislation against the practice and – as in NSW – even law-suits. How successful the fundies were against the movement could easily be seen at mass today by the fact that the ceremony was almost indistinguishable from a Catholic ceremony – except for the fact that Father David is married with grandkids. You have to love a religious order that encourages marriage. Come on, Frank, admit it – the Anglicans have shown it can be done! Not that anyone would marry George Pell…
Without spending too much time on the ceremony, what really struck me was the manner in which an 1840s Gothic Revival pile had been turned into a beautiful and vibrant worship space. The loss of all the windows (and most of the roof) in the bombing meant that light just streamed in. The positioning of the altar was spot on and, rather than rows of empty pews, there were comfortable chairs. Religious art from the old church was combined with new art. It was just amazing and absolutely hats-off to the architect.
I walked across Plymouth to the Hoe, and oriented myself with Apple Maps (as one does). Instantly, I was transported back to every naval story I’ve ever read! There really is a bowling green on the Hoe, although it look very postwar. The Naval Memorial is suitably sombre as most of the names recorded are either lost or buried at sea. The R.A.N. is represented and the 1941 panel has a long list of names – the more than six hundred members of the crew of the Sydney.
The number of names makes sobering reading, a reminder than warfare at sea is more often about convoys, blockades and cold and stormy weather than it is about derring do or duty in the line of battle – Monsarrat’s naval novels really nail that part of the Battle of the Atlantic.
To look over the water is to see hundreds of years of maritime history laid out before one. Smeaton’s tower is the old Eddystone Lighthouse, suitably relocated as a memorial.
You can follow the shoreline round with famous names: Devonport, Saltash (The Cruel Sea), Tor Point (the Sutherland had to weather Tor Point in Captain Hornblower), the Hamoaze, Cremyll, Drake’s Island, The Barbican, the Royal William Yard, Cawsand. The only issue was the wind – things were moving on the weather front and it was distinctly chilly. For the first time, I wore gloves and was glad of them as the wind chill took the temperature down to 1ºC.
It looks like rain tomorrow, so my mad dash to Dover may be even more of a waste of time than it is already. If things had gone differently, I might have got to Claire a day earlier; but not to worry. It’s an early start, so I took one last walk to the Barbican for dinner and to remember the streets of this old part of town. It’s cold and there are few tourists – that’s a refrain for the whole journey around Cornwall. Just me on a peculiar pilgrimage.
