Swifts!

Hurrah! The swifts are back!

It's a cry that goes up usually in the first week of May. This year they are a tad late. Maybe this is due in part to the unseasonably cold weather. After all, why fly 4,000 miles from toasty Africa to cold East Anglia to suffer our raw East winds?

Granny spotted them from an upstairs window and couldn't wait to get outside to hear their screaming, joyous arrival. We had seen a solitary bird a couple of days ago so reckoned he had jollied his mates along to join him.

What Granny and Hubby have trouble grasping with these long-distance travellers are the sheer logistics involved. With a brain that can hardly be the size of a pea, a swift can negotiate its way accurately across continents and oceans to the precise tile on our roof where it hopes to re-establish its nest. In my estimation, it's far more impressive than the vast technological tracking efforts of NASA or Google Earth!

These birds rarely roost or rest, eating, sleeping and mating on the wing. In fact, their legs are so small from disuse as to be almost unusable. Even when feeding young under the tiles they enter the site at full pelt and are out again in a flash. The young emerge in about five weeks fully-fledged and equipped for the return flight to sub-Saharan Africa by the end of August.

That's when the silence dawns on us. One day they are here screeching and wheeling like winged aerial lunatics chasing each other across vast open skies, then they are gone and our hearts go with them for we know the end of summer is just over that far horizon they have just left behind them.

Coats of Arms of East Sussex, traditional and modern.

​Note: In English Heraldry, Swifts, Swallows and Martins (collectively Martlets), are depicted without legs as it is thought they did not possess any! On a family Coat of Arms it is used a mark of cadency and represents the fourth son.

https://www.swiftconservation.org/

https://www.rspb.org.uk

Building on Belief

When I read in our local magazine today the awful news that our local church is threatened with closure, I was really dismayed. Religion holds little sway with me and as such I am not a churchgoer, however, I am a lover of social history and vernacular architecture and am passionate about preserving these fine local buildings that have been so obviously central to village lives in the past.

In our small and rambling community with a present-day swelled population of around 1,000, we have a derelict Tabernacle, a redundant Methodist Church (now converted to a private house), a large Baptist Chapel and three Anglican Churches, (one a small turn-of-the-century daughter church). Two are fine buildings in English Style one of which is Anglo-Saxon. Both have stood for almost a thousand years.

The principal church, St. Peter's has just been surveyed and is it seems, in need of urgent repairs to the tune of £450,000 to ensure its being kept open to the public and to preserve it for the future but what are the chances of raising such a vast amount of money? Most grant monies or lottery funding have to be matched: that would still leave a whopping balance to be raised.

A few years ago a local committee was formed to set about raising several thousands of pounds for repairs. This we did by dint of a festival but this new estimate is truly daunting.

We are both blessed and cursed in this community to have two such impressive flint buildings of irreplaceable historical importance. St. Mary's, derelict and in disrepair for forty years was taken 'under the wing' of a local couple who along with a groups of 'friends' have quite literally raised heaven to restore the fabric and turn it into a valuable venue for exhibitions and concerts. I fear St. Peter's with its remarkable round Saxon tower may fare worse in these stringent times. I do hope not. The craftsmanship and devotion that raised it deserves help. Once these historic buildings fall they will be gone forever and following generations will be all the poorer.

Some years ago I wrote this poem from a workman's perspective, in celebration of the lives and beliefs of those dedicated to building such remarkable places of worship.

Building on Belief

My cart of hand-picked flints was sold - I sought to head off home But an inner voice did tell me, ‘your work is not yet done.’

I joined the gang from near and far, we toiled from dawn ‘til dusk, Digging trenches, hauling stones and making mortar dust.

I marked my nearing birthday by lashing scaffolds tall, Each passing year I measured high upon the growing walls.

I faced each stone within its course and never did I flinch For I was driven onward as I laid each unique flint.

Men who worked around me from youths to sinewy old, Shared the lift of spirit as our sweat damped wood and stone. We climbed the rising tower, roofed the chancel tall, Carved the door and paved the floor with care and love and awe.

We of faith and fortitude, raised the building heavenward With eyes that saw and ears that heard, yet could not read a single word.

​Bells toll for all time but Faith fades and shrinks so thin, Though the church in which I dressed the flints is much the same within. My sweat and tears are dry now, centuries have passed by Workmanship is all that’s left to mark the question 'Why?'

A tower clawing skyward seeking answers from above? Millennia of insight, hatred, guidance... love? I whose hands did build this church so very long ago, Invested half a lifetime and my heart and soul and breath, Eager sent the drift of prayer, so certain on my death, That truth and love would ease the lot of fellows yet to come But still the bells toll out His words, ‘My work is not yet done, My work is not yet done ...’

https://norfolkchurchestrust.org.uk

http://greatenglishchurches.co.uk

http://www.roundtowers.org.uk

https:/www.facebook.com/FriendsofStPetersForncett

St. Julian of Norwich

David Holgate's carving of St. Julian on Norwich Cathedral.

Some years ago, Granny went to a wedding ceremony held in the little church of St. Julian that sits off King Street in Norwich. It was not licensed for weddings and special permission had to be applied for from the Bishop. This was granted on the grounds that the bridegroom lived in King Street itself.

St. Julian's is a very intimate place, steeped in history and visited by many from all around the world, drawn to it by stories of the mystic who spent most of her life there, walled into her tiny cell.

Julian 1342-1416 was probably born in Norwich though there is scant knowledge of her life before becoming an anchorite. One of the most important towns in the country, Norwich's population when she was growing up, was decimated by plague when a quarter of the population perished, and it struck twice more. An illness of her own took Julian close to death during which on 16th May, 1373, she had a series of 16 religious visions which prompted her to withdraw from society in order to devote the rest of her life to solitary contemplation and prayer, during which she wrote two accounts of her experiences.

Julian lived in a room or cell attached to the church. It had three windows, one which opened onto the church so she could receive communion, one that enabled her to speak to her maid, and a third that allowed ordinary people to seek her spiritual advice or ask for her prayers.

Although Julian described herself as 'a simple creature, unlettered', it is thought she must have had some personal wealth and education with a knowledge of theology, as she went on to write the earliest surviving example of a book in the English language to have been written by a woman.

'Revelations of Divine Love spans the most profound mysteries of the Christian faith—such as the problems of predestination, the foreknowledge of God, and the existence of evil. The clarity and depth of her perception, the precision and accuracy of her theological presentation, and the sincerity and beauty of her expression reveal a mind and personality of exceptional strength and charm. Never beatified, Julian is honoured on the unofficial feast day of May 13.'

Almost completely destroyed by enemy bombing in 1942, the church was rebuilt ten years later and a modern chapel dedicated to her memory was constructed on the foundations of what was assumed to be her cell.

As we partook of the intimate wedding ceremony, we did not have to travel far to learn of St. Julian's famed anchoress and her views on love, so apt on that day, so count ourselves rather privileged to attend a marriage in this very special place.

Present day St. Julian's Church, Norwich.