Location, location
IN A rural parish church in Norfolk, we have just baptised our younger granddaughter, Ottilie. The church has a district vicar, but is maintained in between visits by a volunteer organist and flower arranger (who is my daughter-in-law), and by a small but committed congregation, who also ferry the elderly to the services.
During Covid, the Ministry of Defence land near by was designated apocalyptically by the Government as a potential mass burial ground. My elder son was briefly commandeered for “ferry and bury”, which, thankfully, never came to pass.
The baptised granddaughter belongs to my younger son, Rafe, and his Hong Kong Chinese wife, Charlotte. Hong Kongers tend to be churchgoing and rousingly patriotic; so our hymns included “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. The organist daughter-in-law had wrongly guessed — and, therefore, practised — “Jerusalem”; she pointed out long-sufferingly that hymns were much more difficult for pianists to learn than people imagine.
Rafe takes a closer interest in theology than is common at country christenings, and he and the Vicar fastened on a reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. I think the lesson of the prevailing part played by grace may have been missed in the chatter of small children.
It is an obvious thing to say, but the ceremonies of weddings, baptisms, and funerals in the same church mark the passage of a complete life: of its joys and sorrows — expectations of one; certainty of the other. Our friend who conducted the service, the Revd Kit Chalcraft, finds the right words for desolation and for hope partly because he knows us all. Once, vicars and doctors were at the heart of the communities. There is something lost in the locum.
Top to bottom
THE nurturing of parish life is the subject of a campaign led by Rupert Sheldrake and supported by the British Pilgrimage Trust, of which I am a trustee. As Pat Ashworth reported last month (Faith, 18 July), Sheldrake’s notion is that we should get behind the revival of patronal festivals, which honour the saints of the parish churches. The festivities include choral evensong, and other parish activities such as bell-ringing and flower displays.
Grants are being awarded by the Choral Evensong Trust, and I am not surprised to hear that the King is enthusiastic about this idea, and has already made his donation. While we wait to hear about leadership of the Church of England, why don’t we start with the bedrock: the parish churches?
Heavenly bodies
THE week before the christening, I flew to Switzerland to visit an extraordinary artist, David Montalto. He is known for his imaginative talent in diamond-point stipple-engraving on glass. But his life’s work is a processional cross, Cross of the Cosmos, inspired by a series of visions throughout his long life.
The cross is exquisite and detailed. At its centre is an antique jewel: the Lamb of God, encrusted with pearls against a blue enamel background, with a halo and a cross of diamonds symbolising Christ — Emmanuel. It also contains moon dust from the lunar meteorite that crashed in 2000.
I first saw the cross about four years ago, in a workshop in outer London, having heard about it from Rowan Williams, who believes that it has profound theological resonance as well as beauty. The artist and I thought that it deserved an anthem, which came to be written with words by my brother Kit Hesketh-Harvey and music by the composer and baritone Roderick Williams.
The anthem was sung for the first time in Magdalene College Chapel, Cambridge, in 2023, weeks after my brother’s death. Rowan Williams conducted the service, and spoke on the theme of order — as represented by the Cross of the Cosmos — contrasted with the pain and chaos of human experience.
Universal outreach
EARLIER this year, David was in touch to say that the Cross of the Cosmos had been given sanctuary by King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, and I could go to see it there. I went to look, before watching the Dean, Dr Stephen Cherry, conduct that most sombre and dramatic service, the stripping of the altar. Easter morning was to be marked by the appearance of the silvery glory of the Cross of the Cosmos.
David Montalto is particularly pleased because the spherical finial on the base of the cross is engraved with the text from St John’s Gospel, read by Buzz Aldrin on the moon: “. . . I can of myself do nothing.”
Worldwide television audiences for the King’s College carol service are estimated at more than 100 million, and 370 million through global broadcasts — not so far off the 650 million who watched the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. The Cross of the Cosmos is naturally the centre of attention, and its inscription will again circle the globe.
Stony ground
ON A recent Oldie podcast, I was asked about my remaining career ambitions. I was momentarily flummoxed, but then remembered that I do have one outstanding task: to introduce turtle doves to an old quarry pit — now a lake — within sight of Ely Cathedral. The lake was originally bought from the railways by Caroline, a friend of my late brother, with the intention of preserving it as a nature reserve.
Caroline asked whether I would help her with what she had renamed Kit’s Lake, and we have sought guidance from wetland and bird experts. The local branch of the RSPB came to look, and pronounced it ideal conditions for turtle doves, which — as the UK’s fastest-declining bird species — are now rarely heard in England. We have water, scrub, privacy, and the inspiring view of the cathedral.
The founder of the British Pilgrimage Trust, Dr Guy Hayward, sang Vaughan Williams’s “The Turtle Dove” by the reed bed, to serenade any passing turtle doves on their flight path; and, since April, I have been scattering RSPB-prescribed seed like the sower in the parable — but no luck yet.
Game plan
THE expert breeder of turtle doves in Suffolk is the investment banker Sir Simon Robey; so I shyly wrote to him for advice. We arranged to meet at his office a couple of weeks ago, and I was downcast when he inexplicably cancelled.
So, I settled down to read my newspaper instead, and found the City pages leading with the story that Sir Simon’s advisory firm, Robey Warshaw, had just been bought by Evercore for about £146 million.
I guess Sir Simon has greater career ambitions than coaxing turtle doves into East Anglia.
Sarah Sands is a journalist and author.
Constellations and Consolations by Sarah Sands is available on Audible. Any proceeds go to All Saints’, Stoke Ferry.
