Dark dealings in St Mary’s

Each month we take a look at what’s been happening in St Mary’s through the eyes of one of the churchwardens. Time for a pint as there’s news of some skulduggery.

You find me this evening quietly lamenting the passing of Christmas – well – as quiet as it gets in here in this music pub. Even the barman is at it, playing guitar accompaniment while the drinkers, roughly, very roughly, approximating a choir, encourage country roads to take them home. West Wittering is it? Mountain mama, you lost me there. Perhaps it’s a bus excursion from West Sussex?

Anyway, if the county roads are amenable, we’ll be able to continue our quiet contemplation. Of a pint? Well – why not? So kind.

We need to be discreet as we must discuss some dark dealings at St Mary’s church, casting a blotchy shadow over the twinkling delight of the Christmas Tree festival. To give you some background this is only the second festival, starting as the brainchild of Vivienne Leigh Pattison, wife to rector Paul, and Hilary ‘High-Note’ Morfitt. Proving successful, it was carried forward to this year and attracted double the entries, numbering 50 or thereabouts.

The participants are community groups, charities, school groups and businesses- in fact anyone who wants to show a presence in the place where townsfolk have celebrated Christmas through the centuries. Presumably conceived, let us hope, as a high-minded venture to dress the church in sober green it has become nothing of the kind, but rather a flickering, colourful demonstration of cheerful creativity.

In fact, while many exhibits held to the best traditions of decking a tree with ornaments, others interpreted the whole idea with wild abandon creating simulations of trees out of cardboard, books, or even stepladders and Highland cattle if you please! The final exhibit to leave the church provided the unique sight of a rickshaw being pedalled along the aisle (I swear I even heard the ‘parp-parp’ of an old fashioned motor horn).

The resulting show has been very well received by congregation members and visitors alike, bringing light to the darkest corners (which is of course – I should remind you- our function in the world). The prospect of doubling the numbers next year was greeted with veiled muttering from our three magi, or rather vergers, who are twice daily forced to bend protesting knees to the cold stone floor in the search for awkward little battery boxes, all of them with controls varying one from another, and all concealed in different places from tree to tree.

Nonetheless, so far so good. The participants gain a presence in the key forum for the seasonal celebrations, while the church gains whole new constellations of guiding stars. However, and here I require à drumroll from my neighbouring musicians, something is amiss.

The Church is supported by a kind of social group, Friends of St Mary, who take pleasure in outings with each other and in fundraising for the fabric of the church. Over the years they have raised nearly £250,000 for projects ranging from refurbishing the west window and the ancient turret clock, to Bluetooth and toilet provision. Wouldn’t we all benefit from friends like this?

Sadly though, sometimes generosity creates envy. Anyway, their leader, the impressive Colonel Anthony KiMBEr, was completing a tour of inspection one evening when he was shocked by a sight he hoped never to see – an empty plinth where his tree had been! Imagine a farmer coming out on Christmas morning to find his henhouse empty or the town council finding their robes had faded to dust overnight! The good Colonel was dumbfounded and berated me, as guardian of church chattels however temporary, for allowing this to happen.

My extensive enquiries followed several avenues. Discarding the obvious explanation – a visitor walking out with it under his or her coat (the tree was of a modest even intimate scale) possibly passing it to an innocent looking accomplice before sidling past the verger’s desk – as too dull. I sought inspiration in my experience of church machinations. Was it possible, I queried, that the Friends were seen by certain church authorities as acting outside acceptable parameters: a kind of cult perhaps, led by the charismatic Colonel?

Perhaps the Organisation was just too friendly for those stern ideologues who preferred the church to be St Mary No-Mates? Yet again, could it be that the fault lay with the bad-spelling wing of the Friends, who found themselves turning to the dark side as Fiends of St Mary? Perhaps the Grinch was for real?

Another plausible option was inflammatory action by zealots of whatever creed or cause they felt to justify an act of such political and cultural provocation, bringing the possibility of civil disorder and new manifesto pledges from government.

After days spent restlessly turning these issues over in my mind, I decided at the last that we were best treating the absent tree as a token of goodwill towards church and town, that was not diminished by the fact that some ne’er-do-well chose to snaffle the thing itself.

Ah – well – there is refuge for the troubled mind in the resumption of familiar routines.

Holy Communion 10.30am on Sunday, 10am on Thursday. See you there!

God bless you ’til we meet again.

Image Credits: Roy Abel , Kt bruce .