(Not only but...) Tuesday Coffee Mornings in the Abbey

We have established regular ‘Coffee in the Abbey’ mornings (every Tuesday 10-11.30am) since April and this has proved to be an enjoyable, varied and fun event for all involved! No two weeks are the same, even though we do have our regulars who return from week to week. All are made welcome and so too would you, if you feel like popping in for a coffee, a chat and a biscuit! But we thought we would give you a little insight into what you might expect if you did decide to join us!

First, you will find a friendly welcome from the volunteers who vie with one another to provide you with a wonderful cup of fresh filtered Fair Trade coffee and a biscuit too. The atmosphere is always friendly, relaxed, and never subdued! You will find that the coffee mornings are a nice place to meet with friends old and new. We always welcome any visitors to join us. Some visitors, who might have just come in for a brief look around the Abbey, linger long over the coffee and company they find. Furthermore it is amazing what you can find happening during one of our coffee mornings and what you might accomplish: from the filling in of a tennis form, to discussing the finer points of village life, through to arranging social events!
Moreover babies are made very welcome indeed! Charlie and Alastair, our youngest coffee morning converts (though milk only for them, of course!), frequently find willing arms to cuddle them, knees to be bounced upon and melodic voices to coo over them.


Don’t be scared but sometimes there is a dog collar present (yes, of both varieties!). Thus we welcome well-behaved owners (and their accompanying dogs!) who pop in for a cool down after their morning constitutionals.

Sue (the vicar) often makes an appearance, having to endure a barrage of heckling from the volunteers to boot! David (the curate), who is not a coffee man, is given special treatment with his very own mug of tea. We find these mornings prove invaluable as a good way of meeting with the clergy on a very informal and relaxed basis.



If you feel the need for quiet reflection instead, then you need only walk into the ‘body of the kirk’ where you’ll find the St. Birinus Chapel set aside for peaceful contemplation. Even when we have a school group in, you’ll find the children well behaved and quietly enjoying their Abbey experience.

Come and join us any Tuesday morning between 10-11.30am and you’ll find we will welcome you with our friendship, laughter, childish giggling (not only from the babies!), relaxed chatter and even a bit of gossip (sssh!). Hope to see you there next Tuesday!

PS Don't forget the Friends of Dorchester Abbey present Lord Carlile speaking on 'Morality and the Law' for the annual Dorchester Lecture on Thursday 24th June 2010 at 7.30pm. Tickets on the door. You can read about the Lecture in next week's blog.

(Blogged on behalf of Catherine, Carol-Ann, Claire, Sue and all the Coffee Morning Volunteers)

“Only a link in a long chain” On being a Dorchester Abbey Museum helper

I am ‘old’ Dorchester – nowadays in more ways than one! I feel like a museum piece myself sometimes because people come over all shiny-eyed and peculiar when you tell them you are Dorchester born and bred, and they want to know what it was like ‘in the old days’. So there am I, an exhibit amongst other, even more fascinating, items explaining my links with the place, this building, and life in Dorchester on Thames in 2010.

I volunteered to help at the museum when we returned to the village in 2001. Mine had been a long absence – since 1966 – and I returned to rather a different Dorchester from the one I had left all those years ago. But the museum was still there and I thought it would be an interesting place to spend a few hours usefully, and a good way to meet interesting people. I knew Edith Stedman, the formidable and very amusing American who started the museum way back in the 1960’s. In her book A Yankee in an English Village (1971, Dorchester Abbey Museum) she describes a late Dorchester afternoon in June rather like the one I enjoyed last week:

“There’s that lovely purple-gray light on the stones … its absolute peace gives a sense of remoteness, of timelessness of being only a link in along chain.“

Why don’t people wearing rucksacks take them off when they come to the museum? We had five visitors wearing back packs this week and they all sidled around the exhibits like packhorses on a cliff path. People ‘just nip in’, sometimes while they are waiting for the famous tea room to open, and often, at least half an hour later, they are still quietly “oohing and aahing” over the wonderful treasures we have.


Children are indulgent with the adults who accompany them. They listen patiently to cries of “Oh, I had a desk just like this when I was at school” and “See this cane? You got whacked with it if you were naughty.” Once the adults have moved on to examine other exhibits, or to browse in the shop, the children then get on with the serious business of taking turns to be teacher at the high desk, wearing the mortar board and gown, calling the register. Many of them also value the special table with items that may be picked up and examined – the fossilised sea-urchin, the bird’s nest with eggs intact (this is a real favourite) and the pieces of pottery dug up by archaeologists at the allotments.




It is great that although some exhibits are permanent we also have new exhibits. The lovely new display cases which show the archaeology are proving very popular. My favourite really old thing (I am not too good on dates and historical periods) is a ‘thread picker’. I am not sure if it is bone, or wood but, although it’s only about three inches long, its silky polish and smooth surface conjure up an image of some unknown old “Doddestr’un” bent weaving at a primitive loom, somewhere near our broad bean patch, a very long time ago.


And now to my favourite not-so-ancient exhibit. Way back my Granny’s neighbour was Mr Dick Jerome. He lived on the corner of Crown Lane and Queen Street and was a master woodsman. I remember going up to Wittenham Clumps on my bike and standing at a respectful distance watching him make hurdles. He was a man of few words, (“Awright?” “Yes, thank you, Mr Jerome.” “Awright then”) but as long as you kept quiet he went on working as if you were not there. Deft, quick, confident, orderly – stacking the hurdles against a tree as they were finished. It is wonderful to see such an interesting display dedicated to his story – you can see a miniature hurdle that he made for an exhibition and his working tools, kindly loaned by his family.

There are bonuses to be had when volunteering at the museum. You get a cuppa and a piece of cake from the kind tearoom ladies. People pop in for a chat. You meet folk from all over the world. I once met a woman from Birkenhead who knew my husband’s family back in the 1940’s. I met my great auntie’s nephew and his mother (for the first time) and learned a lot about the history of Dorchester’s gravel pits. Mairi Metcalfe came in last week and we spent a happy time while I tried to remember the names of people, long dead, bless them, in lovely old black and white photographs donated for safe keeping.


I could go on – I haven’t told you anything about my Grampy who went to school in the Guest House in the late 1800’s, the award-winning Cloister Gallery, the gift-shop, the village history display boards, the Community Archaeology Project, the brilliant walks around Dorchester leaflets (people can never get over the fact that they are free!). If you want to get to know more about the village and meet some lovely people, consider volunteering for the helpers’ rota. If you are from Dorchester and love the place, or new to the village and care about its history, and if you have not been into the Museum for a while or ever, do pop in. Be a link in that long chain that Edith Stedman wrote about – be part of the place, even if only for the afternoon (but please take your rucksack off – we can keep an eye on it for you, and please don’t shout across the museum because it spoils the children’s concentration). Thank you.

Next time you can read about the new 'Tuesday Coffee in the Abbey' sessions which have become a regular fixture for many locals, as well as the occasional visitor.

For more information about the museum see www.dorchester-abbey.org.uk/museum.htm
(Blogged by Denise Line, volunteer Dorchester Abbey Museum helper)

Fourth English Music Festival 2010 at Dorchester Abbey

I, Em Marshall, am the Founder-Director of the English Music Festival, which celebrates the music of British composers throughout the centuries, with a strong focus on the Golden Renaissance of English music – the early twentieth century. Concerts and talks are staged in Dorchester Abbey and in the Abbey Guest House, as well as at the Silk Hall at Radley College and the Church of All Saints at Sutton Courtenay.
Friday 28 May
I returned to Oxfordshire yesterday evening from an interview for ‘In Tune’ on BBC Radio 3, travelling directly to Radley for the Festival’s opening (free) concert – a piano recital of music by Rawsthorne, Lennox Berkeley and Ferguson, given by Anthony Williams. This morning was spent co-ordinating final preparations for tonight’s concert: setting up the CD stall and the Box Office in the Abbey; ensuring that refreshments were available for the orchestra; and then partaking of lunch at The White Hart Hotel with fellow Trustees, EMF Vice-President, conductor and broadcaster Brian Kay, and a Friend of the Festival who had come from France to attend.
Following the afternoon rehearsal in the Abbey, the Garden Party for EMF Friends, Artists and Vice-Presidents was most generously hosted by an eminent Dorchester resident. Back in the Abbey, the main evening concert (our flagship event) featured the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Gavin Sutherland – after a warm introduction by Revd Sue Booys, I welcomed the audience, some of whom had travelled from the other side of the world. The programme commenced with Parry’s ‘Jerusalem’, as is the Festival’s custom; and also included the first performance for over a century of Quilter’s ‘Serenade’, Moeran’s evocative ‘Lonely Waters’, and Montague Phillips’s First Piano Concerto, played by David Owen Norris. The highlight of the concert was the world première of York Bowen’s First Symphony, written whilst the composer was still a student at the Royal Academy of Music. The audience response to this unaccountably overlooked work was overwhelming.
At the end of each day, the Festival Trustees meet for a debriefing session in The White Hart, followed by a (very!) late meal.
Saturday 29 May
This morning’s recital, given by the violinist Rupert Luck and the pianist Matthew Rickard, was especially exciting, including, as it did, the world premières of the Violin Sonatas by Arthur Bliss and Henry Walford Davies, both of which have languished in manuscript form for almost one hundred years. This was followed by lunch, again at The White Hart, with the morning’s artists and the composer Lionel Sainsbury. Then on to Radley for a concert given by the Orchestra of St Paul’s, conducted by Ben Palmer, the programme for which contained the world première of Paul Carr’s ‘A Gentle Music’, which I was extremely flattered to have dedicated to me.
The late afternoon slots are dedicated to talks from eminent visiting speakers which take place in the Abbey Guest House. Today’s was, regrettably, the only talk which I was able to attend; and I hugely enjoyed Barry Marsh’s fascinating presentation on E. J. Moeran.



The evening concert, back in the Abbey, was given by the City of London Choir, conducted by Hilary Davan Wetton, and this staged a work which it has been a long-held ambition of mine to present: ‘The Coming of Christ’ by Gustav Holst. This was followed by the first of our late-evening concerts, which are always highly atmospheric: there is something very special about the sense of warm enclosure that results from the contrast of the darkness outside and the gently-lit interior of the Abbey. Tonight, Oxford Liedertafel presented a wonderfully varied programme of a cappella music, with composers ranging from Byrd to Vaughan Williams.
Sunday 30 May
The day started at Radley College, with a recital by the Tippett Quartet to launch their new CD, during which I manned the Box Office, before a journey to Sutton Courtney for a swift lunch and the afternoon concert, given by the Elysian Singers. Their programme included the movingly beautiful ‘Requiem’ by Herbert Howells, a non-ecclesiastical setting which, nevertheless, combines a devotional directness of expression with an emotional punch.
The evening concert was of Delius’s ‘Hassan’, with a précis specially written and read by Radio 3 presenter Paul Guinery. The second half was of a work that has intense significance for me: Holst’s opera ‘Sāvitri’: this, again, is a piece that I have long had an ambition to stage; and the performers - Janice Watson, David Wilson-Johnson and Mark Chaundy - gave full justice to what is one of the greatest operas of the twentieth century.
A very different concert ensued, with the mediaeval band ‘Joglaresa’ presenting traditional and early songs of the supernatural.
Monday 31 May
The last day of Festival was packed with interspersed rehearsals and concerts. It opened with a concert in the Abbey given by the Syred Consort, directed by Ben Palmer. The group was in excellent voice and their recital included such gems as Finzi’s ‘Magnificat’. I then returned to Abingdon to begin the packing-up process – and to move my temporary residence! Lunch at a local hostelry was followed by a return to the Abbey and a concert by the Jaguar (Coventry) Band. This was a revelation to many, as it highlighted the expressive power of a medium with which not all of our audience members are familiar. Also evident was the skill of composers such as Holst, Vaughan Williams and Bantock in writing for these forces. The Band was extremely gratified to perform in what they described as such a “magnificent venue”.
The final concert was the ‘Come and Sing’ event. Brian Kay conducted a choir comprising enthusiastic Festival-goers and elicited a warm response. The programme opened with Vaughan Williams’s ‘Five Mystical Songs’, with soloist David Wilson-Johnson, who then went on to perform Somervell's powerful song-cycle ‘Maud’, with pianist David Owen Norris. The second half was Elgar’s memorably tuneful ‘Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands’.
A party for Friends and helpers in the Abbey Guest House rounded off the highly successful Fourth English Music Festival.

For more details of the English Music Festival, visit the Festival’s website: www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk. If you would like to join the mailing list, or would like details of the Friends scheme, please email the Founder-Director, Em Marshall, at em.marshall@btinternet.com.

(Blogged by Em Marshall, Founder-Director of the English Music Festival)

A Week in the Life of Abbey Admin!

Hello – I am Hilarie Rogers the Parish Administrator and the PA to Sue Booys, the Rector. I also do admin work for the Bridge Group of Parishes, the Dorchester Team and the Aston and Cuddesdon Deanery! I work in the Rectory each morning and see a lot of the life of the Abbey.

This blog will give snapshots of some of the things that come through this office!

Monday 17th May
Arrive at 8.30am. More than the usual amount of emails as it’s Monday, but look at all of them and answer or log most of them by 9am. No phone calls yet and only one phone message to listen to. From 9am the calls to book tickets for the English Music Festival (to be held in the Abbey at the end of May) are routed through the office, so make sure all the booking forms are to hand. Usual 9am meeting with the Rector to ask about things that have cropped up, and receive tasks. Items discussed include: arrangements for Episcopal Visitation this evening; interviews for church architect; headstone in one of the Team Churches; managers for forthcoming concerts. Have a few phone calls about clearing up after last night’s concert. We also go through the phone messages and agree who will follow up which and similarly with emails. That takes us up to about 10am!

Follow up some of the tasks associated with the items discussed. Make more copies of the order of service for tonight and fold them. Open the post from the weekend – circulars; payment of an invoice for a booking; papers for the Rector about forthcoming meetings. Another hour gone!

Answer more emails – a group visit to the Abbey; a dead branch in the churchyard; what sort of confetti; a potential source of funding for projects; website links; marriage regulations; use of Abbey’s projector; invitation to a conference. Also print off minutes of some recent meetings for the Rector. Receive emails – 23 – and log and answer as appropriate……

12 noon – receive a few more emails; take a phone call about parking at the Abbey for a concert. Make more arrangements for forthcoming concerts, including arranging managers for some events and confirming the details of arrangements for this weekend’s concert. Process payment cheques for a couple of recent events. Do invoices for last weekend’s events.

And in case you wondered – I had 3 small cups of coffee and an orange during the course of the morning!

Tuesday 18th May
The Rector is at a meeting this morning, so we have a brief exchange before she goes. Spend the first half of the morning reading, logging and answering emails that came in between yesterday lunchtime and this morning. Lots of phone calls today, which makes things take longer!

Do some paperwork for the forthcoming PCC meeting; write confirmatory letter about a wedding next year; make arrangements for a visitation to another group of parishes in the Deanery. Do some following up from the Episcopal Visitation last night; open and sort the post.

Much of today has been “firefighting” as I think of it – responding to questions as they come in, by phone or email – rather than tackling specific pieces of work. Hopefully tomorrow I will do some longer chunks of work!


Wednesday 19th May
Again, brief exchange with the Rector who is spending the day at General Synod Business Committee. Usual email checking and phone calls for the first half of the morning covering a variety of tasks. Prepare and send some letters for the Rector, and handle some cheques in payment for use of the Abbey.

Go to the Abbey to make duplicate copy of a marriage certificate for an enquirer, and also check and make a retrospective certificate of baptism. Make some detailed arrangements for the visit of the BBC to record one of the concerts at the English Music Festival next week, and have two fairly lengthy phone conversations with potential hirers for concerts in 2011 and 2012!

Open the post and deal with a few more emails. Spend the last part of the morning making a start on the weekly notice sheet.


Thursday 20th May

Check, log and answer emails and phone messages before the Rector returns from Morning Prayer at 9am. Have a session with the Rector about things that have cropped up and agree tasks.

Spend the next hour sorting papers for this evening’s Deanery Synod meeting; preparing information sheets for the Wardens about the Rector’s diary for next week and arrangements for Sunday’s service; tracking arrangements for the Architect interviews next week. Also receiving and dealing with more emails, and taking a long telephone call from BT about our entry in Yellow Pages (including explaining what a Rector is and why the house is called a Rectory….).

Check stock levels of ink cartridges for the office printer, and order more. Deal with an enquiry about how to use the Abbey’s digital projector, and a phone enquiry from a visiting choir who are coming in July. Several other phone calls and emails – another hour gone, and second cup of coffee!

Finish work on the weekly notice sheet; open the post; sort and prepare for posting the Gift Aid envelopes and collection from the Episcopal Visitation earlier in the week. More emails and phone calls and the morning has flown by once more…….


Friday 21st May

Glorious day outside – the view from my desk of the Abbey through the trees must be one of the best! Usual routine – emails and phone calls for the first hour, including some urgent jobs for the Rector. Finish off the notice sheets and make copies for the parishes in the Team. Also make a poster for the forthcoming Team Service and copy or circulate. Prepare cards for a Baptism on Sunday.

Weekly visit from one of the Dorchester Wardens. This is to update them and me on anything – they also very kindly deliver items to people in the parish, which normally includes a bumper bundle for the parish treasurer.

Take items to the Abbey and replace some posters. Spend the last part of my week working on orders of service for the Ordination at the end of June, and Evensong for the Fellowship of St Birinus earlier in June. Send final letters and invoices to four couples getting married in July.

I can thoroughly recommend the job for variety and interest, and if you have got this far then well done!! Come back next week and read Em Marshall's report on the 2010 4th English Music Festival performances and experience at Dorchester Abbey over this Bank Holiday Weekend 28-31 May!

(Blogged by Hilarie Rogers, Parish Administrator and Rector's PA!)

The Rector in Kenya

Less than a week ago I was in Kenya with a group of people visitng the Nasio Trust a charity that supports orphans in two towns in Mumias and Musanda. In Dorchester our local relationship with Nasio began when John Cornelius took young people from Berinsfield to help build the "Noah's Ark" day care centres and began a relationship that has changed lives in both Kenya and Oxfordshire. The Charity has been supported in Dorchester especially by the May Morning event led by the local singing group Two A Part and it was with most of this group and one or two others that I travelled to Kenya for a visit to see the work on the ground and to share in it.Some of what follows is a ‘reflective diary’ to which everyone contributed in different lengths and tenses. Some of our group had visited a number of times, some sponsored children that they had met and others were to meet the children they sponsored for the first time.
For me the week began with a nerve wracking bang as I ahd been invited to preach at the Cathedral in Mumias less tahn twenty four hours avter arriving in Kenya!The whole experience was quite a culture shock - not least being prayed for for almost ten minutes before preaching. Not an experience I would necessarily have expected to relish but one which certainly left me feeling that everyone was better prepared (preacher and listeners alike) to hear what God was saying.
The collection in Mumias Cathedral the collection is taken by asking everyone to leave their seats - some of the older children from Noah’s Ark were given some small change to put into the collection box. The look of pride on their faces as they queued up to put the money in the box was moving. Though people had little to give they gave more when a second collection was taken!

Our first visit was to Noah’s Ark and was a reunion for some and whole new experience for others but we all appreciated their songs of welcome from the Noah’s Ark children. Those returning were delighted to see their sponsor children again and there was a huge welcome from the 'original six' tiny orphans now strapping 13 year old lads!!
It was good to meet the really dedicated teachers Lucy and Elizabeth. The Noah’s Ark children’s faces and their fascination with us and eagerness to be close to me. Finding that clapping games bridge the language barrier with the smallest girls!

By Tuesday we’d already had some encounters with the torrential rain that brings Kenyan life to a standstill (and involved us in a terrifying drive when caught out by early rain on Sunday afternoon). However its affect on the roads was made all too clear when we attempted to make the journey to Musanda for our first visit to the St Irene’s Day Care centre and Millimandi Primary school.
Thinking the end was nigh as we slithered slowly through the ploughed field that was the road and ended up at a forty five degree angle almost in an eight foot ditch. Hearing Penny say ‘we’ll go over very slowly if we go’, someone else calling ‘hope you’re praying in the back there Sue’ and then Tessa’s voice announcing the new cabinet to ‘take our minds off our predicament’. For newbies if we had wondered whether the journey was sensible the end was more than worth it – ‘a birthday I will remember forever: dancing with schoolchildren surrounded by beautiful Kenyan countryside and love.’
Both St Irene’s with its head teacher Boniface and the huge Milamandi Primary School are wonderful places with committed staff and ‘our’ children looked after in big school then walking back to the Day Care centre for a good lunch – for some their only meal. The next day it took even longer to travel (by a different route) and we helped to lead a day of activities at Millimandi – teaching an English lesson on tenses that began with a telling of little red riding hood in which children had to make different responses for each character. Little RR is ‘nice, nice, nice, nice, nice…’ with a wiggle of the bottom – their faces were a study!! Making cards didn’t go as planned but the excitement and enjoyment in the room with even the Deputy Head joining in … Carol and I teaching what seemed like a hundred children to knit. They were so enthusiastic it was a priviledge.
Our farewell to the children here was a performance by Two A Part singing On top of teh World and Ol Man River to a rapt audience of hundreds of children was extraordinary! There was just a moment when all of us English realised without words that we were singing a song written in America by someone who might have been taken from this place as a slave.....the whole song took on a new depth that was tangible.

Our last day could not have been our first – an emotional rollercoaster that included both a visit to hospital and a family home in the Township. “On a wall of the ward in St Mary’s hospital the crucified figure of Christ has been stuck to the cross with cellotape. If only the wounds afflicting humanity could be fixed with a bit of cellotape. In the nearby maternity ward young women recover from childbirth. Some have had to have surgery. There is no money for painkillers or anaesthetics. We hand out little woollen hats for their new babies and take photos. Nobody takes pictures of the young blind mother lying prone alongside the baby she cannot see. Let us pray.”

“When I prayed with the lady who had lost her baby and how that simple gesture was so powerful and precious to both of us.” …
“I felt so helpless that all I could offer was to make the priestly gesture of blessing on a child’s head in the children’s Malaria ward – and finding myself called to pray for all the children.”
“Holding a thirty two hour old baby in my hands straight from the home made incubator of blankets and a lamp. Realisation of how precious and delicate life is.”

Mumias is a centre of industry and we stayed at the guest accommodation there. Francis who looked after us loved to ‘challenge’ us with the food …but it was much more than the food that challenged! The Sugar Factory itself a massive contrast with the small producer we visited on the first day. The cost and wealth tied up in that industry compared with the poverty around it. The juxtaposition of a simple mud hut and Kenyan industrialisation at the Sugar Factory. Noting on our tour that much of the machinery was supplied by Indian Japanese and Chinese companies probably in the 1950’s. Much of the factory was a graveyard for broken machinery and the machines which were working seeped bits of dust and sugary goo. Don’t even think about asbestos!
A different industrial moment was Colin’s visit to the hospital and the enthusiasm for trying to mend the broken x ray machine manufactured in 1959.

At the end of the day it was relationships begun and continued that are important above all others.
An emotional first meeting with Roda the eleven year old girl I have sponsored for several years and with whom I have exchanged letters and gifts.

Fahidi telling me he wanted to be a pilot when he grew up so he could visit us in the UK

Thanks to Sue Russell and Phil, Carol Cornelius, Alison Brucker, Penny and Molly Budgen, Linda Oliver, Jim Levi, Janita Good, Mo and Colin Windsor and Tessa Bartley. Enduring respect to John Cornelius who has more children than I could ever imagine!

May Day in Dorchester Abbey

For the 14th year TWO A PART welcomed May with their concert in the Abbey preceded by songs from the tower, this year in fine, if windy, conditions. Their songs from the tower included the traditional rendering of: 'Now is the Month of Maying', 'Calon Lan' (in Welsh) and 'Cwm Rhonda' (in English).

A packed audience enjoyed a continental breakfast in the Abbey whilst listening to an eclectic programme of music ranging from English Madrigals to arrangements of Gilbert and Sullivan and the Beatles. Breakfasts, a cake and card stall raised nearly £700 for the Nasio Trust supporting AIDs orphans in Kenya. By the time you read this TWO A PART and the Rector will have visited Kenya to work in the Nasio Trust’s day centres and sing a service in Mumias Cathedral. The Rector will be 'logging her blog' in the next few days, so come back soon and read her perspective on their visit!

Thanks to all those who gave of their time, talents and money and to Dorchester Post Office for once again looking after ticket sales.

(Blogged by Tim Cook)

An Education Officer's Outlook

I am relatively new to the post of Education Officer at Dorchester Abbey, having taken over in January 2010 from the previous officer who had been in the post for 3 years. It has been a fantastic experience so far, just being able to walk into the Abbey as a working space is amazing, particularly when you think of the people, such as the monks, who have worked here before me over the centuries! It is a positive joy to get the opportunity to introduce people, particularly children to the beauty and history of the Abbey and see their little eyes light up as they look up with awe at the stained glass windows, to think about what the pilgrim’s shrine means and just how old the Abbey is! They give you an insight into the innocence of the believers of the past who must have traversed great distances to visit the Abbey and experience its space, spirituality and potential healing powers.


On Wednesday of last week we had a school visit of about 40 year three children from a local school, which was only the second school visit I have had the pleasure of organising and participating in. The children were brilliantly behaved and thrilled by the sheer scale of the Abbey space. They provided some stimulating responses to their first encounter with it as they sat for a few moments of quiet to ‘drink in’ the sensations of the Abbey. Many of them noted how small they felt in relation to the Abbey’s scale, but they also spoke about the nuances of sounds and impressions that greeted them in their moments of quietude, that ‘almost silence’. But children are always funny when you ask them to guess how old something is – any grandparent who has ever been asked if they were alive when the dinosaurs were around will certainly recognise a child’s tendency not to grasp vast time periods! Many of the children thought the Abbey could only be about 100-200 years old, but were visibly astounded when one girl piped up ‘about 900 years old’ and she was deemed correct! Murmurs of great surprise could barely be quieted!

During their visit the children undertook a series of organised activities including my tour of the highlights of the Abbey, brass rubbing, sketching, Abbey Quiz, Abbey search and plan identification. The Abbey was a hive of activity and the children overlapped slightly with a local art group who were here for inspiration, but the artists enjoyed observing the raptures of the children who were intent on their various endeavours during their visit. The children are always enthusiastic about every aspect of their visit, but one of the two things they love the most is our medieval ‘sleeping knight’, William de Valance and our facsimile St. Birinus Shrine. They love the shrine because they can sit and pretend to be a pilgrim of old, looking up at the unusual bosses and supposedly being close to the bones (ugh!) of St. Birinus.
Knights and their exciting endeavours always enthral the children, and they particularly love to work out that the ‘sleeping knight’ actually has his eyes open and appears to be ready to bound up and attack anyone who comes near, with the lion he visibly crushes at his feet a symbol of his strength, bravery and powerful faith. On a more frivolous note they also love to discover the fact that you can see his underwear!

At lunchtime the children were very lucky with the sunny weather, enabling them to enjoy their lunch in the Cloister Garden and the opportunity to burn off a little energy on the daisy sprinkled grass. After their Abbey activities they also undertook a brief walk in the village to note the various buildings of different ages and styles, including the ever-popular former coaching inn complete with its fascinating old coach in front. I love the follow up work which schools do with their pupils and it provides one with a feeling of great satisfaction when you can see how the Abbey can stimulate the imagination and creativity of young minds. Although I have yet to see follow up work from the most recent visit, the previous school sent through some fantastic stories that the children had written fuelled by their Abbey visit.


Children are not the only visitors who come to explore the Abbey and its artefacts. Earlier in the week I had a very earnest couple, ‘Midsommer Murders’ guidebook in hand looking for our Green Man. They had difficulty deciphering the description of the location of it from in their book, luckily I was able to point them in the right direction as they said they never would have found it otherwise!

In complete contrast to the school visit was another pleasurable part of my duties as Educational Officer and that is my involvement with the South East Cathedrals Educational Officers Association. We meet three times a year, once in each of the traditional old school terms: November, February and May. These meetings give us an opportunity to exchange educational ideas that have or have not worked for us, report on recent training we have undertaken or provided and to offer advice and stimulus to one another in our roles. As my position at Dorchester can sometimes be relatively secluded I particular relish the opportunity of meeting with my fellow education officers. In February I went to Chichester and was wonderfully fired up by their stained glass workshop for children and their large brass rubbing collection. The latter led me to try and investigate the possibility of building up a collection here as a potential enticement to schools as part of their visits.


This term’s meeting was hosted by Alex O’Connor of Southwark Cathedral, London. We had quite a full meeting (10 of us!) and an intensive morning where we discussed marketing issues, home educators, providing stimulating family activities, NIACE training, our role in relation to the 14-19 Diplomas, providing RE inset and new initiatives we have introduced. Following a delightful sandwich lunch those of us who didn’t suffer from vertigo were given the opportunity to climb the tower (once the organ recital had finished) and see the surrounding views it had to offer. This was entered into with some trepidation by a few of us, the spiral staircase to the top providing barely enough room for a skinny youth to climb, let alone an ensemble of education officers (n.b. What would be a good collective noun for education officers?)! Once part way up we were able to traverse the walkway over the roof of the nave, where we could see the peaked roofs of the vaulting beneath. This appears pretty much the same in any Gothic vaulted cathedral, for example Salisbury, and more of interest to those with an architectural bent (which I count myself amongst)! We also were able a quick peek at their impressive 12 bells, again of interest to those with bell-ringing inclinations (yes, me again!).




Finally emerging on the lead roofing we were greeted with a fabulous view of the Thames and a superb view of St. Paul’s – much appreciated by Laura (the former Education Officer there who is now establishing the education department at Westminster Abbey). You could spy Battersea Power Station in the distance, Big Ben, the London Eye, 30 St. Mary’s Axe (aka the Gherkin), Monument, and in the distance behind the hulking brown h shaped contemporary building you could just spy Tower Bridge and the ramparts of The Tower. But a dominant visual note was the ever increasing height of the new Shard building destined to be the tallest in the UK (310m or over 1,000ft in ‘old money’) when completed in 2012 (hmm, what will that be timed to coincide with I wonder….?!).(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shard_London_Bridge) For those interested in architecture, it is designed by Renzo Piano who was responsible for the Kansai Osaka Japan international airport and more famously worked with Richard Rogers on the Pompidou Building in Paris.

Following our grateful return to earth (we didn't quite feel the need to kiss the floor of the nave, but I'm sure it crossed some of our minds!), Alex showed those stalwarts amongst us around the cathedral, most of which is a Victorian reworking by the dreaded George Gilbert Scott (are there any Gothic churches, abbeys and cathedrals out there that escaped his renovating talons?). It was interesting to note they have a wooden knight who is similar in appearance and date to our own 'sleeping knight'. I was very surprized to bump into someone I new in the retro-choir who was 'Walking the Cathedral Cities of England' (hello again Carolyn!)! The entire day was a huge success and we all went away feeling inspired by our visit and fired up to pursue various ideas on our returns to our respective patches!

If you’ve managed to make it this far – congratulations! I do hope you’ve found these glimpses into my role as an Education Officer of interest and if you enjoyed this I’ll be posting another blog next month, which will cover preparation for more school visits and the up-coming archaeological dig, amongst other things! But please look again at next week’s blog where Sue, our Rector, will report on her current visit to Kenya, and that, I can assure you, is certain to prove a more fascinating read!
(Blog posted by Margaret Craig, Education Officer)