On Women Bishops ….shark infested waters, expectations and the media!

I was going to blog from General Synod but I’m much better at ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’ (Wordsworth) – or at least the relative tranquillity of home compared to Synod. There are some great synod bloggers whose blogs you can find at http://gensyn.blogspot.com if you want a flavour of Synod as it went. If you read them – especially Justin Brett’s (a good friend) you might understand why it’s taken me a week to write!! http://dodgyliberal.blogspot.com

For the second or third time now I’ve been at a meeting of General Synod about which it has been possible for the press to report that the Church of England has agreed to have women Bishops. The reality is that it’s a long way off yet - rather like the Kingdom in R S Thomas wonderful poem of that name!* Therein, as they say, lies the problem. Most places I go people have read the papers and offer their congratulations – but do I feel like cheering? Frankly – No!

Of course I would be delighted if the Synod had made this decision and I AM pleased that we have taken another step along that path. BUT I am also really dismayed for a number of reasons.
First the ‘shark infested waters’ – if you have read the Bishop of Oxford’s Pastoral letter published immediately after Synod (www.oxford.anglican.org/documents/PASTORALLETTERJULY10.pdflink) you’ll know that I have said this! Over the last several years two groups of people with strongly held views have, for the most part, gradually come closer together and really do not now stand so very far apart. Asked by their leaders for generosity and compromise they have done their best - one side is no longer asking for a ‘single clause measure’ (women can be Bishop’s full stop) nor the other for a ‘third province’ (Church within a Church) so we have moved. The water between us that Synod – and the Archbishops – failed to bridge is that of ‘transfer’ versus ‘delegation’. Would a woman Bishop be really a Bishop if she had to transfer her authority to someone else and could someone who genuinely believed she wasn’t a Bishop accept that she could delegate her authority?
The most dangerous ‘sharks’ are lack of trust, fear and the taking of public positions. I’m not yet certain whether the waters are murky and the sharks just magnified by my own worst fears – or whether they are deep and much too dangerous to attempt a crossing. I could never do those ‘reasoning’ puzzles about single boats, foxes and hens crossing to the other side of such rivers when I was at school but there were people who could and I wish they would!! However, in our present situation that’s tantamount to asking someone to wave a magic wand to do work that I need to do by the sweat of my own brow!
Another reason for my dismay is that even people of good will don’t really grasp how it feels to be a woman in this debate. At Synod I sat in a meeting of friends and colleagues (albeit of differing opinions) when three men talked about whether I might want to be asked to offer my opinion. This was so much like what it sometimes feels to be a woman in the midst of these discussions that I was reduced to tears (VERY embarrassing). I’m not convinced that anyone much understood why!

Finally I am dismayed by some of the press reporting – interviewed by Phil Mercer and Malcolm Boyden on Radio Oxford I recognised myself, even if I knew I’d been typically long winded, at once the great advantage and worst disadvantage of a live interview!! In print half a reply can be reported as the whole and it can sound rather different from your original comment! Having read the interview with the Bishop of Fulham in yesterday’s Sunday Times (Women priests made me take up smoking again is one of the tamer comments!) I can only hope that he feels the same! Reporters are looking for adversarial positions and we often seem only too willing to offer them – or too careless not to. Maybe we should ALL refuse all interviews – and NOT do blogging and maybe then we would find it easier to talk and trust!

And for the record … lest you want to ask … there are many women in the Church of England who will, I believe make wonderful Bishops – and I long for the day when that is possible. But it is for God and the Church to call them not me – or any journalist – to name them!!

*Here’s the poem – what it says is worth more than all the reams of paper expended on Women Bishops!!

The Kingdom by R S Thomas

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.

(Blogged by Rev. Canon Sue Booys, Rector of Dorchester Abbey)

Life on Placement

As an ordinand in training at Cuddesdon (photo left), I had a conversation a few months ago with the tutor responsible for placements about where to spend 4 weeks in the summer. Having spent 9 years as a Church Army Officer, I have a fair amount of experience in the Church of England, but always in places with one church, one vicar. I asked, therefore, to have a different experience: to go to a church that was part of a bigger team.

I can’t imagine anywhere that would have given me the breadth of experience in such a short space of time as I have found at Dorchester Abbey. Granted, it has been a particularly busy month (meeting Bishop Colin 6 times in a little over 2 weeks is indicative of the number of special events that have happened), but I have learnt much from the day-to-day life of the Abbey and Dorchester Team as well.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Team is blessed with an array of highly capable leaders – both lay and ordained – and it has been a privilege to meet and chat with many of them. The breadth of gifting obviously extends into parish life with so many people serving their parish church in numerous different ways. I was especially impressed with the way that many people from across the Team came together to provide hospitality so effectively for the Ordination Service a couple of weeks ago.

There are lots of things I could talk about regarding this time on placement, but I will limit myself to two more things which I will take from my experience in Dorchester. The first is the team of Churchwardens and Assistant Churchwardens, with particular people having particular responsibilities within the Abbey – it is something which I have not experienced before, yet makes perfect sense, and seems to be working well – an idea which I may well pinch for the future! I am not surprised that a parish which is part of a wider team should have effective teams within itself as well (and there are many more teams besides the churchwardens).

Finally, it has been a real privilege spending these few short weeks witnessing the way that Sue works, as Team Rector. It is a hugely demanding task, being both named incumbent for this particular cluster, and also leading the whole team (and that is without taking into account the additional responsibilities that come with being Area Dean). I have been impressed with the way she models leadership, and have appreciated her insights about taking time off. We had a very interesting discussion about Sabbath the other week, which has given me much food for thought for the future.

May I end by saying thank you to all those I have met in this short time in the Dorchester Team, especially those who have very kindly given up time to talk about life in the Abbey and/or team. It is hard to believe that this Sunday is the end of the placement, but I intend to go out with a bang (perhaps literally – I will be speaking at the Family Service, and balloons will be involved!!) I hope to see many of you there, but whether you can make it or not, I wish Dorchester and the Team every blessing for the future.

(Blogged by Chris Routledge, Cuddesdon Ordinand on a 4 week placement at Dorchester Abbey)

The Dorchester Lecture, 24th June 2010

One of the highlights of the year for the Friends of Dorchester Abbey is the Dorchester Lecture. For the past five years eminent speakers have spoken to us about aspects of morality connected with the area of their own expertise. So far we have kept the speakers in house –the House of Lords that is – and to date Lord Hurd, Baroness Neuberger, the Bishop of London and Lord Winston have inspired us and brought to the Abbey an audience of fascinating and fascinated people.

Last week we welcomed Lord Carlile QC. An eminent lawyer, for fifteen years a Liberal then Liberal Democrat MP and in 1999 created a Life Peer, he is now the Government’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. This is probably a subject on which not many of us have reflected overmuch but in the current climate it bears examination from all of us.

Lord Carlile asked the question ‘Terrorism: have we got the law right?’ He spoke about the balancing act required between protecting
national security and the rights of the individual. Anecdotal illustrations
of stop and search techniques by police of a top Asian
lawyer and an elderly white couple helped demonstrate the conundrum facing law-makers and enforcers in achieving that balance.
Lord Carlile welcomed the Home Secretary’s announcement that very day of the retention of the 28 day detention without charge rule for the next six months whilst a thorough review of anti terrorism legislation is undertaken. No woolly liberal he.

So timely was our lecture that both the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian used it as a focus for interviewing our speaker and running articles. After the Lecture and a hastily swallowed supper Lord Carlile was whisked off to London to appear on Newsnight with the inimitable Kirsty Wark who managed to pronounce Dorchester quite intelligibly in her introduction!

At the next meeting of the Trustees of the Friends we will be considering whom to ask to speak to us next year. Should we stay with the House of Lords or should we jump ship? All suggestions very welcome.

(Blogged by Anne Kelaart, on behalf of the Trustees of the Friends of Dorchester Abbey)

Educationally Unique

I have always felt that Dorchester Abbey can offer everyone, from the young student to our more mature visitors, a fabulously unique educational experience. This has been brought home to me this week more than ever as the Abbey hosts NAPE’s annual Festival of Voices. This event brings primary schools from all over Oxfordshire together to sing in unison within the beautiful Abbey setting, conducted by Kevin Stannard and Peter Hunt. It was enjoyed by an enthusiastic audience of parents and siblings and some dignitaries, including the Mayor of Wallingford and his wife.

As I sat listening to the Tuesday night performance it struck me how it recalled the earlier medieval traditions of the Abbey when the monks would have sang in plainchant in the choir, the area where the 300 children were staged en masse, their high voices resonating in the vast Abbey space. The varied musical programme offered a range of songs from around the world, such as the traditional Congolese ‘Banaha’, the swirling melody of the Ghanaian ‘Senwa Dedende’ or the Jamaican 'By the Rivers of Babylon' where we were all encouraged to join in, to more popular tunes such as Abba’s ‘Money, Money, Money’ and Elvis’s ‘Jailhouse Rock'.

The children clearly enjoyed themselves with plenty of smiles and jiggling gestures when required! The final song of ‘World in Union’ evoked a sense of social harmony and accord world leaders can only aspire towards. As a collection was taken for ‘Save the Children’ the children provided an encore reprise of a few of the melodies, to the great enjoyment of the audience. Their performance highlights how much so many owe to so few, as these massed children and parents do to the teachers, conductors, musicians and all who assist with the staging of this tremendous week long event.

As this event demonstrates every school visit to Dorchester Abbey is unique, just as every individual child is unique. In the week prior to this one I hosted an educational visit to the Abbey for over 60 children. Because each school is as unique as each child I aim to create an equally unique visit. Thus I enjoy being able to meet with schools before their visits to the Abbey, thereby discussing particular syllabus requirements, individual ideas and to explore aspects of mutual interest for their students.

Although the school had enjoyed previously visits to the Abbey they were excited by the opportunity of exploring new educational trails and innovative activities, resulting in a programme that included a religious and cultural ‘scavenger hunt’, an investigation of our knights and the heraldic window enabling them to design their own coats of arms, as well as the perennially popular activities of sketching and brass rubbing. They also enjoyed combining these activities with their own personal written responses to the Abbey which culminated at the end of the day in a selection of the best ones being read out by the students from our Victorian pulpit. The variety of responses ranged from personal prayers to astute descriptions of the space, but each pupil read their contribution out with the lilt of excitement in their voices and an extreme sense of achievement.

In addition to these events I have also been going out to meet teachers and introduce them to what the Abbey and Dorchester has to offer them and their classes through INSET presentations. The current educational watchword is ‘cross-curricular’, which is something Dorchester excels at! As well as the obvious RE (Religious Education) links, we have history, geography, art and architectural heritage, and music in spades! Not to mention the many other links we could make. The wealth of history not only the Abbey, but Dorchester and its geographical surroundings, has to offer is certainly unique. I explain how Dorchester declares the significance of its past geographically to the children from afar before they even arrive, as they see the two domineering mounds of Wittenham Clumps and then the Abbey tower becomes just visible through the trees as they approach the village.

I have demonstrated our newly arrived Museum Loans Boxes, which contain original artefacts and replica items from the Anglo-Saxon and Roman periods, complete with lesson materials and supporting books, all of which are free for schools to borrow. This initiative has already proved to be very successful for the schools who have borrowed them so far. We are also going to stage a Key Stage 2 ‘Pilgrimage and Worship’ study day for schools in June 2011, which is currently in the initial planning stage and which we might develop further Loans Boxes.

July sees the return of our Musuem-Abbey-Archaeological site visits, where schoolchildren have the opportunity to see archaeology in action and try their hand at some dig-related activities. Just the type of method that brings history to life for students and teachers alike! (Go to http://discoveringdorchester.blogspot.com/ for further information on the Dorchester Dig!)

Here ends another educationally unique month, I look forward to many more!!

(Blogged by the Abbey's Education Officer)

(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)