i know, it's valentine's day. and most people are doing hearts and love and flowers and chocolate. personally -- and i mean no offense to those of you who get into the spirit of things, and hell, i got me my box o' chocolates for breakfast so i'm the first one to call myself a hypocrite here -- but i think vday is a crock of shit designed to sell flowers and pimples. don't get me wrong, i'm a sentimental, romantic old fool, but i prefer to be so on my own terms. so in contrast to today's traditions, i give you my own version of a valentine: the lovely ladies room at the chief martindale diner, in all its gritty glory.

 

it's pink, anyways.

(Best viewed large)

Man made global warming was invented in 1998.The purpose was an attempt to force the United States to sign the Kyoto Treaty which would have shut down industries in this country which had carbon dioxide emissions above the levels of third world nations and developing countries. It was an attempt to cripple the industrial production of the United States and to "level the playing field ". In spite of the efforts of that great Guru Of Global Warming, Al Gore, and the liberal left of the Democratic Party, this treaty has not been ratified to date by the United States.

  

The global warming theory (it's only a theory ) is based almost exclusively on computer model projections. There is no empirical truth nor scientific fact on which to base this theory. Quite to the contrary there is a growing body of evidence that proves it false.

 

Ice core samples, tree ring studies and bottom core drilling in lakes and oceans show that the climate has gone through cycles of warm periods and cooling periods for thousands of years , long before man and carbon dioxides produced by his machines were on the planet.

  

A growing percentage of climatologist and reputable scientist reject this theory. The most vocal supporters of Global Warming and climate change are those on the take from the various western governments who dole out millions of dollars in research grants each year.

 

Environmental kooks, left wing loons and the hate America crowd use these funds to promote this hoax to the American public. Is it any wonder then that Nancy Pelosi demanded that $400 million dollars of the "Stimulus Bill" go to Global Warming Research. It's the money that explains why most of our major universities have science degrees devoted to this pseudoscience.

 

IF YOU ARE FEARFUL OF GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE.......PLEASE CHECK OUT THE LINKS BELOW

  

media.www.middleburycampus.com/media/storage/paper446/new...

  

www.quebecoislibre.org/001014-11.htm

Please check the following site for more information

 

www.cagwh.com/blog/

      

I normally wouldn't have cared about a BMW X6, but seeing one of these in Havana is way too unusual and... ironic/hypocritical not to shot

Ornate door knocker of Needful Things, an antique furniture and art business, in St James’s Street, Kemp Town, Brighton, East Sussex.

 

Needful Things is the name of Stephen King novel and film.

 

The kitsch shop is like a splendid part of the Addams Family mansion plonked down onto the street.

 

The local council claim that the shop does not have planning permission for the style of front door, (and would not gain it, even if applied for).

 

There appears to be a hypocritical element in the local council's attitude. In the same street an unlicensed Starbucks has been the focus of protesters as it has been operating for some time despite not having the appropriate planning permission.

Crocodiles (subfamily Crocodylinae) or true crocodiles are large aquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. Crocodylinae, all of whose members are considered true crocodiles, is classified as a biological subfamily. A broader sense of the term crocodile, Crocodylidae that includes Tomistoma, is not used in this article. The term crocodile here applies only to the species within the subfamily of Crocodylinae. The term is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes Tomistoma, the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), the gharials (family Gavialidae), and all other living and fossil Crocodylomorpha.

 

Although they appear to be similar to the untrained eye, crocodiles, alligators and the gharial belong to separate biological families. The gharial having a narrow snout is easier to distinguish, while morphological differences are more difficult to spot in crocodiles and alligators. The most obvious external differences are visible in the head with crocodiles having narrower and longer heads, with a more V-shaped than a U-shaped snout compared to alligators and caimans. Another obvious trait is that the upper and lower jaws of the crocodiles are the same width, and the teeth in the lower jaw fall along the edge or outside the upper jaw when the mouth is closed; therefore, all teeth are visible unlike an alligator; which possesses small depressions in the upper jaw, into which the lower teeth fit. Also, when the crocodile's mouth is closed, the large fourth tooth in the lower jaw fits into a constriction in the upper jaw. For hard-to-distinguish specimens, the protruding tooth is the most reliable feature to define the family that the species belongs to. Crocodiles have more webbing on the toes of the hind feet and can better tolerate saltwater due to specialized salt glands for filtering out salt, which are present but non-functioning in alligators. Another trait that separates crocodiles from other crocodilians is their much higher levels of aggression.

 

Crocodile size, morphology, behaviour and ecology somewhat differs between species. However, they have many similarities in these areas as well. All crocodiles are semiaquatic and tend to congregate in freshwater habitats such as rivers, lakes, wetlands and sometimes in brackish water and saltwater. They are carnivorous animals, feeding mostly on vertebrates such as fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, and sometimes on invertebrates such as molluscs and crustaceans, depending on species and age. All crocodiles are tropical species that, unlike alligators, are very sensitive to cold. They separated from other crocodilians during the Eocene epoch, about 55 million years ago. Many species are at the risk of extinction, some being classified as critically endangered.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The word "crocodile" comes from the Ancient Greek κροκόδιλος (crocodilos), "lizard", used in the phrase ho krokódilos tou potamoú, "the lizard of the (Nile) river". There are several variant Greek forms of the word attested, including the later form κροκόδειλος (crocodeilos) found cited in many English reference works. In the Koine Greek of Roman times, crocodilos and crocodeilos would have been pronounced identically, and either or both may be the source of the Latinized form crocodīlus used by the ancient Romans. Crocodilos or crocodeilos is a compound of krokè ("pebbles"), and drilos/dreilos ("worm"), although drilos is only attested as a colloquial term for "penis". It is ascribed to Herodotus, and supposedly describes the basking habits of the Egyptian crocodile.

 

The form crocodrillus is attested in Medieval Latin. It is not clear whether this is a medieval corruption or derives from alternative Greco-Latin forms (late Greek corcodrillos and corcodrillion are attested). A (further) corrupted form cocodrille is found in Old French and was borrowed into Middle English as cocodril(le). The Modern English form crocodile was adapted directly from the Classical Latin crocodīlus in the 16th century, replacing the earlier form. The use of -y- in the scientific name Crocodylus (and forms derived from it) is a corruption introduced by Laurenti (1768).

 

CHARACTERISTICS

A crocodile’s physical traits allow it to be a successful predator. Its external morphology is a sign of its aquatic and predatory lifestyle. Its streamlined body enables it to swim swiftly, it also tucks its feet to the side while swimming, which makes it faster by decreasing water resistance. They have webbed feet which, though not used to propel the animal through the water, allow them to make fast turns and sudden moves in the water or initiate swimming. Webbed feet are an advantage in shallower water, where the animal sometimes moves around by walking. Crocodiles have a palatal flap, a rigid tissue at the back of the mouth that blocks the entry of water. The palate has a special path from the nostril to the glottis that bypasses the mouth. The nostrils are closed during submergence.

 

Like other archosaurs, crocodilians are diapsid, although their post-temporal fenestrae are reduced. The walls of the braincase are bony, but lack supratemporal and postfrontal bones. Their tongues are not free, but held in place by a membrane that limits movement; as a result, crocodiles are unable to stick out their tongues. Crocodiles have smooth skin on their bellies and sides, while their dorsal surfaces are armoured with large osteoderms. The armoured skin has scales and is thick and rugged, providing some protection. They are still able to absorb heat through this armour, as a network of small capillaries allows blood through the scales to absorb heat. Crocodilian scales have pores believed to be sensory in function, analogous to the lateral line in fishes. They are particularly seen on their upper and lower jaws. Another possibility is that they are secretory, as they produce an oily substance which appears to flush mud off.

 

SIZE

Size greatly varies between species, from the dwarf crocodile to the saltwater crocodile. Species of Osteolaemus grow to an adult size of just 1.5 to 1.9 m, whereas the saltwater crocodile can grow to sizes over 7 m and weigh 1,000 kg. Several other large species can reach over 5.2 m long and weigh over 900 kg. Crocodilians show pronounced sexual dimorphism, with males growing much larger and more rapidly than females. Despite their large adult sizes, crocodiles start their lives at around 20 cm long. The largest species of crocodile is the saltwater crocodile, found in eastern India, northern Australia, throughout South-east Asia, and in the surrounding waters.

 

The largest crocodile ever held in captivity is an estuarine–Siamese hybrid named Yai (Thai: ใหญ่, meaning big) (born 10 June 1972) at the Samutprakarn Crocodile Farm and Zoo, Thailand. This animal measures 6 m in length and weighs 1,114 kg.

 

The longest crocodile captured alive is Lolong, which was measured at 6.17 m and weighed at 1,075 kg by a National Geographic team in Agusan del Sur Province, Philippines.

 

TEETH

Crocodiles are polyphyodonts; they are able to replace each of their 80 teeth up to 50 times in their 35 to 75-year lifespan. Next to each full grown tooth, there is a small replacement tooth and an odontogenic stem cell in the dental lamina in standby that can be activated if required.

 

BIOLOGY AND BEHAVIOUR

Crocodilians are more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than to most animals classified as reptiles, the three families being included in the group Archosauria ('ruling reptiles'). Despite their prehistoric look, crocodiles are among the more biologically complex reptiles. Unlike other reptiles, a crocodile has a cerebral cortex and a four-chambered heart. Crocodilians also have the functional equivalent of a diaphragm by incorporating muscles used for aquatic locomotion into respiration. Salt glands are present in the tongues of crocodiles and they have a pore opening on the surface of the tongue, which is a trait that separates them from alligators. Salt glands are dysfunctional in Alligatoridae. Their function appears to be similar to that of salt glands in marine turtles. Crocodiles do not have sweat glands and release heat through their mouths. They often sleep with their mouths open and may pant like a dog. Four species of freshwater crocodile climb trees to bask in areas lacking a shoreline.

 

SENSES

Crocodiles have acute senses, an evolutionary advantage that makes them successful predators. The eyes, ears and nostrils are located on top of the head, allowing the crocodile to lie low in the water, almost totally submerged and hidden from prey.

 

VISION

Crocodiles have very good night vision, and are mostly nocturnal hunters. They use the disadvantage of most prey animals' poor nocturnal vision to their advantage. The light receptors in crocodilians’ eyes include cones and numerous rods, so it is assumed all crocodilians can see colours. Crocodiles have vertical-slit shaped pupils, similar to domestic cats. One explanation for the evolution of slit pupils is that they exclude light more effectively than a circular pupil, helping to protect the eyes during daylight. On the rear wall of the eye is a tapetum lucidum, which reflects incoming light back onto the retina, thus utilizing the small amount of light available at night to best advantage. In addition to the protection of the upper and lower eyelids, crocodiles have a nictitating membrane that can be drawn over the eye from the inner corner while the lids are open. The eyeball surface is thus protected under the water while a certain degree of vision is still possible.

 

OLFACTION

Crocodilian sense of smell is also very well developed, aiding them to detect prey or animal carcasses that are either on land or in water, from far away. It is possible that crocodiles use olfaction in the egg prior to hatching.

 

Chemoreception in crocodiles is especially interesting because they hunt in both terrestrial and aquatic surroundings. Crocodiles have only one olfactory chamber and the vomeronasal organ is absent in the adults indicating all olfactory perception is limited to the olfactory system. Behavioural and olfactometer experiments indicate that crocodiles detect both air-borne and water-soluble chemicals and use their olfactory system for hunting. When above water, crocodiles enhance their ability to detect volatile odorants by gular pumping, a rhythmic movement of the floor of the pharynx. Unlike turtles, crocodiles close their nostrils when submerged, so olfaction underwater is unlikely. Underwater food detection is presumably gustatory and tactile.

 

HEARING

Crocodiles can hear well; their tympanic membranes are concealed by flat flaps that may be raised or lowered by muscles.

 

TOUCH

Caudal: The upper and lower jaws are covered with sensory pits, visible as small, black speckles on the skin, the crocodilian version of the lateral line organs seen in fish and many amphibians, though arising from a completely different origin. These pigmented nodules encase bundles of nerve fibers innervated beneath by branches of the trigeminal nerve. They respond to the slightest disturbance in surface water, detecting vibrations and small pressure changes as small as a single drop. This makes it possible for crocodiles to detect prey, danger and intruders, even in total darkness. These sense organs are known as Domed Pressure Receptors (DPRs).

 

Post-Caudal: While alligators and caimans have DPRs only on their jaws, crocodiles have similar organs on almost every scale on their bodies. The function of the DPRs on the jaws is clear; to catch prey, but it is still not clear what is the function of the organs on the rest of the body. The receptors flatten when exposed to increased osmotic pressure, such as that experienced when swimming in sea water hyper-osmotic to the body fluids. When contact between the integument and the surrounding sea water solution is blocked, crocodiles are found to lose their ability to discriminate salinities. It has been proposed that the flattening of the sensory organ in hyper-osmotic sea water is sensed by the animal as “touch”, but interpreted as chemical information about its surroundings. This might be why in alligators they are absent on the rest of the body.

 

HUNTING AND DIET

Crocodiles are ambush predators, waiting for fish or land animals to come close, then rushing out to attack. Crocodiles mostly eat fish, amphibians, crustaceans, molluscs, birds, reptiles, and mammals, and they occasionally cannibalize smaller crocodiles. What a crocodile eats varies greatly with species, size and age. From the mostly fish-eating species, like the slender-snouted and freshwater crocodiles, to the larger species like the Nile crocodile and the saltwater crocodile that prey on large mammals, such as buffalo, deer and wild boar, diet shows great diversity. Diet is also greatly affected by the size and age of the individual within the same species. All young crocodiles hunt mostly invertebrates and small fish, gradually moving on to larger prey. As cold-blooded predators, they have a very slow metabolism, so they can survive long periods without food. Despite their appearance of being slow, crocodiles have a very fast strike and are top predators in their environment, and various species have been observed attacking and killing other predators such as sharks and big cats. As opportunistic predators, crocodiles would also prey upon young and dying elephants and hippos when given the chance. Crocodiles are also known to be aggressive scavengers who feed upon carrion and steal from other predators. Evidence suggests that crocodiles also feed upon fruits, based on the discovery of seeds in stools and stomachs from many subjects as well as accounts of them feeding.

 

Crocodiles have the most acidic stomach of any vertebrate. They can easily digest bones, hooves and horns. The BBC TV reported that a Nile crocodile that has lurked a long time underwater to catch prey builds up a large oxygen debt. When it has caught and eaten that prey, it closes its right aortic arch and uses its left aortic arch to flush blood loaded with carbon dioxide from its muscles directly to its stomach; the resulting excess acidity in its blood supply makes it much easier for the stomach lining to secrete more stomach acid to quickly dissolve bulks of swallowed prey flesh and bone. Many large crocodilians swallow stones (called gastroliths or stomach stones), which may act as ballast to balance their bodies or assist in crushing food, similar to grit ingested by birds. Herodotus claimed that Nile crocodiles had a symbiotic relationship with certain birds, such as the Egyptian plover, which enter the crocodile's mouth and pick leeches feeding on the crocodile's blood; with no evidence of this interaction actually occurring in any crocodile species, it is most likely mythical or allegorical fiction.

 

BITE

Since they feed by grabbing and holding onto their prey, they have evolved sharp teeth for piercing and holding onto flesh, and powerful muscles to close the jaws and hold them shut. The teeth are not well-suited to tearing flesh off of large prey items as is the dentition and claws of many mammalian carnivores, the hooked bills and talons of raptorial birds, or the serrated teeth of sharks. However, this is an advantage rather than a disadvantage to the crocodile since the properties of the teeth allow it to hold onto prey with the least possibility of the prey animal to escape. Otherwise combined with the exceptionally high bite force, the flesh would easily cut through; thus creating an escape opportunity for the prey item. The jaws can bite down with immense force, by far the strongest bite of any animal. The force of a large crocodile's bite is more than 5,000 lbf (22,000 N), which was measured in a 5.5 m Nile crocodile, on the field, compared to just 335 lbf (1,490 N) for a Rottweiler, 670 lbf (3,000 N) for a great white shark, 800 lbf (3,600 N) for a hyena, or 2,200 lbf (9,800 N) for an American alligator. A 5.2 m long saltwater crocodile has been confirmed as having the strongest bite force ever recorded for an animal in a laboratory setting. It was able to apply a bite force value of 3,700 lbf (16,000 N), and thus surpassed the previous record of 2,125 lbf (9,450 N) made by a 3.9 m long American alligator. Taking the measurements of several 5.2 m crocodiles as reference, the bite forces of 6-m individuals were estimated at 7,700 lbf (34,000 N). The study, led by Dr. Gregory M. Erickson, also shed light to the larger, extinct species of crocodilians. Since crocodile anatomy has changed only slightly for the last 80 million years, current data on modern crocodilians can be used to estimate the bite force of extinct species. An 11 to 12 metres long Deinosuchus would apply a force of 23,100 lbf (103,000 N), twice that of the latest, higher bite force estimations of Tyrannosaurus. The extraordinary bite of crocodilians is a result of their anatomy. The space for the jaw muscle in the skull is very large, which is easily visible from the outside as a bulge at each side. The nature of the muscle is so stiff, it is almost as hard as bone to touch, as if it were the continuum of the skull. Another trait is that most of the muscle in a crocodile's jaw is arranged for clamping down. Despite the strong muscles to close the jaw, crocodiles have extremely small and weak muscles to open the jaw. Crocodiles can thus be subdued for study or transport by taping their jaws or holding their jaws shut with large rubber bands cut from automobile inner tubes.

 

LOCOMOTION

Crocodiles are very fast over short distances, even out of water. The land speed record for a crocodile is 17 km/h measured in a galloping Australian freshwater crocodile. Maximum speed varies from species to species. Certain species can indeed gallop, including Cuban crocodiles, New Guinea crocodiles, African dwarf crocodiles, and even small Nile crocodiles. The fastest means by which most species can move is a kind of "belly run", where the body moves in a snake-like fashion, limbs splayed out to either side paddling away frantically while the tail whips to and fro. Crocodiles can reach speeds of 10–11 km/h when they "belly run", and often faster if slipping down muddy riverbanks. Another form of locomotion is the "high walk", where the body is raised clear of the ground. Crocodiles may possess a form of homing instinct. In northern Australia, three rogue saltwater crocodiles were relocated 400 km by helicopter, but had returned to their original locations within three weeks, based on data obtained from tracking devices attached to them.

 

LONGEVITY

Measuring crocodile age is unreliable, although several techniques are used to derive a reasonable guess. The most common method is to measure lamellar growth rings in bones and teeth - each ring corresponds to a change in growth rate which typically occurs once a year between dry and wet seasons. Bearing these inaccuracies in mind, it can be safely said that all crocodile species have an average lifespan of at least 30–40 years, and in the case of larger species an average of 60–70 years. The oldest crocodiles appear to be the largest species. C. porosus is estimated to live around 70 years on average, with limited evidence of some individuals exceeding 100 years.

 

In captivity, some individuals are claimed to have lived for over a century. A male crocodile lived to an estimated age of 110–115 years in a Russian zoo in Yekaterinburg. Named Kolya, he joined the zoo around 1913 to 1915, fully grown, after touring in an animal show, and lived until 1995. A male freshwater crocodile lived to an estimated age of 120–140 years at the Australia Zoo. Known affectionately as “Mr. Freshie”, he was rescued around 1970 by Bob Irwin and Steve Irwin, after being shot twice by hunters and losing an eye as a result, and lived until 2010. Crocworld Conservation Centre, in Scottburgh, South Africa, claims to have a male Nile crocodile that was born in 1900 (age 115–116). Named Henry, the crocodile is said to have lived in Botswana along the Okavango River, according to centre director Martin Rodrigues.

 

SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AND VOCALIZATION

Crocodiles are the most social of reptiles. Even though they do not form social groups, many species congregate in certain sections of rivers, tolerating each other at times of feeding and basking. Most species are not highly territorial, with the exception of the saltwater crocodile, which is a highly territorial and aggressive species. A mature male will not tolerate any other males at any time of the year. Most other species are more flexible. There is a certain form of hierarchy in crocodiles: the largest and heaviest males are at the top, having access to the best basking site, while females are priority during a group feeding of a big kill or carcass. A good example of the hierarchy in crocodiles would be the case of the Nile crocodile. This species clearly displays all of these behaviours. Studies in this area are not thorough, however, and many species are yet to be studied in greater detail. Mugger crocodiles are also known to show toleration in group feedings and tend to congregate in certain areas. However, males of all species are aggressive towards each other during mating season, to gain access to females.

 

Crocodiles are also the most vocal of all reptiles, producing a wide variety of sounds during various situations and conditions, depending on species, age, size and sex. Depending on the context, some species can communicate over 20 different messages through vocalizations alone. Some of these vocalizations are made during social communication, especially during territorial displays towards the same sex and courtship with the opposite sex; the common concern being reproduction. Therefore most conspecific vocalization is made during the breeding season, with the exception being year-round territorial behaviour in some species and quarrels during feeding. Crocodiles also produce different distress calls and in aggressive displays to their own kind and other animals; notably other predators during interspecific predatory confrontations over carcasses and terrestrial kills.

 

Specific vocalisations include -

 

Chirp: When about to hatch, the young make a “peeping” noise, which encourages the female to excavate the nest. The female then gathers the hatchlings in her mouth and transports them to the water, where they remain in a group for several months, protected by the female

 

Distress call: A high-pitched call mostly used by younger animals that alerts other crocodiles to imminent danger or an animal being attacked.

 

Threat call: A hissing sound that has also been described as a coughing noise.

 

Hatching call: Emitted by females when breeding to alert other crocodiles that she has laid eggs in her nest.

 

Bellowing: Male crocodiles are especially vociferous. Bellowing choruses occur most often in the spring when breeding groups congregate, but can occur at any time of year. To bellow, males noticeably inflate as they raise the tail and head out of water, slowly waving the tail back and forth. They then puff out the throat and with a closed mouth, begin to vibrate air. Just before bellowing, males project an infrasonic signal at about 10 Hz through the water which vibrates the ground and nearby objects. These low-frequency vibrations travel great distances through both air and water to advertise the male's presence and are so powerful they result in the water appearing to 'dance’.

 

REPRODUCTION

Crocodiles lay eggs, which are either laid in hole or mound nests, depending on species. A hole nest is usually excavated in sand and a mound nest is usually constructed out of vegetation. Nesting period ranges from a few weeks up to six months. Courtship takes place in a series of behavioural interactions that include a variety of snout rubbing and submissive display that can take a long time. Mating always takes place in water, where the pair can be observed mating several times. Females can build or dig several trial nests which appear incomplete and abandoned later. Egg laying usually takes place at night and about 30–40 minutes. Females are highly protective of their nests and young. The egg are hard shelled but translucent at the time of egg-laying. Depending on the species crocodile, a number of 7-95 eggs are laid. Crocodile embryos do not have sex chromosomes, and unlike humans, sex is not determined genetically. Sex is determined by temperature, where at 30 °C or less most hatchlings are females and at 31 °C, offspring are of both sexes. A temperature of 32 to 33 °C gives mostly males whereas above 33 °C in some species continues to give males but in other species resulting in females, which are sometimes called as high-temperature females. Temperature also affects growth and survival rate of the young, which may explain the sexual dimorphism in crocodiles. The average incubation period is around 80 days, and also is dependent on temperature and species that usually ranges from 65 to 95 days. The eggshell structure is very conservative through evolution but there are enough changes to tell different species apart by their eggshell microstructure.

 

At the time of hatching, the young start calling within the eggs. They have an egg-tooth at the tip of their snouts, which is developed from the skin, helps them pierce out of the shell. Hearing the calls, the female usually excavates the nest and sometimes takes the unhatched eggs in her mouth, slowly rolling the eggs to help the process. The young is usually carried to the water in the mouth. She would then introduce her hatchlings to the water and even feed them herself. The mother would then take care of her young for over a year before the next mating season. In the absence of the mother crocodile, the father would substitute itself to take care of the young. However even with a sophisticated parental nurturing, young crocs have a very high mortality rate due to their vulnerability to predation. A group of hatchlings is called a pod or crèche and may be protected for months.

 

INTELLIGENCE

Crocodiles have shown signs of intelligence. They are one of a few predators that can observe behaviour, such as patterns when animals come to the river to drink at the same time each day. In one study by Vladimir Dinets of the University of Tennessee, he observed that crocodiles use twigs as bait for birds looking for raw materials in nesting. The sticks are placed on their snouts and submerge themselves, and when the birds swooped in to get them, the crocodiles would then catch them. Crocodiles only do this in spring nesting seasons of the birds, when there is high demand for sticks to be used for building nests. Vladimir also discovered other similar observations from various scientists, some dating back to the 19th century. Aside from using sticks, crocodiles are also capable of cooperative hunting. Large numbers of crocodiles would swim in circles in order to trap fish and take turns snatching them. In hunting larger prey, crocodiles would swarm in with one holding the prey down as the others rip it apart.

 

TAXONOMY AND PHYLOGENY

Most species are grouped into the genus Crocodylus. The other extant genus, Osteolaemus, is monotypic (as is Mecistops, if recognized).

 

- Subfamily Crocodylinae

- Genus Crocodylus

- Crocodylus acutus, American crocodile

- Crocodylus cataphractus, slender-snouted crocodile (studies in DNA and morphology suggest this species may be more basal than Crocodylus, so belongs in its own genus, Mecistops).

- Crocodylus intermedius, Orinoco crocodile

- Crocodylus johnsoni, freshwater crocodile, or Johnstone's crocodile

- Crocodylus mindorensis, Philippine crocodile

- Crocodylus moreletii, Morelet's crocodile or Mexican crocodile

- Crocodylus niloticus, Nile crocodile or African crocodile (the subspecies found in Madagascar is sometimes called the black crocodile)

- Crocodylus novaeguineae, New Guinea crocodile

- Crocodylus palustris, mugger, marsh or Indian crocodile

- Crocodylus porosus, saltwater crocodile or estuarine crocodile

- Crocodylus rhombifer, Cuban crocodile

- Crocodylus siamensis, Siamese crocodile (may be extinct in the wild)

- Crocodylus suchus, West African crocodile, desert or sacred crocodile

- Genus Osteolaemus

- Osteolaemus tetraspis, dwarf crocodile (There has been controversy as to whether or not this is actually two species; recent (2010) DNA analysis indicate three distinct species: O. tetraspis, O. osborni and a third, currently unnamed.)

- Genus †Euthecodon

- Genus †Rimasuchus (formerly Crocodylus lloydi)

- Genus †Voay Brochu, 2007 (formerly Crocodylus robustus)

 

RELATIONSHIPS WITH HUMANS

DANGER TO HUMANS

The larger species of crocodiles are very dangerous to humans, mainly because of their ability to strike before the person can react. The saltwater crocodile and Nile crocodile are the most dangerous, killing hundreds of people each year in parts of Southeast Asia and Africa. The mugger crocodile and American crocodile are also dangerous to humans.

 

CROCODILE PRODUCTS

Crocodiles are protected in many parts of the world, but they also are farmed commercially. Their hides are tanned and used to make leather goods such as shoes and handbags; crocodile meat is also considered a delicacy. The most commonly farmed species are the saltwater and Nile crocodiles, while a hybrid of the saltwater and the rare Siamese crocodile is also bred in Asian farms. Farming has resulted in an increase in the saltwater crocodile population in Australia, as eggs are usually harvested from the wild, so landowners have an incentive to conserve their habitat. Crocodile leather can be made into goods such as wallets, briefcases, purses, handbags, belts, hats, and shoes. Crocodile oil has been used for various purposes. Crocodiles were eaten by Vietnamese while they were taboo and off limits for Chinese. Vietnamese women who married Chinese men adopted the Chinese taboo.

 

CROCODILES IN RELIGION

Crocodiles have appeared in various forms in religions across the world. Ancient Egypt had Sobek, the crocodile-headed god, with his cult-city Crocodilopolis, as well as Taweret, the goddess of childbirth and fertility, with the back and tail of a crocodile. The Jukun shrine in the Wukari Federation, Nigeria is dedicated to crocodiles in thanks for their aid during migration.

 

Crocodiles appear in different forms in Hinduism. Varuna, a Vedic and Hindu god, rides a part-crocodile makara; his consort Varuni rides a crocodile. Similarly the goddess personifications of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers are often depicted as riding crocodiles. Also in India, in Goa, crocodile worship is practised, including the annual Mannge Thapnee ceremony.

 

In Latin America, Cipactli was the giant earth crocodile of the Aztec and other Nahua peoples.

 

CEOCODILE TEARS

The term "Crocodile tears" (and equivalents in other languages) refers to a false, insincere display of emotion, such as a hypocrite crying fake tears of grief. It is derived from an ancient anecdote that crocodiles weep in order to lure their prey, or that they cry for the victims they are eating, first told in the Bibliotheca by Photios. The story is repeated in bestiaries such as De bestiis et aliis rebus. This tale was first spread widely in English in the stories of the travels of Sir John Mandeville in the 14th century, and appears in several of Shakespeare's plays. In fact, crocodiles can and do generate tears, but they do not actually cry.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Y'all never got to see my Christmas Card! I know it's a bit belated, but there's never a bad time to spread some cheer!

 

I also realize, in the wake of my previous post, it's a bit hypocritical to post a picture of my self that's been a bit retouched, but keep in mind I did take this one first. I'm doing it less often though, honest. Hopefully someday I'll reach a point where I'm actually comfortable with who I am and not who others are telling me to be.

 

Expl.

Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan, both deceivers & brazen liars, are zealous crusaders for the advancement of meanness, pain & death which Obama, too, in a merely slightly less virulent way, has consistently supported in practice (but not, of course, in his devious speeches). But I don't want to talk about the Republican candidates here, nor in any concentrated way, Obama.

 

We Americans now live in a society that economically, politically & religiously cherishes psychopathic values. Poor, powerless, rich & powerful people who were similarly bent have always been among us, clamoring for more soldiers, more dreadful weapons, more police, more saber rattling, more wars, harsher laws, more prisons, fewer rights - or no rights - for those who disagree with or are unlike them. But today such people tyrannically rule in almost all political offices, court chambers & boardrooms. They rule the 'economic team' of rich, vicious cutthroats that Obama hand selected to save the big banks, not the nation or its people. They rule in many other places, too - on television news networks, in editorial quarters at many newspapers, in the economics departments of universities that are usually said to be the nation's best, & in the general staff at the Pentagon. They own the private corporation that creates & controls the presidential 'debates.' They increasingly own both lower school public & higher education. And insofar as they own our health care, own the medicines we are allowed to get at great personal expense, & have commodified every disease so that they might benefit from our illnesses, they own both the present & ultimate fate of our bodies. And insofar as they control the means of the distribution of information, including the manufacture & distribution of propaganda, they own our minds ... or, if one believes we have souls, they own those, too.

 

One need only note, for instance, that in the first two 'debates' the urgently pressing, most momentous threat all living things have ever faced, global anthropogenic climate change, has not been mentioned once. No one thinks it will be mentioned in the third & final 'debate' - that is, charade - either. Upon reflection, one may rationally conclude that nothing that really matters to the welfare & future of America has been or will be mentioned.

 

Harper's Magazine, in which the article cited below appears, is, since 1850, America's oldest continuously published monthly. It's very serious & also immensely funny, brilliantly illustrated, literate & readable, & at its low cost (presently $16.97 for 12 issues) it should be in most homes. Its fact checking is U.S. journalism's gold standard.

 

The Elephant/Donkey political duopoly that now rules this empire was shaped by the multibillionaire propagandists in the TV & print nooze biz, & by their superrich cohorts who since Ronald Reagan became president have steadily spent whatever it took to own not only almost every politician in the nation, but almost all institutions that once were public. The public is bamboozled, kept ignorant, overworked, underpaid, purposefully uninformed, forced to be anxiety ridden, & robbed at every turn. - In short, what has happened & is surely going to get worse is not the public's fault. We are not to blame. They are.

 

And why do They lie & cheat? Because the manure They heap upon us that They claim explains the causes of our trouble & the solutions for them is so bereft of validity & virtue that only incessant lying & cheating & endlessly shitting up the same crap could get anybody to believe there is nothing else. Men like Rupert Murdoch & the Koch brothers are maggots occupying, eating & growing in our minds.

 

Romney & Obama are the two sides of the turd that is the Elephant/Donkey duopoly. Together they are the two-faced Janus mask that is the present countenance of America, impenetrably duplicitous & meaningless, but plainly brutal & cruel because, no matter what either says that one might think makes the one or the other likable, they are agreed in their actions that everything must be taken from us & be given to the rich, who already took almost all that we once had - our homes, schools, courts of law, retirement funds, good jobs, decent pay, financial assets, composure, sense of self-worth, civil rights, education, air, water, Earth's very health, & any feeling that the future might be better, & finally our faith that voting can ever be an expression of our own preferences & interests.

 

So what is it that Obama never speaks of, nor shall Romney? Why, the real way to our salvation, of course. Mentioning it is taboo, because the rich wouldn't give these narcissistic candidates nor any other kind of candidate a dime for it, despite the fact - repeat, fact - that what you're about to read would make large private financial fortunes more secure & durable. Why? Because when capitalism goes into catastrophic runaway, as was its condition before the crash of 2008 & already is again, it collapses & leaves behind a Demand Crisis, in which great numbers of people lose their savings & property, lose their jobs & income, & so become unable to buy the goods & services that only by being purchased enable capitalists to acquire & increase wealth, & keep their wealth from disappearing as much of it did in 2008, or did in the Great Depression (which I experienced directly), & did following other booms that led implacably to busts & Demand Crisis depressions.

 

OK - federal stimulus delivered into the pockets of workers who will spend it, followed by increased taxation, is what you're going to read about below. Before you blanch, read on, & either keep in mind what governments exist for, & what at their best they do for commerce & the welfare & peace of citizens, or - if you cannot put your fear that this must be wrong in check - indulge me & the author of this thesis, & let's then talk about it. Remember, if you are blanching, a vast array of institutions owned or supported by the superrich have for a long while controlled the information your opinions are based upon, & you've no reason whatsoever to trust that those people & their institutions ever had your interests in mind or, much less, at heart.

 

Thanks for reading along,

 

Robin

 

–––––––––––––––––

 

NOTE: I added all bracketed comments & highlights.

 

The Entitlement Crisis That Isn't

 

By Jeff Madrick

 

Published in Harper's Magazine

November 2012

 

EXCERPTS: But as Bruce Bartlett, a high-level advisor to Ronald Reagan & George H.W. Bush –– & no fuzzy-headed liberal –– put it .... "Almost every country in Europe has a tax/GDP ratio high enough to cover all of the projected increase in spending in the United States through higher revenues alone" ... Roughly speaking, the average nation among the thirty-four members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) collected some 38 percent of its citizens income in taxes. U.S. citizens are taxed –– including all federal, state & local income taxes, sales taxes, & payroll taxes (the taxes that are taken out of every employee's paycheck for Social Security & Medicare) –– at only about 26 percent of their income. Yet the high-tax economies grow about as fast as ours does, sometimes faster. Prosperous Denmark, Norway, & Sweden have tax rates well above 40 percent.

 

To be clear, no one should raise taxes now, because the economy is still too weak [that is, the demand crisis that began in the crash of 2008 continues]. On the contrary, we need bigger deficits for a while [in accord with the empirically tested principles laid down by the late economist John Maynard Keynes]. But when the economy is righted, we will have our chance. Imagine if the the United States raised taxes by 10 percent. If this seems far-fetched, that is for purely political, not economic reasons: such an increase would put our taxes on par with the OECD average, still well below the levels of nations like Norway. This hike would bring in about $1.5 trillion in one year alone &, by my estimate, $17 or $18 trillion over ten years. To put this in perspective, the bipartisan agreement in 2011 to cut the future deficit under the Budget Control Act demanded a total deficit reduction of only about $1.5 trillion. That additional $16 0r $17 trillion would cover all imaginable increases in entitlement programs, even over a span of sixty years or more –– & it would also wipe out the deficit.

 

Let's keep in mind that Medicare is expected to rise by only 2 percent of GDP –– to just under 6 percent –– by 2035, even if the health-care system is not made significantly more efficient. Social Security benefits are forecast to increase from 5 percent of GDP today to, at worst, somewhat more than 6 percent, then level off in the mid-2030s. These increases are readily manageable.

 

.... [In conclusion] There is no debate of good conscience in America about how to pay for the nation's most profound needs. if there were, raising taxes would be a major part of it. Instead, the lower & middle classes will bear the brunt of deficit reduction.

 

Politicians & ideologues are playing a cruel game by keeping serious tax increases off the table, but it is especially hypocritical to do so in the name of fiscal responsibility. America's budget problem is a revenue problem, not a spending problem. The current national conversation about tax hikes is a fine example of political deference to the rich & powerful. It is not good economics.

OMI - Cheerleader

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1Jp-V4jalI

 

7. “host bot mother creates engagers”

 

—This summer, Ashley Madison was hacked, revealing, among other things, how unsafe our most private data is, how hypocritical some of us are—and how the company created fem bots to try to please its predominantly male customer base.

i'm so tired of searching through and seeing comparisons of these girls. they are two different people, different actions, and everything! and i hate it when people only compare miley to selena, when selena is doing something "wrong". you fucking hypocrite, much? yea.

 

and trust me, if selena was to do something scandalous people would bite her fucking head off in the media.

 

and twelve year olds without lives on ocean-up's comments do not count as the media. stfu!

I'll do it but I think everyone on my f-list has been hit, so I'll spare people the trouble of being tagged all over again :)

 

1 I'm the polar opposite of photogenic, hence why you'll rarely see current photographs of me. I'm also pretty awkward and camera shy, I feel like all photographs of me after a certain age feel rather soul-less

 

2 I was two years old in this photograph, taken in Konstanz, Germany. It's my favourite photo from my childhood, and while I remember absolutely nothing from Konstanz, if the pictures are any indication, I had a great time.

 

3 I don't have a facebook, I deleted it. Too many people I hated from childhood pretending to be friends, and too many creeps I didn't know with names like Gay Thunder and Mac Daddy sending me messages.

 

4 English is technically my fourth language, the first three being Mandarin, German, and Canadian-French. Now, I only speak English, and very bad Chinese. Regrettable, I know :(

 

5 I learned to sew when I was around 6, not out of interest or anything, but because we were too cheap to get new doll clothes, so it was a necessity. I rarely got dolls new, and it's still a bit weird now.

 

6 I used to pick up vintage barbies by the crapload at garage sales, and probably demolished my share. Some of them survived my doll terrorizing years (ie 8-16) and got hocked to buy my first blythe, who was promptly ripped apart within two days.

 

7 EVERYONE thinks I'm Korean. Even Korean people. Mostly Korean people actually. I think it's the eyes :X

 

8 I stuck a rock up my nose at age three, and had to go to the hospital to get it sucked out. I have no recollection of it, but I feel compelled to tell people this story after I've known them for a while.

 

9 Deep down inside, I'm actually rather cut throat. No one ever believes me when I say this. Poop :(

 

10 My house is a revolving door of dolls. I bond with them, I unbond, I get rid of them, when everything else is stripped away, they're really just pieces of plastic. This means I'll bitch and moan about how if a fire lit up my house I'd grab my kenners and my BL, but in reality I'd probably snatch up my cat and run for it.

 

11 I love coconut flavoured anything. Anything at all, seriously.

 

12 Either I am a bit of a hypochondriac, or, I have a lot of problems :/

 

13 I waffle between veganism and meat....anism. Both sides have convincing arguments. Veganism has the many health benefits I know to be true with my body, but meat-anism has bacon. :(

 

14 I always wish I was a bit more demure and shy in person, but I can't help it. The second I get excited, the outgoing, loud, and babbling kid in me comes out, and all attempts at being a bit more controlled are thrown to the wind.

 

15 I was that kid who sat in the back of the schoolyard by the fence at recess, and made little houses for fairies out of sticks and leaves.

 

16 I like to pretend that lots of people will read this, but considering how I never quite get around to everyone's, it's a bit hypocritical to assume otherwise. A girl can dream though ;)

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A Coke truck sits among the rubble after the collapse of the first World Trade Center Tower 11 September, 2001 in New York. Two hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers causing the collapse of both. AFP PHOTO Doug KANTER

I had the privilege of experiencing "According to What?", the brilliant exhibit of works by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, three times during its time at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. I wasn't sure what to expect on my first visit because I tend to be dubious of anyone billed as the "world's greatest living artist", but I can honestly say that I was so profoundly moved by Ai's vision and philosophy that the way I view the world and my place in it was subtly changed for the experience. My first visit made me cry. My second visit made me think. And my third visit gave me the chance to follow Ai's example and reinterpret some of his work into creations of my own.

 

"Colored Vases" is an installation of 2000-year-old Han Dynasty pottery dipped in brightly-colored modern industrial paint. Ai completed a larger series of these pieces between 2007-2010, selecting 16 for inclusion in "According to What?". The vases are an iconoclasm -- Ai's means of challenging the viewer to honor the past through modern reinvention, while considering the value, authenticity, and originality of art itself.

 

"Colored Vases" shocked me at first, and it still makes me slightly angry. These are 2000-year-old vases in excellent condition with their original glazes and patterns intact, likely museum-quality artifacts in and of themselves, and we live in a world where 2000-year-old pottery is in finite supply. And Ai dunked these precious antiques in technicolor industrial paint to make a point about preserving the original form while reinventing the overall object?! Hence the shock and mild anger. I found "Colored Vases" to stand in stark contrast to the respect for the cultural past I felt in "Kippe" and "China Log", which struck me as unusual, even hypocritical, considering that the pieces are contemporaries.

 

Then I considered more carefully what Ai was trying to accomplish, and I realized he had succeeded -- I was definitely debating the intrinsic museum value of the relics versus their new museum value as Ai Weiwei artworks. I was considering the importance of the past versus the urge for innovation and progress. I was wondering if there was anything new under the sun. I was contemplating the individual's regard for antiquity based upon cultural identity as a Chinese person linked to 5000 years of civilization versus an American with less than 300 years of national identity. I was weighing some sort of archaeological pop art. I was playing my own role in furthering the iconoclasm by taking derivative photographs of Ai's work reinventing 2000-year-old relics. And I was really drawn to the bold, dripping colors and strong forms.

I wish the male and female "Karens" would leave me alone. But they're everywhere...even Flickr...Constantly nosing into my life.

I posted a picture by Nan Goldin and the cover, now infamous, of Scorpion's LP "Virgin Killer". For this I get banned from DEL*TE ME! Uncensored, which proves that there really is no such thing as Uncensored.

 

So whichever Admin or Moderator took it upon themselves to do the deed, fuck you. Fuck you mightily with broken glass you oversensitive, feebleminded, hypocritical gravy filled cunt.

 

Apparently it's perfectly acceptable to post:

- tranny porn;

- tub girl;

- lemon party;

- pictures of dead people;

- holocaust pictures;

- racist imagery (OK, that was mostly me);

- photoshops of fellow members

but it's not OK to post an image by Nan Goldin and a 30 year old LP cover? I smell a motherfucking hypocrisy in action.

 

www.thefileroom.org/images/klara_and_edda_belly_dancing.jpg

 

and

 

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/33/Virgin_Killer.jpg

 

and tubgirl

 

content.ytmnd.com/content/6/3/d/63d1639da38938de664b24601...

 

Yet more promotional pap.

The spiel goes like. . . "uh. . .um. . . there is this webcomic on the internet. . . about robots. . . this set of characters gets squeezed between the wheels of capito-fascism, national-socialism, and Godlov'n-fascism. Uh. . . in the storyline God is killed by the dumping of massive entropic waste into a black-hole. . . this robot dude discovers his childhood really sucked. . . falls in love with a psychotic female robot that can make humans spontaneously combust by starting an exothermic reaction in their brains (head explodes). Then his brother goes bezerk and declares himself the Fourth Prophet (after M, JC, and M), starts wearing bling, and declares a holy war against homo-sapiens".

 

If I'm lucky I get 1/10 emails answered. But so far everybody I've met in the course of writing this has made the process worth it.

 

I suspect some people sniff what it's really about, and what nothing to do with it or want to fire-bomb me.

 

Thus, please, do not believe in anything! Nothing at all! Belief is ridiculous. Trust is a different story. . .

 

There are no zombies. The reason is that it is pretty clear the entire Zombie trope is about how we are in fact the zombies who commute to work, go online, do meaningless shit on Facebook, overeat, get sick, change our clothes, create entropic waste. Thus, no zombies. Not a single one.

 

No Zuda. Why buy a 19 inch LCD screen to read a comic that exists in 2 x 2 inch square in the corner of the screen?

 

No iphone, smart phone adaptation. Mini-comics are great. . . when come free as bubble gum wrappers.

 

No men in tights. No well-oiled skin to highlight steroid-created muscles. That shit is gay and for children.

 

No references to Objectivism. None. In fact, the the parallel universe of Manmachine, Objectivism doesn't even exist. And nothing changes as a consequence.

 

No simulated page turns, unlike Marvel. What if books way back when had to reproduce the dust of stone tablets, or the scent of animal skin, in order to keep readers happy? No pages.

 

No motion or special effects. That's called a movie and is totally different. The only thing that moves is your mind.

 

Thanks for listening, hypocrite reader!

  

Pete set the tone for studies, most week nights he headed out to the university library to do research, he was focused and the example he set, quietly, like an older brother assisted me in learning the skills needed to get passing marks. But all this work, the tension this created, we needed to have a celebration towards the end of the first semester. We were mutually interested in this. There were two winos who hung out at the liquor store on certain days. There was this one fellow whom we looked after we called him Johnny Blue. Blue would have been in his fourties, average stature, dark hair, he may have had some indigenous blood which would explain his darker than most complexion. He would from time to time be silently begging beside the liquor store with his friend Doc Pat. Pat was a very well spoken ‘con’ of a man who looked a lot like my old friend Kenny Goobie, tall, blonde, rakish in a way, very intelligent, much like the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. Doc Pat would tell us he had studied to be a medical Doctor but dropped out halfway through. Pat was in the same age bracket as Blue.

 

Pete and I decided we needed some alcoholic beverages to give a proper party to which we expected about fifty people to show up from professors, to library staff, fellow students as well as tenants in the building. Mistakenly we had invited Blue and Pat up for an afternoon beer as we prepared for the upcoming nights festivities. A shopping list was made of our necessities, which consisted of the usual party fare, cheese and crackers, chips, nuts, fruit drinks, soda for mix. I had created a centre piece from a block of maroon candle wax found at a local second hand shop. The miniature pieces were sculpted to resemble little mushrooms. It was the time when I was creating the story The Nevers of Ever. The apartment though small would seat fifteen or so, which was fine as we expected the evening to have a revolving number of guests. Time was getting on, we had to get the bottled beer to put in the fridge to chill as well as several bottles of wine and hard liquor. Blue and Pat almost simultaneously volunteered to pick up the booze for us. A precise list was prepared so that they would pick up exactly what we instructed. Pete and I handed over our eighty seven dollars. We watched as the two men put on their dress overcoats and caps then joyfully headed down the aisle of the apartment then down the stairs to the liquor store across the street. We were none the wiser. They never came back. I guess they figured this was the easiest score they’d ever made. We were downcast but at the last moment a friend gave us enough money to buy several bottles of cheap wine to serve at the party. The night went on without any hitches. Music continued to play on the boxy record player. Plenty of folk came and enjoyed themselves. Professor Deck my philosophy lecturer showed up wearing his black cape. Sushil the Asian Studies research assistant from the library sniffed around for a half hour or so. Numerous students from both Pete and my classes as well as neighbours came and went. It was a ‘fast’ night as they say, very sociable in comparison to some other parties I have attended. Missing the fun was my girlfriend of the week a blind girl named Irene. She had no ride to the party as she lived on campus in residence.

 

Johnny Blue and Doc Pat disappeared from our neighborhood until the following spring. At that time Blue proved to be a big help, more than repaying us for the poor judgment on his part. Prior to the party we had fed him and gave him food and drinks on numerous occasions. We were friends. One Thursday before the Christmas break Mr Herbert came to visit. He would have liked to have stayed on the couch so he could pocket a little Motel Money that the company he worked for Bazaar Novelty covered. I recall Frank Sr. taking a thorough look at Johnny Blue. He immediately got up from his seat and left the apartment. It was the funniest thing, here was Frank Sr. a solid whiskey drinker unable to party with Johnny Blue or share space with Johnny Blue. Maybe Frank Sr. seen something of himself in this figure. I never found out what it was that bugged him so much that he left and got a motel room.

 

Detroit was a new experience for us. It is a huge city but we never got much further than the downtown core area. We usually took a bus through the tunnel and walked to whatever venue we were attending which was for the sake of live music. Traffic played the city twice and we caught both concerts. The first gig took place at the famous Eastown Theatre, the other Traffic concert took place at the 12,000 seat Cobo Arena at. We were very high for the first show, ripped on something, maybe mescaline that came packaged in a pink gel cap. Sitting up front we were just grooving to the jazzy twists their music took, this was long before mosh pits so you could get right up close and go insane with the tunes, smoking endless pot and hash joints that were being passed around from all directions. As usual the band headed by Dave Mason, Chris Wood, Dave Capaldi, Rick Grech and Steve Winwood provided a most excellent show.

 

Getting to the Eastown concert required either taking a city bus or walking a mile or so through an area that had been burned out in the American racial riots of the late sixties. We chose to walk. This was quite a sight to see first hand. Three storey brick tenement buildings, streets full of them, row on row all abandoned, empty, burned out, boarded up. At one building on the second floor a group of squatters looked at us and asked somewhat threateningly what we were doing in that part of town, it was all black. Pete and I didn’t know enough to be scared we had never dealt with this back in Canada. When we shouted up we were heading to the concert at the Eastown, it was thumbs up for us. At a large black oriented grocery store we were buying a couple of beers to chug in brown paper bags and American potato chips. We didn’t know that the cashier was robbing us by not giving us the correct exchange for our money which was worth more than American in those days. A big Pro football looking guy chewed the cashier out for taking a run at us. We weren’t far from the theatre the group was playing in so our chances of harm were now reduced. In front of the theatre a bunch of long haired white kids from suburbia were unloading from the family station wagons to take in the show. I couldn’t get over the number of freaks there were in the States, cool people living in a fucked up country! Nobody lived in the downtown except the African Americans and Latinos.

 

At a Ravi Shankar concert the atmosphere was all posh and civil. This show was held at Cobo Hall the prestigious theatre of Detroit, akin to Massey Hall in Toronto but more modern. The hall was located in the pride of the city the recently rebuilt downtown core. Detroit City Officials had created a mask to impress the tourists, to hide them from the realities of the burned out core of the city. I realized that no white folk lived anywhere near the Downtown core, they had long since moved to the suburbs and only came to town for shows, work or other events at night, they had abandoned the city. Not far from the downtown rebuilt area Pete and I stumbled into a neighbourhood bar for a few warm up beers. The brick building was lit only by the familiar orange neon light that read BAR. Inside the BAR was full of black dudes and dolled up babes on a Saturday night. The costumes these folk were wearing were much different than the getups one would see at clubs in Toronto that we frequented, like Mr.Ds on Yonge Street south of Bloor. Pete and I were duked up in our Ravi Shankar outifits, wicker sports jackets and mad caps. I had a great time checking out the body language of the patrons. One duke was all spruced up with hat and cane and two tone shoes, purple silk neck dickey, gold tooth, pierced earrings he looked at me when I asked for a cigarette, then he reached into his cashmere jacket and pulled out a gold cigarette case full of Kools and offered me one purring, “ever had a Kool?” Ravi Shankar’s show was fantastic, the article I wrote as a review for the school paper The Lance said as much. Here we were in downtown Detroit being entertained by the worlds greatest Sitar player, all part of the re-education process.

  

To make ends meet I dealt a very little bit of hash and weed, a dime bag here and there, maybe buy an ounce and sell half of it to make ends meet, to get free personal. A pound of very good weed sold for less than $200 dollars, pounds of Afghani hash could be had for $350. You’d meet lots of like minded people this way, I started hanging out at a big three storey house near the school where ten or so great people lived in a commune like setting. On Sunday afternoons I would head over there and have a few puffs. I would sit at the kitchen table and make flow of consciousness drawings, one thing leading to another, it all had great meaning to me and the house dwellers liked my company. One guy who frequented the place was Ray. Later in life he would run for mayor of the city, he didn’t win cause we know only the money people win, never the poor people. Brian was another great guy who hung out at the house, he was studying sociology, he ran the campus pub. There was also this beautiful girl with honey coloured hair, I don’t recall her name, she used to go out with a guy named Gerry a hippie who was friends with Bobby D an old friend from the top end of Mt Dennis who was also going to school in Windsor. This girl was like a flower child. For me there was and still is as much appreciation in seeing a beautiful thing, a flower, a picture, a moment, a girl, whatever, much more meaningful than having this object be it sleeping with them, or owning the object, etc. The unnamed girl, she wore one of those shearling jackets from Nepal. She wore contact lenses, one day I met her on the school grounds, she was stunning, radiant except this day she had these sparkling light blue eyes, like blue diamonds and I couldn’t help myself but to tell her how beautiful her eyes were and where had they been and why did she wear contacts that hid them? She smiled, at my innocence.

 

Before the winter break, perhaps in the late fall I had an odd occurrence, to this day, I don’t know if it was taking place in real time or in a dream. It was as if I saw my soul, as an animated form. I had turned somehow into a little penguin not a living penguin like a wind up toy, but real, the walk was the similar, jerky as a penguin walk but more like the rolling movement that one of those stubby big ball shaped baby toys make. Regardless this object could move effortlessly cover an area in a second. I think the imagery presented itself during a dream. It had great symbolic importance as my father Alex was in the dream and I had never dreamed of him since his death when I was twelve. His presence came in the form of my third eye. It was as if I was looking in a mirror I could see him or was it the image of him in my own third eye and somehow this was mystic, encouraging as well as satisfying, that he still loved me, the very fact that he was around, that he had visited me all the way in Windsor, that he knew I was there even. It could have been an acid thing although while in school not much of that was going on, but there was tonnes of booze, and I think we often underestimate the powerful effects that liquor can have on various aspects of the psyche.

 

The most unusual event to happen that year is still unclear. One Saturday morning Pete and I were sleeping in, it was mid morning and as I lay in bed something could be felt in my chest, fluttering around inside my chest between the skin and the breast bones, like a spirit trying to get out, I had a bit of a reaction, a nervousness, I was still half asleep, nothing startling after all it could have been a fibulation, or something like that. The invasion lasted what seemed like a minute or so, when I became aware of it being there it left. In his little closet bedroom at the very same time Pete was having an unusual experience, he had a wet dream, the first of his life and I told him I had a ghost or spirit or something visit me he spoke right up and told me of his experience. I supposed then as I do now that a spirit was trying to enter my body for sexual purposes and found it closed or I had caught it and it flew over to the next closest being to experience an act which it was obviously capable of instigating, partaking of and enjoying. No explanation has ever been forthcoming. What was it?

 

There seemed to be an incredible Energy around at this time in the late fall of that year, 1971. An amateur contest was to be held at the school Pub on a weekend evening. I assembled a band of musicians, myself the lead singer, there was about six of us in all, Reglindis a country girl studying music was the accompanying vocalist, she was one of my lady/friend interests at the time, there were some other chums from classes, including Thaddeus Hollownia the campus freelance photographer. We were a ballad singing group, at the few gange inspired rehearsals we practiced Dylan's I Shall be Released and the Band's Long Black Veil, two well known hymns of the times with simple lyrics. Practice didn’t matter, the Energy would soar and our performance would be excellent. The school Pub was packed for the well advertised event. Around 10 PM we got our call to go onstage, the promoter took me aside and said “that’s an impressive group of musicians you’ve assembled, why don’t you do two songs Charlie.” With these encouraging words we took the stage and did our first number I Shall be Released to great applause and fanfare, mistakenly for the moment I thought I was the new coming of Elijah in a singers clothing, or something like that. As the next song began the promoter came on the stage and put his arms around me and dragged me from the stage, the crowd protested, we argued, our short set was over, all the players were dejected. I remember walking Reglindis home to her residence a dorm off University Ave., she had drawn a line picture of me earlier and she gave it to me, it was our last date.

 

More emotionally drained than before I was wandering, half drunk and stoned on hash, and emotion, plenty of emotional upheaval. I was near the school entrance on University Ave. an Anglican priest, a professor invited me back to his home which was in the basement of an Anglican building. A Colombian family prepared me a hamburger, they were so glad to get up and cook me something at midnight, they just smiled, spoke little or no English, just smiled. The priest had other things on his mind, he offered drinks in the lounge area, the building was pretty much vacant, except for us and the Colombian family who were living as refugees in another part of the building. It got later, the priest suggested we share a bed in his bedroom, he offered me another bedroom if I wished, but was keen on us sharing a bed, the offer repulsed me and I took a separate room much to his protestations. I awoke even before the Columbians, I quickly gathered my things, my arse intact and licked my wounds from the lost girlfriend, the concert and the homosexual interlude. I would see the priest/professor from time to time in the school. He made it a point to avoid me. For clarification he was Anglican and there is a possibility he had a title, some standing within his church, perhaps a bishop? We were not strangers to each other as on another occasion a month or so earlier he had taken me to a group meeting with several other local religious leaders the purpose to show to them the religiousness/spiritaulaity of someone like myself, a hippie, he recognized this, cut through the hypocritical stigma that I was using drugs, and he showed me off to his contemporaries much like the way Count had done at U of T a few years earlier. Had I not been raised in such a Homophobic environment I may have seen this as an opportunity to explore the various sexual ideologies available at the time which were present however masked carefully and way back in the closet so as not to upset the status quo.

 

There was a nice peaceful feeling on the campus. Indeed there would be as all of this learning was giving off great energy and vibes throughout the sequestered village within a village. Such is the case at many schools as they act as a tiny colony, for the most part untouched by the realities of the real world. I wanted to make a change in the way the student funds were being spent, in order to do this I had to get on the school council which oversaw the spending. Each student was tagged with a fee on opening day, supposedly to be used for things that would enhance their social lives, a few savvy student council members controlled the spending, rumours of graft circulated, I wanted some of that decision making and graft, why I was an expert at graft, had learned the skill at Pepsi Cola and with the Mt Dennis Newsweekly and Dyer and Miller Bros. I entered my name in the race for school council president. Why go for the smaller jobs, go for the big one.

 

Friends from the house encouraged me, it was a good vehicle for the runaway ego, more spotlights, less school work, I really wasn’t concerned with the courses, my marks were about a B- which was OK for me. But so much energy went into the election, I didn’t have any idea what the time commitment of the council members was, how often they met, no idea, I just went for it. To sponsor my humble campaign I wrote some people back in Toronto and asked for donations of around ten or twenty dollars, Don and Carol were fans even back then and they sent a few bucks as did a couple of others, I think I amassed a war chest of about sixty dollars. It was enough, I had fun getting campaign slogans and campaign songs printed onto thick lime green paper and hanging these extensions of my spoken word act up all around the campus, in bars and bookstores, on telephone poles, again I was self promoting while feeding my creative needs. I met a blind girl named Irene, even went up to her apartment in the residences she voted for me, the degree of sensitivity she had was overwhelming. Another more than beautiful woman named Beullah would drop a little scent, she invited me up to her room then changed her mind. She was like me, older in her early twenties, had a child out west that her parents were raising, she would have been way to much for me to handle. I just wanted to be around beautiful things it didn’t matter if I slept with them, making love was as easy as holding hands or looking someone in the face, it still is.

 

There was an all candidates meeting in the school auditorium off of the cafeteria, a few people turned out fifty or so though it seemed like thousands. The small posters that my $60 war. chest paid for couldn’t be missed as they were printed on an unusual lime green paper, there were words about what I didn’t like and how I would change things, sort of a give the money back to the people platform. Good Night Irene was chosen as the campaign song a recognition to my blind friend Irene. At the meeting I sat defiantly on the podium with the other candidates. One fellow in particular was disgusted with me, I was disrupting his term and he wanted another, in power, he was a Consevative, a skimmer! Yippie Gerry Gagnon won the election, he was the correct choice, he knew how to change the system. I received 54 votes, someone later said all of my friends had voted for me. For an out of town boy to make that many friends so quickly says something. Back to the all candidates meeting, I wasn’t feeling as sharp as usual so I had a silent question period. At the beginning of the gathering all the folk running for office had to give a short platform speech. This went over well then I chose not to answer any questions unless they were sent up to the podium, written down for me to read, nobody sent any questions up, I didn’t make a fool of myself. What was I doing running for office? Had a recent talk by Jean Chartrand a radical Quebec speaker hit some hidden buttons or was I in the throes of another Give Peace a Chance drama? I do know the defeat was more than a shrug of the shoulders, for me any ways, school break was coming up, I needed some rest and a trip to Toronto would cure all that ails ya.

 

In Toronto it was full on party season, there was some great acid around, it was the Windowpane, the best I’d ever taken, it was so clear, you were always in control, you could make the music take on shapes, control your thoughts, read energy, go where your mind took you, yet in a clean controlled fashion. There was a big change in that my acid partners had moved on in life, gotten married and it wasn’t as much fun tripping alone. We had been kicking that dog, LSD and the others for a few years, it was beginning to wear. The movie A Clockwork Orange was playing, premiering at the big Eglinton theatre located on Eglinton Avenue east of Yonge St. A bunch of us went for the Canadian opening, high on acid. It was and is a Kubrick masterpiece, the movie review was published in the school paper, here I was working while on vacation. At home, on Humber Blvd Alex was destroying lives, still speeding, threatening people, terrorizing the siblings it was very volatile. Emotional destruction. It was all I could do to protect myself from his insanity.

 

Frankie Herbert had a big party at his folks home on Emmett Avenue. Ollie was there with Moira, Keith and Laura were in town from the Farm, all the rest of the crowd, The Bell brothers Jack and Frank and their wives Yvonne and Debbie, Ruth Hope was Frankies date, Paul Grice and Olympia, Boomer was in town from Canton New York, Billie and Jude, The Count and his girl Anna. I dropped the great acid, as the musical notes poured from the sound system they formed colorful patterns and circled throughout the room, words were turned into waves with motion. Mr and Mrs Herbert were still alive, they would both die in the next few years from cancer, Frank Sr he did the sensible thing, he knew he was dying, he went to a bank and took out a life insured loan, he didn’t leave any debt, he was still teaching us lessons on survival as his time here was ending.

 

I'm a hypocrite, I've always been opposed to instant hair, but I swallowed my pride and got it :D

 

Sorry, couldn't think of a background lol.

 

Orignal www.flickr.com/photos/26230232@N03/4626754758/

Supremely precious

(John Fawcett, "Christ Precious")

 

"Yes, He is very precious to you who believe!"

1 Peter 2:7

 

If Christ is truly precious to us—we shall prefer Him above every other object; He will have the chief place in our affections. The love which a Christian has to his Savior, penetrates and possesses his heart. This distinguishes it from the pretended love of hypocrites, which is only in word, or in some external actions, while their hearts are full of sinful self-love; so that it may be said of them, "This people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me."

 

We may possibly delight in some objects of an inferior nature, as they contribute to our health, our ease, or our comfort. Our homes, our food, and our other temporal enjoyments are dear to us, because they minister to our comfort and convenience in the present life. But true love for Christ, does not allow any other object to hold the chief place in the heart. This chief place is for Jesus, whom we ought to love with supreme ardor. The choicest affections of our souls ought to be supremely fixed upon Him.

 

As it is impossible for any man to love an unknown object—so it cannot be expected that Christ should be supremely precious unto us, unless we know Him to be excellent and desirable, beyond whatever may be compared with Him. We shall not esteem Him above all things—if we have not elevated views of His transcendent worth. Our esteem of Him rises in proportion to the knowledge we have of Him. Godly men therefore ardently desire to increase in the knowledge of Him—that their affections may be more intensely fixed upon Him.

 

That love, which has but created things for its object, is degrading to the soul. It is a cleaving to that which can neither give happiness to our souls, nor repose to our minds. For to love any object ardently, is to seek our felicity in it, and to expect that it will answer our desires. It is to call upon it to fill that deep void which we feel in ourselves, and to imagine that it is capable of giving us the satisfaction we seek. It is to regard it as the resource of all our needs, the remedy of all the troubles which oppress us, and the source of all our happiness. Now, as it is God alone in whom we can find all these advantages, it is a debasing of the soul, it is idolatry to seek them in created objects! "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ!" Philippians 3:8

 

If Christ is truly precious to us—we shall be induced to devote our souls and our bodies, our talents, our abilities and our faculties—as a living sacrifice to Him. To contemplate His adorable perfections will be our highest joy. We shall be ready to obey Him—in opposition to all the threats and the solicitations of men. We shall rely upon Him, though all outward appearances seem to be against us. We shall rejoice in Him, though we have nothing else to comfort us. If we enjoy health and plenty, friends and reputation, the Lord is still the object of our earnest desires and our supreme delight. "Whom have I in heaven but you? There is none upon earth that I desire besides you! As the deer pants for the water-brooks, so longs my soul after you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God!"

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

you are a fucking hypocrite.

View On Black

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

'Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People' by Susan McKay

 

The following chapter has been contributed by the author Susan McKay, with the permission of the publishers, The Blackstaff Press.

 

his chapter is taken from the book:

Northern Protestants

An Unsettled People

by Susan McKay (2000)

ISBN 0 85640 666 X (Paperback) 393pp

 

Orders to local bookshops or:

 

Blackstaff Press

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BT12 6TA

 

T: 028 9066 8074

F: 028 9066 8207

E: books@blkstaff.dnet.co.uk

 

This publication is copyright Susan McKay (2000) and is included on the CAIN site by permission of Blackstaff Press and the authors. You may not edit, adapt, or redistribute changed versions of this for other than your personal use without express written permission. Redistribution for commercial purposes is not permitted.

 

PORTADOWN

Bitter Harvest

 

‘Whenever the name Portadown came before my eyes

it was nearly always bad news.’

from Two Lands on One Soil, FRANK WRIGHT

 

‘HATRED’

 

'Hatred,’ said John. ‘Hatred.’ It was 1 July 1998 and he was describing what Portadown loyalists felt about the ban on the Orange Order’s march from Drumcree church down the Garvaghy Road. I had asked John about this the previous year, and his answer had been the same. ‘Hatred.’ This time, though, John was elated. His eyes shone. The ruling, which had been denounced by unionist and Orange leaders, had filled him with a fierce rapture. ‘I hope and pray Mo Mowlam will stick by what she says. The Ulster people will be united again. There’s too many organisations, too many Churches, too many political parties. We’re too split. If the Orange Order is battered here, it is going to unite the people. It could end up bad, but at least it’ll unite the people. It’ll take something like this. This will be our Alamo. This’ll be Custer’s last stand.’

 

John was an Orangeman but his sash was worn over a shoulder which also bore a UDA tattoo. There was something of the old soldier about him and he liked to hint that he had seen service. He took a hard line, and his pronouncements usually had a harsh simplicity, ideal for the international media. ‘Soundbite’ was too flimsy a word for such utterances. It was not unusual in early July to see a queue of camera crews and reporters outside his home. Drumcree was known around the world. It meant a place, a series of events, a state of mmd. And what a state of mind. John, a typically militant Portadown Orange-man, prayed that the right which he claimed he cherished above all others would be denied him. ‘When the British people see British subjects being battered on the streets of Portadown, when they see British blood running down the faces of people that is only looking to walk the Queen’s highway, they will think, hold on, those people has the right,’ he explained. Then, most revealing of all: ‘This will be our Bloody Sunday.’ He clasped his big strong hands together and grinned.

 

Bloody Sunday. Derry, 1972. Fourteen unarmed Catholic civilians killed by British soldiers. Innocent victims. Their community was seen by the world to be the innocent victim of a bullying state. Seen not least because of television and newspaper photographs. It was a defining moment. The republican movement had used the touchstone of that innocence, faced with that brutality, to neutralise antipathy towards its own bloody campaign. To take away the stains. On the verge of a new century, John craved such a martyrdom for his people. He wanted blood sacrifice, filmed and photographed. Blood to wash away the image of Protestants as triumphalist bullies, and show them as the true victims.

 

John supported the Concerned Protestants group. Set up when the Drumcree parade became controversial in 1995, it was part of the Ulster Civil Rights Movement (UCRM), again, the title a claiming-back. In 1968 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association had fought for equality for nationalists, for ‘one man one vote’, for access to housing and employment. UCRM spokeswoman Pauline Gilmore told me that the 1995 movement, open only to Protestants, was all about Protestants claiming equal civil and religious rights. Once they reached something like equality, they might consider allowing Catholics to join. Gilmore said that everything had changed, that whereas in the sixties ‘RC rights were at the lowest of the low’, things had now turned full circle. Protestants were afraid to speak, ‘unless you’re standing with two men on either side of you with a 9 mil’.

 

The movement’s groups attracted their share of such men, and rallies drew rough crowds, which included maverick paramilitaries. ‘I don’t ask what side of loyalism our support comes from. Within Protestantism, another Protestant is not your enemy. We want strength from all sources,’ Gilmore had told me when I interviewed her at her home in east Belfast in 1996. She was a bone thin, intense young woman with black hair, scourged with her sense of grievance. The UCRM in practice was about the right to march. The right to march, which became the right to break the law.

 

The Portadown group set out to highlight allegations of intimidation by nationalists of the mainly elderly Protestant population of Park Road. Its members would make sure that the lampposts and walls on the frontier with the militantly nationalist Garvaghy Road were properly bedecked with unionist flags and colours. Skirmishes with nationalists routinely occurred when loyalists were putting up the Orange arch, important because Catholics would have to pass under it.

 

‘What is happening on Park Road is ethnic cleansing at its worst,’ said John. ‘Years ago Catholics and Protestants used to run about together. The Catholics would have come out and watched the parades and everything. Then McKenna and his boys come in and tried to get the Protestants out. The hatred now is unbelievable.’ Breandan Mac Cionnaith - loyalists refuse to give the name of the reviled republican leader of the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition the Irish pronunciation. ‘I know the score. People know my background. They look to me. I’ve had ladies coming up to me saying, "John, what do you want me to do?" I had a pensioner ringing me and she said, "Do you want me to make sandwiches?" There’s good-living people backing the Orangemen on this. Even the lady folk is in on this.’

 

He did not only offer advice to old ladies - he boasted that the younger generation of paramilitaries in the town looked up to him. ‘The Loyalist Volunteer Force took an oath to defend the Protestant people. They’ll not let the Protestant people be beaten,’ he said. Ceasefires, he implied, can be broken. ‘There is dissent among the ranks of the UVF and the UDA. They are saying they’ve been conned. It takes very little to spark things off.’ It was obvious that John included the paramilitaries in his wish for the unionist family to be reunited.

 

John was in demand. The phone rang and he made brisk arrangements, punctuated with angry, excited laughter. Billy, a stout man in the stained clothes of a labourer, arrived at the door and came in to sit across the narrow fireplace from his friend. ‘If there’s one Orangeman shot out there, the whole country will go up,’ predicted John, clapping his hands. Billy reckoned republican pressure on the government might work in the Orangemen’s favour. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘the IRA has told Mowlam - if you let the Orange down the road, we’ll hit the mainland.’

 

However, the men took the view that both British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern would, in the interests of the Assembly, prefer the march to go ahead, and that they wanted to persuade Mac Cionnaith to drop his opposition to it. This worried the Orangemen. The Order had to be seen to stand up to the combined forces of the republican movement, the British and Irish governments and the pro-agreement unionists. They had to do it alone, David against Goliath. The new powersharing Assembly was meeting for the first time that day. The Orange Order’s county grand master for Armagh, Denis Watson, who had been elected on an anti-agreement ticket, had demanded that the Assembly devote its first day to a debate about Drumcree. This had not happened.

 

John’s face clouded. ‘I think the Northern Ireland Office might push this march through to make Trimble look good,’ he said. Billy nodded significantly at me. ‘There’s men in the army camps refused to come out, but, against their own people. We have people in high places too, you know. I mind cutting grass in those fields where Garvaghy Road is now. It was all outsiders has come in dictating. That is the way Sinn Féin works. The fear is put in the Catholics. I laugh at these ones, these nationalist ones gets their brew sent out every Wednesday. They don’t want the British but they’ll carry it in their pocket.’ The brew is the dole, unemployment and other state benefits. This is one of the most popular and enduring grievances held by loyalists right around the North. The taking of the Queen’s shilling. Catholics, they said, were loyal to the half-crown but not the crown. Recently, the Orange Order’s newspaper, Orange Standard, had carried advertisements urging its readers to find out about their rights to benefits: ‘As British citizens, these benefits are yours by right. Many who are enemies of the union with Britain are claiming their rights. Don’t be foolish and miss out on what is rightfully yours.’ Credit unions had been opened in Orange halls, and the same thing was said: ‘The other side has been at this for years.

 

‘The Catholics stick together. One time I was working on a site and these two Catholics were saying, "Youse have that many breakaway groups,"’ mused Billy. ‘This is the first time the Grand Lodge has got off its fucking knees,’ said John. ‘It has said it’ll back the local lodges. The Spirit of Drumcree has redd out the dead wood.’

 

The hardline Spirit of Drumcree group, led by the bulldog-headed Joel Patton from Dungannon, County Tyrone, had opposed compromise of any kind, and denounced as a sellout any kind of talks with residents’ groups. ‘The Drumcree ones is prepared to sit,’ said Billy. ‘You like to see the crack when it starts. You’ll find people shot. If you’re a Catholic and you come up to a blockade, you’ll just be shot. The other side got everything by violence. Daddy is dead and gone this fifteen years. I mind him saying, "The day is coming that the Orange will be like the Masonic. You won’t be let walk. You’ll have your collarette in your pocket and you’ll have to put it on behind a bush before you go into the field." Aye. It’s the truth. The parades is finished if Portadown is bate.’

 

The chalice of Orangeism is passed down the male line, from father to son. Men say, ‘My father marched, and his father before him.’ There was a joke I heard in Portadown. Why did the chicken want to cross the Garvaghy Road? Because my feathers crossed it. And my feathers feathers before them.

 

‘If Trimble walks, my collarette will be off,’ said John. Billy shook his head, smirking. ‘Trimble is afraid to put his foot in Portadown. He’ll be pinned against the wall and pinned right,’ he said. ‘He has pushed the Ulsterman down the road -‘ ‘Trimble is a traitor,’ said John, fiercely. ‘He’ll be swinging from a telegraph pole if he comes to Portadown.’

 

I lost track of John and Billy’s conversation. Billy had a sort of chorus line: ‘Aye, the dirt was done on me. The dirt was done all right.’ There was talk of a man who went off with another man’s wife in the toilets of an Orange hall. ‘The dirt goes in,’ said Billy. ‘Oh aye. The dirt goes in. I’m telling you, if I meet them in the barbed wire, they’ll not go out. When I hit, I hit hard.’ He punched the fist of his right hand into the palm of his left hand, his cheeks quivering angrily. John returned to the main theme. ‘If you want a civil war, you stop Drumcree. When the Ulsterman’s back is against the wall, he’ll fight.’

 

That night loyalists burned down nine Catholic churches across the North. One of them was St James’s church at Crumlin, near the international airport at Aldergrove. Just a few weeks earlier a young student, Ciaran Heffron, had been buried in the graveyard there. He was a Catholic, killed by loyalists after a rally in support of the parades at Drumcree. Crumlin was a village turning nationalist, its population increasing as nationalists, who had been intimidated out of Antrim town, moved there. The LVF carried out the murder, and a group linked with it, the Red Hand Defenders (RHD), claimed the burnings.

 

‘THIS IS HOW THEY REPAY US’

 

She was standing on the path, a small, elderly woman tugging her cardigan around her. Emily. She lived near Park Road, where soldiers were stopping cars at the huge steel barriers they had erected. She was taking her leave of a young woman in jeans when I stopped to speak. The disputed Drumcree parade was now just two days ahead. Emily looked at me warily. I told her I was writing a book and asked if she would talk to me. ‘Wait,’ she said. The two women walked slowly to the gate, through the small, flowerless garden. ‘So you’re sure you don’t need anything?’ asked the young woman, turning as she reached the pavement. ‘No, dear, I’ll be fine,’ said Emily.

 

The young woman headed off towards the park and the Garvaghy Road, the frontier marked by the end of old Victorian housing and the start of modern estates, the yielding of Union Jacks on the lampposts to tricolours. ‘That wee girl is my home help,’ explained Emily. ‘I didn’t like to say too much in front of her. She’s one of the other sort.’

 

The house was part of an old terrace, beyond the railway bridge. There was an air of decline about this small redbrick enclave, but it had been grand in its time. ‘My family has this house this 120 years,’

 

she said. ‘I laugh at all this fuss about the Garvaghy Road. There is no such place. The parish of Drumcree runs from there’ - she pointed towards town, then swung her arm round to include the other way -‘up to Seagoe church and Tartaraghan on the Armagh Road. Marley Terrace used to be up there, belonging to one of the Miss Marleys. They’re Catholics. From Cecil Robb’s big white house down is Ballyoran. A man came and took the sign down for Victoria Terrace. I said to him, "What are you doing that for?" He said, eff off. The Garvaghy Road isn’t a real address. There was never any trouble till that estate was put up.’

 

The estates, Churchill Park, Ballyoran and Woodside, were built in the sixties. Churchill Park provided new houses mainly for Catholics from the Tunnel and Obins Street areas of the town. In the seventies, widespread intimidation led to ghettoisation - Catholics from other parts of town moved to Churchill Park and Woodside and Protestants moved to Killycolmain and Brownstown. After the republican hunger strikes in 1981 residents renamed Churchill Park in Irish after the dead hungerstriker Martin Hurson - a martyr in the eyes of republicans; in the eyes of loyalists, a murderer.

 

Garvaghy Road was a sweeping avenue of tall lampposts trailing bright new tricolours. The housing estates were set back from the road, with gable walls facing out with defiant graffiti. ‘No talking, no walking’.

 

‘We took them out of a rat-infested hole down there and we put them in here and this is what we get. They got beautiful houses and this is how they repay us,’ said Emily bitterly. She shook her head. The narrow terraces off Park Road were heavily festooned with red, white and blue bunting and Union Jacks hung from the metal brackets on the housefronts. Emily’s house flew no flag. ‘There’s a Union Jack in a box upstairs somewhere,’ she said. ‘But I don’t bother with it.

 

‘The carpet factory out on the road there used to be called Castleisland factory,’ she said. I asked if her family had worked there. ‘Oh no, we never worked in any factory,’ she said, indignantly. ‘My father was a tradesman, and my sisters worked in shops. I had brothers in the armed forces and any amount of relations fought in the wars. Another sister gave blood. She gave so much blood in the wartime that she got meningitis. I’ve three brothers under the soil.’ She spoke with bitter pride. Her family had worked hard, and given their all for their country. And it had come to this. She was full of disgust. ‘What do these people want? They’ve all the pubs in the town only two, all the bookies, and they’re working as doctors and solicitors and I don’t know what else. There’s a lot of them in Wellworth’s and the post office. What more do they want? I know Protestant boys and girls have got good education and they’re working in that carpet factory. What more do the Catholics want?

 

‘My nieces and nephews wouldn’t live here. They’ve moved away to Australia.’ She proudly named the professions her family had gone into. She was annoyed about the state of the old streets around her, and blamed local landlords for letting the area go downhill. ‘There was never a Catholic till now in the houses round here. Now they are putting every Tom, Dick and Harry in. This area is not what it used to be. There are people living here who are not married and they have families.’

 

The army barrier on Park Road and the fortifications at the far end of the Garvaghy Road meant that Emily was effectively barricaded in with the nationalists. ‘I used to go to Drumcree church,’ she said. ‘If I had my way, I’d burn every one of those tricolours down. If they are nationalists, they shouldn’t be here taking our British money. Let them go to the Free State if that’s what they want. I have had every window in the house broken. On Monday and Tuesday you couldn’t get into the post office for prams and there they are, getting their children’s allowance. Oh well. I never go out, anyway. Except to go to Woolworth’s for books. I love books.’ She showed me a stack of romantic novels in her hall. The houses in the area were regularly vandalised by nationalist youths, and in the evenings elderly residents could be seen hoisting metal shutters onto windows, locking themselves into potential firetraps.

 

‘My aunt was a nurse. She was in every house in that Tunnel and every one of them had thirteen or fourteen children. It’s their offspring now who are causing all this bother. I know all about them. I could tell you more, but I won’t. I’m keeping it to myself. Gerry Adams’ - she spat out the Sinn Féin leader’s name - ‘I have to laugh at them. This was only an island with nothing on it. It was the Norwegians came here first because we are quite close to Norway. They came here. There is no such thing as an Irishman. We all intermarried years ago. If only they’d read their history books.’

 

There was a leaflet from the Orange Order on the hall table. It had been put through the letterbox that morning, said Emily. ‘There will be clear directions given shortly as to how you can meaningfully assist us,’ it read. ‘Do not listen to the propaganda or rumours. Maintain regular contact with leading members of the Orange institution.’ I asked Emily what she thought about Drumcree. ‘It’s a dreadful thing these men can’t get down from their place of worship,’ she said. ‘That’s why they are burning down these chapels.’

 

‘I REMEMBER THE ROSES...’

 

Armagh is known as the orchard county, and the apple orchards start on the edge of Portadown. Drumcree church has orchards behind it; wheat fields in front of it. Local history has it that just before the Battle of the Boyne, William, Prince of Orange, sent his cider maker, Paul le Harpur, to the town to produce cider for his army. However, the Armagh apples are ‘cookers’. A farmer told me they are not suitable for cider. Too bitter. Nineteen ninety-eight was a bad year, the farmer said. Most of the harvest was lost. Frost in May, and a cold north wind.

 

Out in the apple orchards a few miles from Portadown, Hilda Winter runs a ramshackle museum dedicated to the history of Orangeism, in this, its source and heartland. Her ancestor, Dan Winter, also known as ‘Orange Dan’, was one of those who fought at the Battle of the Diamond. The Diamond field was across the farmyard from the thatched cottage which Hilda claimed was the place where the Order was formed in 1795. A big tall woman who strode about in wellingtons, Hilda made tea and threw long branches onto the wide, cottage hearth, before sitting down to talk. She had two sons. One voted for the Belfast Agreement, the other against it.

 

‘We want to live in peace with our neighbours,’ she said. ‘I was of the belief that when we had this agreement the Roman Catholics would accept our parades and our culture. I can’t understand them, the hatred they have of the Orangemen. They would need to look into themselves to find out what has got into them to hate people. Is it a Sinn Féin push to goad the Protestant people into a civil war?

 

‘I’d like to think people would be sensible. We have a lovely country. A dead man is no good. I was just reading there about the twelve tribes of Israel. Some of them rebelled, but you have got to get together and respect one the other. I don’t see the parades as triumphalist. Lord save us, look at the reception Gerry Adams gave the murderers coming up to the referendum. That was a sword turned in everybody’s heart in the Protestant community. Now, we had to accept that and forget about it and go and vote. Surely the ones on the Garvaghy Road should forget Trimble lifting Paisley’s hand ...‘ said Hilda. In 1995 Trimble and Paisley had stepped through the centre of Portadown holding hands in triumph after a violent five-day standoff which ended with the RUC allowing the Drumcree parade to go ahead. Despite the involvement of the Mediation Network and other intermediaries, Trimble insisted there had been no negotiation. The traditional route had been ceded, that was all.

 

‘Why should the Orangemen bend the knee and beg to do something they’ve done for two hundred years?’ demanded Hilda. ‘To bend the knee’ meant to talk, negotiate, compromise. Orangemen vowed they would not do it. ‘Soon it will be that every parade that passes a Catholic house will be stopped. I heard on a programme the other night a lady from Londonderry and she actually shuddered at the idea of standing at the war memorial. Now, she had two uncles who had fought, one of them a Protestant lost an arm and the other a Catholic was killed. Yet she shuddered at the thought of standing for the Queen at the memorial. Why should she? John Hume’s uncle fought at the Somme. Some of those ones on the Garvaghy Road, their own ancestors probably fought there too. They should recognise it. That parade from Drumcree is to commemorate the Somme.’

 

The cottage was damp. Books were disintegrating on the shelves, pictures had mildew creeping under their frames, and guns and swords were rusting. Mrs Winter did her best, but said the rats had already got some of the stuff in the attic. She had found weapons in the thatch from several eras. In the corner of a tiny bedroom was a UVF helmet, a B man’s hat, while on the iron bed lay folded garments made from flour bags. A few years ago there was a grant won and lost because of a dispute in the family over which of the Winters’ cottages was the right one to restore. This was still the subject of vehement correspondence in the Orange Standard.

 

Faith was the heart of it, said Mrs Winter. Saint Patrick had brought Protestantism to pagan Ireland. Later the Bible had been published in English but not in Irish, so the Protestants had supported King William because they understood the ‘simple faith’ for which he was fighting, whereas the Gaelic-speaking Catholics did not, she said. A hundred years after the Battle of the Boyne, the Protestant faith had again come under threat. ‘Again men stood up for their simple faith,’ she said. She struck her hand against her heart. ‘Your faith. Men died for the Bible. When I was young the big family Bible stood in the parlour open. I read that the Bible gave liberty to the poor. It’s in the qualifications of an Orangeman that they read the Bible. The bibles nowadays is lying gathering dust.’

 

The ‘qualifications’ require that an Orangeman should ‘cultivate truth and justice ... obedience to the laws; his deportment must be gentle and compassionate ... he should honour and diligently study the holy scriptures ... abstain from all cursing and profane language’. He should, above all, be a Protestant ‘never in any way connected with the Church of Rome’ whose ‘fatal errors’ he should ‘strenuously oppose’, while ‘abstaining from all uncharitable words, actions or sentiments’ towards Catholics.

 

‘The first Orange parade took place in Lurgan in 1796,’ said Mrs Winter. ‘It was like a big picnic. Joyous. The Order kept men from going out and committing crime, shooting. Orangemen wouldn’t do that sort of thing. Harold Gracey said, "Remember, men, you are wearing your collars." Any trouble at Drumcree, it is outsiders. I don’t agree with Billy Wright being there. He was not an Orangeman. The Orangemen stood shoulder to shoulder to keep the roughnecks from attacking the police. Mind you, I could be saying a wrong thing to call Billy Wright rough. At our Bible study group one night there was an Orangeman and he was at Drumcree and he said that Paisley had said something that ignited the crowd and it was Billy Wright came down and calmed the roughnecks down. He had great control over the roughnecks.

 

‘Then again, I have heard people say that the loyalists only did what a lot of other Protestants hadn’t the guts to do. Murder is murder. But if anyone took Gerry Adams’s life, would any of us shed a tear? We are hypocrites, I suppose. The Unionist Party should be more like the Orange, and go forward with one spake. Look at the way the RCs can all back each other. What does it say in the Bible? If you are not for me, you are against me.’ Mrs Winter’s talk ranged across the centuries, as if she had been at the joyous picnic in 1796, as well as at the Bible study group with the man who watched Billy Wright in 1996. ‘Roughneck’ seemed a good word for the crowds at Drumcree.

 

She said the Order had helped put down the 1798 rebellion and that in 1914 Orangemen had fought for their country. ‘It was never against your Roman Catholic neighbour. This terrible hatred has only come from 1969 when this trouble started. Before that, it was great.

 

‘I remember after the war all the schoolchildren got flowers to celebrate and we went out and sat in the fields where the Garvaghy Road is now. Another thing about those houses, there was a lot of houses in the town, two-up, two-down and an outside toilet. A builder campaigned to get good houses built. He encouraged the council to buy the land off Sam McGredy, the rose man, who had his rose gardens there. The builder built a house for himself there too. He was tied to his chair and burnt. Now. That is what the downtrodden minority did to him when they got their houses.’ The builder Mrs Winter was referring to was the late Alderman William Wright, who had been a UUP mayor of Portadown and chairman of the Borough Council. He had campaigned to get the estates built and had built two big houses for his family at the same time. He and his family had survived the fire. Mrs Winter shook her head with disgust. ‘That was the thanks he got,’ she said. ‘It is all Catholics there now. But however.’ She sighed. ‘I remember the roses.’

 

‘A PROBLEM WHICH DID NOT REALLY EXIST’

 

Portadown loyalists were fond of remembering the roses. There was ‘never any trouble’ about parades until Breandán Mac Cionnaith turned up. Their conviction that Sinn Féin was behind the strategy of opposing parades was confirmed when Radio Telefis Eireann (RTÉ) revealed that Gerry Adams, speaking at a private Sinn Féin meeting in 1995, had commended the work of Sinn Féin activists in residents’ groups. Certainly, Mac Cionnaith’s background could hardly have been more provocative. He had been jailed for his part in blowing up the British Legion hall in Portadown.

 

However, the history of Orange parades in Portadown has been anything but peaceful. The town was planted with British settlers by James I in 1610. During the 1641 rising, local chieftain Manus Roe O’Cahan drove eighty Protestants - men, women and children - into the River Bann, ‘and there instantly and most barbarously drowned the most of them. And those that could not swim and came to the shore they knocked on the head, and so after drowned them, or else shot them to death in the water’ (quoted in Bardon, p. 138). In 1646 the town was burned by the Irish. In 1657 it was occupied by Cromwell.

 

In 1741 the canal was opened, and Portadown became a prosperous linen centre. Among the peasants and weavers of County Armagh, sectarian violence was rife, with Protestant Peep o’ Day boys clashing with Catholic Defenders, in part over competition for land to rent, and for work. The Protestants were better armed. Catholics were not allowed guns, under the remnants of the Penal Laws, and some records show Protestant gentry lending arms to Catholics to protect them from ‘these fanatick madmen’, described by Lord Gosford as ‘a low set of fellows’.

 

The gentry smelt rebellion. The constabulary was ‘a jest rather than a terror to evil doers,’ wrote Colonel William Blacker of the situation prevailing in Portadown in 1795 (quoted in the Portadown Times, 18 July 1969). Blacker, a local squire, set about remedying this ‘dastardly state of affairs’, helping ‘our side’ to make bullets from the lead on the roof of his house. He relied upon the Bleary Boys, who were, by his own account, ‘stout Protestants of a character somewhat lawless’. In the crucial matter of loyalty, however, they could not be outdone.

 

The Battle of the Boyne was first commemorated at Drumcree in 1795, when a Reverend Devine of the Established Church preached what seems to have been a strong sermon, after which his congregation ‘gave full scope to the antipapistical zeal with which he had inspired them, falling upon every Catholic they met, beating and bruising them without provocation or distinction, breaking the doors and windows of their houses and actually murdering two Catholics in a bog’ (Francis Plowden, quoted in 200 Years in the Orange Citadel, p. 4).

 

Blacker witnessed the Battle of the Diamond, and he was one of the first of the gentry to join the new Orange Order. ‘A determination was expressed of driving from this quarter of the county the entire of its Roman Catholic population ... A written notice was thrown into or posted upon the door of a house warning the inmates, in the words of Oliver Cromwell, to betake themselves "to hell or to Connaught",’ he wrote (Bardon, p. 226). Potential informers about the activities of the Orangemen were warned to desist. Otherwise, to quote one threatening letter from the time, ‘I will blow your soul to the Low hils of hell And Burn the House you are in’ (Bardon, p. 226). Bardon notes that looms and webs were destroyed along with houses, reducing competition during a slump in the linen industry, and driving seven thousand Catholics out of County Armagh in a two-month period.

 

Lord Gosford, who declared himself ‘as true a Protestant as any in this room’, berated local magistrates for failing to uphold the law by dealing with the ‘lawless banditi’, as he dubbed the Orangemen, who were persecuting those whose only crime was to be Catholic. When the yeomanry were formed in 1796 to put down the United Irish movement, Orangemen from the Portadown area were among the first to join. Historian A.T.Q. Stewart has noted that United Irish societies ‘did not flourish in areas where Protestants had been massacred in 1641’.

 

There was also the ambivalent relationship between the gentry and the likes of the Bleary Boys. David Jones, the Portadown spokesman for the Orange Order, is one of the authors of a commemorative history of Orangeism in the area. He wrote that the Order depended on the support of the gentry, which had education and expertise, and, crucially, ‘considerable influence ... with the authorities’ and ‘considerable power to influence and encourage the tenants on their estates to follow in their footsteps and join the Order’ (Jones, et al, p. 3).

 

Irish Patriot leader Henry Grattan took a less benign view, deploring the fact that clergy were also part of this alliance. In the House of Commons in 1805 he referred to those who stirred up panic, so that ‘then walk forth the men of blood’, leading to ‘atrocities which he dare not commit in his own name’ (200 Years in the Orange Citadel, p. 7). Throughout the nineteenth century, attempts to ban the Orange Order were defied in Portadown. In answer to a request to make local Orangemen obey the law, Colonel Blacker replied: ‘It was a law made by the Whigs and they had made many laws as well as it, which ought not to be obeyed’ (quoted in Wright, 1996, p. 55).

 

In 1832 Orangemen defied the new Party Processions Act by marching along ‘the Walk’ (now the Garvaghy Road) to Drumcree. A parliamentary select committee of 1835 found that ‘the obvious tendency and effect of the Orange society is ... exciting one portion of the people against another ... to excite to breaches of the peace and bloodshed’ (200 Years in the Orange Citadel, p. 19).

 

Armagh magistrate William Hancock, a Protestant, told the committee that, ‘For some time past the peaceable inhabitants of the parish of Drumcree have been insulted and outraged by large bodies of Orangemen parading the highways, playing party tunes, firing shots and using the most opprobrious epithets they could invent.’ He added that the Orangemen had gone ‘a considerable distance out of their way to pass a Catholic chapel on their march to Drumcree church (200 Years in the Orange Citadel, p. 17).

 

A further Royal Commission after riots in Belfast in 1857 found that the ‘Orange system’ and its celebrations led to ‘violence, outrage, religious animosities, hatred between the classes and too often bloodshed and loss of life’ (200 Years in the Orange Citadel, p. 21). Jones and his co-authors took these findings in their stride, claiming that ‘nothing, of course, could have been further from the truth. The Orangemen were not out to provoke anyone, but rather to enjoy and celebrate their distinctive culture and heritage. Roman Catholics had often attended these parades and had not been offended by them. It was once again a heavy handed approach to a problem which did not really exist’ (Jones, et al, p. 21).

 

In 1863 the vehement Orange MP Sir William Verner was decrying the failure of ‘our so-called liberal rulers’ to ‘attach the popish faction to the throne or make them respect the law. The times are too perilous and the conspiracy too active for us to remain silent for, as our would be Parliamentary leaders say, "the sake of peace".’ He warned that ‘unless Protestants remain in an attitude of watchfulness, many Diamonds will have to be fought ere treason is trampled out of the land and they are permitted to enjoy the freedom and protection a Protestant paternal government should secure to them’ (quoted in the Ulster Gazette and Armagh Standard, 7 August 1942).

 

In 1873 Orangemen marched through the Tunnel. According to an account in the Portadown News, when they were en route they hoped ‘that the inhabitants of this unenviably notorious locality would manifest for once a forbearance peculiarly foreign to their training and inculcations’. However, they were attacked in a most ‘dastardly and despicably sneakish’ way. Crockery and stones were thrown ‘with a violence ... perfectly compatible with the skulking poltroonery that dictated such a plan for waylaying a number of peaceable men whose only crime was that they were Protestants and loyal subjects’ (Jones, et al, p. 24). When, later that year, the police cordoned off the Tunnel to prevent an Orange parade passing that way, an ‘indignation meeting’ was called at the town hall. The ‘sacred right’ to march was proclaimed, and Portadown was described as ‘a Protestant town’. The Portadown News declared that it was a ‘simple struggle for freedom’. The local Orange gentry opposed the banning of parades, claiming it diminished its ability to exercise ‘wholesome’ influence.

 

In 1881 Michael Davitt told a Land League meeting at Loughgall, County Armagh, that the landlords of Ireland ‘are all of one religion -their god is mammon and rack-rents, and evictions their only morality, while the toilers in the fields, whether Orangemen, Catholics, Presbyterians or Methodists, are the victims’ (quoted in For God and Ulster, p. 21). The Grand Lodge moved quickly, denouncing the league as a conspiracy against property rights, Protestantism, civil and religious liberty and the British constitution.

 

Portadown Orangemen traditionally drape a sash over the statue of Colonel Edward Saunderson in Portadown’s town centre every Twelfth of July. Saunderson was the Unionist MP for North Armagh during the home rule crises. During a Westminster debate of the 1893 bill, he stated that ‘Home Rule may pass this house, but it will never pass the bridge at Portadown’ (Jones, et al, p. 30).

 

Colonel Stewart Blacker, a descendant of the Orange founder, was given responsibility for raising the illegal anti-home rule Ulster Volunteer Force in 1912. Mrs Winter showed me a photograph of her husband’s father, Robert Winter, in the ranks of the UVF in front of Ardress House in County Armagh, presided over by Captain Charles Ensor, the landlord. Ensor would subsequently lead his force, many of them local Orangemen, to the Battle of the Somme, where he was injured and four hundred Portadown men were killed. Jones recorded that many of the Orangemen went ‘over the top’ with their sashes on.

 

The current editor of the Portadown Times, David Armstrong, showed me a framed scroll in his office, listing the ‘names of the fallen’ in the First World War. ‘That is a great commentary on Portadown,’ he said. He pointed to names which were obviously Catholic. ‘Look, Trooper Thomas Lavelle from Obins Street - the poppy wasn’t a political symbol to him, or to Private Patrick McVeigh of the Tunnel or Private Francis McCann. In 1914 these people paraded down to the railway station in Portadown never to be seen again. But Catholics wouldn’t be seen now at the war memorial.’

 

Mrs Winter had letters about the distribution of guns to UVF men, and a framed letter from the Unionist prime minister, James Craig, about the Special Constabulary. Craig recorded his appreciation of ‘the splendid bearing and discipline’ of the men, and praised ‘the loyal spirit animating the ranks’. The government of Northern Ireland, he wrote, ‘thoroughly understands its indebtedness to the constabulary forces’.

 

I drove out to Ardress one day, wondering if they would have other photographs. The big farmhouse, aggrandised in 1760 by the addition of a façade and fine interior plasterwork, is run by the National Trust. No sign of Captain Ensor with the UVF, nor for that matter of the B Specials, even though he was known as ‘the father of the force’. I asked the administrator. He said he’d have a look in the attic. There they were, in their dusty frames. He got them down. Captain Ensor with the troops. The administrator said the trust felt it best not to display them. They might cause trouble.

 

In Belfast, I called to see Ethel Ensor, a descendant by marriage of the captain. She opened up a wooden chest full of old pictures and papers from Ardess. The family had continued to work for the security forces. Mrs Ensor’s late husband had been in the B Specials and the army, and her daughter was in the UDR. Mrs Ensor gave me tea with a plate of her home-made shortbread, gingerbread and cakes. When she saw me writing down the words of a song entitled ‘The Fenians’ Defeat at Loughgall, August 1873’, she said, ‘Isn’t that rather provocative?’

 

According to Jones, after partition, Portadown Orangemen rescued Protestants from south of the border, ‘victims of ethnic cleansing... whose only crime had been loyalty to the Crown and the Protestant religion’ (Jones, et al, p. 34). Sir John Lavery painted the Twelfth in the town in 1928, noting ‘the austere passion’ of the occasion. He remarked upon the drummers, ‘whose lives seemed to depend on the noise they were able to make ... their wrists bleeding and a look in the eye that boded ill for any interference’. The Victorian novelist Thackeray had, on his travels, noted a similarly defiant look in the eyes of the men of these parts.

 

All the MPs who set up what was to become the Ulster Unionist Party were Orangemen, and the Order became ‘a central organisational link in the unionist political machine’. All of the North’s prime ministers were Orangemen. It was Lord Graigavon who stated in 1934, ‘I am an Orangeman first and a politician and member of this parliament afterwards’ (Bardon, p. 539).

 

Jones described the years after the Second World War as the golden age of Orangeism in Portadown. The Order was regarded as ‘noble and honourable’ and to be a member ‘elevated a man in sight of his peers’ (Jones, et al, p. 42). In the late sixties the Unionist Party was attempting to join Lurgan and Portadown into a new city, named Craigavon by William Craig after the North’s first prime minister. It would be a predominantly Protestant city in the predominantly Protestant east. The then minister of development, Brian Faulkner, opened Craigavon’s first private housing development. ‘I would like to take this opportunity of dispelling the gloom of the "Dismal Johnnies" who have recently denied progress with the new city,’ he said. ‘We have put our hand to the plough and there is no question of our turning back’ (quoted in the Portadown Times, 11 July 1969). Twenty-five years later, whole estates in the failed city were being demolished. Craigavon did not prosper.

 

The so-called ‘Portadown parliament’ of twelve Unionist met in February 1969 and called on Prime Minister Terence O’Neill to resign. In the subsequent general election, Paisley came within a thousand votes of taking O’Neill’s seat.

 

In July 1969 the cinema in Banbridge was showing Kirk Douglas in The Brotherhood, while Lurgan had Carroll Baker in Custer of the West and Portadown had Dean Martin in Rough Night in Jericho and Marlon Brando in One Eyed Jacks. At Drumcree church the Reverend Dermot Griffith told the Orangemen that it was a time of great danger and that they should remember Colonel Blacker’s injunction to uphold Protestantism but to be ‘charitable to Roman Catholics’. He said many Catholics were horrified by the ‘communism of Bernadette Devlin’ but that Protestants needed to present a more attractive image to encourage them to support the state. The North’s battles were now being filmed for television, and speeches from the period refer to ‘the eyes of the world’. There was an awareness that what was being seen was ugly.

 

There has been sporadic trouble over marches in Portadown throughout the Troubles. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, in 1985, Jones claimed that since Orangeism represented the antithesis of republicanism, Portadown was chosen by the British to face down unionist opposition to ‘the diktat’. During the fierce riots that followed the decision to reroute a parade away from the Tunnel, a DUP spokesperson said, ‘loyalists should not feel ashamed of confronting policemen who bowed to the demands of Dublin’ (quoted in Jones, et al, p. 50). Enthusiastic Orangemen in full regalia overturned a police Land Rover, an incident discreetly explained by Jones. ‘The unfortunate incident of the overturned landrover occurred because in the midst of what was a highly volatile situation a policeman had stepped over the parameters of his professionalism by seeking to taunt Orangemen by use of a physically obscene gesture’ (Jones, et al, p. 53).

 

It was at this time that the idea of Portadown as the Orange mecca, the place where Protestantism in Northern Ireland would make its last stand, really began to flourish. In 1986, during rioting, the RUC fired plastic bullets and killed twenty-year-old Keith White, the first Protestant to be so killed. Loyalists attacked the homes of policemen and women, and borrowed slogans from republicans for their anti-RUC graffiti, including, ‘Join the RUC and come home to a real fire.’

 

Despite Orange claims in the nineties that Opposition to the parades down the Garvaghy Road had been whipped up by the IRA, it was SDLP leader John Hume who in 1986 objected to the rerouting of parades from Obins Street and the Tunnel down the road. He said it represented capitulation by the authorities to Orange bullying, since the Garvaghy Road was predominantly Catholic. The reroutings went ahead, setting the stage for the first ‘siege at Drumcree’ in 1995. ‘We will die if necessary rather than surrender,’ boomed Paisley with his usual afflatus. ‘If we don’t win this battle, all is lost. It is a matter of Ulster or Irish Republic. It is a matter of freedom or slavery.’ Trimble’s staunch performance that year reasserted his radical roots in the hardline Vanguard movement, and played a big part in his winning of the UUP leadership.

 

In 1996 Billy Wright’s gang, defying orders from the UVF leadership in Belfast to keep away from Drumcree, murdered Michael McGoldrick at Aghalee (see p. 4). They also managed to bring a muck-spreader full of petrol, an armour-plated digger and other home-made weaponry to the church - unhindered, it seemed, by the loyal Orders. Spokesmen for the Order continued to speak of dignified and peaceful protest.

 

Wright was frequently to be seen at Drumcree with Portadown’s Orange district grand master, Harold Gracey. Ruth Dudley Edwards’s sentimental and blinkered account of the Order, The Faithful Tribe, has its revealing moments. She quotes an Orange friend who told her bitterly, ‘Billy Wright has filled the vacuum that is Harold’s head’ (Edwards, p. 343).

 

British journalist Peter Taylor noted that Trimble and Wnght had a meeting during this crisis (Taylor, 1999, p. 240). Trimble said his aim was to try to stop Wright - but in an interview with the Sunday Tribune on 28 July 1996, he said he had told the secretary of state what the paramilitary leader was threatening. Trimble remarked that it was shortly after this that the banned parade was pushed through the Garvaghy Road. The parade was again pushed through m 1997. The chief constable, Ronnie Flanagan, said he believed that, otherwise, loyalists would kill Catholics. They did so anyway. Before the month was out Bernadette Martin and James Morgan were dead. When it came to matters of life and death at Drumcree, death seemed to be dealt to Catholics.

 

Orange historians claim that Portadown has ‘almost a sacred status’ for loyalists. The Order has made a series of videos about Drumcree.

 

On one of them, Gracey described the siege at Drumcree as the siege of Ulster. ‘For twenty-seven years the bomb and the bullet have tried to destroy us, but now the tactics have changed. It is about the right of our community to exist.’ He said the Order would not yield to the Irish government or to Jesuit priests. The Church of Ireland rector at Drumcree, the Reverend John Pickering, spoke of ‘a great sense of God’s presence’ among the Orangemen there.

 

The Order refused to meet the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition. ‘As a matter of principle, we cannot be involved in talks with convicted terrorists because of what they have inflicted on our community,’ wrote County Grand Master Denis Watson and County Grand Chaplain William Bingham in an open letter of 1997. If the ‘community’ was taken to mean the whole population of Northern Ireland, there was a breathtaking hypocrisy about this position, for the Order, while it condemned violence, appeared quite comfortable with loyalist killers like Wright. Jones approvingly quoted the mid-Ulster UVF analysis of Drumcree in his book. Orange leaders were to be seen in close conversation with Pastor Kenny McClinton, who had murdered twice for the UDA, during rallies.

 

Sometimes, Orange leaders and Unionist politicians have said that they can talk to former loyalist paramilitaries because of the expression of ‘abject and true remorse’ in the loyalist ceasefire statement of 1994. However, Wright had rejected the ceasefire. Norman Coopey, one of those who brutally murdered young James Morgan in the poisonous summer of 1997, was a member of the Order, and no action has apparently been taken against him by the Order. The issue was highlighted in a cartoon by Ian Knox in the Irish News on 10 July 1998. One Orangeman says to another, ‘There’s no comparison between McClinton and Mac Cionnaith!’ The other responds, ‘You mean Mac Cionnaith never repented?’ ‘No,’ says the first. ‘He never murdered anyone.'

 

It was Gusty Spence who delivered the loyalist ceasefire statement in 1994. Back in 1967, after Spence had carried out one of the first sectarian murders in the recent Troubles and was in Crumlin Road jail, the Orange lodge to which he belonged stopped the Twelfth of July parade outside the prison in tribute to him. Spence was also in the Black preceptory and the Apprentice Boys. There are lodges in Belfast which commemorate on their banners members of the Shankill Butchers. But the Order’s position is not hypocritical. It is brazenly consistent with its sectarianism. An exclusively Protestant organisation, it is solely interested in what has been inflicted on the community it regards as its own. Catholics are not part of that community.

 

‘ORDINARY RESPECTABLE PEOPLE’

 

Respectability was the key to Orangeism, according to Malcolm, a tall, amiable-looking businessman. ‘Respectable means law abiding, not wanting to be in dispute with your neighbour,’ he said. I met him before the 1998 parade, and he had invited me to his home to talk. He lived in a fine big house surrounded by well-kept gardens. He was sorry he couldn’t offer any hospitality, his wife was away. His father was in the Order, and his father before him. He was also in the Masons and was an active member of the Methodist Church, which was once the predominant Church in Portadown. The family had a tradition of involvement in the UUP.

 

Malcolm described himself as ‘an ordinary, decent - dare I say it? -middle-class, respectable person’. He expressed mixed feelings about Drumcree. ‘I don’t even know if I’ll go to the service this year. Indeed, I’ll likely just go and play golf,’ he said. He glanced at up at a framed photograph on the wall. It showed an aerial view of a bungalow in a mountainy place, overlooking a beach. ‘We won’t stick around. We’ll probably head for Donegal.’

 

However, he supported the right to march. ‘It is said, "Why doesn’t the Order take the high moral ground?" It did so last year and what did they get in reciprocation? Look at who they send to speak to us, a convicted terrorist who carried out an atrocity.’ He was referring to the Order’s decision in 1996 to relinquish its demand to parade in Belfast and Derry on 12 July. Malcolm continued: ‘They still hark on about 1995 and the "triumphalism" of Paisley and Trimble. In reality, it was at the end of the parade and everyone was just so relieved. The Ulster people don’t like fighting. They like to work hard. These two men just wanted to get together and say thanks.’

 

I asked him about the role of paramilitary leader Billy Wright and his cohorts at Drumcree. He shook his head. ‘Terrible people. Of course, you can say nothing about them. You’d be afraid.’ He whispered one last word: ‘Vicious.’ For the same reason he did not want his real name used, or details of his family history. Here it was again, the refusal by middle-class Protestants to express moderate views, and the claim that it was the cause of fear as to how Protestant extremists might repay their treachery.

 

They had other fears. Malcolm said he felt he could speak for the silent majority. ‘This is their great fear, the erosion of assets they and their ancestors have worked hard for. They have paid their taxes. Lawbreakers should have been dealt with in a manner which wouldn’t have festered in the way it has. They could have nipped it in the bud.’ How? I asked. ‘I can’t answer that,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t in the security forces.’ This was one of the most widely held opinions among the Protestants. That there was a rising in 1968, a rising in a tradition of risings, and that the armed forces should have put it down, and defeated the enemy, once and for all.

 

‘The majority of Portadown Protestant people are similar to Protestant people all over Ulster. They want to live quietly in a respectable - dare I say? - Christian, no, they want to live as respectable citizens. They are aware that they are British and they want to keep it that way. We could turn the other cheek and we have done so many times.’ He characterised the Protestants as ‘hardworking people in jobs with their wives out working too. And young people starting on the ladder. Ordinary, respectable people.’ Malcolm supported David Trimble and had voted for the Belfast Agreement. ‘He is the leader of unionism and at least he is having a go. But there are things we don’t like in the agreement and we need the genuine hand of friendship from the other side, not this intransigence.

 

‘In this town, it is the Garvaghy Road that is the problem, not Drumcree. With regard to Portadown, people got on well and to some degree still do. People will tell you about times not long ago when they could walk freely down the Garvaghy Road. Portadown Rugby Club used to play behind Woodside Hill. It used to be a favourite walk on a Sunday afternoon. Sam McGredy’s rose gardens were along there. It is foreign and upsetting now.’ The roses again. ‘Both sides do enjoy different privileges within the town. Life goes on. People commute along the Garvaghy Road, and the Brownstown Road, which would be loyalist. There are Catholic churches in the town and there is no problem. Unfortunately, we had that awful incident with the young fellow Hamill ...'

 

In April 1997 Robert Hamill and friends were walking home from a club when they were set upon by youths. Robert Hamill was kicked in the head while his attackers shouted, ‘Die, fenian, die.’ He later died of his injuries. An RUC Land Rover was parked at the top of the street. Hamill’s friends said that the police inside it sat and watched the attack. The RUC issued conflicting press statements about the incident, claiming they had done what they could. I asked Malcolm what he thought had happened on the night of Robert Hamill’s murder: ‘I don’t know. I was in bed asleep,’ he replied.

 

‘Business is enjoyed by people from both communities,’ he went on. ‘There are professional people from the Reformed faith and the Roman Catholic faith in business and professional life in this town. There are good Roman Catholic people who enjoy good relations with Protestants. The Drumcree business hasn’t been good for Portadown. Both communities want it over so they can get on with business.’ He added that the anger and resentment felt about the bombing of the town by republicans in February 1998 was exacerbated because of delays in the payment of compensation. The town centre was badly damaged in the blast. The bomb was one of a number which were placed in predominantly Protestant towns by the breakaway Continuity IRA.

 

‘Protestant people feel a lot has been conceded to the Roman Catholics. The Fair Employment Commission has come in and virtually dictated who you employ. With regard to parades, eight or nine have already been conceded. The new administration is a concession of Unionist rule. Protestant people feel alienated. They have nothing left to give.’ This sentiment, that Protestants had passively responded to nationalist aggression by conceding and giving until they could give no more, was ubiquitous. Young middle-class Protestants were leaving Northern Ireland and not coming back, Malcolm said. His own children included.

 

'GIVE THEM GRACE'

 

The night before the 1998 Drumcree parade the Orange Order held a press conference at its hall in Carleton Street. Reporters were made to queue up for special press passes. ‘It’s for to make sure you can get access,’ said press officer David Jones. There were mutterings in the press pack as to why National Union of Journalists (NUJ) passes would not suffice. But we queued none the less, knowing that the argument that NUJ cards were recognised by British, Irish and international authorities would cut no ice with an Orangeman who had a mind to block your way. By the time I got to the desk they had run out. ‘Sorry dear.’

 

The Order is uncomfortable with journalists, its wariness tipping readily into hostility. In 1997 it decided this attitude was adversely affecting its image, and called a special press conference at Craigavon’s smart civic centre. Behind the platform, the Orangemen had propped up a banner showing the massacre of Protestants in the Bann at Portadown in 1641. The Order had laid on a buffet, a fine traditional spread such as might be enjoyed in Orange halls and marquees across the North on the Twelfth. There was something sorrowful about the way the gesture was made. As if the journalists were bad and ungrateful children being indulged by a pained but generous parent. But the women who served were smiling and gracious, proud of the spread, and the reporters and photographers cheerfully scoffed salad and lemon meringue pie and cakes with the ordinary opportunism of people caught in a place where decent food is hard to come by.

 

Now, a year later, we had been invited into the gloom of the Orange hall itself, with its portraits of the Queen and King Billy, and its ‘No segregation’ posters. The poster design was modelled on a road sign, showing a little Orange family with a bar through them. Mindful of the comparisons which were made between northern Protestants and the South African Boers, the Order had appropriated the anti-apartheid stance.

 

Jones, a small dark man in a suit, was a civil servant as well as the Order’s press officer. His father had been the caretaker of the hall so he had lived, as a child, in a fiat in its basement. He had sorrowful eyes, a lugubrious air, and a singsong voice. He told us that a statement would be read, and there were to be no questions. Denis Watson, sleek and prosperous-looking - an insurance executive before he became a politician - spoke of outrage, discredited quangos, iniquitous decisions, cultural apartheid and terrorist-controlled residents’ groups. Then Orange chaplain the Reverend William Bingham, his voice taut and strange, said, ‘Every year we hit a brick wall. Every year we hit Brendan McKenna.’ He said Mac Cionnaith had got everything he wanted and was holding Bingham’s community to ransom. The Order has persistently refused to accept that Mac Cionnaith, a local councillor since 1997, is the elected representative for his area, and has insisted that it has a right to demand that the nationalist community come up with a negotiator more acceptable to loyalists. Bingham concluded with an appeal to Orangemen ‘to act with dignity in a peaceful manner’ and to ‘follow the biblical prerogative - conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ’. We were left to the silence of ‘no questions allowed’. Above us the Saturday night dance was on, and ‘The Sash’ was being played roisterously on the accordion. It seemed people were dancing to it, stamping their feet on the floor.

 

On the Sunday the Orangemen massed on the hill, and surveyed the fortifications which had been erected to enforce the Parades Commission ruling. The road at the foot of the hill below the church was blocked by a double layer of concrete and steel, and there were barricades of barbed wire and double trenches stretching along the graveyard and across the fields. John was highly excited. I heard him say to a companion, ‘McKenna will get it. No doubt about it.’ The friend agreed. ‘Catholics won’t get into the town,’ he said. ‘They’ll be ambushed.’ Malcolm was at the church in his sash. He smiled a slight, nervous smile in my direction, as if abashed to be seen there, after saying he mightn’t bother.

 

They went to church, and then they paraded down the short hill to the barrier, where they stopped, rigid with indignation, chins up, shoulders back, chests puffed out almost to touch the barbed wire. The peculiarly distinctive stance known as ‘dignified’. Bending over backwards, but with no question of any bending of the knee. A commemorative video of Drumcree 1996 shows David Trimble in the stance, on the front line, his face inches from that of an RUC man blocking his way. In 1998 photographers scrambled under the coils of wire. Harold Gracey called forth an officer of the RUC to take from him a letter of protest. Nobody appeared from the fortifications. The Orangemen turned, and marched back up the hill again.

 

From the platform at the top of the hill, Imperial Grand Master Robert Saulters recounted how he’d been approached by a man who said he was meant to be flying out of Northern Ireland that night, but that if the Order wanted to close the airport, he didn’t mind. ‘I’ll abide by whatever you say,’ the man had said. Denis Watson described the scene as reminiscent of a war. ‘It reminds me of the Battle of the Somme,’ he said, ‘when many of our brethren died so that we could live in neighbourliness.’ Harold Gracey appealed for unity. ‘We are all one family,’ he said. ‘The only way we’ll win is by standing together.’ He assured the brethren that he knew for a fact that it was not the Portadown police who had decided there should be no one at the barrier to take a letter from the Order. The implication being that the Portadown police were loyal. Outsiders were to blame. The burger-and-chip vans started to roll in.

 

That night Paisley addressed a rally in the field below Hilda Winter’s cottage, the scene of the Battle of the Diamond. The field was surrounded by apple orchards. Paisley was the Big Man. Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church, leader of the DUP, and MEP, for whom Drumcree was a matter of life or death. Men in Sunday clothes drove their wives and children in big cars and jeeps into the field. They parked in lines, facing the trailer which was to be the platform, rolled down their windows and waited.

 

The trailer was hung with an Ulster flag and a Union Jack. Beside it stood a tall, oldish man wearing a grey stetson, a suit and a fluorescent vest with ‘Jesus Saves’ printed on it in big letters. ‘Hallelujah, praise the Lord,’ he began to call, offering tracts to the few souls who had ventured out of their cars. A group of men walked slowly past me. ‘Keep a cool head, Andy,’ said one. ‘Aye, or I’ll end up back where I started,’ Andy replied, smiling. Something was said about the UDA. ‘I can’t see them shooting at Drumcree,’ said one of the men. ‘They say the Scottish general said he wouldn’t fire on British citizens,’ said Andy. Someone mentioned civil war.

 

I recognised Andy, Andy Smith. I had interviewed him in Maghaberry prison in 1997. He was a former British soldier who had, while serving in the UDR, passed classified security information to the UFF, which murdered Loughlin Maginn at his home in County Down in 1989. The UFF claimed that the material Smith provided showed that Maginn was an IRA officer. His family denied this. Smith was convicted in 1992, became a born-again Christian in jail, and was released in 1997. He said he had left his past behind him. Hypocrisy about loyalist violence angered him. He told me that when he was out on parole, he had been approached by several RUC and RIR men who congratulated him on his crime. ‘At least you were able to do something for Ulster,’ they had said.

 

Smith was now a member of the Free Presbyterian Church. He invited me to join him on the field. The Reverend John Gray of Loughgall was on the platform. Smith said he knew him because he visited the prison. The Reverend Kenneth Elliott praised God for the ‘religious liberty which we still enjoy’, and prayed ‘the men m

There is no better description of Campbell Newman's LNP government in Queensland than the words of Jesus Christ as he described the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 23.

 

Matthew 23:13-35

13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation, 15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. 16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.’ 17 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 18 And, ‘Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.’ 19 Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? 20 Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. 21 He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwellsin it. 22 And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it. 23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.] 26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30 and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’31 “Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

 

Corona blue without exhaust stripes here one

real documentation, clean air without aircraft emissions, which were hypocritically called "contrails", one exposed

Environmental lie!

Corona-Blau ohne Abgasstreifen hier eine

echte Dokumentation , saubere Luft ohne Flugzeug-Abgase, die man scheinheilig "Kondensstreifen" nannte , eine entlarvte

Umweltlüge !

Bleu Corona sans bandes d'échappement ici un

véritable documentation, air pur sans émissions d'avions, qu'on appelait hypocritement « traînées de condensation », un exposé

Mensonge environnemental !

Corona blauw zonder uitlaatstrepen hier eentje

echte documentatie, schone lucht zonder vliegtuigemissies, die hypocriet "contrails" werden genoemd, een blootgesteld

Milieu leugen!

I think in Simon's list of 50 best Suffolk churches, Woolpit comes in at number 31. It is now that I remember that I cannot remember why I should go to Woolpit on what would be the last of the EA church visits this year, as Mum was home and in the care of the district nurse, and there was nothing else we could do, not in actions, money or time given. She really has to stand on her own two feet now.

 

Anyway; Woolpit.

 

I decided to go, and after looking on the map I saw that with some create route planning, I could go down the 143, then double back and join the A14 eastwards before turning south down our old friend, the A12.

 

On the way I did also visit Stowlangtoft, which was a wonderful church, a church filled with wonderful things that seemed to hang together as a whole. Woolpit would have to be something special to trup St George.

 

And it nearly did. Nearly. Woolpit is a picture perfect village, all timber framed buildings, narrow lanes and impossible to park in. I drove through it finding a kind of space just past the church. I could see from the tower and building it was a church on which the Victorians had been very busy.

 

Most glorious is Mary's roof; double hammerbeam adorned with 208 angels one of the wardens told me. It had been counted several times during a dull sermon. Or two.

 

The wardens were building the crib for Christmas, so were using a pallet as a base, or something like that. I didn't see it finished, but Ken Bruce was booming out from a radio, preaching the Gospel According to Popmaster to all who would listen.

 

The angels in the roof and on the walls of the church are indeed impressive, as is the rood screen, but not sure if they are original. There are carved pew ends aplenty, but to my eye, not as well carved or as old as at Stowlangtoft. I could be wrong. But I snap a few anyway.

 

But I received a warm welcome here, and it is a fantastic church for me.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

2008: Woolpit is a village which I often visit, and it is always a pleasure to go into the church. But the entry for St Mary was one of the last on the original Suffolk Churches site, making its appearance in late 2001. In fact, I think it was the last of the old-style entries. I was getting a bit wordy by then.

Woolpit was one of the longest entries, and this wasn't just because there is so much to see. I went off at a great tangent about the meaning of medieval iconography, and how it survived the Reformation. It certainly got some thoughts clear in my own head, even if it confused other people. I actually wrote the entry in the back of an old exercise book sitting outside a café on the Cote d'Azur in southern France. Reading that back, it seems a little pretentious, but I really was there. Here in Ipswich on a frosty February evening, I can't help remembering the heat as I scrawled in the pad.

 

I've left the original entry almost entirely as it was, apart from the removal of one absolute howler, which I won't mention. I am not sure if Woolpit still has a Sunday market, and I am sure that someone will tell me if it has not. Paul Hocking is no longer Rector of Woolpit, but to my eyes the church continues to go from strength to strength, feeling at once busy and at the heart of its community, the still centre of a busy village. I like it very much.

 

2001: The clear blue waters of the Mediterranean swirl around my legs, then past me, buffeting the rocks along the silver beach. Millions of tiny flecks of mica swarm through the current, washed out of the hills of Southern Provence. They shine for a fraction of a second with all the light the high summer sun can give, a universe caught in a moment; then turn, disappearing, making of the water a shimmering skein, an ancient memory.

 

The sea is at the start of all European civilisation. Here, history wells about me. I think of Europe, and the fragmentation of nations. I think of the Balkans, and the Reformation, and the same water surrounding, tending, isolating. I think of time passing.

 

A week before, I'd been standing in the cool nave of the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, Woolpit - or at least, that is what it probably was once, back then. Today, it is dedicated simply as 'St Mary', in common with the majority of Suffolk's medieval churches, among which it is one of the finest, some say. This is mostly by virtue of its beautiful porch, and extraordinary angel roof.

 

But is that true? For there are those who love this church that, perhaps, never look up at the porch or roof. Is it the plethora of 15th century bench ends that captures the imagination? Or could it be Richard Phipson's outrageous 1850s tower and lacy spire, straight out of the Nene Valley, its evangelistic slogans around the side in a Victorian equivalent of Piccadilly Circus neon? It ought not to work, and yet it does. Or is it that supremely articulate view to the east, perfect of proportion despite the stripping away of its medieval liturgical apparatus? Above all else, and above most others, this is a church with presence.

 

It was the bench ends that I was thinking of as I immersed myself out of the intensity of the Provencal sun. A number of questions occured to me, as they have done on other occasions, in other churches. Who made them? What did they mean by them? And how did they survive the iconoclasms of the Protestant Reformation? Here in Southern Europe, I thought I might have found some answers.

 

Woolpit, then. It is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not sleepy, and chocolate boxy, but to actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed a loaf of bread, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey and Tuddenham. And Woolpit has its Sunday market, beloved of hundreds of non-sabbatarian junk-hunters each week.

 

Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once lived in the pits here...

 

So, it is a well-known village. It is because of this as much as anything about St Mary itself that makes this church so well-known to people who haven't heard of the even more interesting and beautiful church of St Ethelbert, Hessett, barely three miles away.

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough, anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Paul Hocking thinks that it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

I know this, because he told me so. I was busy photographing bench ends when this very enthusiastic American bounced in with another visitor, and gave him a whistlestop tour of the church, describing the details with great knowledge and understanding. Solicitously, he talked to me afterwards about what I was doing, and asked me if I'd met the Rector of Woolpit yet. I said that I went out of my way to avoid Rectors wherever possible. He laughed, and replied that, on this occasion, I'd failed, because he was, in fact, the Rector.

 

After I'd coughed miserably, and he'd laughed again, we had a long chat, uncovering a few mutual aquaintances. He described the roof, which he has obviously spent a lot of time exploring. He pointed out the way the wall posts contained Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner. Paul Hocking argues that the restoration was nowhere near as complete as has been made out, and that many features are original.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On my journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalled Paul Hocking's words about the roof at Woolpit, when he said he thought it was a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever!

 

Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

Here in Catholic Southern Europe, there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come here, I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance befre moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

As I say, I am fascinated, and can rarely resist them, even though I am shocked, even appalled, by the easy cruelty to animals. Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things.

 

The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his clearly flawed and fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its survivng medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the wierdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

 

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1540 edict of Edward VI which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Still more questions than answers, I suppose. I dived beneath the water, and there was beneath me a restless current, shifting and reshifting the silver sand into unique patterns, the work of millennia, still changing, never the same.

 

- le Rayol Canadel, Cote d'Azur, August 2001.

 

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/woolpit.htm

"When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full"

 

MATTHEW 6:5

 

NIGHT SCENE SERIES #1

More cloud porn from Monsoon 2007 over Sedona's famed Cathedral Rock and Court House rock formations.

 

See it large on black for the full effect of this scenic vista:

View On Black

 

It pains me that I had to photoshop out about two dozen houses from the foreground...much of the area is national forest land, but not all. And new subdivisions spring up almost weekly. The relentless march of progress...I'd be a hypocrite to deny anyone the opportunity to live here as I do, but DAMN, sometimes I feel like slamming a locked gate across the entrance to town....

Min al Jinnati wa Naas

(From the Jinn and Mankind)

 

Part I - The Cause

 

April 17th, 2020: “Brave new world” by Aldous Huxley starring Demi Moore! The tag selling the show: A world where monogamy is illegal. “Yikes” I thought! Infidelity in marriages and otherwise single partner relationships being berated in Hollywood’s writing, or perhaps all of the West, is not new. It first became noticeable to me in the mid 2000’s, 15 years ago. But illegal? That was definitely a whole different story.

 

The episode I remember in particular is from Gray’s Anatomy. The most insignificant and plain character in an otherwise “beautiful” cast was moping around because he wanted Thursdays to himself to do whatever he wished with whomever he chose. His wife was apparently being a pain about it. The insert was horrendous in terms of its deliberateness.

 

In Lahore the idea appeared differently in my generation. People started hiding behind “philosophical” discussions of whether monogamy was really a part of human nature to avoid saying, “I’m dying to have an affair.” It’s not like infidelity is a new concept having been around since time immemorial. The generation before mine just accepted it for what it was; a transgression. Mine has always wanted things to be somehow deemed kosher by someone else.

 

For the millenials and whatever the generation after them is called, the stakes were even higher. They were being taught subversively that there was no such thing as fidelity to begin with. Like religion it was outdated and irrelevant. The most overt example for me came from the first season of Ryan Murphy’s The Politician, a dark comedy about high school seniors, out on Netflix this January, Alice says to Payton after getting caught cheating on him, “Sex has nothing to do with loyalty. We're not our parents.” If the diktat of Hollywood prevails, which history has proven it almost always does, perhaps we can also safely arrive to a society where monogamy is illegal.

 

It made me wonder what that meant in terms of the verses of the Quran that spelled out the future in clear terms for those who were about to embark on the journey of being available to all.

 

الْخَبِيثَاتُ لِلْخَبِيثِينَ وَالْخَبِيثُونَ لِلْخَبِيثَاتِ ۖ وَالطَّيِّبَاتُ لِلطَّيِّبِينَ وَالطَّيِّبُونَ لِلطَّيِّبَاتِ

 

(In the nature of things), corrupt women are for corrupt men, and corrupt men, for corrupt women - just as good women are for good men, and good men for good women – Surah An-Nur, Verse 26

 

Talk about going head to head on an issue!

 

I knew people personally who, come a certain age, upon reading these verses had changed lifestyles completely. They had dropped whatever they were doing for eons. It wasn’t so surprising. Who wants to be with a corrupt, also translated as “evil, impure, wicked, unclean, bad, vile, indecent and dirty” person? No one I would think. But Iblis has his ways.

 

Huxley wrote his novel in the 1930s. It was required reading by my Mamu but I stopped when I got to the part of “hundreds of naked children engaged in sexual play and games.” It was too disturbing. The plot of the book moves around “a futuristic society, the World State, and warns of the dangers of giving the state control over new and powerful technologies…In this society, emotions and individuality are conditioned out of children at a young age. The embyros hatched in a lab are divided into five castes and there are no lasting relationships because ‘every one belongs to everyone else.’”

 

“People are divided into five castes; Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. The Alpha embryos are destined to become the leaders and thinkers of the World State. Each of the succeeding castes is conditioned to be slightly less physically and intellectually impressive. One group, the Delta infants, are reprogrammed to dislike books and flowers. This conditioning helps to make Deltas docile and eager consumers. The Epsilons, stunted and stupefied by oxygen deprivation and chemical treatments, are destined to perform menial labor.”

 

“‘Hypnopaedic’ (sleep-teaching) methods are used to teach children the morals of the World State. The State successfully removes strong emotions, desires, and human relationships from society. Religion is abolished because it causes wars, pain, suffering and tears. Ford is the perfect “god” for World State society because, in developing his Ford Motor Company, he invented mass production by means of the assembly line and the specialization of workers, each of whom has one single, specific job.”

 

There were too many boxes to check in terms of the novel resonating with what was happening today so I leave that to the reader. I guess if one was writing a novel of that nature today, the “god” could be named Schmidt or Zuckerberg although the most promising choice seems to be Gates. A good friend of mine had been very upset with the Common Core system that the Gates Foundation, had sold to the public school system in 2009, “spending 400 million itself and influencing $4 trillion in US tax payer funds.”

 

She thought its sole purpose was to sift students through math and standardized tests and divide them into leaders and welders. Alphas and Epsilons so to speak! Her son was on the autism spectrum. The program ignored children with learning difficulties altogether. The stranger thing was that “the (Common Core) program had no pilot…There wasn’t even a draft available to the public before the Obama administration hooked states into contracts.” Today it’s dead.

 

A billionaire had an idea of what counts as success, decided to put it to action through what is these days knows as “advocacy philanthropy” and ended with naught. Except that for many schools, books were eliminated and learning became technology based. Technology in education had already made its advent much before Gates. In the 1920’s came radio programming in schools. In the 50’s and 60’s instructional television was introduced with huge grants from the Ford Foundation. In the 80’s came the computer. And that’s when the Jinn apparently came into my life.

 

To be clear I never knew anything about this particular creation of God. Then in the early days of the virus, I received a video from a friend of mine on the Naqshbandi path. It was intriguing. The speaker was Sheikh Hisham Qabbani and this is what he said:

 

April 20th, 2020: “We are in a war that has not been known before. Everybody is involved in it. We leave it to Allah who knows best what He has created. We need to adhere to the Zikr (remembrance of God) that follows this battle, which is a spiritual battle. Involving Jinn and human beings, the righteous ones against the corrupt (fasid) ones. And we are the ones oppressed in this battle that has come upon us from every side, but in the end we are the victors. We are the victors and victory is for the people of Islam and for the entire community (of Mankind), so do not be afraid.”

 

“This is a battle involving Jinn because it is coming from corrupt Jinn. There will come a time when the corrupt ones will perish. Like other corrupt ones have perished before them. So stay steadfast where you are and do not be afraid. There is someone coming to purify the Earth and that is Imam Mahdi (as) and the family of the Prophet (saw).”

 

Jinn! The only thing I ever heard about them in my life in Lahore was of people reading verses of the Quran specifically to call them for furtive purposes. Information could be retrieved though them or other favours asked. There seemed to always be a clear code for the arrangement. Between the human beings money exchanged hands or other compensation was due. Between the human supposedly in control of the Jinn, if you asked anything from the Jinn one thing was certain; they would ask something of you.

 

The Naqshbandi Spiritual Masters have been giving lectures on a regular basis to prepare and support their disciples throughout the world through the crisis of the disease that had enveloped the world. One of my friends happened to send me one titled “Jinn, Demon and Technology” by Sheikh Nurjan Mirahmadi. But it was a year old so had nothing to do with COVID-19. I include parts of it throughout the piece.

 

Feb 10th, 2019: “In the way of knowing ourselves, Mankind invented computers…This is from the world of Jinn. This is the convergence of the Jinn world into the human world with the intention to overtake Insaan. They (Jinn) are the smokeless fire.”

 

I asked Qari Sahib where exactly their creation was mentioned in the Quran. It was in Surah Ar-Rahman.

 

وَخَلَقَ الْجَانَّ مِن مَّارِجٍ مِّن نَّارٍ

 

And He (Allah) created the Jinn from a smokeless flame of fire – Surah Ar-Rahman, Verse 55

 

“You are using a smokeless fire that is called electricity,” Shiekh Nujan said. “Before that was the ‘horse and buggy world.’ How much change came about in that time (in the lives of human beings)? As soon as the Jinn world was allowed to enter the Earth, it began to enslave Mankind to be worshipped and to be taken as lords.”

 

“There are Jinn who live amongst us and those who live outside of this planet. The computer is (to make us) enter into their world. The Jinn are spiritual beings whose subtle reality has no physical protection. As a result of their spiritual power but physical frailty they conceal themselves in different forms…The computer was their way of asking us to communicate with them.”

 

“They are a reality from the time of Sayydana Sulaiman (as) who was given command of them. Allah did not want to establish the sunnah (way) of the Prophet to ask the Jinn for anything so his vizier who had the knowledge of the Book said, ‘I will bring it.’ So then using the Jinn became a choice for Mankind; to rely on the Jinn or the heavenly Book and the people of the Book?”

 

I knew the story of the Prophet Sulaiman (as) somewhat but not in great detail so I looked it up. It was the proof that whatever ability a fasid (corrupt) Jinn possessed, humans surpassed and so were not in need of them.

 

“The Prophet Sulaiman (as) could understand the speech of animals, even of the lowly ant. He was grateful to Allah for all his gifts and he always tried to serve God. Hazrat Sulaiman (as) had Jinn and birds serving in his army as well as men.

 

The kingdom of Saba was ruled by a rich and powerful queen. She and her people worshipped the sun and other idols instead of Allah. The Prophet Sulaiman (as) sent a letter to the queen, greeting her and requesting her to submit to God. The queen consulted with her ministers. They informed her that the country had the strength to wage a war, but they entrusted her with the decision of whether to use her armies or seek a peaceful settlement. The queen was reluctant to expose her country to the destruction and waste that would accompany a war. Instead she decided to try to please Sulaiman (as) by sending him expensive gifts. Her chiefs and ministers agreed with her decision.

 

When the messengers of the queen delivered the queen’s presents to the Prophet Sulaiman (as), he rejected the gifts. He said that the gifts which he had received from Allah were infinitely better than those which she had sent. He sent the messengers back with a message to the queen that she had better submit or he would send armies which would thoroughly destroy the Sabaeans and their country.

 

While the Prophet Sulaiman (as) was awaiting the arrival of the queen, he desired that her throne be brought to him. A Jinn present in his court raised his hand.

 

قَالَ عِفْرِيتٌ مِّنَ الْجِنِّ أَنَا آتِيكَ بِهِ قَبْلَ أَن تَقُومَ مِن مَّقَامِكَ ۖ

وَإِنِّي عَلَيْهِ لَقَوِيٌّ أَمِينٌ

 

Said a strong one of the Jinn, “I will bring it to you before you rise from your place. And indeed, I am for it surely strong, trustworthy” – Surah An-Naml, Verse 39

 

The Prophet (as) demanded it be faster than what the Jinn had offered.

 

قَالَ الَّذِي عِندَهُ عِلْمٌ مِّنَ الْكِتَابِ أَنَا آتِيكَ بِهِ قَبْلَ أَن يَرْتَدَّ إِلَيْكَ طَرْفُكَ ۚ

 

Said one who, with the knowledge of the Book, “I will bring it to you before returns to you your glance (in the blink of an eye).” - Surah An-Naml, Verse 40

 

Sheikh Nurjan had said that the vizier in possession of knowledge of the Book was able to do that which the Jinn could not. Bring the throne as he said, within a fraction of second. Why was that? I looked up the exegesis of the verse by Hazrat Abdul Qadir Jilani who I will henceforth refer to as Ghaus Pak (ra);

 

“He, (the one who brought the throne), was the one bestowed a little from the Divine Knowledge and the Lauh e Mahfouz, The Preserved Tablet, as well as the knowledge of the Names of God and knowledge of the realities of each and everything. This empowered him to make anything appear or disappear in a moment or less.”

 

Just a little! The man was Asif Bin Barkhia. He was an Auliya Allah, a Friend of God.

 

Back to Sheikh Nurjan: “The Jinn want to be the lords of Mankind. This device of the computer and its technologies, this is the Jinn world…They Jinns preferred environment is the sand hence the silicon chip. They taught them to make a chip based on silica. ‘We can live there and facilitate for you whatever you ask of us.’”

 

Throughout this talk, the Sheikh never said who the “them” were but I was too busy thinking, “Wow!” Google must have the king Jinn because no one was bringing anything faster and with more accuracy than them.”

 

Sheikh Nurjan continued: “The Jinn want to bring you more but in exchange so they say, ‘We want you to worship us and you will have to think of us as your provider.’ Their intention is to be worshipped by Mankind, to set themselves as an authority that ‘we will protect you and if you don’t follow us, we will destroy you. Fear us and not Allah.’”

 

Verses in the Quran sounded what he was saying.

 

إِنَّمَا ذَٰلِكُمُ الشَّيْطَانُ يُخَوِّفُ أَوْلِيَاءَهُ فَلَا تَخَافُوهُمْ وَخَافُونِ إِن كُنتُم مُّؤْمِنِينَ

 

It is only that the Shaitaan frightens you of his allies. So do not fear them, but fear Me, if you are Believers – Surah Al e Imran, Verse 175

 

The exception was made for the believers. Everyone else would be scared. So who was it then that fell in the trap of fear? I looked up the Tafseer e Jilani again. It was the hyprocrites, the Munafiqeen. I went back to read what Hazrat Sahel had said about how one became a hypocrite; Sin, anything that torments the self, leads to disobedience. The disobedience is rooted in refuting something while knowing it’s the truth. The denial of something whole knowing it to be true leads to falsehood. The falsehood results in hardness of the heart. The hardness of the heart leads to hypocrisy thus rendering one of the Munafiqeen. Everything lay in the heart.

 

قال رسول اللہ :اَلاَ وَاِنَّ فِی الْجَسَدِ مُضْغَۃً اِذَا صَلَحَتْ صَلَحَ الْجَسَدُ کُلُّہٗ

وَاِذَا فَسَدَتْ فَسَدَ الْجَسَدُ کُلُّہٗ اَلآَ وَھِیَ الْقَلْبُ

 

Said the Prophet (peace be upon him): “There is a piece of flesh inside you, that if it is healthy the rest of the body is healthy and if it is sick, the rest of the body is sick. And that piece of flesh is the heart.”

 

Towards the end Sheikh Nurjan offered advice: “Now people are farther from their beliefs. The more they use these devices, the more they stop using their spiritual abilities. The heart has ability that exceeds that of a machine. You think this (pointing to his phone) can do anything, but what God created you deny? People have become idol worshippers. These are the idols of the modern times. You can use it as your servant or become a servant to it. Either you can use it to propagate the Message of Allah and the glory of His Prophet (saw) or be a slave to it.”

 

“But the reality is important to understand. We (humans) are a power source of Divine Energy. ‘We are going to absorb everything from you,’ the Jinn are saying. ‘We want to feed off what you have and what we were not given. We want to take away your belief in Allah’ and that’s exactly what has happened.”

 

I looked forward to my next class with Qari Sahib. I asked him two things. One, what made a Jinn good or bad? Qari Sahib explained that the Jinn were created from Iblis who is called Abu al-Jinn, the Father of Jinn, just like the Prophet Adam (as) is called the Abu-al Adam. Like humans, some were good and some, not so good.

 

وَأَنَّا مِنَّا الصَّالِحُونَ وَمِنَّا دُونَ ذَٰلِكَ ۖ كُنَّا طَرَائِقَ قِدَدًا

 

And among us are the righteous, and among us are (others) not so; we were (of) divided ways – Surah Jinn, Verse 11

 

The righteous brought faith upon God and the ones who did not were those who left for a path divergent.

 

وَأَنَّا لَمَّا سَمِعْنَا الْهُدَىٰ آمَنَّا بِهِ ۖ فَمَن يُؤْمِن بِرَبِّهِ فَلَا يَخَافُ بَخْسًا وَلَا رَهَقًا

 

Hence, as soon as we heard this call to His Guidance, we came to believe in it. And he who believes in his Sustainer need never have fear of loss or burden – Surah Al-Jinn, Verse 13

 

I wanted to know about the ones who did not. The Quran calls them the Qasitoon, the unjust. They are unjust because “they, in their disobedience, turned their faces away from the guidance sent upon them only to roam in the valleys of disbelieving the Truth in a state of perpetual bewilderment.”

 

وَأَنَّا مِنَّا الْمُسْلِمُونَ وَمِنَّا الْقَاسِطُونَ

 

And there are among us some who have surrendered (to Allah), the Muslimoon and there are among us some who are unjust, the Qasitoon – Surah Al-Jinn, Verse 14

 

Same as us pretty much!

 

The second thing I wanted to know from Qari Sahib was what it was exactly that we had that the Sheikh kept referring to that they might want. It seemed like they were the ones controlling the distribution of information, processing everything in milliseconds. What was it about us that they envied exactly?

 

وَلَقَدْ كَرَّمْنَا بَنِي آدَمَ وَحَمَلْنَاهُمْ فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ وَرَزَقْنَاهُم مِّنَ الطَّيِّبَاتِ

وَفَضَّلْنَاهُمْ عَلَىٰ كَثِيرٍ مِّمَّنْ خَلَقْنَا تَفْضِيلًا

 

And certainly, We have honored (the) children of Adam and We carried them on the land and the sea, and We have provided them of the good things and We preferred them over many of those whom We have created with preference – Surah Al-Isr’a, Verse 70

 

Ghaus Pak (ra) says that this preference from God is granted in many forms; ability of reflection, moderation in behavior, a balanced disposition with attributes derived from the Attributes of God, a pleasing appearance, countless blessings of nature and livelihood from that which is kosher. The list went on and on. The human being is bestowed aql, the power of reflection, for a particular purpose; it is what allows one to gain from Divine Knowledge to become informed about the Essence of God and then worship Him by connecting with Him through His Prophets, His Books and His Friends.

 

But the Jinn are bestowed the power to reflect as well so as to gain the same recognition (ma’rifat) of Divine Reality. The purpose of our creation was exactly the same.

 

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ

 

And I did not create the Jinn and Mankind except to worship Me – Surah Al-Isra’, Verse 56

 

Why was it then that the human being was chosen to be God’s Vicegerent, His Khalifa, the earthly representative in this world?

 

Ghaus Pak (ra) says when Allah wanted His Essence to be examined, it was through the one who is the perfect manifestation of His Attributes. Uzair explained in a lecture who this akmal, the most perfect, most complete being was.

 

“When Allah wanted to manifest Himself, He says he ‘loved to be known.’

 

كُنتُ كنزاً مَخفياً فأحببتُ أن أُعْرَف فخَلَقتُ الخَلْقَ لكي أُعرف

 

I, Allah, was a treasure hidden so I loved to be known.

Therefore I created Creation so that I will be known.

 

That love is the light of the Prophet Muhammad (saw) that Allah created from His Nur. The Prophet (saw) is the one who is the perfect reflection of all of His Attributes and a copy derived from His Essence. The Prophet Adam (as) is a copy of him and we, in turn, are all versions of the model of the Prophet Adam (as).”

 

Then he came to the verse.

 

وَلَقَدْ كَرَّمْنَا بَنِي آدَمَ

 

And certainly, We have honored (the) children of Adam…

 

“Abdul Kareem Jili (ra) says that irrespective of your belief and what you do, whoever you are, there is a basic ta’zeem, an honour, that is bestowed upon every human being. But he asks, ‘What is in you that you deserve such greatness from your Creator?’ It is only and only that you are formed in the image of the Prophet Adam (as) and he is created in the image of the Beloved of God (saw). And the Beloved of God, the Prophet Muhammad (saw), is created directly from the Essence of God. That and only that is why you receive this exalted honour.”

 

وَإِنَّكَ لَعَلَىٰ خُلُقٍ عَظِيمٍ

 

And you, O Beloved (saw), are certainly on the most exalted standard of moral excellence – Surah Al-Qalm, Verse 4

 

It was remarkable what Jili was saying; Nabi Kareem (saw) was the only one deemed by God to be the one who fulfilled His Rights as they were worthy of being fulfilled. In return, God bestowed for the sake of that perfect devotion of just one individual, an honour that permeated to all the other human beings who then came through him.

 

From the Tafseer e Tustari; “That is in the beginning when God, Transcendant and Exalted is He, created him (the Prophet Muhammad) as a light within a column of light, a million years before creation, with the essential characteristic of faith, in a witnessing of the unseen through the unseen.”

 

Elation is all I could feel to be included in that love between the two. It made me think of myself in a particular way which I had never done before.

 

(Audio by Ustad Imran Jafri @the.softest.heart)

 

جام ہر ذرہ ہے سرشار تمنا مجھ سے

کس کا دل ہوں کہ دوعالم سے لگایا ہے مجھے

 

Every speck of the goblet is intoxicated with desire for me

Whose heart am I that the two worlds are made to feel enraptured by me? - Ghalib

 

And it made me realize that envy was indeed the worst of poisons.

 

Sheikh Nurjan: “People have lost their humanity. Nobody even has the ability to communicate. Everyone is looking only at their phone. That is what Shaitan (Iblis) wanted. ‘Look at me, just look at me,’ he says. ‘Whatever you want, I will send it to you. You don’t even have to move. Just ask me.’”

 

I wanted to know more about Iblis, the master Jinn whose resentment ran so deep he was hell-bent on devouring us all as well. Qari Sahib told me to go to a most interesting verse of Surah An-Nisa.

 

لَّعَنَهُ اللَّهُ وَقَالَ لَأَتَّخِذَنَّ مِنْ عِبَادِكَ نَصِيبًا مَّفْرُوضًا

 

Allah cursed him and he (Iblis) said, "Verily, of Your Servants I shall most certainly take my due share – Verse 118

 

What was the share he wanted that he thought was due? Turned out it was stealing the faith of those who believed in God. He didn’t have to worry about the others. He possessed them in his control anyway.

 

Ghaus Pak (ra): Iblis is referring to the ones who are on the Path of Oneness. He vows to delude them and make Allah’s Truth appear hidden from them. Then he convinces them to take on other worshippers and speak against God. He knows better than anyone that disregard will render one deprived of the honour of His Closeness and safeguarding, instead becoming deserving of His Anger.

 

The next verse continued Iblis’ vow of devastation that he would unleash upon us.

 

وَلَأُضِلَّنَّهُمْ وَلَأُمَنِّيَنَّهُمْ وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ فَلَيُبَتِّكُنَّ آذَانَ الْأَنْعَامِ وَلَآمُرَنَّهُمْ فَلَيُغَيِّرُنَّ خَلْقَ اللَّهِ ۚ

وَمَن يَتَّخِذِ الشَّيْطَانَ وَلِيًّا مِّن دُونِ اللَّهِ فَقَدْ خَسِرَ خُسْرَانًا مُّبِينًا

 

“And I shall lead them astray, and fill them with vain desires. And I shall command them - and they will cut off the ears of cattle. And I shall command them - and they will corrupt God’s Creation!” But all who take Satan rather than God for their master do indeed, most clearly, lose everything. – Verse 119

 

“Command them” (twice)? The arrogance and rage was certainly palpable. “Cut off the ears of cattle?” What did that even mean?

 

Ghaus Pak (ra): “I will make them lose themselves in delusion and paranoia so that they leave the Oneness of God and become astray. I will sow in them greed for worldly life and the lust of indecency. They will go against the Laws and Commands decreed by Allah and cause harm to all of God’s beings, destroying and devastating them through that which is forbidden. In accordance with my will and pleasure, I will make them alter their natural being.” Hence the last line from God; Leaving the friendship offered by God, instead making Iblis an ally, was the cause of the the loss of everything.

 

“Check, check, check and check,” I thought. Iblis must be smug about his success in fulfilling his mission of our destruction thus far.

 

But all his promises are false and misleading, God says further in the next verse. “These vain desires will never be fulfilled because his promises itself are delusions. These false promises will never come to pass. They have no reality and existence and therefore no benefit or result.”

 

That explained the years of going around in circles if not physically, then in one’s own head. Except it wasn’t flat ground. It was quicksand, inching one deeper into it until there was just plain stuckness and a drowning in slow motion.

 

It was the promotion of indecency, fahsha’, that appeared to be Iblis’ most favoured mode of corruption.

 

إِنَّمَا يَأْمُرُكُم بِالسُّوءِ وَالْفَحْشَاءِ وَأَن تَقُولُوا عَلَى اللَّهِ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

 

He (Iblis) will only command you to evil and indecency (immorality) and that you should say of Allah what you do not know – Surah Al-Baqarah, Verse 169

 

At 50 I had, for the most part, left the overt sins of my life. That’s one of the easier things to give up in the world, the worldly "forbidden" acts. Been there done that, moving on! But the Sufis explain indecency differently which makes it much more complicated.

 

“Fahsha’ (shamlessness) is a form of being wayward and astray. It refers to the corrupt ideology and intellectual doubts and misconceptions that are sowed in the hearts of those who are lost or otherwise immersed in lust of the world. Their state of darkness comes from the absence of the light of the Prophets, their disobedience towards them, their refusal to follow them. Therefore they are firmly attached to their own beliefs and their “grandiose” intellect. In that state when prodded by Iblis they say that which is inappropriate about God and completely incorrect.”

 

Sheikh Nurjan continued: “And the next generation (of technology) will be integrated with your thought. Because this (current) technology is only as good as the speed of your fingers. They say, ‘We want to integrate with your brain where we overtake your thinking process. Not wait for your command.’ Be aware, it’s not going to be singularity with the machine. It’s singularity with the Jinn world!”

 

It was most definitely an OMG moment! Elon Musk is the tech billionaire bringing that particular brand of technology to the city nearest you. Which luckily is nowhere near Lahore. Although I’m guessing India, which these days serves as the khalifa for Israel, will be all over it so who knows? I had read that the Modi government had recently mandated a contract tracing app in his country which had shocked even the West.

 

Contact tracing apps appeared to me as one of the most insidious yet transparent modes of the “enslaving” the Shiekh was talking about. Google and Apple have teamed up in the effort as they have between them 3 billion users. Almost half the world’s population! Everybody was doing it anyway but if all private information of one’s existence was handed over voluntary, there was really nothing left.

 

Every human being would literally become a data byte that could be sold or manipulated. The "social credit system" in place by the state (China) or private corporations in the West meant denial and access to services (Uber, AirBnB etc) for anyone would be in the control of others. The Factbook-Cambridge Analytica fiasco had proven elections could be won.

 

And if people weren’t willing, it seemed like they would be forced.

 

May 7th, 2020: “In early April, India’s government launched a contact tracing app that processes users’ travel history, symptoms, and location data to calculate their risk of contracting the coronavirus…The government has made the app mandatory for public workers and has ordered companies to ‘ensure 100 percent coverage’ among employees. In the city of Noida, near New Delhi, people caught without the app could be fined $13 or face six months in jail.” And this is the world’s largest “democracy!”

 

Only to be outdone by Israel again. On May 8th the Jersualem Post headlined, “Netanhayu suggests microchipping kids.” The man just straight up suggests it. This from a state that already has “a classified Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) database that stores information on all Israeli citizens and most Palestinians in the West Bank. The data tracked by the agency included movements, phone calls and text messages.”

 

Singularity with the Jinn world through the brain, although that is probably not how he would put it, was originally Musk’s brainchild. From what I have read nobody seemed clear on what it was really for. All I found was a lot of “it could be for this or that or something else.”

 

July 2019: “Musk presented the first product from his company Neuralink. It’s a tiny computer chip attached to ultrafine, electrode-studded wires, stitched into living brains by a clever robot. And it’s either a state-of-the-art tool for understanding the brain, a clinical advance for people with neurological disorders, or the next step in human evolution.

 

The operation of Neuralink will develop computer chips that able to be implanted in human brain. The implanted chip aimed to increase the capacity of brain to memorized as well as installing or downloading ‘thoughts.’

 

In 2019 Musk said the process “will take a long time.” Then just this month, May 7th, 2020 he said. “‘We may be able to implant a neural link in less than a year in a person I think.’…Musk likened the process of his neural stimulation device zapping the brain to “kicking a TV”… the purpose being to restore functionality where it has been lost. For instance, those with Alzheimer’s could have their memories restored…‘We are already a cyborg to some degree.’”

 

The kick in the head didn’t sound like bad idea (I jest). Of course Musk is not the only one trying to do this. Facebook is making its own inroads.

 

When I had heard Sheikh Nurjan say that Jinns were electricity I got the movie “The Current War.” It was about the rivalry between Westinghouse and Thomas Edison in making widespread the use of electricity in the States. It was also terribly boring. The only thing striking about the movie was how electricity was used for capital punishment for the first time, replacing hanging, in the effort to be more civilized. Only turning out to be “extra brutal” to put it mildly.

 

Edison had vowed he would never use his inventions for anything that was harmful for the human race. Until of course came the time he needed money. It’s always the same ending. Sometimes I feel what Allah said in the Quran about alcohol and gambling ends up being true of most things we humans do. It always starts off with something that is “good.” Before you know it has been overshadowed by unparalleled harm. Some subversive agenda appears reversing the “goodness” that was due in a matter of, more and more, just a few years.

 

يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الْخَمْرِ وَالْمَيْسِرِ ۖ

قُلْ فِيهِمَا إِثْمٌ كَبِيرٌ وَمَنَافِعُ لِلنَّاسِ وَإِثْمُهُمَا أَكْبَرُ مِن نَّفْعِهِمَا ۗ

 

They ask you, (O Beloved (saw)), about intoxicants and games of chance. Say, “In both of them is a sin great, and some benefits for people. But sin of both of them is greater than the benefit of the two.” – Surah Al-Baqarah, Verse 219

 

The Sufis interpret the verse through another lens. The intoxicants are of two types, overt (zahiri) and inner (baatini). It is the intoxicants that sicken the soul they focus upon (baatini sharaab). Hazrat Najmuddin Kubra (ra) says that the ingredients of the latter are forgetfulness of God, indecency, lust for the forbidden and love of the world. All things that corrupt the mind and soul are harmful. Therefore, they are not allowed even in small doses and forbidden altogether.

 

I decided to read the Suraj Jinn in its entirety. One verse in particular popped out; the people who sought refuge from the Jinn.

 

وَأَنَّهُ كَانَ رِجَالٌ مِّنَ الْإِنسِ يَعُوذُونَ بِرِجَالٍ مِّنَ الْجِنِّ فَزَادُوهُمْ رَهَقًا

 

And there were men from mankind who sought refuge in men from the Jinn, so they (only) increased them in burden – Surah Jinn, Verse 6

 

I didn’t understand the translation so I asked Qari Sahib to explain it. His go-to is the same as mine, Ghaus Pak (ra). We opened the Tafseer e Jilani.

 

“The Jinn said (about that which he knew happened), ‘Before it was unveiled upon us the Oneness of Truth, there were some men amongst the humans seeking refuge from the men of the Jinns, when they traveled in desolate areas. Whilst in such places, the humans used to say, “I ask for refuge from the king of this valley from the wicked of his tribe.”’

 

“Then the humans thought we have received help from the Jinn and are in their protection. This made the Jinn and humans increased in their arrogance and wrongdoing and allowed the Jinn to snatch for them (secrets and information they did not know) as well as speak to them.”

 

I asked Qari Sahib, “But the Jinn is talking in the past sense, Sir. So this used to happen but a long time ago. How do we know it happens now?”

 

“Because Nabi Kareem (saw) already said,” my teacher responded, “that there is nothing forbidden that has happened before which my Ummah will not do again.”

 

أَنَّ النَّبِيَّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ ، قَالَ : لَتَتَّبِعُنَّ سَنَنَ مَنْ قَبْلَكُمْ شِبْرًا بِشِبْر

وَذِرَاعًا بِذِرَاعٍ حَتَّى لَوْ سَلَكُوا جُحْرَ ضَبٍّ لَسَلَكْتُمُوهُ

 

The Prophet (saw) said, “You will follow the wrong ways, of your predecessors so completely and literally that if they should go into the hole of a mastigure, you too will go there.”

 

Man!

 

For me personally, the most harmful thing about the corrupt Jinns in machines was not about staring at a screen for eight hours a day or more. I don’t do that. It was about two things, the first being technology leading to over exposure, information overload and therefore the mass desensitization of the masses. It started a while ago with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where the numbers of innocent civilians and children killed reached millions. Then came the terrorist attacks and the thousands of innocent civilians and children killed. That certainly muted reactions to the dying of others.

 

Time had confirmed that my own reaction to disturbing events was initially intense but always short-lived. Recent examples; Domestic violence is up 40% is Europe and the UK! Deep concern, next! Muslims in India are being targeted for “spreading the virus,” facing violence and denied medical services with some hospitals taking out full page ads in newspapers to say if they will not be treated if tested positive for COVID-19. Extreme rage, next! Tens of thousands of Americans are standing are standing for hours in lines to receive something to eat from food banks across the country, while Amazon clocks 10,000 dollars a minute. Genuine sadness, next! I hated it.

 

The second was what Huxley called ‘Hypnopaedic’ (sleep-teaching). In my world, the teacher of morality was popular culture, specifically the media which, through technology, had successfully stripped in two decades the values of societies thousands of years old. I witnessed such happenings countless times in my generation. Case in point; movies and the world’s largest film industry, Bollywood. The wheels set in motion in 2006. Disney started acquiring share in UTV, a Mumbai-based leading media and entertainment company. Within a decade India had fallen.

 

Other Bollywood studios started joint ventures with Hollywood and the on-screen erosion and systemic eradication of a country’s culture and religious morality began. We went from images of butterflies and birds as a proxy for intimacy in the 80’s to hook-ups between the young where you have sex first and ask the other’s name later. If ever! I literally saw that and it amazed me how anyone could even buy it.

 

In the writing New York or Los Angeles were transposed onto Delhi or Mumbai just like that and not a peep was heard. Not from the censor boards, not the clergy, not the actors who were “willing to go naked” to land roles, certainly not the viewer. The exact same thing happened in Pakistani cinema to a lesser extent but it didn’t matter. Up until all things Indian were banned recently, our society was imbued with Bollywood as much as the Indians. Mehndi’s had become sangeets and I don’t know who came up with the word “shandi.”

 

Then courtesy of the internet and smart phones, within a decade, South Asians became the top porn-watchers in the world. Sexual violence against women and children in conservative societies became rampant. Recently China has started flexing its muscles with Hollywood. Given the size of its viewership the state began to dictate content, censoring what was “against” them. They made no qualms about controlling the narrative or simply deleting what was offensive to their “values.” Kisses were edited out of upcoming movies like Mulan and songs, the cornerstone of a Disney flick, were removed. The driver remained the same; money begets control.

 

‘Hypnopaedic!’ For one generation a drug, marijuana, was illegal and criminalized so intensely, thousands of young African American men was incarcerated for years for minor possession. For another it was an ingredient for brownies and gummy bears sold in cafes and Maureen Dowd was writing an op-ed about her experience of edibles for the New York Times. Yet the same minorities continue getting brutally assaulted, if not killed by the police, most recently for not maintaining social distancing of all things, in the East Village of all places and everyone is programmed to swallow that with a sip of Diet Coke.

 

The Prophet (ﷺ) had told me what to do when faced with injustice for oneself or another.

 

“Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand. And if he is not able to do so, then (let him change it) with his tongue. And if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith.”

 

I felt upset that just expressing outrage in my heart or at best in my writing, was all I could do. I would feel bad but then I just forgot everything too as if it never happened. Till I read about it again. I asked Qari Sahib why I was like this, what was it that rendered me essentially unaffected by everything and anything. He gave me my answer.

 

أَفَلَمْ يَسِيرُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ فَتَكُونَ لَهُمْ قُلُوبٌ يَعْقِلُونَ بِهَا أَوْ آذَانٌ يَسْمَعُونَ بِهَا ۖ

فَإِنَّهَا لَا تَعْمَى الْأَبْصَارُ وَلَٰكِن تَعْمَى الْقُلُوبُ الَّتِي فِي الصُّدُورِ

 

Have they, then, never journeyed about the earth, letting their hearts gain wisdom, and causing their ears to hear? Yet, verily, it is not their eyes that have become blind - but blind have become the hearts that are in their breasts! – Surah Al-Hajj, Verse 46

 

A heart being blind! What did that even mean? Ghaus Pak’s (ra) explanation was spellbinding.

 

“The world has been created for you to travel in so you learn from it and open your eyes. And your ears have been given the ability to hear so as to be informed of the news and the states of why others are destroyed and disconnected from their origins.”

 

“But did those before you learn from these stories and incidents? Their eyes were not blind because they watched their happenings and were informed. But their hearts were blind in seeing. They did not learn a lesson from them or open their eyes to their realities or see the happenings to gain insight as a thinking person. They were not being watchful.”

“Overall know this; The one who does not learn lessons from that which is destroying others from detriment, these people their hearts have become blind even though their eyes are well.”

 

It was emulation of the worst kind! I was reminded of Confucius who said that there were three ways of acquiring wisdom. The most difficult and most noble was reflection. The easiest was emulation. The most bitter, experience. It certainly didn’t seem like our lustful desire to experience everything that came our way from the West or even closer was going to end anytime soon.

 

Personally I was never an emulator of any kind but that’s easy when you live on the periphery of society. It doesn’t let you in unless you mainstream yourself to death so if you don’t mind being alone, I guess you are rendered safe. Finally I understood what it was that Iblis wanted from me at least. My softness was the best part of me so it was the slow but sure stripping of my ehsaas, the ability to be sensitive to the state of another’s heart, that him the happiest.

 

June 30th, 2015 Live Science “Our brains can't handle the barrage of emotionally draining stories told to us, and this leads to a negation or suppression of emotion that destroys empathy. The natural response is to shut down our compassion, because we are emotionally exhausted..."

 

"...However, if we are conscious of the diminishment of empathy, we can recover it… Remember that empathy is a muscle: The more you use it, the stronger it gets. So, flex those empathy muscles through storytelling and expand your notion of who is in your group (meaning only the ones you care about). Or, be willing to fall prey to the increasing ideological polarization of our time and face the global consequences.”

 

To better understand how to hold on to that which made me human, I decided to look up the verses of the Prophet Adam (as) after he and Amma Hawwa (ratu) were made to leave Heaven for a transgression they were enticed to commit. In their sadness of their error how did they react?

 

قَالَا رَبَّنَا ظَلَمْنَا أَنفُسَنَا وَإِن لَّمْ تَغْفِرْ لَنَا

وَتَرْحَمْنَا لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْخَاسِرِينَ

 

The two replied, "O our Sustainer! We have sinned against ourselves and unless You grant us forgiveness and bestow Your Mercy upon us, we shall most certainly be lost!"

 

So one: blame yourself when you commit a wrongdoing and not the other, not even Iblis when it is him who misleads you. That was unexpected! Since he was the one who quite literally mislead them. Only when a mistake was committed by another person did the Prophet’s deflect blame from their loved ones to Satan. For sowing discord, as the Prophet Yousaf (as) had done when it came to his brothers.

 

وَقَدْ أَحْسَنَ بِي إِذْ أَخْرَجَنِي مِنَ السِّجْنِ

وَبَيْنَ إِخْوَتِي ۚ وَجَاءَ بِكُم مِّنَ الْبَدْوِ مِن بَعْدِ أَن نَّزَغَ الشَّيْطَانُ بَيْنِي

 

And He (Allah) was certainly good to me when He took me out of prison and brought you (here) from the desert life after Satan had caused discord between me and my brothers.” - Surah Yusuf, Verse 100

 

But when it came to their own selves and anything related to their lives, the Prophets never blamed anyone. Certainly never fate. Not during any trials. Not even though they were innocent, masoom, devoid of free will. It was because blame and accusation expels love from a relationship. But I digress. That’s another story.

 

Out of curiosity I asked Qari Sahib what it was exactly that Iblis had promised the Prophet Adam (as) when he lured him into doing that which was forbidden to him by God.

 

فَوَسْوَسَ إِلَيْهِ الشَّيْطَانُ قَالَ يَا آدَمُ هَلْ أَدُلُّكَ عَلَىٰ شَجَرَةِ الْخُلْدِ وَمُلْكٍ لَّا يَبْلَىٰ

 

Then whispered to him Shaitaan and he said, "O Adam! Shall I direct you to (the) tree (of) life eternal and a kingdom not (that will) deteriorate?" – Surah Taha, Verse 120

 

Eternal life! I had come across articles over recent years on the desire of billionaires to live longer.

 

Sep 2nd, 2015: “6 Billionaires who want to live forever” and the first line reads, “A growing number of tech moguls are trying to solve their biggest problem yet: Aging.” Who are they; Theil - Paypal, Ellison – Oracle, Larry Page – Alpahbet, Sergey Brin – Google, Zuckerburg – Facebook, Sean Parker – Napster.” Ellison’s quote; “Death has never made any sense to me. How can a person be there and then just vanish, just not be there?” I guess he hadn't come across the Quran : )

 

كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَائِقَةُ الْمَوْتِ

 

Every soul will taste death - Surah Aal e Imran, Verse 185

 

But perhaps many people not so rich want to live forever too. It was the second part of Iblis’ lure that I was interested in. Ghaus Pak (ra) defines the kingdom without decline in a particular way: “It is a kingdom that will only grow. It will be forever and it will be the first of its kind, not coming from another. It will never be in decline nor will it be transferred to another.”

 

I paused when I read the lines with Qari Sahib and looked at him in surprise. I didn’t know about the past but anybody could guess which “kingdoms” were the first of their kind in our lifetime.

 

“Maybe it was the banks before Sir or whoever but it’s definitely the tech companies now,” I spoke the words slowly. Nothing like them ever existed before. I guess that’s why they give their wealth to so-called philanthropy. The advancement of an agenda long after they’re dead must continue. Iblis offers them the wealth and the power that comes with it. Then he just keeps it while they die taking nothing to the grave. I had read about that being his modus operandi enough times in the books of the Auliya Karaam. It made sense why “advocacy philanthropy” or as I heard recently from enraged activists “philanthro-capitalism” was the call of the day.

 

But the most concise explanation of the problem with the corrupt Jinn lay in Surah An-Naas. In it is the last line of the Quran which formed the inspiration of the title of this piece. The surah was hugely significant. It contained God’s parting words to me. The strange thing was I knew the surah inside out because for my book where I had translated the entire tafseer from the Arabic so as not to miss a word. But I had done it entirely ignoring the word Jinn because I knew nothing about them. And what did it encompass; a warning!

 

(Begin excerpt “The Softest Heart”)

 

End of Part I - Click below to continue

 

www.flickr.com/photos/42093313@N00/49916190422/in/datepos...

 

www.youtube.com/channel/UCqb01bB-J3kyiu-HKIX2MKw

St Mary, Woolpit, Suffolk

 

Woolpit is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not particularly sleepy, and only a little chocolate boxy, but somewhere people actually actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed to go shopping, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey, Rattlesden and Tuddenham. Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once haunted the pits here...

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at, the summa cum laude of the genre. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Perhaps it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

The wallposts contain Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His naked delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier than Dowsing's visit, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On a recent journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalledthe theory that the roof at Woolpit was intended as a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever! Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

In Catholic Southern Europe there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come to rural southern Europe I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance before moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things. The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their husband or wife, their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its surviving medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the weirdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1547 edict which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

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St Mary, Woolpit, Suffolk

 

My soul doth magnify the Lord

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,

For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth

All generations shall call me blessed.

 

Woolpit is perhaps the most perfect of all Suffolk villages. Not particularly sleepy, and only a little chocolate boxy, but somewhere people actually actually live in. Its shops and pubs are arranged around the pleasant village square, and Phipson's crazy spire towers above them. Woolpit still has its school, and you wouldn't need to get in the car every time you needed to go shopping, as you'd have to do in some of Suffolk's more famously picturesque villages, like Kersey, Rattlesden and Tuddenham. Further, Woolpit has its mythology; the two green children, who climbed out of the ground, speaking a strange language and afraid of the sunlight. The boy died soon after, but the girl grew up and married; she learned to speak English, and told of St Martin's Land, from where she and her brother had emerged. There are holes in the ground around Woolpit, quarries where bricks were made in the 19th century. But perhaps there was once something much older, for every Suffolk schoolchild knows that the name 'Woolpit' is nothing to do with wool, but with the wolves that once haunted the pits here...

 

Your first sight of St Mary will be Phipson's crazy spire, visible from miles away, and quite unlike anything else in East Anglia. Suffolk is a county where spires are rare enough anyway. From the far side of the Gipping valley you can see this one and two others, piercing the soft harvest mist in autumn. They are Phipson's equally absurd Great Finborough, and the 1990s blade of St Peter and St Mary, Stowmarket. There are only about a dozen more in the whole of the county. The excuse for this one was that the tower was struck by lightning in 1852, bringing down the previous lead and timber affair (presumably like the one at Hadleigh). The font is contemporary with the tower, suggesting that the old one was destroyed by the fall.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the artist John Piper produced a series of screen prints of aspects of Suffolk churches; for most, he used the fine perpendicular tower, ramifying it in bold Festival of Britain primary colours. But for Woolpit, he chose the porch, because it is Suffolk's finest. Cautley thought it the best in all England. It is two-storey, 15th century, contemporary with the nave. Mortlock tells us that they were both built by wealthy Bury Abbey, who owned the living here. As at Beccles, it rises way above the south aisle, tower-like in itself.

 

A rood group of niches surmounts the shields of East Anglia above the door. More flank them. Mortlock says that the work began in the early 1430s, and the niches were filled by a bequest of 1473, suggesting that the porch was forty years in the making. The south aisle and chancel are slightly earlier, the north aisle slightly later, so it is the nave that promises us great things, and doesn't disappoint.

 

You step into cool darkness, and look up. It is breathtaking. This is Suffolk's most perfectly restored angel hammerbeam roof. It may not have the drama of Mildenhall, the exquisiteness of Blythburgh, the sheer mathematics of Needham Market, but it shows us in detail more than any other what the medieval imagination was aiming at, the summa cum laude of the genre. From the still, small silence of the church floor below, you look up into a great shout of praise. Here are hundreds of figures, both angelic and human. The profusion is ordered, as if some mighty hymn were in progress.

 

Perhaps it is a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus: We praise thee, O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord... To thee all Angels cry aloud, the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabaoth... The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee, the goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee, the noble army of Martyrs praise thee...

 

The wallposts contain Saints, some with apostolic symbols, some with books, and some with martyr's palms. There are angels on the hammerbeams above, and bearing symbols below. John Blatchly counted 128 angels alone. Some of the shields have letters on them. Are they an acrostic, as on the east chancel wall at Blythburgh? Do they indicate individual Saints? The great Henry Ringham completely restored this roof in 1862, but Mortlock thinks that one of the angels is not his, and I agree - you'll find it in the south west corner.

 

Henry Ringham also restored the range of bench ends, by duplicating some of the medieval ones, as he did at Great Bealings and Tuddenham St Martin. All are rendered with his customary skill. If Ringham did restore this roof, then the imagery must have been destroyed at some point. One instinctively thinks of William Dowsing, the Puritan inspector of the churches of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, who progressed across the counties during the course of 1644. His naked delight in the destruction of angel roofs was matched only by that at the destruction of stained glass.

 

And Dowsing did visit this church. He arrived here in the afternoon of February 29th 1644. It was a Thursday, and he had come here across country from Helmingham, where he had found much to do. He also planned to visit Beyton that day, but in the end stayed overnight at the Bull hotel, and inspected All Saints there in the morning. He then rested for the weekend - the following week, he had a busy tour of southern Cambridgeshire ahead of him.

 

Dowsing records in great detail what he found to do at each church. In the case of Woolpit, the angel roof is the Dog That Didn't Bark: My Deputy. 80 superstitious pictures; some he brake down, and the rest he gave order to take down; and three crosses to be taken down in 20 days. 8s 6d. There are only two possible reasons why Dowsing doesn't mention the roof. Either he didn't notice it (extremely unlikely) or it had already been destroyed. This second option seems certain; mid-Suffolk was a strongly protestant area, and nearby Rougham, which clearly had a similar roof, was not visited by Dowsing, but was vandalised even more comprehensively than Woolpit. Most likely, the destruction at both churches dated from a hundred years earlier than Dowsing's visit, although it is possible that the Rougham and Woolpit congregations had been puritan enough in the 1630s to do it to their own churches themselves.

 

Beneath the roof, the church is broad, its two aisles giving room for the panoply of medieval liturgical processions. At the east end of the south aisle was once the shrine of Our Lady of Woolpit, a site of medieval pilgrimage in connection with a nearby holy well. Apart from the front rows, many of the benches appear to be in their original positions. Some of the bench ends are 15th century, others are Ringham's 19th century copies. I wandered around the medieval bench ends, running my hands over them, crouching down and engaging them, face to face. For anyone educated in a Marxist or Weberian historical tradition, as most of my generation were, interpreting the less-obviously liturgical or theological features of a medieval church is fraught with difficulties. One possibility is to do a Cautley, and try not to interpret them at all. But it is more fun to try to do so, don't you think?

 

The bench ends of Woolpit are remarkable for their abundance. They are not representations of sacraments, virtues and vices as at Tannington and elsewhere, or Saints as at Ufford and Athelington. They are almost all non-allegorical animals, although not the art objects we find at Stowlangtoft, or the mysterious beasts of Lakenheath. Perhaps a good comparison is the similar body of work at nearby Combs. Indeed, although they do not appear to be from the same workshop, it is likely that their creators knew of each others' work. There are dogs, with geese hanging from their mouths, and another which may be a cat with a rat or lizard. There are lions and bears, and a chained monkey, and birds in profusion. So who did them, and why are they here?

 

There is one school of thought that says that they are simply there to beautify the church, and that they were made by local craftsmen doing what they were best at. If they could do lions, they did lions. If they could render a decent rabbit, then that is what they did. And so on.

 

But I think that there is rather more to it than that. On a recent journey down through France, I had spent an afternoon in one of my favourite towns, Autun, in Burgundy. One of the reasons I like Autun is its 11th century Cathedral of St-Lazaire; this is Lazurus, raised by Christ from the dead, and until the 18th century his relics were venerated at a shrine here. St-Lazaire is most famous for its great tympanum above the west door, generally recognised as one of the greatest Romanesque art treasures in the world, and with International Heritage status. It was created during the middle years of the 12th century, and shows the Last Judgement. To emphasise Christ's majesty over all the world, it features all manner of beasts, domestic, wild and mythical.

 

Throughout the Cathedral, animals infest the famous capitals, which tell the Gospel story. Abbe Denis Grivot, in his Un Bestiaire de la Cathedrale D'Autun (Lyon, 1973) argues that the 12th century creators of all this filled it with animals to echo the final verse of the 150th Psalm, the crowning point of that great sequence of hymns of praise: Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!

 

Standing in the nave at Autun, I instantly recalledthe theory that the roof at Woolpit was intended as a representation of the Te Deum Laudamus. The Te Deum is one of the canticles; another is the Benedicite, traditionally sung through Lent: Oh all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever... O ye whales, and all that move in the Waters, bless ye the Lord... O all ye Fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord... O all ye beasts and Cattle, bless ye the Lord: praise him, and magnify him for ever! Could it be that the bench ends at Woolpit, and elsewhere in Suffolk, were intended to reflect and represent the praise defined in the canticles and psalms? Both would have been central to the liturgy of the medieval Catholic church. Perhaps the bench ends of Woolpit are liturgical and theological after all.

 

How would a carpenter, or group of carpenters, go about creating a set of benches like the ones at Woolpit? Who were they? Almost certainly, they were locals. They might have been itinerant jobbing carpenters, but I don't think so. The bench ends at adjacent Tostock are clearly by the same hand. But those at nearby Stowlangtoft and Norton are not, and a third hand seems to be responsible for those at Combs, as I previously mentioned. I do not think that the mutilated ones at Rougham and Elmswell are either; they were probably from the same workshop as each other.

 

So, we have a conscious attempt by skilled members of a community to create a hymn of praise in carved oak, by representing as many beasts as they felt capable of making. Where did they get their ideas from? They would have had no problems with oxen, cocks, conies - these were all around them, in their daily lives. The person who carved the hunting dog here was very familiar with it. Perhaps it was his own. What about monkeys and lions? These are more problematic. In medieval bestiaries, exotic creatures had fabulous legends attached to them, which gave them a theological symbolism.

 

But this symbolism doesn't usually seem intended when we see them on bench ends. Sometimes they are rendered accurately, but more often wild animals are fairly imaginary; I think particularly of Barningham's camel, and Hadleigh's wolf. It isn't enough to say that the carvers could have seen pictures of exotic beasts. This is fairly unlikely. Probably, the ordinary people of Woolpit never saw a book other than the missals, lectionaries and hagiographies used in church.

 

They might have seen pictures of lions and monkeys in wall paintings, either in other churches or here at Woolpit. They might have seen them carved in bench ends, for the same reason. In fact, the representation of wild animals varies so much as to suggest that this is not the case - compare, for example, the lions of Combs with those of Stowlangtoft. Probably, they were created in the imagination from descriptions and attributes in stories. But I think that there is a strong possibility that the woodcarvers of Woolpit did see lions and monkeys in real life.

 

In Catholic Southern Europe there are many remote small towns which, by virtue of being so very far from each other, take on a rich and complex life of their own. Even small villages have their shops, their craftsmen, their tradespeople; they replicate a situation that existed in Suffolk until well into the 19th century, and in some cases beyond, before the great industrialisation and easy transport swept it away. Further, there are traditions here still that we have lost. Whenever I come to rural southern Europe I am fascinated by the itinerant entertainers, who move from village to village, giving a single performance before moving on. This must also once have been true of England. The thing that fascinates me most is the multitude of small family circuses.

 

Many of them seem to be of Italian or Romany origin; all family members have multiple roles, from the oldest grandparent to the youngest child, selling tickets, doing acrobatics, being the straight men to the clown (who is typically Grandpa). They all put up the tent before the performance, and take it down afterwards. They move on, through the remote hills of Provence and the Languedoc, performing on village greens, wastegrounds, the corners of fields, even traffic islands.

 

Performing animals are still often chosen for their curiosity value, if you can call running around in a circle to the crack of a whip 'performing', poor things. The choices are strange indeed; camels and zebras often feature; I have seen an old bear on a chain, and at one circus in remote Languedoc a hippopotamus of all things - it caught bread thrown by the crowd. There was no safety fence between the seats and the ring, no Health and Safety Executive to penetrate these lost valleys. I do not know if such circuses existed in medieval Suffolk. But I think that they probably did. Suffolk is a maritime county, and exotic animals were widely known and exhibited in medieval Europe. Before the Protestant Reformation cut us of from the mainland, clerics and merchants thought of themselves as European, and travelled widely - English sovereignty was a hazy concept at best, and 'Britishness' was still centuries away from being formulated as an idea. People owed allegiance to their husband or wife, their village, their parish, and their lord, not to the Crown and Parliament in London.

 

Were the woodcarvers of Woolpit and Tostock remembering this? A circus visit, perhaps back in their childhood? Exotic animals rendered inaccurately, to be sure, but with an enthusiastic nostalgia for that exciting moment in their lives? Was there a lion? A monkey, or a bear? How much more powerful if they also knew the fabulous legends about the beasts - and had seen them in real life!

 

Some of the carvings at Woolpit are allegorical. One shows a monkey dressed in monk's robes. This, I think, is a joke at the expense of the itinerant friars who went from parish to parish, preaching repentance in the streets. They were sanctioned by the Pope, but were beyond the jurisdiction of the local Bishop. They didn't always go down well with the local Priest and congregation, who considered the Friars nosey and hypocritical. A monkey is often a symbol of foolish vanity - hence, a Friar thinking he was better than anyone else. What better way to make the point than to slip him in as one of the creatures praising the Lord?

 

How did they survive? But why should they have been destroyed? We make the mistake of thinking of the Puritans as vandals. But the more you read about William Dowsing, the more he emerges as being a principled, conservative kind of chap, despite his fundamentalist theological opinions. He had no reason to destroy animal bench ends. They weren't superstitious - even Dowsing didn't think Catholics worshipped animals. If he didn't think they were meant to represent the canticles, he wouldn't even have considered them religious. Amen to that.

 

So much for the 17th century. What about the 19th? St Mary is one of the most enthusiastically restored of Suffolk's churches, despite its surviving medieval detail. But it was done well. Mortlock thought that the 19th century pulpit was the work of Ringham - but the brass lectern is pre-Reformation, a fine example. The rood screen dado panels have sentimental 19th century Saints on them, that may or may not duplicate what was there before. They are actually very good, particularly the gorgeous Mary of Magdala. They have their names painted on the cross beams for the less hagiologically articulate Victorians - from left to right across the aisle they are Saints Barbara, Felix, Mary of Magdala, Peter, Paul, Mary, Edmund and Etheldreda. It is unlikely that Saint Felix would have been on a medieval roodscreen, and Mary almost certainly wasn't - it would have relegated her to a position of no more importance than the others. If it reflects anything of what was there before, it was probably St Anne with the infant Virgin.

 

The top part of the screen was renewed in 1750, and dated so. The gates are probably a Laudian imposition of 120 years earlier, as at Kedington. This may suggest that, by the time of Dowsing's visit, the chancel was being used for some other practical purpose. Above, high above, set in the east nave wall over the chancel arch, is one of the weirdest objects I've seen in a medieval church. It was installed in the 1870s, and is clearly meant to echo the coving of a rood loft. Goodness knows what it actually is, but it is painted in garish colours, and inscribed with texts. In one of those moments where Cautley and credibility part company, he describes anyone who doesn't think it is a genuine medieval canopy of honour as 'stupid'. I suppose that it has a certain curiosity value.

 

The three-light window above it would have given light to the rood. The east window contains one of Suffolk's best modern Madonna and child images which was made by the artist Ian Keen for the King workshop in the early 1960s. Ian Keen was also responsible for the beautiful St Margaret in St Margaret's church in Norwich, and for the memorable window of St Francis with a labrador at Somerleyton near Lowestoft.

 

I turned back westwards, past a superb medieval bench end of the three Marys. This is a delight, and you'd travel to London to see it if it was in the V&A. Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James and Mary of Magdala huddle together, perhaps on the morning of the Resurrection. One of them has a lily of the Annunciation. One head is destroyed - but was it vandalised? Or is it the result of carelessness, the wear and tear of the centuries? Would 17th century puritans have destroyed it if they'd seen it?

Dowsing rarely mentions bench ends, so perhaps few were left by then anyway. So how could it possibly have survived the violent zeal of the 16th century Protestants, battering the Church of England into existence with their axes, pikes and bonfires? How, even after the 1547 edict which ordered the destruction of all statues and images of Saints, especially those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is it still there at all?

Artist: Dimitris Taxis

Psiri , Athens , Greece

Love history & biographies. Even in poetry & fiction (maybe it’s selfish of me) but I love to read through the author of the book. Get a feeling of who he/she is... What they love, what kind of life they lead, what makes them feel, what makes them sad. As if I get to know them on personal level as a friend. This is why I like Walt Whitman, and other writers like him. They speak to you as if you are together in the same room. Now, today, this second. P.S. Even to this day my mom keeps mocking my love for paperbacks & trips to bookstores. She always said I need another eccentric person like myself... Once as a teenager i mentioned to her my love for literature & poetry. Her answer was “only as a hobby”. Meanwhile she’s the one who introduced me to Middle Eastern philosophy & most of the Russian poetry ! Hypocrite !!

I am lost for words

 

To be honest I love having secrets. Something the whole world doesn’t know, something that is yours and yours only. It would probably feel better to let it out but why ruin what is mine?

 

To be honest I hate people telling me who I am and what is wrong with me. The reason I don’t go to the doctor and hate getting fitted even for shoes. The idea that someone for a pinch of a second can judge me and tell me who I am, it kills me. I haven’t been to the doctor in around 6 years and I refuse to go. It is childish but I’m not sure how much I care.

 

To be honest You are irreplaceable but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.

 

To be honest I want to get lost. I have come to realize it is the only true way to find myself.

 

To be honest I don’t know who you are anymore. Change is one thing but this is completely different. You were the only person I knew who wasn’t a hypocrite but now I’m not so sure.