Lincoln

Somewhere, over The Rainbow.....

Will Brangwen’s beloved cathedral…..

When he saw the cathedral in the distance, dark blue lifted watchful in the sky, his heart leapt.  It was the sign in heaven, it was the Spirit hovering like a dove, like an eagle over the earth.  He turned his glowing, ecstatic face to her, his mouth opened with a strange, ecstatic grin.

‘There she is,’ he said

The ‘she’ irritated her.  Why ‘she’?  It was ‘it’.  What was the cathedral, a big building, a thing of the past, obsolete, to excite him to such a pitch?  She began to stir herself to readiness.

They passed up the steep hill, he eager as a pilgrim arriving at the shrine.  As they came near the precinct, with castle on one side and cathedral on the other his veins seemed to break into fiery blossom, he was transported.

They had passed through the gate, and the great west front was before them, with all its breadth and ornament.

‘It is a false front,’ he said, looking at the golden stone and the twin towers and loving them just the same.  In a little ecstasy he found himself in the porch, on the brink of the unrevealed.  He looked up to the lovely unfolding of the stone.  He was to pass within to the perfect womb.

Then he pushed open the door, and the great pillared gloom was before him…..  His soul leapt, soared up into the great church…..

Anna Brangwen’s feelings…..

The cathedral roused her too.  But she would never consent to the knitting of all the leaping stone in a great roof that closed her in, and beyond which was nothing, nothing, it was the ultimate confine…..

Her soul too was carried forward to the altar, to the threshold of Eternity, in reverence and fear and joy.  But ever she hung back in the transit, mistrusting the culmination of the altar…..

So that she caught at little things, which saved her from being swept forward headlong in the tide of passion that leaps on into the Infinite in a great mass…..

And it was as if she must grasp at something, as if her wings were too weak to lift her straight off the heaving motion.  So she caught sight of the wicked, of little faces carved in stone, and she stood before them arrested…..

These sly little faces peeped out of the grand tide of the cathedral like something that knew better.  They knew quite well, these little imps that retorted on man’s own illusion, that the cathedral was not absolute…..

[As an aside, this all springs to mind with Glenda Jackson's momentous portrayal of King Lear at the Old Vic.... Ms Jackson gained an Academy Award for her portrayal of Gudrun Brangwen in Ken Russell's 1969 film of Women in Love, D H Lawrence's sequel to The Rainbow. Gudrun Brangwen was the younger of Anna and Will Brangwen's two daughters.  Got it? Ed.]

Perhaps it is not surprising that there is no memorial to D H Lawrence in the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln?  After all The Rainbow was banned for eleven years following an obscenity trial in 1915.  And besides, Lawrence was born in Nottinghamshire and died in France, so not a local lad. 

Another famous Nottinghamshire chap also associated with Lincoln, was Robyn of Locksley, aka Robert Fitzooth, aka Robin Hood, though his connection was not through the Cathedral, but through the wool trade, which made Lincoln rich in the Middle Ages.  Lincoln Green, which Robin and his men chose as a uniform (with the probable exceptions of Friar Tuck – who would have worn grey – and Will Scarlett…..)  Wikipedia explains:  The dyers of Lincoln, a cloth town in the high Middle Ages, produced the cloth by dyeing it with woad (Isatis tinctoria) to give it a strong blue, then overdyeing it yellow with weld (Reseda luteola) or dyers' broom, Genista tinctoria. 

So now we know.

The most prominent literary figure commemorated in Lincoln is Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who was a Lincolnshire Poacher. A fine statue of him and his dog stands outside the Chapter House on the Cathedral’s East Green, with the poem Flower in the Crannied Wall attached:

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

I hold you there, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower – but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

Which just goes to show why we need Poets Laureate…..

John Ruskin (1819-1900), had this to say about the Cathedral: I have always held and am prepared against all evidence to maintain that the Cathedral of Lincoln is out and out the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles and roughly speaking worth any two other cathedrals we have.

Not sure that the Chapters of Canterbury, Durham (thanks Michael, Ed), Ely, Liverpool (thanks Janet, Ed), Salisbury or Winchester, (to name but six of thirty-eight Grade 1 listed cathedrals) would necessarily agree with this, though it is an opinion…..

It is the third largest cathedral in Britain (in floor area) after St Paul's and York Minster, being 484 by 271 feet (148 by 83 metres) and it was the tallest building in the world (at 525 feet - 160 metres) for 238 years until the central spire collapsed in 1548.

It was built mainly in three periods: Norman (1075-1092), Early English (1191-1250 and 1256-1300).  It was badly damaged by fire in 1125, and partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1185 (though hardly touched by those in 1990 and 2008). 

The name Lincoln is believed to derive from the Iron Age Celtic Lindon, meaning pool by the hill; a reference to the Brayford pool and the hill upon which the modern city stands. These features provided good fishing, farming, transport links (via the river Witham) and defences against other tribes.  The Romans built a legionary fortress on the hill, which was known as Lindum Colonia.  They also constructed the  Fosse Dyke canal, which runs from the Brayford pool to the river Trent, which led to prosperity under the Vikings.  The Normans then built a castle and began the cathedral, though much of the current Gothic appearance was due to Bishop Hugh of Avalon, 

later St Hugh of Lincoln, who developed it after the great earthquake (and who, incidentally, had a pet swan, which hissed at people who approached the reverend Frenchman).

Following a £22 million upgrade (a mere 5% of the estimated refurbishment budget for Buckingham Palace, though still 628,570% of the cost of improving my family bathroom) Lincoln Castle is certainly worth exploring, though you may not wish to visit the Crown Court.  

Apart from the wonderful views from the medieval walls, there is a finely illegible copy of the Magna Carta in a dark crypt, and the Victorian prison, which, though sanitised and scrupulously clean,

gives you some idea of what it might be like in prison…..

[Great place to leave the kids!]

But this is all a bit prosaic!  So, I’ll end with a poem, by the very poetic Alfred Tennyson, the 1^st Baron Tennyson, late of this parish…..  It’s a curious ditty, but it seems somehow fitting in this city of beautiful people, though you don't want to believe everything you may think.....

Beautiful City

Beautiful city, the centre and crater of European confusion,

O you with your passionate shriek for the rights of an equal humanity,

How often your Re-volution has proven but E-volution

Roll’d back again on itself in the tides of a civic insanity!

Oh, and by the way, for the purposes of disambiguation this piece refers to Lincoln (/ˈlɪŋkən/), a cathedral city and the county town of Lincolnshire, within the East Midlands of England.  It has nothing to do with President Lincoln, Lincoln Creams (one of the joys of my childhood, but sadly impossible to find these days), Lincoln Nebraska, Lincoln California, nor the Lincoln Continental, a motor car produced by Ford, which was one of the first personal luxury cars to enter into mass production…..

Cheers!

(In the Cardinal's Hat.....)

 

The Last Enemy

The Air Forces Memorial, Runnymede

Earth, Air, Fire, Water.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea........  (Isaiah, 11:9)

Something is not quite right, down by the river.  The footpath has disappeared by Old Windsor, and garden cherry trees in Wraysbury emerge from the waters like mangroves.

Looking across the Thames, we can make out Heathrow airport, just beyond the King George VI reservoir and the Perry Oaks Sewage Works.

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a......

Closer in, the houses of Hythe End appear to be surrounded by waters, at least.....

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, 
shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; 
and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

But one fine House of  Windsor (the home of the once Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family) sits above the hurly burly of the river flows, for the moment....

I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.  (Luke 6:46-49)

Though if I were Queen, I would probably do something about the flight path overhead, with its score of merlin decibels chinkering my Meissen every thirty seconds.....

Anyway, I sense ironies about the place.  The place where King John sealed the Magna Carta is flooded.  King John was also famous for losing his treasure in the Wash.  Perhaps not a king for stability. But then next year the American Bar Association will revisit their memorial here to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Great Paper, which subsequently formed the basis of the American Constitution. Not, note, the English, British or United Kingdom Constitution (for we do not have one) [which might perhaps have presented something of an obstacle to Alex Salmond?]

There is another little irony here in the Lutyens Lodges, which guard the north-western approach to the meadows. These were designed as memorials to Urban H Broughton, MP, in 1929.  Notice the lack of gutters - a design feature allowing rainwater to cascade straight off the roof to soak away through slits in the paving below.

As can be seen.....

[I gather they are taking the roof off Castle Drogo because of rain water too!]

Anyway, that is an aside.  The main concern here is with the elements, and we've seen enough of water for the moment. So, climbing up the National Trust earth of Cooper's Hill, we come to the sky, the air, and soaring above is an Astral Crown in blue and gold, topped by a single star that pierces the heavens.

This is the Air Forces Memorial, Runnymede, designed by Sir Edward Maufe (who also designed Guildford Cathedral), opened by the Queen in 1953, on land donated by Sir Eugen and Lady Effie Millington-Drake, and, despite all that, it is a most moving monument.

It is perhaps another irony that we now take for granted the conquest of the air, while we flay ourselves and each other, gnashing teeth and wailing, when river waters rise a few inches above lawns down by the banks.....

But those magnificent men in their flying machines did not all have it easy, and this great shrine is to some of the 116,000 men and women of the Air Forces of the Commonwealth who gave their lives in service in the Second World War, many of whom were lost without trace.

This place of reserve and quiet commemorates over twenty thousand of these who were lost in operations from bases in the United Kingdom and North and Western Europe.  Most of them, 15,462 in fact, served in the Royal Air Force, but there were many from the Royal Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and Indian Air Forces, the South African Air Force, as well as from the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC).  

Their names are engraved on the walls, reveals and mullions of the windows, grouped according to the year of death, in alphabetical order.

And relatives and friends still visit to leave mementoes to show their love and respect:

And wreaths record more formal tributes in the shadows:

The building itself, in keeping with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's style (Sir Edward Maufe was their principal architect in the years following the Second World War), is cool and sober.  The great north window of the shrine is engraved with words from the 139th Psalm, sometimes called the Airman's Psalm:

If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

If I take the wings of the morning,

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there Your hand shall lead me,

And Your right hand shall hold me. 

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” 

Even the night shall be light about me; 

Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, 

But the night shines as the day; 

The darkness and the light are both alike to You

And these words are flanked by angels and vapour trails, copied (the vapour trails that is) from photographs taken during the Battle of Britain. Above is a gallery, with another engraved window.  This poem was composed by Paul H Scott, a student, soon after the memorial was completed.

We shall see the memorial still, and over it
The crown and single star.  And we shall pray
As the mists rise up and the air grows dark
That we may wear
As brave a heart as they.

And then above this is the roof terrace, beneath the crown, with views across the gardens, and also down over the Thames.

One name that is not found here is that of Richard Hillary, a young airman who was not lost without trace.  His ordeal was by fire, when, on September 3rd, 1940,  just below me and to my left, I saw what I had been praying for - a Messerschmitt climbing and away from the sun. I closed in to 200 yards, and from slightly to one side gave him a two-second burst: fabric ripped off the wing and black smoke poured from the engine, but he did not go down. Like a fool, I did not break away, but put in another three-second burst. Red flames shot upwards and he spiralled out of sight. At that moment, I felt a terrific explosion which knocked the control stick from my hand, and the whole machine quivered like a stricken animal. In a second, the cockpit was a mass of flames: instinctively, I reached up to open the hood. It would not move. I tore off my straps and managed to force it back; but this took time, and when I dropped back into the seat and reached for the stick in an effort to turn the plane on its back, the heat was so intense that I could feel myself going. I remember a second of sharp agony, remember thinking "So this is it!" and putting both hands to my eyes. Then I passed out.

He was thrown from the cockpit and parachuted into the sea, some miles off Margate, whose lifeboat picked him up many hours later.

He had extensive burns to the face and hands (he, like many other Spitfire pilots, refused to wear goggles or gloves) and suffered months of agony undergoing revolutionary plastic surgery.

He never regained complete fitness, but, having recorded his experiences in The Last Enemy, he returned to flying. He was killed on the night of January 7th 1943.  Hillary, on a training flight with his navigator, Walter Fison, died instantly when his Bristol Blenheim crashed in a field near RAF Charterhall.  

His charred remains, weighted with sand in his coffin, were returned to his parents, together with his cigarette case, and his will, in which he had written:  

I want no one to go into mourning for me.  As to whether I am buried or cremated, it is immaterial to me, but, as the flames have had one try, I suggest they might get their man in the end.

Richard Hillary was 23 when he died.  

1 Corinthians 15:26

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death

Richard's story is one of the best known accounts of a fighter pilot's experience in the Second World War. It is now in print again, with an introduction by Sebastian Faulks, who also wrote about Hillary in The Fatal Englishman.  The isolation and almost medieval duelling of airmen is perhaps best expressed by W B Yeats, however, in his poem An Irish Airman foresees his Death, written in 1918, for Major Robert Gregory, the only son of Yeats's friend, Lady Gregory.

I know that I shall meet my fate 

Somewhere among the clouds above; 

.....

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, 

Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, 

A lonely impulse of delight 

Drove to this tumult in the clouds; 

I balanced all, brought all to mind, 

The years to come seemed waste of breath, 

A waste of breath the years behind 

In balance with this life, this death

It is a final irony that the names, carved into stone, outlive these men and women.  But as Richard Hillary wrote in his will:  I want no one to feel sorry for me.....  In my life I had a few friends, I learnt a little wisdom and a little patience. What more could a man ask for?

It is too late to feel sorry, but it is never too late to remember. And even when our memories have gone, others will be reminded of those who gave their lives.  

On the earth, in the water, in the air, and in the fire.

.