And it’s the memory which has made this choice for me today. Thirty years ago this weekend, my dad finally succumbed to the health battles he’d long been fighting and died. He’d lived the latter part of his life just down the hill from here and had grown very proud of his Somerset base. His funeral was held at this beautiful village church and his headstone is still a place I visit every time I’m lucky enough to come down this way.
Different people mark these anniversaries in different ways as you’d expect. Although I always circle the date in each new diary so I won’t miss it, this would have been the first time I would have set foot inside the church. I’ve been down to visit on key dates before and I usually raise a glass and spend some time in thought but we make our own traditions when no other tradition dictates and mine has never been elaborate or over-emotional.
The news each day is filled with the latest rows over how many ventilators the nation has managed to scrape together, the Herculean task of creating from scratch giant temporary hospitals to cope with the thousands who need help and the grimmest predictions of what kind of economic chaos will await those who survive its seemingly endless rages. And, deep down in each evening’s bulletin, the number of people who have died. Today it’s over 700. The figures are becoming almost a blur.
I have no idea how people who have suffered a bereavement in the last fortnight have coped. I hope I never find out. Funerals can go ahead but the restrictions which prevent everything from shopping to parties, football to worship apply here too. And heaven alone knows how the funeral industry is coping. At least, in my dad’s case, we were given the reassurance of a stable background against which we could grieve.
Via the miracle of Zoom - and despite a lifetime working for BBC Radio my father would have regarded being able to see and talk to so many people in their own homes, nothing short of a miracle - I join a combined congregation upwards of 80. It is clearly an uplifting sight for regulars to see one another healthy and happy and the babble of voices - plus the contributions of at least one dog - is just as it would be were they all to gather to hand out hymn books and prepare the coffee urn.
Thanks to the welcoming generosity of the vicar of St Peter’s and his clearly resourceful IT helpers, my mug shot is top right on my screen and I’m able to wave to all and hear Rev Stuart explain why I am adding my presence today to the regular worshippers.
This Palm Sunday service is a slightly shortened communion (something we may have to live with for a few weeks yet) and carries a message of hope after suffering and comfort and thoughts to those in the community facing the anxiety of these odd and worrying times. The sense of togetherness, even across the miles and the network cables, is palpable and buoyant.
I’m invited to join the locals in a separate room for virtual coffee. Sadly the miraculous powers of Zoom fall short of giving me a voice. Somehow my microphone is switched off and no amount of clicking around on my part can rectify the problem. A pity as I would like to have spoken to those whose memories of the village might have gone far enough back into the last century. But it was not to be. In the end I scrawl ‘Thank You’ on one side of a piece of paper and ‘Goodbye’ on the other and hope that my thanks for allowing me to be there in so many people’s (very smart) front rooms, is understood. A most unconventional way to mark the turning of another year, but one I won’t forget.
