Chapter 2

That first evening had been a mixture of emotions. He discovered that the evening meal, instead of being a dinner as he had been used to, was simply soup. Great Aunt Josephine claimed to have a declining digestion and a large meal gave her indigestion. The main meal was therefore at lunchtime. A single roll was allocated to each diner with their soup.

In the kitchen, cook contentedly ate the extra roast potatoes she had kept back from lunch, with the cold ham.

“You should have been warned. I’m sure I said we only had a light tea.” Josephine Barker said, knowing full well that she had not. An old lady must get her pleasures where she can, and discomforting young people, who have no right to be so active, was one of them.

He went to bed with a stomach that rumbled slightly. Susan smiled and said she hoped he would sleep well.

The following day, he discovered that breakfast was not an epicurean delight either. Porridge was the order of the day, only on Saturdays – the day he had arrived – was a cooked breakfast deemed necessary. On other days apart from Sunday, a boiled egg was added to the sparse food on offer. Simon began to despair. He saw the scandalised look from his great aunt when took a second helping of porridge. It would have gone to waste in any case. What would lunch be? Perhaps only a single rasher of bacon and a turnip. Still, he maintained a cheerful demeanour, and asked what the day held for them.

“Well, since it is Sunday the main activity of the day is naturally attending church young man.”

Of course, he agreed, he rapidly added that he was simply wondering where the church was, and when they had to set off for it. “We normally leave around nine and fifteen.” Susan said. The service was at ten and it would take twenty five minutes to get there. After Josephine had left to ‘get ready’, Susan explained that his Great Aunt still insisted on walking to church; though she took longer and longer. “We still go on a constitutional each day, but now Miss Barker is in the chair on the way back up. Going down the hill, she walks some of the times.”

Simon went and dressed as smartly as he could to go to the church. Newborough caters for all manner of preferences. From the Catholic Chapel near the station where the Irish live, who stayed after the railway was built; through the various incarnations of Church of England to Methodists, Congregationalists, Scottish Presbyterian, English Presbyterian, Baptist and finally the Beach Mission. Each was scrupulously polite to all the others whilst knowing that their congregations would all reside in Purgatory or Hell for their lack of understanding the true path. The churches felt more resentment towards the other churches than towards the mass of unbelievers that came and enjoyed the sand and sea and then left without a second thought towards the places and people of worship. It was hard to blame those who had perhaps one or two days a year away from the smog ridden dens of industry. Simon was naturally inclined towards a freer more welcoming form of the established religion, but was not surprised that they slowly walked beyond the road into the town where St Michaels was and proceeded to The Church of The Holy Redeemer, a more high church establishment. Not for the first time, he was struck by the tendency of the more Catholic and more evangelical churches to follow similar flowery titles for their churches. The Catholic church was ‘Mother Mary Star of the Sea’ whilst the Baptist was ‘Bethel The Redeemed Church of God’. In the middle was plain St Michaels and the Methodist, simply called ‘Methodist Church’.

He recognised the service, of course. It was the same the world over, the difference was in the details – stations of the cross round the walls, holy water at the entrance, a constant flame burning near the altar. To him these were all Romish symbols, but that wasn’t the problem. The real problem was the pointlessness of them. He sometimes thought he should have joined one of the other sects, but always felt a draw to the established church. In his quieter, more honest moments he had to admit that the restriction on entry to Oxford was also a reason to stay.

The priest conducting the service seemed friendly enough, greeting all as they left. He had a good handshake and a cheery smile. “Ah, a visitor? Welcome, welcome. How long are you here for?”

“All summer.” Simon replied, “Before going up to Oxford.”

“To study?”

“Theology. I hope to become a minister in time.”

“Capital, capital. I shall look forward to seeing you this evening.”

That was the first poor Simon had heard that Sundays entailed two church services. He then discovered that the evening service was followed by a friendly meeting of people sharing their thoughts over coffee or tea (‘and a biscuit’) whispered Susan with a smile.

He was looking forward to lunch. This was the meal of the day. Cook had met him that morning and recognised someone who might appreciate her cooking. However, being a Sunday, she had been out at her own church in the morning; it was understood that, even though it was entirely in error in believing that each church should manage itself rather than having a top-down management structure of archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, deacons, she had the right to go in error to that church on a Sunday morning. She was a professional though, so there was meat in the oven and vegetables waiting to be boiled as soon as she returned, the range partly cooked them in any case. What there was not, on a Sunday, was a dessert. Still, there were plenty of boiled potatoes. “My my, you’ll eat me out of house and home.” Great Aunt Jo said grumpily, she was not a generous host. Simon did not take a third helping of boiled potatoes.

The afternoon was spent in quiet contemplation. For Josephine, this meant ostentatiously reading the Sermons of Canon Barker – a distant relative who thought enough of himself to publish a book of his own sermons. Susan sat with a bible; she had set herself the task of reading it from cover to cover, something that Miss Barker regarded as somewhat extreme but could hardly criticise. Simon found a book on the shelves of ‘works of improvement’ in the Drawing Room: ‘My life in The Mission’. He assumed it would regale him with vaguely boring stories of conversions of whole tribes, which it did; but was rather delighted to find it had other stories in it too: ‘The Lion Who Came To The Service’, for example, or ‘Innocent As Eve’ (in which Simon distinctly read between the lines that the missionary found that being surrounded by naked breasts was a distraction). It was a book that Great Aunt Jo had bought after the missionary came to speak, and had never so much as opened – some of the pages were still uncut. If she had it would probably have been rapidly consigned to the fire. There were few pictures, but it was noticeable that the natives could be represented with few clothes with no shock to the system. He looked up at the companion across the room and wondered about a picture of her dressed as a native was (or was not). It was clear that the missionary had some sense of humour, Simon was sure that would not appeal to his great aunt. For example the story of the visiting bishop thinking he might be eaten by the natives due to a mistranslation of ‘pleased to meet you’ as ‘pleased to eat you’.