It’s Sunday and the west door is locked.
I’ve tried it, checked my watch, the date.
Yes it’s true, I can’t go inside.
So I walk around, a facade, that’s all it is,
tall and beautiful it may be,
with some of the finest medieval stone work anywhere,
in a county already noted for its
ecclesiastical glories – but
it’s a fossil now of former faith,
where lip services are still carried out,
fed through the waterless canals of devotion,
enacted by the tired words of priests
standing before a withered congregation,
the last one leaving making sure the door
is locked behind them
to preserve the emptiness of our time
We recently visited the beautiful church of Saint Kyneburgha, near Peterborough in the English midlands.
The church stands beautifully on a hill, on the site of an old Roman settlement and palace.
In fact, the name of Castor is derived directly from the Roman/Latin name for a fort or castle. This village is situated near to an important Roman settlement called Durobrivae, or Water Newton in Egnlish, just a few miles west of present day city of Peterborough.
The church is noted for its surviving medieval wall art. Before the Reformation in the 16th century, all churches had such wall art, which was then whitewashed over. More recently, as in this example above, some of these illustrations have been revealed during restoration.
Castor church’s appellation is Saint Kyneburgha, who was the daughter of King Penda of Mercia, the last pagan king of that English kingdom in the midlands.
Only half an hour earlier George had placed her picture on the summit, as promised, then posed for the photograph, the proof that they had made it, exhausted, breathless, though more overcome by the view, that vast panorama, daunting and deadly. Sandy had been certain he saw in George the same chilling sense he felt, that this was
no place for Man.
It had caught up with them, quickly, while they began the long descent. George must have slipped. Sandy had tried to hold the rope, to get some grip, but his friend was gone before he knew it. Even all those years rowing at Merton didn’t give him the strength to hold on, for long, the kinetic weight tearing at his muscles. He crashed onto the slope and slid until a rock severed his speed, his chance of survival. Fate had deemed this gully of shadows was to be his grave. The pain, though intense, was eased by the creeping cold through his torn clothes. Hadn’t George told him, be mindful on the descent, of its dangers? Only last night they’d talked about Edward Whimper, conqueror of the Matterhorn, how tragedy struck on that other treacherous face. But Sandy knew it was tales like these that first fired up George, made him into the man he was.
He thought of George’s wife, Ruth, apologising to her for their predicament, his broken body and his dwindling life, the fact that he couldn’t make out her husband anywhere in that eerie, receding light. At least there was time to collect his thoughts, acquaint himself with the Mother of the World, as the Sherpas knew this place. Sandy heard it said that they believed to die peacefully, mindfully, was a good thing. He asked that Chomolungma might bless his migrating soul.
In memory of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, who died on Mt. Everest, June 1924. Here I speculate what might have happened.
Ciscography 