Glimpses of Goyt Valley

I saw a wind hover, where the winds gather,
Where the clouds whisked away
And the grass waltzed across the wild land,
While my hair whipped across my eyes
And the sun burst out brightly.

There was Pym Chair, not so good for relaxing.
Was he preacher or highway man?
Your money or my sermon, his sinister request.
I saw a wind hover and in its stillness
I saw the valley through God’s eye

Down the steep road the door to Jenkin chapel was open. Its simple interior a place my ancestors would have known. Set at the junction of the Salters roads its simple lines and homely interior looks out on a well kept graveyard. The local dead are still well regarded and recorded on aged stones.

The paths we followed along the valley were lined with trees old and young. Someone had counted the massive beeches and there were many contenders for ‘tree of the day ‘. There was a beautiful rich greenness in every fern and moss, every leaf and plant and the riverside meadows.
The butterflies seemed to particularly like the thistles. They danced around them in ones, twos, three and even fours. The other gifts of the day were the frequent stands of wild raspberries bringing a welcome fruity tang to the walk.

The sky changed from pale to dark grey. A strong shower swept through, followed by the widening blue window and higher whiskers of white feathery clouds. A summer day of contrasts and companionship.

In our coming and our going
The Peace of God

Changing the world at Passchendaele

As together we remember the 100th Anniversary of the one of the bloodiest muddiest battles of WW1 I would like to share some glimpses of the ripples that spread out from Passchendaele and that we can still appreciate today. This way of using personal memoir to inform mass mourning and remembering has become something of a mark of our commemoration of the 100th anniversary of what, in the Register of Silcoates School, is interestingly referred to as The Great European War.

A father and a son
Abraham takes Isaac up a mountain and prepares to slaughter him. Wilfred Owen uses the same image in on of his war poems ‘The Old Man and the Young‘. There must have been many fathers and sons died in WW1, and I know one pair.
Harry and Ronald Moorhouse, father and son, both formerly of Silcoates School, died on the same day, at the Battle of Passchendaele: it is said less than thirty minutes separated their dying. They were professional soldiers. Harry had first served in South Africa, and was a contemporary of John Yonge the war-time Headmaster of Silcoates. The story goes that on 9th October 1917, Ronald was brought in wounded. Harry lept up to find medical help for his son and was killed in the process. Even though this story is recorded their names were never reunited with their bodies: they are listed with thousands of others on the walls that surrounded Tyne Cot Cemetery. We visit them every year with our students.

Two women
Nellie Spindler was killed on 21st August 1917. She was a Staff Nurse from Wakefield, serving with the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, and is one of only a very few British nurses who were killed in action on the Western Front to be buried with full military honours. Brought up a Roman Catholic, she was the daughter of a police sargeant in Wakefield. She trained as a nurse in Leeds and eventually found her way to the Western Front under the command of a Matron from Batley. She was killed, aged 26, when a shell fell on the tent in which she was sleeping and is burried in Lijssenthoek Military Cenemtery. We visit her every year too.
Constance Coltman is a different matter. She was a pacifist. On the 17th September 1917, at the height of the Battle of Passchendaele, she was ordained to the Christian Ministry in the Congregational Union of England and Wales by four other pacifist ministers, one of the first women to be ordained in Britain. Many men had gone to war, and quite a few women, and that had changed Britian quite a bit. Women did war work, and some campaigned for peace: Constance was one of them. We will remember her ordination in September this year.
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The story of war is always the story of the lives of ordinary people, both women and men. Wars also often mark a change, geographical maybe but also social. Many things change with war, some of which are forgotten and some remembered a long time later. We are still learning lessons from WW1. ‘Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it’: best we keep learning then.

In our coming and our going
The peace of God

30.07.2017, being the 100th Anniversary of GS Golding, remembered at Thiepval.

The washing machine

When you get back from holiday the first blessing of 21st century life is clearly the washing machine. All the bog encrusted vestments are piled in, go round and round and come out again with a lot less bog. The dirty water has gone done the drain and the washing is drying in a satisfying way.

It was a good image to recall yesterday when I was hearing the story of a young man I know. It was like he’d been in washing machine but not in a good way. Round and round and round he’d been buffeted for about six months in all the filthy water and finally he’d been spat out somewhat bedraggled to make of the experience whatever he could.

I listened like they teach you in mental health first aid and I asked the questions about suicide when he mentioned he’d thought about it. I was grateful once again for the training. A conversation may not sound very difficult but most people worry that they may make things worse not better. So it’s good to be able to give reassurance and information in a positive and life affirming way. Of the things I have done in the last two years I really recommend the mental health first aid training. It affirmed me, set me on my feet with firmer steps, opened my ears and my mouth in that order and helped me make sense of some of my own experiences too.

I am also a qualified Youth Mental Health First Aid instructor if you’re interested . Contact me on Twitter @silcoateschapel.

Pitching the tent

It was wet and windy on Friday afternoon when we arrived at the campsite with Hannah and the tent. Hannah loves camping and wanted to camp the last night on Kintyre as it would be easier to get to the early ferry from the campsite five miles away than the from the cottage up the small winding road at Carradale.
That was until the weather turned wet and windy. However this did not, of course deter Hannah.
The camp site is near the sand dunes, a beautiful setting and a nice looking site with good facilities. We three stood in a small inward facing circle. Team Lees-Warwicker were about to pitch the tent. We looked for Hannah to lead us, each ready to respond to requests for pegs or whatever.
It took only a couple of minutes for a damp patch of grass to be transformed into a dry place to rest. I crawled inside with mattress and sleeping bag as instructed. It was cosy.
I can, even now, see the attraction of this temporary type of living arrangements. The solitude and self contained but readily portable hermitage is something even the saints would have coverted.
So often we go for permanence when we really need something more flexible and transient. Of course there maybe times in our life cycles whether individual or communal when the whole putting down roots thing seems the right response. But then we encounter different challenges, restlessness, age, decline, change maybe.
There’s a hymn I like that has the tent image as part of the faithful response to the life of faith. I don’t remember the first line or the writer but I do remember one particular memorable phrase. It rang around my head the next morning when we returned to collect the tent before getting on the early ferry from Campbeltown to Ardrossan.
‘Pull the tent pegs up again’: we did and we’re onto the next adventure.

In our coming and our going
The Peace of God

Reflections around Knapdale

Tarbert was the first place for reflections on our tour around Kintyre today. This small bustling town gathered around an active harbour has some lovely rippling reflections. The colourful buildings grouped around the harbour are reflected back in today’s warm sunlight. There was fresh bread, vegetables and fish, of course. The core of an ancient castle guards the town from the hill above.
A detour for petrol took us to Lochgoilhead, which meant crossing the Crinan canal. We retraced a few miles and then took the road around North Knapdale. We had our picnic lunch on the shores of Loch Caolisport, the hills and sky reflected in the clear blue water, the shore a treasure trove of stones and shells.
We made our way through the green lanes of Knapdale to see the stones of Kilberry. They are housed in a small smart shed and echo back a history of over 1,500 years. Some of the oldest stones carved with simple cross marks are made of a local mica type stone and still shimmer. Others, not quite so old, show more complex carving: figures, animals, decorative panels. The Christian story has been part of this landscape for a long time. The information panel explains how the stones came to be ‘in the care of the State’. Something we might well take for granted until we reflect how many other stones world wide are not accorded such protection.
In our last section around Knapdale we notched up several standing stones. They represent an even older story that we are still trying to piece back together. Could the story with which we are familiar be lost? Might it happen soon? What part might our silences play in such a loss?

If Christ’s disciples keep silent
These stones would shout aloud

We know a song or two

Just at the Southend of the Kintyre peninsula is a small ruined chapel, some caves and a well linked to St Columba by what are said to be his footprints.
He is said to have stopped here in 563 on his way to Iona. The Antrim coast is visible and pilgrims made the crossing from there up until the mid 18th century.
The graveyards have a long history and many stories, not least the three grandsons of the local minister lost in WW1. My song was ‘Jesus, remember them’.
We took the switchback Road that leads to the Mull of Kintyre, ruminating on opening a Paul McCartney theme park in a local disused hotel. At the end of the public road the small car park was almost empty. We set off downhill to the lighthouse 2 kms away. There were many Magpie Moths trying to navigate in the wind, and a lovely range of flowering plants including heather, harebell and scabious.
The downward journey took half an hour and the journey back, with 280 metres of ascent only 50 minutes, which given the rather relentless gradient was satisfying. We could see the rain clouds gathering over the Antrim coast. Obviously there was only one song for this part of the journey. Join in when you know it…. Mull of Kintyre

Over my head, I hear music in the air:
There must be a God somewhere

Sea, sky and stones

We finally found the ogham stone a little way behind the church yard. It was coveted in whiskery lichen and the ogham marks very well eroded, but then it has been waiting there for sometime, in this bee loud meadow. There was a female common darter (dragonfly) chasing round the ragged rocks and red campion.
Gigha is a longer, flatter more arable island than Iona. The ruined church remembers St Cathan who brought the Gospel to Kintyre and the Western Isles in the 6th century from Ireland.
Fringed by green woodland the road south from the ferry also boasted two ‘honesty tables’, one selling shortbread and woolly hats the other eggs and candles.
Hannah had a cycle up and down and then we had some lovely lunch at the Gigha Hotel followed by ice cream from the little shop. This is a diversification in the Gigha economy and is made on the island with milk from the very cows she had cycled past on the north end.
The shallow bay by the south pier was a draw to almost everyone. Reached through another lovely wild flower meadow, with a wonderful crop of common orchids, it stretched on and on and was shallow enough to wade across which was pleasant and a cooling way to pass the afternoon.

From the warm sun and the cool sea
The green woodland and the colourful meadow,
The welcome and the care
Of this small island,
There is much to celebrate,
And remember gratefully.

Open door

The door was open. The interior calm and cool. Lined with wood it was carved from the forest itself. A yellow chrysanthemum in a plastic pot the only sign that reasonably recently someone had been here.

God is my strength and refuge,
A present help in trouble,
The One in whom I put my trust.
God sets a bright flower before me
And surrounds me with calm and peace.
In the valley the sheep let me know
They are at home here too.
As the light filters through the trees
And the dappled path stretches ahead of me
I lean into the silence and drink
From the quiet pools.
The sheep take an uphill path through the trees
To new pastures, excited and eager:
It is worthwhile to follow them
Knowing you are with us.

This was written at Saddell and Carradale church. And this Inscription on a grave stone was seem a little further on at Dippen:
Life is short
Death is sure
Sin the wound
Christ the cure

Waited for a bus at Torrisdale Castle, where the coat of arms says Forward and the Gunera very large. Bob speculated that if rhubarb was that size you could feed a lot of people with one stalk. Maybe a plant breeding programme is in order.

Another clear day gave lovely views of Arran from this coast. I can see back to Carradale from where we came. It was a good walk except for the bit along the shore. We had not expected it to be quite as difficult as it was over the rocks and salt Marsh. Samphire and sea pink were growing among the rocks and we saw two common blue Butterflies.

A glorious day
In our life and our believing
The love of God

And on the third day

If yesterday was marked by different shades of grey (no, not like that, in the landscape I mean), then today’s hue was blue.
It began fairly early, as the clouds thinned out from day break, to be replaced by clear blue by mid day.
We visited the ruins of Saddell Abbey. Reclaimed by the green of the valley and the forest, it was first named by the Vikings, and as their descendants we admired the lushness. No wonder it was later settled by Monks as it must have also been productive.
Loch Lussa lies in the middle of the southern section of the Kintyre peninsula. We reached it from the south and walked along the western shore. It was astonishingly blue. The shore was dotted with Marsh orchids in diverse shades of purple, one of my favourite British wild flowers. Each little floret on the spike is a perfect tiny masterpiece.
We found a Croft selling freshly picked kale so Hannah was well pleased. Leaving Bob to walk around the North end of the Loch and back to Saddell, Hannah and I went back by road stopping at Peninver to explore Ardnacross Bay. The sea was very calm and there were clear views of Arran across Kilbrannan Sound. The blue sea and sky were a wonder, and a complete contrast to yesterday’s low clouds. The water looked inviting and some local children were running about in the shallows. An oyster catcher rose from a rock giving its shrill alarm cry.
We called in at the tea shop near Carradale and were the last customers of the day, rewarded with chocolate brownies, flapjack and the last of the lemon drizzle.
It was the only drizzle we had seen all day. The evening sun bathed us generously as we turned for home. The sky was still and blue.

From the sky and from the sea
The joy of God

The second leg

Reading this you may wonder about the first leg, which was Huddersfield to Kilmarnock via the Yorkshire Dales. The best bit was the cheese shop n Ribblesdale where having been pressed to try many kinds of cheese we came away with 10 to last us the week. We ate some in a small picnic at Teabay. Whichever way we go round here we cross over routes we have taken before, particularly Hannah’s End to End five years ago.
Kilmarnock has won the strap line Scotland ‘s most improved town. We visited an award winning fish and chip shop.

But the second leg, the original subject of this entry, was wet. We met Hannah at Ardrossan harbour and eventually we were all loaded onto a Cal-mac ferry for Arran. The famous Cal-Mac breakfast with Lorne sausage well worth the wait.
From Brodick to Lochranza it rained. Very open country, the road wandered by the coast, but there was no avoiding Hannah getting soaked on her bicycle. She made very good time but was wet and cold. The 12.00 ferry to Claonaig was warm but brief. As a port it boasted only a bus shelter. Hannah decided to press on. A newly resurfaced single track road of 14 miles with quite a loose surface had to be negotiated before a bar came in sight 1 mile from our destination. Let’s hope some hot food and a chance to dry out concludes the second leg in a more satisfactory way than it started.

Evening came on gently and the rain cleared such that sky, sea and hills were various shades of soft grey. It is quiet and calm.

In our coming and our going
The Peace of God l