Church bans Desmond Tutu's daughter from taking Shropshire funeral due to same-sex marriage

Yes, the Shropshire Star wins my Headline of the Day Award, but the judges felt it necessary to add a rider condemning the Church of England.

As the story below that headline explains:

The daughter of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been banned from officiating at a church funeral in Shropshire, because she is married to a woman.

Instead the family of Martin Kenyon will be holding the 'service' in the back garden of his country home in the south of the county.

The former army officer split his life between London and the county and his family had been hoping to hold his funeral in St Michael and All Angels at Lydbury North.

But his wish to see priest Mpho Tutu - daughter of his close friend Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his own god-daughter - conduct it in the church has been denied by the Church of England because she is in a same-sex marriage. ...

Mr Kenyon was friends with Desmond Tutu for 60 years after he looked after the South African archbishop when he arrived in London in the early 1960s to study.

Mpho Tutu told the Star of her reaction to the decision:

"I couldn't believe my ears. Our same-sex marriage is again a reason to hurt people for no reason.

"Martin’s daughters, grandchildren, friends, the Tutu family, and also my wife, Mpho, who are all mourning because of the death of their beloved Martin are being punished because she fell in love with me and dared to marry me

"I feel it is my time to speak up for my wife."

And the Star claims the Diocese of Hereford told it:

“We acknowledge this is a difficult situation. Advice was given in line with the House of Bishops current guidance osame-sexex marriage.”

Yes, I think it probably did.

British Stone Skimming Championships to take place near Bishop's Castle

From the Shropshire Star:

The lake at Walcot Hall in Lydbury North, near Bishop’s Castle, will be the venue for the unusual tournament on June 30 and about 100 competitors are expected to try their hands. 

Spectators are welcome but the action will not just be confined to the skimmers, with other events planned for the day, all with a stoney theme.

Should you wish to watch or take part, contact details can be found here.

Haile Selassie in Craven Arms

A couple of days ago, while looking at Wistanstow Village Hall, I quoted from 'Reminiscences of Wistanstow' by Michael Coles. Here is another extract from that book:

In 1936 the Italians invaded Abyssinia and the Emperor Haile Selassie had to flee, He was given refuge by this country and one day whilst I was at Craven Arms railway station he arrived with his entourage to stay at Walcot Hall on the way to Lydbury North, which was a mansion owned by the Stephenson Ink people.

In stature, he was a small man, very swarthy and black-bearded, with striking features. His helmet had big white feathers on top and his military uniform was well-decorated with a sash and medals. How long he stayed locally I have no idea, but that is my memory of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Abyssinia, also known as the 'Lion Man'.

When I first visited Shropshire I imagined that Craven Arms would be a medieval town like Much Wenlock or Church Stretton. Not a bit of it. It is a Victorian town, named after a pre-existing hotel and built around a cattle market and railway junction, which has somehow always failed to thrive. My picture shows Craven Arms' derelict Temperance Hall.

At least when Haile Selassie saw it the railway station had refreshment rooms and was not the wasteland of bus shelters you see today. And maybe the Shropshire tourism people can use this story to bring Rastafarian tourists to the area.

When smoke stood up from Ludlow

Much as I love Shropshire, sometimes it is safer to live in Leicestershire.

Today, for instance, a small earthquake was felt around Ludlow and Church Stretton. It didn't compete with the Bishop's Castle earthquake of 1990, which I felt at work in Leicester, but it still Makes You Think.

And then there is this, which Castle News broke today:

Tankers have been transporting water into Bishop’s Castle by road for the past two weeks after a contamination scare. 

Water has been tankered into town from Ludlow since a borehole was closed by Severn Trent water company two weeks ago. The Clungunford borehole was closed because spilt oil had contaminated the ground near the bore hole.

Which, given that Lydbury North is a couple of miles south of the town, is probably connected with this story from Monday's Shropshire Star:

A 45-year-old man had an amazing escape after his tanker plunged down an embankment in Shropshire, trapping him inside for nearly two hours. 

The water tanker left the road and rolled through a hedge becoming coming to rest on its side in a field near Lydbury North.

Still, some people thrive on the danger. This morning the BBC Shropshire pages reported that a lady called Mary Wolfe has just retired from providing teas at Bishop's Castle Community Hospital at the age of 100.

If the Big Society happens it will be in spite of the Conservatives

I have more time for the concept of the "Big Society" than most Liberal Democrats, if only because the alternative we tend to offer - "community politics" - is so ill defined too. Trying to draw distinctions between them, as some do, strikes me as an attempt to nail two different jellies to the wall while separating geometric precision.

Certainly, I have little affection for the idea, common in the Labour Party, that all social enterprise must be undertaken by the state or not at all.

But it has become clear to me that the Big Society is not a simple alternative to government. National, and in particular local, government is an important part of the patchwork that might make up the Big Society.

Take village schools. It is true that government need not run them, but in any conceivable future it will be local or national government that funds them.  And anyone who wants to see villages as flourishing communities will want to see them do that. And, as I have pointed out before, village schools are just the sort of institution that should gladden the hearts of proper Conservatives.

That is not how they see it in Shropshire, where the Tory council has spent the day closing village primary schools. Five are to go: Ifton Heath, Barrow, Masesbury, Shawbury and Hopton Wafers.

Stiperstones School, which concerns this blog for obvious reasons, has been given more time so that it can explore plans to form a federation with Chirbury Primary School.

A similar arrangement is take place elsewhere in the county. As the council's account tweeted from meeting:

Cabinet members say they are delighted that Lydbury and Onny have come forward with an alternative to closure. #SCcabinet

Lydbury is Lydbury North near Bishop's Castle, whose school is shown in the photo I have borrowed from the Shropshire Star.

But there is something back to front here. If the Shropshire cabinet was so keen to avoid closure, why was it not using its resources to find an alternative.

Instead it simply proposed closure and left the people of those villages, whose taxes pay for the council, to do the work of showing it was wrong.

So in Shropshire they have a Tory council still wedded to the stale old agenda of centralisation and standardisation, and local people with the energy and vision to find something better. If the Big Society does flourish in Shropshire it will be in spite of the Conservatives and not because of them.

Plan to save threatened Shropshire village schools

The campaign to save the Shropshire village schools threatened with closure is the subject of an article in today's Independent by Jeremy Sutcliffe. It concentrates on the schools at Stiperstones and Lydbury North.

Sutcliffe quotes the information officer of the National Association of Small Schools:

Small schools bring significant benefits, not just in sustaining rural communities. Ministers should see small schools as assets not liabilities. They offer a family-friendly, community-based model for education which is too precious to lose."

The article also reveals that the Hereford diocese of the Church of England is looking at alternatives which could mean the five church schools under threat - including Lydbury North and Stiperstones - being turned into a primary academy. All five would stay open on their present sites, under the direction of a single governing body.

Rural Britain stripped of all services

Later. Looking for Bishop's Castle dial-a-ride? Try 01588 638350.

Writing on the New Statesman website last year I declared:

Rural England has been laid waste by the rich. Just look at the names of their houses: The Old Rectory. The Old Bakehouse. The Old Red Lion.
Last week I had dinner with a company director who had just moved from The Old Stables to The Old Watermill.
Somewhere behind this façade - Marie Antoinette’s play dairy brought to the market by Kirsty Allsopp - is a smokier, more productive landscape. And I am determined to see it peopled again.

Since then the process has only got worse.

At the start of the month the Shropshire Star published a sad article looking at how the villages affected are getting on a year after the closure of 13 rural post offices. The place names are an incantation to me:

Lydbury North has been replaced by an outreach service. These skeleton services are run by people like Brian Simmonds, postmaster at Pontesbury, who travels around local village halls and even people’s houses, plugging in his portable equipment.
Brian himself runs outreach services in Worthen, Wentnor, Stiperstones, Marton and Acton Burnell, where it has been a year of change for the post office and its users.
Acton Burnell, near Shrewsbury, is the unique position of being a tiny village but with almost 400 international students on the doorstep from Concord College.
Postmistress Rose Jackson says: “It’s very frustrating, I’ve had to turn business away. I cannot do packages over 6kg and students have got to get a taxi into Shrewsbury to send one. The amount of things I can’t do – foreign currency, insurance packages, I cannot sell postal orders and I cannot accept payment by cheque. I can’t even do fishing licences which we used to do a lot of.”
A year on, Rose now views the post office as “doing a service to the community” and that the scaling back of the service was “not well thought out”.

In some places the effect has been far worse:

Better than nothing’ might be the mantra of communities that at least offer some post office services, but the repercussions of closures are being severely felt 12 months on for the likes of Pam Jennings.
After 27 years, her post office in Aston on Clun was closed on August 18, 2008, a date that sticks in her head as the beginning of a slow decline in her other business – her shop.
“One without the other – a shop without a post office – is hopeless,” says Pam indicating an empty shelf that was once a busy counter.
“People would come in and spend money in the shop, or come in and spend money at the post office. I could still do trade because people come in with parcels and say ‘I thought you were still a post office’. But it’s hopeless. We used to be open 9am to 5.30pm five days a week plus Saturdays. Now I close the shop at lunchtime, but I might close altogether soon.”

Now comes news that many of the bus services in south Shropshire have disappeared. Yesterday the Star reported:

Three Shropshire bus services were ending today after last-ditch negotiations to save them failed. The routes were commercial services operated by Horrocks bus company.
The firm said at the beginning of July it could not make them viable.
The withdrawal of the 860, 773 and 745 routes means there is now no bus service from Bishop’s Castle to Wellington and no service from Bishop’s Castle and Clun to Newtown or Ludlow.
Residents appealed to Shropshire Council to subsidise the service, but discussions between Horrocks and the council failed to find a solution.
Resident Margaret Wilson described the move as “ridiculous”. She said that the services were “very popular” and regularly used with a lot of local people.

Which leaves no buses from Clun at all, apart from the weekend shuttle service for walkers.

So how are the poor, the elderly and those without cars meant to survive in rural England? Soon it will be nothing but a playground for the rich.

Climbing the bell tower at Lydbury North

When I was in Shropshire recently I visited Lydbury North and its church St Michael and All Angels - follow the link for some excellent photographs.

It's a large church for a small village and is particularly interesting as it is cruciform in shape and has two side chapels. One of these is used for Roman Catholic services. You would not guess this from its austere decor, but you might from the lingering scent of incense.

At the west end is the door to the bell tower. I tried this and found it open, so I went in.

Soon I heard someone coming down the ladder to see what was going on. As he appeared, I tried my best Basil Fawlty "just checking the walls" act.

He turned out to be a local clockmaker who was doing some work on the church clock. He asked me up the tower so I climbed to see the clock on the first floor and the bells on the second - trying hard not to think of The Nine Tailors when I got there.

Whenever I see a church tower now I shall think of the great weight of metal it contains and hope they are securely held when I enter it.

There was an odd postscript to this story.

The following day the Shropshire Star placards in Bishop's Castle - the neighbouring settlement to Lydbury North - talked about a man being injured in a "clock tower plunge".

The story did not, as I at first feared, involve my friend from Lydbury North. Instead, it turned out that a Mr Ron Davies had been injured in a fall in the clock tower at Bishop's Castle town hall after finding a body there.

I felt that this comment in the story:

One resident in the town, who did not want to be named, said Mr Davies was a “very nice man”.

captures the innocence of rural Shropshire.