The English Country Churchyard.

There can be few more tranquil places than an English country churchyard on a summer's day with the sun shining. There hasn't been much sun today and we are a little way off from summer. The idea came to me by a short chapter on the subject by Sister Wendy Beckett famous nun and art scholar in a rather excellent book I bought in my profligate mood swing spending spree of recent weeks English Icons edited the the American anglophile Bill Bryson. Well worth a read.

It took me back to a summer long ago. As a child I had a fascination with churchyards and inscriptions on ancient tomb stones. That summer was 1991. My life had been out of control for exactly a year. Within weeks I would succumb to my gathering demons and wind up first on a life support machine then in an asylum with metal doors and bars on the windows.

On those fateful days Rachel had come up to visit and I took her to all my emotional spots in Cambridge, the places that had witnessed my life, my despair, my joy and now my fear that life was over. I took her to the church at Grantchester. A little village made famous by the war poet Rupert Brook who lived at the Old Vicarage whilst studying at King's. In more recent time the author and disgraced former politician Jeffrey Archer has lived at the same house. I only vaguely knew him in those days. Even more recently my lovely friend Tory oversaw the detective series Grantchester with the dashing sleuthing vicar Sidney for ITV.

Rachel of course being the religious zealot that she was and may still be always told me sitting in that churchyard on that summer's day had most impact on her.

The last time I was there was for the funeral of my old friend and former vicar Noel Bewster whose kindness, generosity and care kept me going in the tough times of King's. He was kind man whose epitaph simply reads Noel Brewster Priest.

On this Ash Wednesday I am back with King's. I have listened to both the Roy Goodman and Tim Beasley-Murray recordings of Allegri's Miserere and thought of a bygone time. That past often grips on to me and I struggle to let go. How can one let go one's history? It is what made me. That fateful journey that took in so many places and brings me now to that which now I am.

I hope one day to return to the peace of that churchyard. To look at Noel's grave and to put into perspective what once is but barely is no more.

Go to Grantchester. Go to King's. Listen to the Allegri. Read Icons of England. I think they are all good for the soul. Not a religious soul but the one of the culture that we have here that brings us to more peaceful places.

Good luck with whatever you may be giving up in Lent. Will see you in Holy Week when once again Allegri appears along with Lotti and all those marvellous Easter works.

I Heard a Voice.