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KNOTTINGLEY
IN 1971
21st October 1971
That The Fire Still Burns; Can A Church Die
It’s
strange how oddments of everyday life suddenly trigger abiding and
powerful memories that have lain hidden - the gaudy jacket of a disc, for
example.
Why
should the perpendicular lines of Christ Church, Knottingley, suddenly
blot out the street from vision when a former Knottingley churchman saw
the name ‘Ketelby’ on that disc jacket, and project him, so vividly,
into the atmosphere of another day, that he seemed to have opened a door
into a neglected room. What would have happened if the door had closed
behind him? The answer will never be known, because the door of the
present was re-opened and he was dragged unwillingly over the threshold by
an assistant who inquired if he would take the disc that seemed to hold
him transfixed.
Let
the churchgoer, then, try to explain, as best one can who faces Tennyson’s
nostalgia: "The tender grace of a day that is dead will never return
to me." That day did and does return; otherwise the poet would never
have written ‘Break, break, break...." He mourns only, that he
cannot bring it back in time, to the present.
The
churchman’s grandparents were among the first to marry at Christ Church,
Knottingley. All his maternal kin were reared spiritually, beneath that
vaulted waggon roof. The banns of his marriage were called there, there
his eldest child was christened and there, successive vicars guided his
own formative years. A host of Knottingley acquaintances expressed their
faith in its service, family after family - the Parkin’s, the Hobman’s,
the Fozzard’s, the Lawson’s, the Thompson’s, the Miller’s, the
Askin’s, the Arnold’s, the France’s, the Harker’s; and on, and on.
The
churchman found Ketelby’s music recalled this and more and something has
now happened which urges him to say why. His young church life was divided
between Christ Church and St. Botolph’s, when Christ Church still
represented the Parish of East Knottingley. In student days he tried to
reserve evensong visits for Christ Church.
The
‘Deng Deng’ of the one hurrying bell had not begun its summons when he
took his seat. He did not wish to miss one moment of the sequence which
followed, or of the organ voluntary played by Walter Miller, who first
awakened his appreciation of Albert Ketelby by including such pieces as
‘Sanctuary of the Heart’, ‘Moonlight and Roses’ - quite a
departure from tradition in those days. The hand-pumped organ’s fluting
sang in the familiar waggon roof with a sweetness so haunting that a
lifetime’s devotion to mood in music has never reproduced its like for
him. "We love the place O God, where in thine honour dwells".
Today our churchgoer is certain that many will grieve as they remember the
times when they sang that hymn, for Christ Church was indeed greatly
loved.
The
evensong ‘sequence’ at Christ Church had acquired a very distinct yet
definable aura. But oh, he wishes those who scoff at "the odour of
sanctity" were sufficiently sensitive to recognise so charged an
atmosphere of deep peace and togetherness and the unspoken deference to
it, which Christ Church offered. Withdrawal from the world was total;
inspiration and release inevitable. The silver haired and mild verger, the
late Mr. Crossland, expressed all this in his muted movements and gentle
presence.
As
the climax approached, even the more urgent note of the last bell, the
apologetic rustle of latecomers, only deepened the charged and expectant
stillness.
The
bell ceased, the organ note sank low, the congregation rose as one in
silence. The clergy and choir issued in silence, from the vestry in the
chancel - no processional hymn. All knelt in silence; this atmosphere was
the ‘introit’ to evensong. Showmanship? Anglican emphasis? What an
utterly unacceptable thought to anyone who knew Christ Church!
At
festival times, especially harvest, when the richly-decorated church was
crowded and extra chairs set in the aisles, the pre-service stillness of
packed congregations was an even more potent experience. At such times
congregations could take half an hour to disperse. As our churchgoer
listened to the Ketelby music from the spinning disc, faces,
characteristic and personalities re-emerged.
The
late Reverend J, Snowden, grasping the pulpit brass as he preached; the
gentle figure of the late and beloved choirmaster Dick Rhodes; the
Reverend H.K.A. Schwabe, the late Canon Walter Musgrave - kind friends, if
sometimes insistent taskmasters. And why not, when they fully believed in
what they were doing? Young people of many families were our church-goers
friends at church and at school; all part of one-another, before youth
clubs were even an idea. Green waves of countryside at the door flooded in
through the seamed lined town into the church, binding all. The record
player impelled the disc player back to the present, and he surfaced for a
second time to "Sanctuary of the Heart". Convalescing from a
long illness, he knew Christ Church was to be demolished, but had lost
count of the time. He must experience that sanctuary, just once more,
beneath that very roof.
Free
to go, he went immediately. The journey was not very pleasant. The
merciless crash of traffic on Hill Top, once a lovely promenade of white
walls and towering chestnut avenues, was already notorious. The desert of
Aire Street, where Knottingley (The Marsh) across the river, had already
hurt him as much as it could. On these he shed no tears, for around the
new Cherry Tree Corner into the Croft, would be home, that reminder in
dark stone carted by local men over 100 years ago - Christ Church.
But
it was not. Despite previous knowledge of the church’s
imminent
demolition, at first he could not comprehend the space before him, as
cleanly swept as an empty car park. Realisation that once again the world
and events had beaten and robbed him fell like a butcher’s pole-axe when
the significance of a site-for-sale notice dawned.
He
can only ask anyone not reared in the atmosphere of that church to believe
that the shock was postrating. Later came self-accusations and reproaches
as if he had killed the church. Remorse can be a savagely destructive
emotion.
"We
love the place O God, wherein thine honour dwells". A sad reflection.
Attempts
to ‘rationalise’ the position in best modern tradition were
unsatisfying until he had recourse to the fundamental truths of the
Christian faith - no less.
He
can offer no censure for those who had the unenviable decision left to
them, as their dilemma is all too familiar; but aversion of those who have
promoted the current ‘way of the world’. Its physical demise cannot
wipe out the impulses generated 30 years ago. Posterity will certainly
deal with any enemy while it is in the gate with him. Whether the church
should continue to remove sacred buildings, where they have been estranged
from the spirit which gave life to them, is another matter, Christ Church
was only 120 years old. But surely, for all its Christian adherents over
100 years, the memorial to Christ Church must be not a sale notice on a
building lot, but "I am the resurrection and the life". The
people whose symbol of life - a cross - is also erected above their mortal
remains have yet to speak and when they do they will shake "the
heavens, the earth, the sea, the dry land."
That
there are others who share the writer’s feelings for Christ Church is a
gable stone rescued from Christ Church rubble, and sent to him by a
friend, knowing he would treasure it. Meanwhile, grief at this passing, if
a human failing, reminds him strongly of the reputedly finest verse in our
language:
On
Some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires,
E’en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E’en in their ashes live their wonton fires.
The
inward tears cannot be held back any more than the certainty.
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