An autumnal visit, amid the brown falling leaves, speckling the grass, to a parish church, set in an extensive graveyard, proved a revelation. The present building includes evidence of a church in the 12th century but there is written evidence of a Saxon church on this site. An imposing lychgate offered the prospect of more treasures within. The interior, homely yet grand, did not disappoint. As you enter through the south porch you are met by an enormous 15th century wall painting of St Christopher; crudely executed but formidable and compelling. There are also remnants of medieval wall painting revealed in patches amid the protestant whitewash. There is an altar tomb of Sir Walter Grene (d. 1456) with a brass effigy on its cover. Grene was a Member of Parliament for some thirty years. He sat on several Royal Commissions and was for a time Steward of the Bishop of Ely’s estates. He had lucrative sidelines as Customs Collector of Ipswich, and Comptroller of Tunnage and Poundage of the port of London. (MP with outside interests: who would have thought?) On the north wall was a marble memorial tablet to the Honorable Juliana Curzon (d. 1833). An ancestor of that Curzon? My name is George Nathaniel Curzon, / I am a most superior person. / My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek, / I dine at Blenheim once a week. She was buried at her request in the vaults of St Mary-le-Bone ‘with her late friend Miss M. A. Meredith’. The most ornate tomb is that of Sir Edmund Fenner, (d. 1611) a judge in the reign of Elizabeth I. There is a long list of Vicars. The one who arouses most curiosity and about whom it would be good to know more was Zanobius Mulyaken (1458-1461).
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For such a relatively small country church, there is much to admire. The churchyard is enormous and, as with similar ancient sites, not all the stones have survived or remained upright. But it lends an authentic feel. The inscriptions are mainly homespun but the odd feature stands out. One headstone marks the death of a husband and, after a widowhood of 49 years, his wife. It triggered a memory. A great aunt and her husband married in their twenties but he died within a few months of the wedding. She was a widow for over 60 years. The churchyard has some eight Commonwealth War Graves: a large number for a parish church. The simple elegance of the Lutyens design makes them at once distinctive and always moving. There is also a well-maintained public park next to the church. It is only the thrum of traffic, not far distant, that is a reminder that, although in Middlesex, St Mary’s, Hayes is not in the countryside but, only a few paces away, is part of a varied ethnic and cultural mix in outer London
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A small mercy that the investigation into allegations against Dominic Raab has not been dubbed Raabgate. Watergate, attached to the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon, has a great deal to answer for and has an enduring fame as now all scandals are lazily and predictably tagged with the suffix ‘gate’. Thus ‘Partygate’. Small beer compared with the original but if you make the laws you should keep them. Raabgate does not have much of a ring to it. Gardengate for a scandal associated with horticulturalists might have traction. Gatesgate, if businessman and philanthropist Bill or songster Gareth ever erred and strayed.
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My attention was drawn to The Independent which is not my first portal of call for news and views and happily so if they can refer to the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI when he was ailing as ‘Mr Ratzinger’ – not even ‘Mein Herr’.
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Reading a book of essays about our Prime Ministers (edited by Iain Dale), it was striking how several of the more recent of them favoured their second Christian name rather than their first. Would governments have been any different led by Alexander Johnson, James Brown, Leonard Callaghan, James Wilson, Maurice Macmillan, Robert Eden, Arthur Chamberlain, James MacDonald? Only four Prime Ministers sported three Christian names: Robert Arthur Talbot Gasgoyne-Cecil (Marquess of Salisbury), Edward Richard George Heath, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, David William Donald Cameron.
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The long-drawn-out, dreary soap opera that is the Duke and Duchess of Sussex Whingefest is the prime current illustration of the ‘Our truth … My truth … my lived experience’ trope that is so ubiquitous and which is impossible to break through such an impregnable and solipsistic way of thinking. Given that they withdrew from public life and royal duty to defend their privacy, it seems there is scarcely a moment of their lives not recorded and broadcast to the world. It is remarkable, miraculous, how many private, intimate moments, when they have been aggrieved, or slighted have been caught on camera. As the late Queen Elizabeth II commented when the tawdry saga began to unfold ‘some recollections may vary’. Their truth is clearly not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It is seen through their distorted and self-serving vision. How can his wish for reconciliation be satisfied when he piles unpleasant accusation upon aggrievances and alleged slights? Some have commented on the similarities with the lives of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor but history never quite repeats itself. If it does it as farce rather than tragedy.