When Wordsworth wrote his sonnet upon Westminster bridge in 1802, he was moved by a city lying still as he was not moved even by his beloved Lake District. He saw towers, domes and theatres ‘bright and glittering in the smokeless air’. This was, strangely enough, a time when every household had a coal-fire; it was also a time before Bazalgette organised the London sewerage scheme and eliminated scourges like cholera. But even now, despite modern development, a sight of London from a Thames standpoint can inspire affection.
At the same time people nowadays shun city life. They fantasise about an escape to the country. They think longingly about summer days in the Isle of Purbeck just as another poet dreamed of a lake isle of Innisfree. Often the outcome of such fantasises is endless suburbia, neither fish, flesh nor good red herring.
Arcadia is not all it is cracked up to be. Intensive agriculture has replaced pastoral simplicity. But even so a cottage in the country has a charm denied even to a Nash residence overlooking Regent‘s Park or a place on Hampstead Heath where a nightingale inspired Keats.
London remains a magnet. City life offers variety, buzz, novelty, all that is missing in village life. Cities continue to grow at the expense of rural hamlets. History is largely about what goes on in cities. This can pose problems for an Established Church that acquired its ethos in days when life was mostly rural. With that in mind, it is interesting to see how population centres were key objectives in the New Testament Church and in St Paul’s strategy.
TESCO VISITOR
Until lockdown set in, Nick Buck was a familiar face in Lincoln’s Tesco. As Vicar of St Giles’, he saw that Tesco’s, with 600 employees, was the largest employer in the parish. That, he thought, was where he should be. He met the manager, had a positive response and ‘on a good day’ (i.e. before lockdown) he wore the badge and every other week brought a listening ear to the aisles. Nick, a Londoner with a background in engineering before his ordination, has an urban estate with four supermarkets on his patch.
HUMPTY’S ADDRESS
Remind those of your friends who have not made his acquaintance that Humpty lives at:
Home Humpty Dumpty dido dum
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