God says "Return of the Mack" tra la la ...
OK it's Sunday and as I have been up here for nearly 3 weeks and have yet to get my sinful backside into Church, I thought today would be a good day to start. After careful consideration I decided to partake in the bread and wine of Christ at St Peter's in Huddersfield....I chose this Church as it clearly does not stipulate in the published literature that I have to spread the word of the Lord, and also it is a 10 am service which is very civilised...even though my name is Dawn at this time of the day I am generally not at my best.
Anyway, the Church itself was built in 1838 and that's about as much as I know! It is about the same size of St Martins and therefore is not as personal as St Catharine's. As I walked in there were about 40-50 parishioners already sat down, average age as you would expect 104.....well ok a slight exaggeration...84. As the organist strutted his stuff, there was the sudden sound of a choir together with the melodic chants of some bloke singing bits of scripture in Latin...hang on a minute I thought, am I in the right Church? I didn't see Roman Catholic on the sign outside....and also I thought how sad to have a tape playing with the "Latin Choral Society" doing their best...
I am ashamed to say that from the vestry the choir all appeared in 2x2 formation, all 20 of them, plus their musical director, assistant curate (who looks about 14) and 4 other blokes in white (not sure who they were at that point) and then of course the vicar...who is a woman...hoorah! The only woman priest I have ever seen is the Vicar of Dibley, so I will be making a keen comparison in future blog entries....
Anyway, after the relief and shame of the singing not actually being a tape and establishing that I was in a Protestant Church.....I had a sneaky peek at the congregation. Well all I can say is that the youngest person in there was me, followed by the lady sat next to me who I later found out is the wife of the visiting Arch Deacon of Halifax who was there to give the sermon.....I will mention this shortly....
The "ladies" sat behind me were worthy of note...not sure of age...I'd guess in their mid 60's...but the one directly behind me bore an uncanny resemblance to the late Les Dawson's drag character ...crossing her hands and moaning about problems "down below".....the moment she started to sing the first hymn I nearly cracked up....she had a voice like a ton of gravel in a tumble drier....made me sound like the voice of an angel....yes that bad!
Anyway back to the Arch-Deacon...nice guy....tall, skinny, grey, obligatory beard ...used a lot of humour in his 15 minute sermon which I particularly enjoyed.....especially when for some strange reason he brought up the 90's rap star Mark "Return of the Mac" Morrison, whose album is still in my CD rack and there is will stay! Apparently, the AD lived for 18 years in Leicester from where the Mac also hailed...but unfortunately I think I was the only one in the congregation who had ever heard of him......so when AD started talking about how the Mac had once said that only God can judge him....everybody in Church looked a little bewildered and there was a stony silence ever time AD cracked a joke...poor thing he was like the 1st act on at the Comedy Club....with the non-enviable task of warming up the audience...Unfortunately this lot were very cold and by the look of them, some of them will be a lot colder fairly soon..if you know what I mean???
The highlight of the service was indeed the choir who were fab, and included a young girl who sang a solo after communion, Lord she could sing ...but I think the Musical Director thought he was arranging an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical rather than a Church service as all of the "responses" were all over the shop.....I can see a lot of miming in the next few weeks until I pick up the melodies!
So the 100 mins service went by ....I had decided not to stay for the tea and biscuits but was grabbed by the AD's wife who could see and hear by my worryingly, increasingly Welsh accent that I was new in town. So she did me the favour of introducing me to the assistant curate and the vicar who are both female and ginger, so it was like the rich auburn version of the 3 Degrees stood in line by the font! In order to return her kindness I told her to inform her husband that I did have a Mark Morrison CD, so he knew there was at least one person who appreciated his humour!
The whole experience of today just confirmed a lot of the stuff that I wrote about in my dissertation and I wish in hindsight that on one of my previous visits I could have gone to St Peter's with my tape recorder...as they just all fit the profile of the over 65's I was researching..never mind!
At this point I could write a bit about my latest research but I think it would be far too boring...but if anybody does have a burning desire to know about adjacency pairs or preference
in conversation analysis, you know where to find me!
Thought I'd end this blog with another quote...just because I can and it kind of makes me appear semi-intelligent and well read ..... moving on......so for those of you waiting to get a response from upstairs...bear this in mind:
"Prayer must not be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence" - Oscar Wilde
Anyway, the Church itself was built in 1838 and that's about as much as I know! It is about the same size of St Martins and therefore is not as personal as St Catharine's. As I walked in there were about 40-50 parishioners already sat down, average age as you would expect 104.....well ok a slight exaggeration...84. As the organist strutted his stuff, there was the sudden sound of a choir together with the melodic chants of some bloke singing bits of scripture in Latin...hang on a minute I thought, am I in the right Church? I didn't see Roman Catholic on the sign outside....and also I thought how sad to have a tape playing with the "Latin Choral Society" doing their best...
I am ashamed to say that from the vestry the choir all appeared in 2x2 formation, all 20 of them, plus their musical director, assistant curate (who looks about 14) and 4 other blokes in white (not sure who they were at that point) and then of course the vicar...who is a woman...hoorah! The only woman priest I have ever seen is the Vicar of Dibley, so I will be making a keen comparison in future blog entries....
Anyway, after the relief and shame of the singing not actually being a tape and establishing that I was in a Protestant Church.....I had a sneaky peek at the congregation. Well all I can say is that the youngest person in there was me, followed by the lady sat next to me who I later found out is the wife of the visiting Arch Deacon of Halifax who was there to give the sermon.....I will mention this shortly....
The "ladies" sat behind me were worthy of note...not sure of age...I'd guess in their mid 60's...but the one directly behind me bore an uncanny resemblance to the late Les Dawson's drag character ...crossing her hands and moaning about problems "down below".....the moment she started to sing the first hymn I nearly cracked up....she had a voice like a ton of gravel in a tumble drier....made me sound like the voice of an angel....yes that bad!
Anyway back to the Arch-Deacon...nice guy....tall, skinny, grey, obligatory beard ...used a lot of humour in his 15 minute sermon which I particularly enjoyed.....especially when for some strange reason he brought up the 90's rap star Mark "Return of the Mac" Morrison, whose album is still in my CD rack and there is will stay! Apparently, the AD lived for 18 years in Leicester from where the Mac also hailed...but unfortunately I think I was the only one in the congregation who had ever heard of him......so when AD started talking about how the Mac had once said that only God can judge him....everybody in Church looked a little bewildered and there was a stony silence ever time AD cracked a joke...poor thing he was like the 1st act on at the Comedy Club....with the non-enviable task of warming up the audience...Unfortunately this lot were very cold and by the look of them, some of them will be a lot colder fairly soon..if you know what I mean???
The highlight of the service was indeed the choir who were fab, and included a young girl who sang a solo after communion, Lord she could sing ...but I think the Musical Director thought he was arranging an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical rather than a Church service as all of the "responses" were all over the shop.....I can see a lot of miming in the next few weeks until I pick up the melodies!
So the 100 mins service went by ....I had decided not to stay for the tea and biscuits but was grabbed by the AD's wife who could see and hear by my worryingly, increasingly Welsh accent that I was new in town. So she did me the favour of introducing me to the assistant curate and the vicar who are both female and ginger, so it was like the rich auburn version of the 3 Degrees stood in line by the font! In order to return her kindness I told her to inform her husband that I did have a Mark Morrison CD, so he knew there was at least one person who appreciated his humour!
The whole experience of today just confirmed a lot of the stuff that I wrote about in my dissertation and I wish in hindsight that on one of my previous visits I could have gone to St Peter's with my tape recorder...as they just all fit the profile of the over 65's I was researching..never mind!
At this point I could write a bit about my latest research but I think it would be far too boring...but if anybody does have a burning desire to know about adjacency pairs or preference
in conversation analysis, you know where to find me!
Thought I'd end this blog with another quote...just because I can and it kind of makes me appear semi-intelligent and well read ..... moving on......so for those of you waiting to get a response from upstairs...bear this in mind:
"Prayer must not be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence" - Oscar Wilde
posted by DawnyLiz at
6:45 pm
2 Comments:
LOOK AT YOU BLOG!!!!!!!
so proud, i am....
By
Bonnie Blue in Wales, at 10:00 am
Ahhhh, reminds me of many an hour spent on my knees, oh er!
The joys of Anglicanism, the quoffed grey hair and wrinkles, whod have thought that that would be me now :-(
As I have told many in the past, to me The Vicar of Dibley isn't a comedy series, it was a hard hitting documentary from my home village!
By
Anonymous, at 8:36 pm
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