Final day of Summer

Tracy Niven
Saturday 30 October 2021

Good evening,

This is final day of summer – British Summer Time that is.  Tonight the clocks go back, and we revert to Greenwich Mean Time.  Daylight will come an hour earlier from tomorrow, but with the inexorable loss of an hour’s light from the afternoon.  So don’t forget to put clocks back – or at least check your phone – or you may arrive at chapel tomorrow morning to discover the service is nearly over.  The Choir will be singing music for All Saints, the visiting preacher Chine McDonald will be speaking on Climate Justice, and a baby boy will be baptised, all in a service beginning at 11 am (GMT).

Tomorrow is also Hallowe’en, All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints Day.  It’s a night of connection to old beliefs of spirits abroad, and of contemporary fun for children, students and contestants on Strictly Come Dancing.

I don’t know of any stories of ghosts associated with St Salvator’s Chapel, but the past does speak strongly.  A few weeks ago, some visitors asked to see the stonework of Bishop Kennedy’s tomb.  They had heard that a forebear had carved his name in the limestone.  I’d never heard of it, or seen any ancient graffiti, but we put our iPhone lights on and had a look.  And there it was, the evidence of people long gone who had left their mark in the chapel, to speak to us hundreds of years later.  There were lots of names, initials and letters.  Who were MBW or AL or John or the others who carved here?

But perhaps this one left enough clues to be explored further:

IO (i.e. Ioannes = John) THREIPLAND 1713.

What led him to be in the chapel?  Why carve his name on Kennedy’s Tomb?  And how many, in over 300 years, have wondered about his life?

And so in this time of remembrance – All Saints, All Souls, Commemoration of St Leonard next Sunday, Remembrance Day the Sunday after – perhaps we should spare a thought for John Threipland, trusting that he shares with us in the communion of saints.

Yours,
Donald.

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