Our Rector has written articles over the years for The Church Times Diaries.  We reflect this month, at looking back at the article written in May 2022.  

A few weeks ago I found myself sitting in the glorious chancel of St. Paul’s Knightsbridge, pondering vampires.

It was the annual investiture for the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, and as chaplain to the Sussex Commandery, I was there supporting new and promoted members. Originating in the 11th century as a Hospitaller Order for Knights who had caught leprosy in the crusades, it carried on in various guises until (arguably!) it fizzled out in the nineteenth century. Re-established with links to the Spanish Royal Family in the early twentieth century, it is a flourishing international and ecumenical Order, primarily existing for works of charity. Hence my tree at our Festival of Christmas Trees last December.

So there I was, sitting in state in the Bodley designed chancel with the other chaplains, with a sadly wandering mind. But why vampires? Well. Over the last couple of years I was a real fan of the Sky Series “A Discovery of Witches” based on the “All Souls” Trilogy of books by the American academic Deborah Harkness. Starting with the discovery of a magical manuscript in the Bodleian Library (sadly, that never happened to me in all the hours I spent sitting despondently in the Radcliffe Camera), the three series presented a surprisingly subtle world of vampires, witches and daemons. It’s not straightforward, though. For example, one of the main protagonists, a French fifteen hundred year old Vampire called Matthew de Clairmont (played by Downton Abbey’s Matthew Goode) is a staunch and practising Roman Catholic, which has a certain novelty. But why was I thinking of this when I should have been concentrating on the service in hand? Because in the series Matthew de Clairmont is the Head of the Order of St. Lazarus, which in the books is a group of goody vampires fighting baddy vampires. And having googled it (so it must be true) it clearly is based on same Hospitaller Order of which I’m currently a member. Maybe they are indeed one & the same, and nobody told me. Maybe there’s an inner group of Vampire slayers keeping an eye on dodgy goings on. It amused me recently (with a sense of real disbelief) that a Vampire slaying kit was among the general lots at Gorringe’s, my local Auctioneers. Maybe I should invest in one if such comes up again, just in case at a future investiture, I get a recruiting tap on the shoulder.

I blessed a bench last week. Solid granite (as a sad precaution against vandalism) it was in a little Nature Reserve I’d never realised was there, up an un-noticed track between houses on one of our estates. It was in memory of Geoff Pollard, the Town Council’s Countryside Ranger, who for over five years had looked after the wild and open recreational spaces of our town.  Tragically, he died at only fifty-four, and the local community had supported a fundraiser for his memorial in thanks for all he’d done to keep us going through Covid. As I stood among the bracken and bluebells, chatting to those who had come, I spied my wonderful Verger, Angela, out walking her dog in the cool of the afternoon. She presented me with a bunch of wild garlic which she’d collected, and later emailed me the recipe for wild garlic pesto which I made later that day and enjoyed hugely. (Note to self: maybe a pot of garlic pesto could be an addition to any vampire slaying kit (see above) to deal with culinarily inclined vampires with a taste for pasta…)

I have, over the last thirty odd years, been involved with upwards of four hundred weddings, mostly, but not all, as officiant. I remember at one wedding in a magnificent eighteenth-century country house, I stood up halfway through to do a reading. A secular wedding, no religious component was allowed, and I could see the Registrars twitching as I appeared in my dog – collar. They relaxed when I launched into a poem from “Winnie the Pooh”.

 But nothing had prepared me for a role I’d never previously undertaken: that of giving away the bride.  My nephew was finally married this year, at the third time of trying because of Covid, in a barn venue outside Horsham. My wedding present to the young couple was originally to have been the wine for the reception, namely eight crates of twelve bottles from my friend’s vineyard in the Languedoc, which I’d bought early to beat Brexit. The wedding was postponed for the second time, and so the bottles languished in my garage, but not for long; alas, they were all drunk during lock-down. Anyway, when the day came, I was duly in tails (the only time I’ve done that previously was on stage in “Die Fledermaus”) to give the bride away, as her father was sadly no longer with us. I hadn’t realised how hard it was to walk in a straight line with someone on your arm, desperately trying not to step on the dress. But all was well, and it was a lovely day. There you are, an old dog can learn new tricks (Order of St. Lazarus Vampire slaying department, please note…)

With thanks to The Church Times to allow us to publish this.