One return is marked by musing about another

NICE to be back in Charterhouse, but on a monthly rather than weekly basis from now on. To have a different occupant each week, as a change from a long-term tenancy, has not only proved a successful experiment but was an original Charterhouse aim. Anent which more below.
Not having written the column since last autumn, my quest as I sat down to this one was for a suitable "nose" — as they call it — to facilitate reentry after absence. A neat solution to this problem was hit on many years ago by a once well-known Fleet Streeter (Evening News) and gifted author called John Connell. (The story, being a good one, has also been told of others.) He abruptly stopped his column on call-up in 1940. He recommenced it in 1945 with the words "As I was saying before I was interrupted . • ."
John Connell Robertson, to give him his full name — known to his friends as Jack — died prematurely in the sixties. At the time I got to know him he was struggling with a biography of war hero, Archibald Wave11, a project with which I was able to help him in an unexpected way.
He confessed to being near despair over the attitude of his subject's widow, Lady Wave11, generally known as Queenie (nee Quirke), a notoriously difficult woman and a terrible snob. Jack complained that she had refused even to meet him — she liked, he had heard, to dismiss him as a "hack".
By coincidence, one of the few people with whom Queenie Wave11 got on was my mother who had known her for ever. Even in her young days, apparently, the future wife of the great Field Marshall had been a formidable female. By an even greater coincidence, Queenie, at the time of Jack's attempted biography, was living in the flat immediately below us in London.
I persuaded my mother to ask her up for a drink, also inviting Jack Robertson, and a couple of other people. The pre-arrival wait was excruciating but when the ice had broken, "recognition" was finally bestowed by lordly lady on hamstrung "hack".
Jack's favourite trivial anecdote about Wave!l concerned the latter's remark when, as Viceroy of India, he was about to land by helicopter in the grounds of his official residence in New Delhi. Surveying the Arabian Nights scene below him, he turned to his companion and quoted, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home".
For WaveII was a poet himself, with a sense of irony, as well as a brave man. (He had to be to marry Queenie Quirke.)
Back in the seat
MEANWHILE, as I say, I'm delighted to be back in Charterhouse after a break which, initially occasioned by illness, became after a successful operation, a fruitful (bookresearch-wise) sabbatical.
Having originally started Charterhouse more than (wait for it!) 17 years ago, I decided, after the first longish solo stint, to introduce some variety week by week. Later, I managed to persuade Patrick O'Donovan to overcome his modesty and take over the column, once more as a long-term and, of course, memorable assignment.
When, I resumed the column it was with the idea of eventually doing it about once a month with different contributors for the other weeks. The recent sabbatical enabled our present excellent editor to begin ringing the necessary changes.
I am sometimes asked, incidentally, how the column got its name. The answer is that when I was first editing the paper we were still in Fleet Street (happy days!) on the corner of Whitefriars Street and carried a "Whitefriars Diary".
The move to Charterhouse Street prompted the new name. When we moved again, a further change to "Barbican Bulletin" was toyed with, but I resisted the re-christening — rightly I trust.
Thus, felicitously I hope — with apologies for the reminiscing — will the Carthusian trail wind on . .
Sings of peace
I RECENTLY touched in another edition on the ecumenical dimensions of the Induction of a new Vicar at Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire. He has quickly become a familiar and friendly figure in the life of the town and last Saturday evening came to Mass at the Catholic Church.
The latter is served by a very popular parish priest and the church will celebrate its centenary the year after next. Both the Anglican and Catholic flocks in Campden are thus, at the moment, enjoying a prosperous era.
There is also a comparatively new Baptist minister, a young man with exceptional charisma, who presides over unfailingly joyful services. (Why aren't we allowed to talk happily to each other before Mass begins instead of — often grudgingly — exchanging a very formal "sign of peace" when it is nearly all over? How different and more friendly were the very first Christians when coming together, for "The Lord's Supper".
There is also, in the Campden area, a not inconsiderable Quaker presence, congregating each Sunday in a Meeting House which dates from 1663 and is one of the oldest in the country.
The Methodists, alas, had to abandon their church in Campden, but have joined up with their brethren in nearby Mickleton. Their minister, Mr Buckley, possesses not only charm but also a vitality much needed to cover his large "circuit".
Grass roots
THE tragedy, however, behind this seemingly salubrious churchgoing framework is that the Christians involved show no inclination to visit places of prayer different from their own, thus learning nothing about each others' beliefs or modes of worship. Such lack of ecumenical interest corresponds with the virtual deadlock in inter-Church dialogue at higher levels.
As far as Anglican-Catholic talks go, I first scented ultimate stalemate at the press conference following the Bishop of Rome's joint appearance with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the sanctuary of the latter's cathedral. It was announced that, although the work of ARCIC I had been completed, there would not, as had been hoped, be a definite statement thereon from Rome. Instead the Pope had ordered the setting up of ARCIC II to continue the discussion.
This it has been doing, with diminishing returns, ever since.
To make up for this, is there not a greater need than ever for ecumenical initiatives at grass roots level? In Chipping Campden, for instance, where, as mentioned, at individual communions are relatively healthy, why do we not meet for common prayer, preferably in the (Anglican) parish church of St James — one of the most beautiful in the Cotswolds — at least once a year?
Pentecost — as one reflected last Sunday — would seem to be the obviously appropriate day for such an act of communal worship. Next year perhaps?
No place like. . .
CONGRATULATIONS, meanwhile, to all the ministers of religion who, in the area around Chipping Campden, as in so many other places in the country, have to cover such a lot of ground in their pastoral work.
Possibly the largest area is that of the Catholic parish, which extends on one side almost to Stratford-upon-Avon and, on the other, takes in the town of Moreton-in-Marsh. The latter has its own chapel-of-ease, a small building in a cul-de-sac by the railway line.
Though outwardly nondescript this small building is much beloved by its faithful parishioners. When offered accommodation for Mass in the imposing Anglican Church by the Rector of Moreton, the Revd Tom Ekin, they politely declined.
They would obviously agree with the poet John Howard Payne, quoted by Wavell over the Vicereg. lge, "Be it ever so humble, thei -it place like home.