No . 138 NOVEMBER 2024
A Happy Balance
On Goddard Day , 7 th September 2024 , The Reverend Ben Cahill-Nicholls ( E , 00-05 ) preached in Chapel . Texts are taken from 2 Corinthians 9 and 1 John 4 . This is his sermon :
Once upon a time – twenty-four years ago this week , to be precise – a boy walked into this beautiful building . He thought himself , really , to be a young man – but he was a boy , full of ideas and ideals , deeply nervous , a little overweight , red-cheeked , with hair that remained slightly greasy however many vats of Herbal Essences he poured onto it . Brought up in his mother ’ s Jewish faith , for three years , he knew this building only slightly . Then , by chance almost too good to be true , he began to sing in it regularly , sitting at the very extremity of Chapel Choir , close to the altar . Doubtless he was placed thus because his voice , rather like his hair , was a little lank , a little oilier than the Director of Chapel Music might have it . Whatever the reason , proximity to the sacraments worked its mystery . He became a Christian . He was given , by this place , itself such a gift of architecture and art , of music and meaning , the greatest gift – the gift of faith .
It does not take a Nobel Laureate – and , this being a roomful of Old Wykehamists , there is probably one amongst us – to work out that this story is my own . In a moment , I promise that I shall turn to more interesting people than myself : to the angels and saints of our Christian faith , and to the angels and saints I sit amongst today , whose own gifts keep this Chapel and this school alive . But I begin with mere personal anecdote because , I suppose , that is what a truly wonderful school is – a collection of flawed individuals , seeking something , and being supported by that school in working out what that something is , and how to get it . It is a community of relationships , a community of questions , and a community which helps its members to leave with just a few more answers than they arrived with .
Of course , for many schools , the measurement of that journey is in those metrics which are easy to understand and easy to print . There is an understandable drive for each school , not least with fees what they now are , to drive its “ unique selling points ” home in a way which makes those posters about plaque and pyorrhea on the walls of dentists ’ waiting rooms seem positively subtle in their messaging . School A is the academic hothouse which guarantees you a place at the university of your choice – School B has more Olympians than Mount Olympus – School C produces leaders . And so on .
It struck me , even as a pretty average thirteen-year-old , that Winchester was a little different . On the school ’ s website , living at Winchester is now described as a “ happy balance ”, and this was precisely what I found all those years ago . My natural instinct – to spend every waking hour in the Music Department – was encouraged , but not at the expense of my physical ekker , or my academic rigour ; a desire to be a model House member was never allowed to slide towards a parochial mindset . And there was a sense , too , in which that happy balance existed between the extremes of abundance and austerity . On the one hand , we lived in rooms and buildings of beauty and history without much comparison . On the other , those rooms and buildings were , at the risk of sounding spoilt , pretty Spartan . On the one hand , we were encouraged
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