premises opened by the Queen Mother just before I arrived in 1960 . Strangely enough , a decade later I was able to see her opening new buildings , this time the Rank Building at Wesley House on Jesus Lane , Cambridge , as I looked out from my digs at no . 36 . Like the cherry tree that they lost in the rebuilding , she was dressed in shocking pink !!
But back to Chester Cathedral . I decided to volunteer as an honorary chaplain , part of the welcoming team to greet the hundreds of visitors who normally flock to this wondrous abbey church , over 900 years old , which became a Cathedral in the Reformation . My school then nearby was a by-product of Henry VIII ’ s despoiling of the monasteries : a school formed for 24 poor boys . 400-plus years later I entered the school on a free place in a then direct grant school ( now independent ) and was grateful for this minor reparation for the terrible destruction of much of the medieval fabric of English Christianity .
Being a chaplain at the Cathedral involves what one person at college once called , in those pre-safeguarding days , ‘ loitering with intent ’. That is hanging around looking as if you might want to chat to someone if they felt the need to ask a question or make a comment on anything from ‘ How old is this church ?’ to ‘ Can you bless our rings , Father ?’. It ’ s something my ecumenical and aesthetic experience in Rome has qualified me well for . Having been a chaplain in prisons and higher education , it is now good to be able to relate to a wider cross-section of the British ( and international ) society ! I remember Anthony Zurcher , the BBC correspondent in the USA , coming in at the time of our last General Election . I had a fascinating discussion on the relative state of British and American politics .
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