Off topic

I'm going to go seriously 'off topic' myself here again.

I wasn't intending to, but today's Making History on Radio 4 included such a delicious (and delightfully alliterative) historical exposition (courtesy of the librarian at St. Paul's Cathedral) that I thought I really ought to attempt to be public-spirited and transcribe it for you (and for posterity too)...

...and then the post expanded from there. So...

One of things I knew about the Great Fire of London on 1666 was that it destroyed the old St. Paul's Cathedral and led to the creation of the new St. Paul's Cathedral of Sir Christopher Wren. 

Of the old St. Paul's I knew very little, except for its dull-looking spire-free image on fairly crude contemporary drawings from late 16th/early 17th Century London (see below rather than above).

Enter today's Making History.

It first gave some facts about the Great Fire itself. 

That big old bonfire raged for four days, destroyed more than 13,000 houses, made some 70,000 people homeless, and wiped out 87 parish churches. 

And as for old St. Paul's...

Well, that had been consecrated in 1240. So, even without having recourse to a calculator, I worked out that it had been standing for some 426 years before the Great Fire struck. (BBC Bitesize would be so proud of me.)

In conversation, Making History historian Dr Tom Charlton and the cathedral's Head of Schools and Families Donna McDowell described its state in the lead-up to 1666, and it sounded to be in a very sorry state indeed.

Some of this, they told us, could be put down to the effects of the English Civil War, which left it in a poor state of disrepair.  

Also, it had been struck by lightning (in 1561) for the second time, which destroyed its mighty and magnificent spire. And no one had repaired it.

(The programme didn't make the date of that clear, so I had to check Wikipedia. I'd wrongly assumed, from what they'd said, that it had been struck in the years of [or the years surrounding] the Civil War).

Donna McDowell noted that the interior was in quite a state too. 

It had been used as a cavalry barracks by Cromwell's soldiers at one stage, with horses regularly hoofing in and out.  

And it was also used for social gatherings, with lawyers meeting their clients, and prostitutes meeting their clients.  

That was all very interesting, but what really grabbed me was the contribution of  the present day St. Paul's librarian Joe Wisdom. 

He's a man who can really tell a tale:

Joe Wisdom: I think the feeling, before the fire, was that St. Paul's and churches were safe places. 

And the stationers (the booksellers), whose properties were very much adjacent to St. Paul's and in the surrounding streets, stuffed their stock into the crypt of St. Paul's. 

And they stopped up any gap to stop sparks getting into their stock. 

Unfortunately, they stuffed it in with bales of cloth as well.   

John Evelyn was one of those commissioned to survey the cathedral in its state before the Fire. And it was only the week before that John Evelyn was here with Wren and some other surveyors, and they'd come to the conclusion that they were going to put a cupola (or dome) on top. 

So the cathedral was actually in a ready state to be repaired. And that was just under way. 

So the scaffolding was up, and, of course, it was wooden scaffolding. (They had no metal scaffolding in those days). 

So you had a line of flammable material set up, if you like, around the cathedral. Couldn't have been better if you like fires, but... 

Tom Charlton: And it was Christopher Wren's scaffolding? 

Joe Wisdom: It was Wren's scaffolding, absolutely. Ignited material hit the lead roof and the roof then fell through, dropping through to the crypt of St. Faith, breaking through the cathedral floor.   

So you then had flammable goods which, it is said, burned for about a week in fact. 

One of the scholars of Westminster School indicated that by the light of the burning St. Paul's he could actually read his copy of Terence that he had in his hand, over in Westminster. So the light was that tremendous.

If he hasn't already written a book, Mr Wisdom should write one.

Craig's Out of Office Good Friday message

Veterans of our curious little blog might recall, a few years back, that I mentioned my family's Good Friday walk to Morecambe's Bronze-Age barrow to witness our local Methodist church's annual carrying and placing of a cross atop that ancient man-made mound. 

I found it moving.

Four generations of my family again saw that very cross today, gleaming in the inevitable Morecambe sunshine against the distant backdrop of the Lakeland hills. 

I found that moving too.

And then we all started drinking.

The toddlers drank huge amounts of milk and orange. Their dad drank pale ale, while the rest of us older-and-wiser menfolk drank liver-defying quantities of red wine (the blood of Christ) in remembrance of our Lord and Saviour (not that anyone mentioned Him.) And three generations of our womenfolk honoured the Blessed Virgin by consuming government-guideline-defying units of New Zealand sauvignon blanc (without mentioning Her either).

We then collectively read Rabelais and died of alcohol poisoning. (My last words were: "I'm not bloody Oliver Reid you know").

All of which reminds me that at least two BBC Radio 4 programmes discussed the date of Easter this week: Monday's Beyond Belief and Tuesday's Making History - and specifically the question of why Easter is 'a movable feast'. 

The BBC bias angle was especially blatant on Beyond Belief. All three guests, responding to Justin Welby's suggestion that the date of Easter be fixed, strongly rejected Archbishop Justin's proposal. Not one of them defended it. Ergo: #bbcbias.

That said, I learned a lot from both programmes. 

It turns out that the Western Church bases the date of Easter on the Gregorian solar-based calendar whilst tracking the lunar-based Jewish calendar in the light of Passover, and that this results in complications. The date of Easter can fall between 22 March and 25 April as a result. The Eastern church, however, still follows the Julian calendar and seems to be much less tied to Passover whilst continuing to use an anti-Semitic liturgy. An academic - linking to official Catholic belief - dates the resurrection of Christ to Sunday 5 April 33 AD. (Others are less sure - to put it mildly). And what about 'Missing Wednesday', the day the New Testament seems to miss? Plus there's 1928 UK legislation in force to fix the date of Easter which has never been acted upon. 

Food for thought...which is all I can manage at the moment, except to give you a Bach Easter chorale: