GRANNY BARKES FELL IN WOOLWORTHS
 

Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths ... she'll get a free ride in the  ambulance Ha! Ha! Ha!... The just man falls seven times...  Look! See the tracks of Santa's feet on the hearth... I'll break your ould desk... Say what may the tidings be, on this glorious Christmas morn?... He's lost his apple cake... Look! Look what Mairead has made!... That would bury Dick and Diamond... Indeed he went all the way to the whiney nough... I'm getting a wheelbarrow tomorrow: it's brand new ... I can't sleep with excitement... This is a day above all days... No, we are off to school, c'mon Eddie... I heard a roar between  two hills... L to the water Jimmy Harte... I wish that day would come back again... And flying my kite... What happened to your lorry Jim?... Lay on MacDuff... Edward's day out... He cut down a tree from the hedge of the car road with a hatchet - yes, but it's his birthday... I don't know ... maybe so. I think they did... Look at the size of the flakes! Look at the size of the flakes!... There's a stepmother's breath in the air... He stole matches... Oh! I love to play when the decorations are up... If I was you I'd build a wall... The Irvines of the wheel, the wild men from Borneo... Time waits for no man, not even John Roy... Jeremiah, blow the fire; puff, puff, puff... Blue ink, black ink, and good red ink... See that sycamore tree? By the end of November there won't be a single leaf left on it... Secundam scripturas... Has he no ears?... Hey! Don't touch that coal scuttle, that belongs to Stanton Bailey... That's the biggest laugh I've had since I put salt in the sugar bowl last week... I'll get ye Tony... James Hugh Monaghan from Dernee,  a warrior I do beliee... Hurling by bum, hurling by bum... You are very unsatisfactory... Man attacked and thoroughly beaten; attackers make off in a posh car... I was reading The Messenger...  Drinking buttermilk all the week, whiskey on a Sunday... Back to back, belly to belly, don't give a damn about Yarnarelli... Come day, go day, God send Sunday... The chocolate tree, the sweet tree... The waters wild went o'er his child and he was left lamenting... 'Ma mither is a queen', said he... This new wheel of fortune has just come from France... John Johnston's horses are in your corn. Night's for rest, night's for rest... There's a yellow rose in Texas... "Hot diggity, dog ziggity, boom, what you do to me, when you're holding me tight."...  A field in Larne... Would it be physical?... A stew boiled is a stew spoiled... The Minster-clock has just struck two, and yonder is the Moon... Boys obtuse... And the hunter home from the hills... Wait 'til I get another stone for you Cyril... McAree, McAra, McAvarn K-Kunny, put in your white foot 'til I see if you're my mummy... Bara lynsey, bara lynsey... Patch upon patch sown without stitches; come riddle me this and I'll give you my britches... "Hold on, my door was hit too."... Joe Worthington, Joe Worthington you'd sit till you'd rot... Come to the water fit a thank ye, fit a thank ye, fit a thank ye... I washed my hands in water; water never run, and I dried them in a towel that was neither wove nor spun... Here comes I Wee Devil Doubt, the pain within, the pain without... Peeping round the door in the khaki there to see the old pair once again... When I was a lad so was me Dad... Ta Ra Ra Bam, Ta Ra Ra Ching, Ta Ra Ra Bam, Ta Ra Ra... 'Twas on a Sunday evening that Barlow's it was robbed: Mrs Barlow went down to the room to get a treacle scone, but when she saw the moneybox, the money it was gone... Genitori, Genitoque Laus et jubilation...  He relies too much on his effing muscles... The Protestant boys are loyal and true: they are in me eye says Donal Abu...  What's the 'with thee' for? What's the 'with thee' for?...  On a brick-coloured ticket, that's brick Pat... All in!...  Water! Water!, er , Tea! Tea!, with two lumps of sugar and a spot of milk... I wonder, yes I wonder, will the angels way up yonder, will the angels play their harps for me?... Whistle and I will come to you me lad... Get that Teddy Boy haircut out of my sight!... The one with the black bucket is the best... The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass... Sandy Row on an Easter Monday, every day's like an Easter Sunday... Willie Ruckie... Milled today, fed tomorrow... It's long and it's narrow, it's not very wide, it wears a green selvage on every side... Tilly Versailles... Yes and truly you are best... No more tomorrows in your career... Dr Whitehead... Piss, Piss  Iceland dog!... Tickets are sixpence each and I hope you all win... Andera Keck K-Keck K-Keck K-Keck... We sell only the best E..E..English C..C..Coca Cola... Aye but, naw but, could you cut turf?... Hollyhocks! Hollyhocks! over Bobby Lyttle's garden wall...  "You took the coat hanger to it."... The seas obey, the fetters break and lifeless limbs thou dost restore... You could easily stand on Kelly's hills and count his skinny ribs... Barefooted thatcher, Pa Bunty... Have you got a wagon to put these wheels on?... Lauda Jerusalem Dominum,  Lauda Deum tuum Sion... Man attacked and thoroughly beaten, attackers make off in a posh car... Swiftly, silently and unseen... You see Missus D; there's the cow and there's the gate... C'mon... let's get home for the beef and spuds... Ecce Panis Angelorum... Dee daw Marjorie Raw... You're idle for stelk... Saucepan gossiper... Corduroy for every boy, cordurat for every cat... We're the boys that fears no noise, we are the bold Drumarda boys... On Saturday night we all got tight and Cassidy brought us over...  Silver Saturday, jink night... Listening to the footsteps of the boys from Tedd... Dick Nan's: just the spot for a picnic... Listen to me George: "Would you like white stones on your grave?"... The bespectacled roadman...  Chick a boom, chick a rack, ... chick a boom,  chick a rack, and the yellow skirt goes swinging...  Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years, Scrooge replied. He died seven years ago, this very night... Too strong Grandad, too strong... Go on Balfour!...  Santa Agatha, ora pro nobis... "Pope Pius XII died during the night."...  The Ypres Salient at Night... Histracy... Wherefore have you left your sheep on that stony mountain steep?... Hi for a toffer  and hi for it still; and hi for the wee lad lies over the hill... The river eddy  whirls... Beati Michaeli archangelo... Put a table in the hall and it will do fine... And he fully did... Jimmy Hicks is not in hell... Rushe came down last night... I know my nick name... Uncle Merry... For aye for guide: very good neighbours, but keep your back to us... Apostrophe at the Post  Office today... Let the reindeers go. Let them go!...  Good morrow Mick... No-one will  read your papers... Oh! Hugh is staunch...  Jack's in Diviney... Smithers... You're only making a faddle (fardel) of yourself... The image of a girl... Deeper than the wishing well... Ballina, Balnabroka, Anahinahola, don't show the white feather wherever you go... Carolina  moon... What a beautiful day! What must heaven be like?... Do you know our d'Brian?...  You're nice Miss Rice.... I see said the blind man... The fish in the pond are seeing  red as Bobby is fishing with Coates strong thread... And those who come from  distance far are always late for tea... Oh! to be in Doonaree... All day all night  Marianne; down by the seaside sifting sand... Look at the way he's twisting that  stick... He won't know himself in this lovely place... You've given me a taste of fame... There was a wild colonial boy  Jack Saltey was his name. Geoff Duke. The people they call me Calypso Joe. Peas ... er, from our garden. Delish... Oh! my diploma... I win a pound... The ancient ring post snapped like a matchstick... I think, I think, that she's the mostest of the lot, and furthermore she is the only chick I got... Nicolette, I can pick 'em!... Raddle diddle da ha ha... A great time of day to be in such good humour... They all wore black coats and black top hats and they turned and went up to your room... Deep, deep river, away, away... Early morning light, Rat ta-tat ta-tat ta-tat. Rat ta-tat ta-tat ta-tat...

A beautiful Church for the poor

by Matthew Schmitz

posted Thursday, 23 Feb 2017

St Patrick’s, Soho: where beauty and service of the poor meet (Getty)

Post-Vatican II ugliness coincided with a collapse in the Church’s ministry to the marginalised. When beauty returns, so will Catholicism’s universal appeal

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It is no secret that Catholic worship has become less beautiful. JF Powers, the impish Catholic writer, counted as dear friends many artists who were enthusiastic about liturgical reform at the time of Vatican II. As much as he loved and admired them, he could not approve their work. When he attended Mass at St John’s University in Minnesota, then a centre of reformist ferment, he would sit where the acoustics were worst, in order to minimise the sensory assault of the new church his friends were so earnestly singing into being.

Catholics assert the coincidence of truth, goodness and beauty. It should not surprise us, then, that at the same time Gregorian chant gave way to the guitar Mass, Catholic truth seemed to lose its splendour, suffering mockery and challenge on every side. Nor should it surprise that this crisis in the Church’s worship and teaching has coincided with an utter collapse in the Church’s ministry to the poor.

The ethicist H Richard Niebuhr called sects that appeal to the poor “churches of the disinherited”. Were he alive today, he would perhaps note that over the last 50 years the Catholic Church in the West has become a church for heirs and heiresses – less and less “here comes everybody”, more and more a country club.

Many will baulk at this suggestion. American Catholics like to see themselves as the striving sons of immigrants, and English Catholics are more likely to identify with the labouring Irish than with the aristocratic atmosphere of recusancy. Across the Catholic world, liberal humanitarians and liberation theologians vie to present themselves as heralds of the downtrodden.

Perhaps this is why so few have noticed that in the West, the Catholic Church has turned its back on the poor. In 2009, a team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Nebraska published a paper called “The Continuing Relevance of Family Income for Religious Participation”. It showed that the Church has become uniquely unable to attract low income people. Though it focuses on the US, every bishop should read it.

The researchers found that, whereas rich and poor Protestants attend church with almost equal frequency, church attendance for Catholics varies widely by income. The poorest Catholics attend Mass only a few times a year while the richest go two or three times a month. (The difference is much starker among white Catholics than among Latinos, whose ethnic parishes are better at bridging the class divide.) The effect of income on church attendance is especially strong for those who live on the margins – those with few social ties, part-time workers, the young and old.

Philip Schwadel, John D. McCarthy, Hart M. Nelsen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was not always so. In the same study, researchers examined three Catholic age cohorts: those who were born before 1941, and so matured before the Second Vatican Council; those who were born between 1941 and 1960, and so came of age during it; and those who were born after 1960. Comparing these groups leads to an uncomfortable conclusion: Vatican II may have opened up a window to the world, but it closed the Church’s doors to the poor.

Catholics who came of age before the Council showed the same pattern of church attendance as Protestants. Income had little effect. During the Council that began to change. The researchers found that “the difference in attendance between low income white Catholics and middle/high income white Catholics is considerably greater for the post-1960 cohort than for the pre-1941 cohort” and that “low income white Catholics born after 1960 have particularly low levels of church attendance, regardless of age.” They then ask: “Did the Church do something to discourage attendance among low income Catholics during this time period? Are we seeing lagged effects of Vatican II?”

It is not that poor Catholics suddenly ceased to believe. Surveys find that they are more likely than rich Catholics to describe themselves as religious, to find strength and comfort in religion, and to view the Bible as the literal word of God.

They also remain stubbornly loyal. According to the researchers, one reason poor Protestants have higher religious participation than poor Catholics is that they are much more willing to try out a new denomination, while poor Catholics tend to attend a Catholic church… or none at all. In 2008, the US Religious Landscape Survey found that 35 per cent of people born in Protestant churches switched to a new church, while only 18 per cent of Catholics jumped ship from Peter’s Barque.

The researchers suggest a variety of reasons for the alienation of the poor. One may be that they feel a “stigma” because of their inability to conform to upper-class manners and dress. The researchers also suggest that a focus on social justice in religious contexts “can reinforce a hierarchical division between those who provide and those in need”. “Has the US Catholic Church been, consciously or not, pursuing a policy emphasising the suburban niche?” they ask.

Though they no longer come to Mass, the poor have not ceased to be with us. Ten per cent of US Catholics have annual family incomes of less than $20,000 (£16,000) and 20 per cent have annual family incomes of less than $30,000 (£24,000). These are the people to whom the Church can no longer speak.

Mary Douglas, a great anthropologist and devout Catholic, saw this coming. When the bishops of England and Wales lifted the obligation for Friday abstinence, they suggested there was something untoward in the gusto with which Irish labourers observed the fast. Surely, the bishops believed, such outward observance would be better replaced by the more careful and thoughtful cultivation of an interior state of penitence and sorrow, perhaps complemented by a charitable gift?

Such anti-ritualistic arguments were made all across the Catholic world during and after the Council. Douglas, who had studied ritual among primitive tribes, bristled at them. She believed the bog Irish were being treated unfairly because of “a blank in the imaginative sympathy of their pastors”. The hierarchy had been made, “by the manner of their education, dull to non-verbal signals, and insensitive to their meaning”. They came to prefer ethical stances to ritual observance, and so they forgot how to speak to the poor.

For people who have not had the time and training necessary for cultivating a refined interior life or exquisite set of ethical commitments, a simple task like abstaining from meat gives the Christian life a meaning and shape that is no less profound for being inarticulate. In abolishing practices that poor Catholics had treasured for so long, the bishops acted with such violence that it is hard not to see it in terms of class war.

Of course, the Catholic faith is about divine mysteries, not human rituals, however treasured. Thomas Aquinas distinguished ceremonial forms from what was essential to the sacraments. While the sacraments were instituted by God, the form of celebration was determined by man.

This distinction is what gave the fathers of the Second Vatican Council the boldness to tamper with the most ancient rites of the Church. Yet Aquinas saw something that too many in that time did not: ritual cannot be dispensed with and should not be disparaged. We need solemn ceremonial forms not because they are essential but because humans have always tended to comprehend the profound through the trivial.

We need fixed and tangible ways of perceiving divine mysteries. This is why Aquinas defends not only the importance of ritual but also the use of images in Church. He offers three arguments. First, images are necessary for the instruction of simple people. Second, they aid the memory by daily presenting the example of the saints. Third, they help to excite devotion.

Really, though, Aquinas’s three reasons are one. Though he first defends images as useful for the instruction of simple people, he then goes on to explain why they are useful to us all. For learned and unlettered alike, memory is imprinted and emotion aroused “more effectively by things seen than by things heard”. Aquinas was sophisticated enough to realise that all men are simple. If the poor need art and ritual, so does everyone.

It is beautiful to see when Catholics live out this truth. At St Patrick’s Church in Soho, central London, one can come for the reverent liturgies celebrated in the sanctuary, or for the hot food served at the soup kitchen in the crypt. Some come for both. When these homeless people arrive, they do not find any trace of condescension. At meal’s end, the volunteers sit alongside the guests of the soup kitchen and sing the praises of a God who took on humility.

Only when we realise our own poverty will there be a return to beauty, and only when the Church returns to beauty will she once again attract the poor. We welcome the poor into our churches whenever we greet with holy images and solemn rites One who approaches us from the east. If, however, we refuse proper welcome to the poor and their Lord, there will continue to be burning instead of beauty.

Matthew Schmitz is literary editor of First Things

This article first appeared in the February 24 2017 issue of the Catholic Herald. To read the magazine in full, from anywhere in the world, go here

Gene, I hope you won't mind me contacting you like this. We haven't actually met but you are friends with my uncle...

Gene, I do hope you won't mind me contacting you like this. We haven't actually met but you are friends with my uncle...

It is an uneventful October afternoon in the school staffroom - lunchtime break. Some arguments going on as I had been stirring things up. It is a few days after Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and I am taking full advantage of this news. I had been saying for years that Bob should get the award. When I first started saying this many years ago people laughed at me. But as usual I did know what I was talking about and now here it was and I am certainly making capital of the event.

BOB DYLAN   ...   winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Enough stirring accomplished I head upstairs to the sanctuary of my Sixth Form office...


I open up my emails. I delete the rubbish (in other words anything about UCAS. Tee! Hee! Hee!) and am almost deleting the email titled 'Gene, I hope you won't mind me contacting you like this. We haven't actually met but you are friends with my uncle...'  when  on a sixth sense I open it. Boy am I glad I did! 


...

All that afternoon the contents of that email kept running through my head. So much so that when I was on the phone ordering copies of NUTSHELLS CONTRACT LAW by Robert Duxbury I said Robert Detterling causing momentary confusion.

In the end I phoned Tony of the big saloon and arranged to talk to him about the email after work. We don't teach in the same school so I arranged that we meet up in the Harris & Hoole coffee bar in Uxbridge High Street at 5.00pm. I arrived at the coffee bar early. They do wonderful hand-roasted coffee here. I sat at a table looking out towards Uxbridge Underground Station. Just love that sculpture by Anita Lafford in front of the station. Entitled 'Anticipation' it is quite conventional but has a definite charm. I love the way families often congregate around it.

ANTICIPATION by Anita Lafford

I took out my mobile smart phone which has FM radio, plugged in my earpiece, and listened to the PM programme on Radio 4. Serendipitously there was a feature broadcast about Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize. It seems that Bob has so far not made any acknowledgement of being awarded the prize and it's not known if he will attend the award ceremonies - or even if he will accept the prize. Some nobody from the Swedish Academy is calling Bob's silence extremely rude. Good old Bob!

I was so engrossed in the radio that I didn't see Tony arrive. I went to the counter and bought Tony a chocolate muffin and a cappuccino and had another black coffee myself.


"Well, in a nutshell Tony, I have had an email from Detterling's ginger nephew. He has had a major rift for some years with his uncle and seems to feel that I may be in a position to help heal things."


"You sure the email is kosher?" Tony responded. "Oh yes. No question. Some details about my correspondence with his uncle only he could have known," I assured him.

Tony replied,"Gene you have always been known to lend a helping hand to those in need. I guess you will do the same here."


I hesitated a little and said, "Yes, I have had much correspondence with Detterling for almost twelve years now. However I have not had intercourse with his nephew. I wonder if I am the right man for the task."


"If Detterling's nephew has taken the trouble of contacting you then he must be confident you can help. I'm sure he will bend over backwards to make sure everything will pan out," ventured Tony.


...

Despite Tony's reassurance I remained in Hamlet-like indecision all evening. Should I reply to that email? I couldn't sleep. I got out of bed and knocked on Marianne's bedroom door. (Since the children have left home we have separate bedrooms. It's ideal really and saves Marianne a lot of discomfort when I arrive home from the Good Yarn Friday nights semi-plastered after six pints of Tuborg and maybe a couple of Jameson's Irish whiskies.)

I talked to Marianne about my dilemma over the email from Detterling's nephew. (She never reads my blog by the way.)


Marianne didn't want to know and asked me to close the door quietly behind me on the way out.

To be continued

WHO'S SORRY NOW?

WHO'S SORRY NOW?


Hi Detters. How are things on Tyneside today? Been a bit cold and rough down here in Uxbridge with off and on snow flurries. Maybe you haven't been outdoors? Most likely you are in hiding since the turn up for the books development last week.


Heard anything from Anon of Northwood? Oops! Sorry, I forgot. You won't be hearing from him again will you? I have made sure of that. Bet you are sorry now you didn't take me up on that truce offer. You know that old song WHO'S SORRY NOW? by Connie Francis has been in my head for this last few days.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9QEAtcz3o8

Connie Francis

Just to let you know that I have some brilliant satire on the way. One piece depicting your ginger nephew.


What larks Detters!

Step forward 'Canting' Detterling...

Step forward 'Canting' Detterling...

On this grey overcast February day, with the pathetic fallacy right on cue, which aging Tyneside bottlejob's mood matches the gloomy skies?

Step forward 'Canting' Detterling, retired supply teacher and long term malingerer.

And what I hear you ask has cast this Wincarnis-tippling pseud into the Slough of Despond?

I can reveal that the old phoney's depression has been caused by his being once again outwitted by his arch-rival Gene. Detterling thought he would get possession of some archive press material which he could use to maliciously identify Gene and ruin his good name. But Gene was too wily for him and his nefarious plans have collapsed in ignominy.

Shall we visit Chez Detterling and see things close up? Well yes I think we shall.

Detterling is sitting, head in hands, at the kitchen table. He is still in his dressing gown although it is past midday. Delia Detterling is busy preparing lunch.

DETTERLING: Oh! Infamy! Infamy! Gene's got it in for me. I shall be ruined. With Gene's rapier-like wit and finely honed and deadly accurate satire I don't stand a chance. I'll be the laughing stock of cyberspace. Remember Delia how a couple of years back he wrote that devastating piece about me as a teenager climbing up into a sycamore tree with a copy of Health & Efficiency and in the leafy shade engaging in the sin of Onan? I was afraid to show my face on Tyneside for weeks.

DELIA DETTERLING: Oh! for God's sake. Don't be such a canting old phoney Detters. Face Gene like a man on the level playing field of satire. What rubbish about you being afraid to show your face. Not a single person on Tyneside or anywhere else knows you as Detterling. Likewise nobody knows me as Delia. Stop such pretence about you protecting your family. The truth is you don't have the wit, humour or literary style to better Gene in your cyberspace tussle.

And while I am at it please pack in that filthy language you use on your blog. I don't know what is worse: the filthy, obscene language or the filthy graphics. You won't find anything like that on Gene's blog. That's because he has the literary skill to express himself. Besides he is much too decent a man to use such disgusting language. 

And pack in your evil attempts to identify him and cause him harm. Has he ever tried to identify you or yours? Of course he hasn't.

Reporting him to the Daily Mail indeed! And yet you have the hypocrisy to come out with all this pinko liberal rubbish. Call yourself a man?

Oops! Sorry. It looks like we have walked in on a 'domestic'. We shall return later.

Delia Detterling



HURRAH! HURRAH! HURRAH! ... Gene's blog returns

HURRAH! HURRAH! HURRAH! ... Gene's blog returns

It has been a difficult time for me since the 19th January I don't mind admitting. But, as I said, Gene is always at his most dangerous when forced onto the ropes.

I had a very frustrating time trying to reach Mr S. But yesterday bingo!

I am so proud of the cunning plan I devised and how well it worked. The plan came to me in a blinding flash. I called up the school where Mr S teaches and left a message for him to call a number urgently at 12.45pm. A Mr Craddock wished to speak to him. (Discerning readers will note that the late Gene Vincent's real name was Eugene Vincent Craddock.) And the number I left was that of a well-known hostelry in Uxbridge! I had the bar staff primed to pass the call to me when it came through. It worked a treat. My conversation with Mr S was brief and very much to the point. The outcome? Mr S will not be troubling my blog or Detterling's blog again. Isn't that so Mr S?

So how come that Mr S will be withdrawing from the scene I hear you ask. Well, no names no pack drill, but let us say that the old adage 'People who live in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones' applies perennially. And is especially apposite if any of those people work on the SLT of their place of employment. Isn't that so Mr S?

I feel great. I haven't grinned so much since that day when the C of E synod torpedoed women bishops.


And what way better to welcome back everyone but to post again that wonderful photo of Detterling trainspotting as a boy:



Detterling aged 15 trainspotting in 1959