City and Suburban
THAT good and much loved man, Dr. Kenneth Kirk, Bishop of Oxford, died in the middle of June. It is now the middle of November, and on the Monday on which I write this, no successor to this big and important diocese has been appointed. Incumbents look wearily out into their dripping shrubberies; curates pedal dismayed around foggy suburbs; rumours upset church life. The Oxford Diocese has more religious communities than any other. Will they appoint anyone who understands about the religious life ? The Oxford Diocese has a great many public schools as well as church schools. Will they appoint somebody who can give forceful and short Confirmation addresses ? The Oxford Diocese is largely agricultural, with hundreds of clergy in lonely little villages, who need a Bishop to cheer them up and to whom they can look as a personal friend. Though Dr. Kirk was a don and Oxford University has little to do with the Diocese, whoever chose him struck lucky. He was not merely an able don, but also an understanding man, interested in people, and with a large heart. The long delay has been cruel to the Diocese. I wish that the mysterious ' they ' who advise on the appointment of bishops would not always look for 'able administrators.' The prime function of a bishop, after con- firming and ordaining, is to be the friend of his clergy. He can leave conferences in Church House, Oecumenical Com- mittees and financial board meetings and the like to the sort of people who enjoy those things, and they need not all be clergymen. The sort of bishops we are most badly in need of are those who have been parish priests. I wish they would appoint humble parish priests to big sees, even if they are 'bad administrators.' Such men are not difficult to find. The famous Arthur Foley Winnington Ingram, Bishop of London, was not, I believe, much of an administrator, but he knew every clergyman in his diocese, their families, their relations, their joys and troubles, as does the present Bishop of London. And that is the way round things should be. To build a church on committees and Church House, is to build on sand.
The Head in the Letter Box
I very much enjoy putting my head through the large slots in the letter boxes outside the General Post Office in London and watching those everlasting bands which catch every letter dropped into the chute, and whirl it away to the sorting office. But even when I see this, I do not feel comfortable about the despatch of all my letters. In that section marked London and Country,' does Middlesex count as country ? Is a letter to Harrow or Uxbridge a country letter Then is Surrey in the country, or is Croydon part of London ? Croydon haS always seemed to me very much less a suburb of London than such towns as Reading and High Wycombe, but 00 Post Office would pay little regard to such subtleties. And then there comes another dichotomy which the Post Office doe,' not resolve. What does it mean by ' Abroad ' ? Is the British Empire abroad ? Is Ireland abroad ? The southern part of the latter would be very much annoyed if it were not considered abroad, and I imagine that Northern Ireland would be very offended if it were not considered ` Country '. And are the Channel Islands and the Shetlands country ? Thd double-slotted pillar boxes gape at me but give no answer.
Diana Disappears
I was watching an opening meet of foxhounds last week and interested to see that the majority of the field were men, Fox-hunting friends tell me that I would witness the samg phenomenon all over England. Yet whenever I see a riding school cantering over a field in the wake of a weather-beaten riding mistress, or whenever I look at the books and periodicalg of pony worshippers, girls predominate. I hope this paragraph will cheer the parents of horse-mad daughters. The mania generally dies down before marriage. What does surprise mo is, how the men learned to ride whom I saw at the opening meet. Some of them were quite young and I have hardly, ever seen a boy in a riding school.
Palindromedary
The longest palindrome I have ever heard was composed by Thomas Honan, a Customs and Excise official of Liverpool, who filled an exercise book with such things. It is LIVE DIRT UP A SIDE TRACK CARTED IS A PUTRID EVIL. This ingenious man also spent much time discovering words which could be decapitated, letter by letter. ' Aspirate ' was his-longest, but I am rather doubtful whether 'spirate' is a word.
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