ANOTHER VOICE
An Easter message from the curious incident of the dead cat
AUBERON WAUGH
Last week, the Archbishop of Canter- bury launched what was described as a major investigation into rural England, designed to expose the bitter truth behind romantic visions of a countryside at peace with itself. 'The truth is dramatically diffe- rent,' he said. 'Fewer and fewer people are employed in agriculture. The social profile of the village has changed out of all recognition with an influx of commuters and the retired. This has pushed up house prices so that it is now difficult for local people, especially the young [my italics], to purchase houses in the places where they were brought up. . . . Schools, shops, pubs and village halls have been closing at an alarming rate,' he added.
All this could have been learned by reading 'Country Topics' in the Evening Standard 17 years ago. But now Dr Runcie has set up a 20-person commission under Lord Prior to establish the truth of these daring propositions. Lord Prior announces that three 'working-parties' will be set up to investigate community life, employment and public services. Then it will publish a report, to be denounced as a Marxist document by Sir Eldon Dialaquote, fearlessly criticising the Government for inadequate expenditure on the country- side, demanding cheaper and better rural bus services, a more compassionate atti- tude to rural old people and the young, subsidised maypoles and all the rest of it.
Some may find this charming. Lord Prior is 60, after all, and obviously has no future in politics. His colleagues, we are told, will include clergy, a JP, a farmer and a sociologist — all, presumably, people with nothing better to do than sit on a commit- tee and call themselves a 'working party'. They will take two years to produce a report which could have been written and probably was — by a journalist in an idle half hour 17 years ago. There is certainly nothing sinister in Lord Prior's involvement. The only thing which I do find sinister is the ballyhoo, as if this extraordinarily fatuous inquiry into social conditions somehow provided an alterna- tive to the Church's role of inspiring and sustaining an awareness of God — in the countryside or anywhere else.
By coincidence, on the day I read about these junketings in Lambeth Palace (I was not invited to attend them, despite my considerable knowledge of the subject), I received a most disturbing letter from someone who had attended the inquest on Dr Gareth Bennett, author of the famous Crockford's preface, who died on 5 De- cember last year. The inquest was held on 16 March after extensive enquiries by Oxford CID into the circumstances of Dr Bennett's apparent suicide, although no CID officer was called to give evidence only a sergeant who had arrived on the scene earlier. Having listened to all the evidence, my correspondent — a female doctor — came away with three strong impressions: that the only possible verdict was an open one; that the witnesses had been steered (there was no jury) towards a suicide verdict; and that so far as she was concerned, on a balance of probabilities, suicide was not the cause of death.
There is scarcely space to summarise her reasons for this conclusion from the evi- dence that was allowed at the inquest. Suffice to say that a false picture of Dr Bennett's state of mind was given by press accounts. On the morning of Saturday 5 December 1987 Dr Bennett returned from a visit to Cambridge with three friends: John Cowan, Dean of New College, Philip Ursell, Principal of Pusey House, and Father Stuart Dunnan, Ursell's priest- librarian. They had been discussing the extraordinary attacks on him by the Archbishop of York, Dr Habgood, by the Bishop of St Albans, and by an unnamed Church House source who had told the Daily Telegraph that the author of the Crockford's preface would be 'hunted down and destroyed'.
Dropping Mr Ursell at Pusey House, Dr Bennett arranged to meet him that evening at his home to continue the discussion. His last words to him were: 'I'll see you this evening.' He then drove out of his way to New College to collect his post, pausing only on his return to Marston to drop Mr Cowan at his home, a few minutes away. That was the last time he was definitely seen alive. Two hours after he returned home, a man who was not positively identified as Dr Bennett bought a hosepipe with tap connection at a nearby shop.
When Mr Ursell turned up on Saturday evening Dr Bennett's car was not there, and the house 'showed all the signs of not having been entered'. On Monday morn- ing he was missed. A neighbour found his cat Tibby (also known as Tibbles) dead inside, surrounded by dried food. No post-mortem was carried out on the cat, which is strange. Dr Bennett's case had been left at the bottom of the stairs, with a newspaper still tucked in the strap. His overcoat was thrown over the bannister, with his mail still in the pocket unopened. His body was found in the passenger seat of his car in the garage, which he never used. There was no suicide note. His papers, kept upstairs, were in an uncharac- teristic state of disorder. There was an open bottle of red wine in the kitchen, with a number of glasses.
The effect of Dr Bennett's apparent suicide has been to discredit in large measure what he wrote in the Crockford's preface. This was not, as has been vulgarly claimed, a personal attack on Dr Runcie. Rather, it opened up a whole can of worms on the administration of the Church of England — the General Synod and House of Bishops — which has led to its present abject state, admirably exemplified by the new countryside commission. It would be sad if the Church of England were now to be overtaken by the sort of scandal which hit the Liberal Party ten years ago, although the two institutions have become so similar that I cannot evince great sur- prise. In fact, it seems unlikely. Dr Ben- nett's body was cremated with unseemly haste before it could be subjected to a forensic autopsy. So was the cat's. All the evidence has been destroyed. But the copyright in the Crockford's preface attaches to his executor, and I understand there are plans to re-issue it in full. Perhaps the Church of England would be better advised to consider the evidence he adduces in it, rather than pursue this fatuous inquiry into rural bus services.
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