IT’S a matter of public record, as some of those in the Big House are fond of saying when they want to sound more important (and intelligent) than they are, that this bolshie little crapaud has to be dragged kicking and screaming into any sort of church service, no matter which denomination.
Indeed, my dislike of the hypocrisy which so often goes with the pontificating and judgmental attitudes espoused by many of those who so much love telling the rest of us how we should live our lives, is probably about as strong an emotion as I can muster these days, short, of course, of putting a proverbial bomb under the Big House to shake a bit of life into its thankfully temporary occupants.
Yet for all that I have, over the years, generally supported the concept that, whether I personally like it or not, the Anglican Church is part of the Island’s social infrastructure and, again whether I like it or not, there are certain legal obligations associated with that, not least financial responsibility on the part of ratepayers for various bits and pieces to do with the 12 parish churches.
For that reason I tend not to oppose measures to do with the fabric of those churches when they are discussed at parish assemblies, although I have been known to raise an eyebrow or three when rectors come along with a wish list – usually compiled with more than a little assistance from spouses – of measures to modernise rectories.
All that said, I’m probably grateful that I am not a ratepayer out in the sticks in the Parish of St Ouen, and not simply because by now I’d be fed up of waiting for them to install the phone and the electric to some of the more outlying bits of the patch, where the last regular bus service coincided with the Suez Crisis of 1956, or so some of the residents would have their gullible friends in neighbouring parishes believe.
I haven’t seen detailed plans of what they want to do with the parish church out there but from what I’ve read it seems that the Rev Ian Pallent has shoved in a wish list for alterations to the inside of the building – I dread to repeat what Herself thinks the finished article will look like – and seems also that he is prepared to rattle his sabre from the top end of Val de la Mare Reservoir to Grosnez and thereafter right along to the parish boundary on the Five Mile Road, stamping his foot as he goes along, until he gets his way.
A word in your ear, Mr Pallent, before you keep digging until you reach the point of no extrication. As the old saying goes, there’s only one way to lead a Jerseyman, and that is to find out where he is going and walk in front of him. Take it from me, nothing else works with bolshie little crapauds and they don’t come any bolshier than those in your neck of the woods, that’s for sure.
You’ve got to remember – and if you haven’t already been told then someone is slipping up somewhere – that this is the parish where only a few years ago, when a proposal to sell the rectory came before a parish assembly, one parishioner – I have a feeling it might well have been Frank Carré, but no matter – stood and suggested that they might just as well flog the parish church as well ‘because hardly anyone is going near the place these days’. Tread carefully, Mr Pallent. Tread carefully.
AND finally… In common with roughly half the population, I don’t like Marmite, yet Herself does. I get the feeling that there are much the same sort of divisions when it comes to the decision
by Philip Ozouf not to enter the fray for the election for Senators (or anything else, for that matter) in a couple of months or so.
Those divisions were certainly apparent – and have been for years – among the thinkers and drinkers at the pub last week and the discussion on the young man who brought his own particular brand of ‘in your face’ politics, not to mention his huge level of confidence that he is always right, will not end with his withdrawal from front-line politics in May.
Say what you like, he is most certainly a different political animal to most.
