Crossing the Line - part 14
As sixth form progressed,
I had to decide what to do next.
In one way this was
easy. I wanted to go to university. When I was about 15, I had made the audacious
statement that I wanted to go to Cambridge.
I say audacious because I had only just made it off the bottom of my
class into the dizzying heights of mediocrity at the time. Somehow, my teacher managed not to burst out
laughing and told me that if I worked hard, why not?
I only said Cambridge
because we had visited it on a family holiday.
The rarefied atmosphere of the colleges won me over, from the grand to
the quaint. The thought of living in one
of these ‘other worldly’ quads captured my imagination.
This was all fine until I
mentioned it to Lesley who was my girlfriend at the time, and she said, “But I
want to go to Oxford.” So when I saw a
young vocations weekend advertised at Jesus College Oxford, I knew I had to go. What a great opportunity to kill two birds with
one stone – I could go to a weekend about ordination and see Oxford properly at
the same time.
Two things stood out for
me over the weekend.
First was the morning I
spent with the chaplain at Oxford prison.
It was a time of extreme overcrowding in British prisons and the sight
of Victorian cells designed for one or two prisoners, but crammed with up to four
inmates was shocking. There was so
little space that if anyone needed to get to the cell door, the others had to
jump on their beds to allow him through.
It was also in the days of slopping out where the toilet consisted of a
bucket with a towel over it, which was slopped out each morning before
breakfast. The smell must have been
unbearable at times.
Second was an afternoon
wandering about the colleges of Oxford.
I decided that I would walk around as many as I could and see if any of
them ‘felt right’. This was not a very
scientific approach for someone looking for somewhere to study maths, but as I
have since discovered there is an intuitive side to my personality which
sometimes has the upper hand. As I walked around the colleges, I came to a very
definite decision that there was one which felt right. Brasenose College was a smallish college on
Radcliffe Square and as I walked around I could imagine myself living and
studying there.
So I came back to Bolton
and told Lesley the good news that I had decided to apply to Oxford – except
that when it came to filling in our applications, Lesley applied to
Cambridge! Perhaps there was something
she was trying to tell me? Our
relationship actually lasted over 3 years, ending during the summer holidays just
after A levels. It was a happy time and
through lots of ups and downs we made it work – a romantic relationship between
two Christians which helped us both to grow without falling into the usual
teenage pitfalls. Lesley applied to
Cambridge, and I applied to Oxford.
Then came the question of
what to do with the time I would have off between the Oxbridge exams in
November and starting university the following Autumn (wherever that might be). During childhood, another place we had visited often was Scargill House in the
Yorkshire Dales. Set in the picturesque
landscape of Upper Warfdale, Scargill was a Christian community of about 30
people who ran a conference, holiday, and retreat centre for about 90 guests.
For most people the words
‘Christian community’ bring visions of pious looking monks or nuns in religious
habits, but Scargill was nothing like that.
Most of the community at Scargill were in their 20’s and wore jeans not
habits. When a member of the community was
invited onto local radio to try to explain what it was like to live in
community, he began by saying, “We do everything together; we work together, we
eat together, we...” and everyone wondered what he was going to say next! Thankfully he finished the sentence with “We
pray together.” This religious community
was predominantly a group of young people who chose to live there for a time to
find out more about themselves and deepen their faith, joining for anything
from a few months to a several years.
 |
| Scargill Community 1982 |
We certainly worked
together and looking after the guests involved cooking, cleaning, as well as
managing the 96-acre estate under the leadership of a Chaplaincy Team. We also took turns to be on the Guest Team,
leading whatever conference, retreat or holiday was on the programme for that
week. This involved making everyone feel
at home, leading worship, drama or meditations, and accompanying our guests on
walks around the Dales.
Scargill has the most
beautiful modern chapel which somehow set the ethos for the whole place. It is in the shape of praying hands under a
huge wood shingle roof. We sat around
the altar on its large stone dais which doubled as a place to kneel for
communion or as a stage for drama or dance.
Each end of the chapel was completely glazed in clear glass, revealing the
beauty of God’s creation with views of across the dale or up into the forest
behind. Every morning we would meet
there for prayers after an early breakfast.
It set the scene for the day.
I applied with excitement
and got an interview. It was the week
after Easter and I borrowed my parents’ motor caravan to drive up in. As I set off from Bolton it started to
snow. By the time I reached the
Yorkshire Dales it was a blizzard. The
last 15 miles from Skipton to Kettlewell were going to be a real challenge, and
one which proved too much. I finally
gave up when the snow plough I was following stopped because the snow drifts
were too deep. Returning to Skipton, I
phoned Scargill in bitter disappointment, only to be told, “Don’t worry, we’ll
pick you up!”
Sure enough, about 40
minutes later a land rover arrived driven by a member of the community who was
an ex-royal marine commando. I quickly
learned that his strategy for snow drifts was simple; the bigger the drift, the
faster you drive at it! We arrived in
one piece just in time to find that the power had gone out and there were 70
guests to look after. It was an eventful
weekend with the snow 2-3 feet deep in places.
After managing on emergency power overnight, the electricity came back
on in the early hours of the morning and I spent most of the weekend in a team
shovelling snow from the long driveway to make sure our guests could leave.
So it was that I was
offered a place on the community and immediately after my Oxbridge exams, I
left home on a new adventure.
Of course, nothing is ever
what you expect it to be. For me, the
most important lesson of going to Scargill was to begin at the bottom
again. I left my church in Bolton and
the youth group where everybody knew me and often looked to me for advice and
leadership. I arrived at Scargill where
nobody knew me, and I didn’t know them.
The first week was spent washing up.
The second week, I was moved to House Team who cleaned the house from
top to bottom every day. Any romantic
notions of the joys of living in community are quickly dashed when you are sent
off to clean the 30 or so toilets around the house before 11am! Then there was changeover day, when one group
of guests left and another group arrived.
Every bed in 50 rooms needed changing, before cleaning and setting up
just right for the new arrivals. It was
hard work and there was a ‘Scargill way’ of doing everything, from folding the
sheets to arranging the furniture in the large meeting rooms.
Looking back, I learned there
what it really means to serve people in Christian ministry. Not up the front with everyone looking at
you, like being a priest at the front of a church, but in the simple unseen
acts of service which no one notices, except if they are not done – like
cleaning toilets. It was a good lesson
for me to learn.
A few weeks after I
arrived at Scargill, I had to go to Oxford for interview. It was another cold and snowy few days,
trudging through the snow from college to college for interviews. When I looked at the other candidates I
didn’t think I stood a chance. There
were only 6 places for Maths at Brasenose and there were 12 of us there. All of them appeared to be much smarter than
me. At one interview, after we had
talked about maths for a while, I remember being asked about my application.
He showed me two
consecutive lines on the application form.
The first asked for my chosen subject – mathematics. The second asked
what career I wanted to follow, and I had written “Priest in the Church of
England”. He looked puzzled and said,
“So you don’t want to do anything with your maths after you finish then”
quickly followed up by “So why do you want to study maths?”
I remember saying that I
enjoyed maths and didn’t want to be the kind of vicar who didn’t know about
anything apart from theology. He smiled.
Looking back, I am sure
that this question got me a place at Brasenose.
It was the only thing which set me apart from other applicants, the only
thing which would have been memorable when the time came to choose who to offer
a place to. I think it was just after
Christmas that I got the letter inviting me to Brasenose College Oxford. It took me a while to really believe it.
The time at Scargill
passed all too quickly. As I got used to
the work there it became more and more fun.
I shared rooms with Simon who was mad about pot-holing and climbing,
even taking me down the wet and slippery Providence Pot on one occasion. As a community we welcomed everyone from
Bishops to borstal boys. Music, art and
drama were a normal part of our weekly activities alongside cleaning the house,
day in, day out. I even got used to the ‘Scargill way’ of doing things.
During one summer
house-party when I was on the Guest Team, we organised a cross between ‘It’s a Knockout’
and a commando course around the estate complete with being drenched by fire
hoses and a zip-wire ride! Everyone had
to complete the course in pairs and it started with a three-legged race, tied
up with strips of old pillowcases. “Keep
hold of the pillowcases when you untie your legs” I said, “You may need them to
staunch the blood later!” - trying to add to the excitement. Imagine my face then the guest speaker for
the week arrived at the finish line needing several stitches with blood
dripping from the old pillow case wrapped around his arm!
I did start to think that
Scargill would be the place I would end up, but then some of my youth group
from Bolton came to visit and said “No – you need to be out in the world.” So in September 1982, I left for Oxford with
something of a heavy heart. It was like
finding somewhere you felt you belonged, but then knowing you have to move on.
Scargill became somewhere
I went back to many times. The chapel
there became the place where I would return when I really needed to hear from
God. In the stillness, enveloped in
those praying hands, surrounded by the beauty and majesty of creation, I always
knew I would meet God there.
It is some years now since
I last went back, but I hope to visit again soon.
