With Hearts and Hymns and Voices Read online

  Marriage had never really been an option for Jack. It wasn’t that he avoided it, or wouldn’t have liked the sense of belonging that he thought must be part of family life. It just never came his way. Did women frighten him? Jack considered this. Not ‘frighten’ exactly. They intrigued and confused him. Lately, well, for the last twenty years or so, he’d simply kept his distance. Until he left, he had found his accounting job in Ipswich much easier when he kept his door shut – quieter, more orderly. He liked figures. Reassuringly logical.

  Jack glanced forward to look towards the three unfamiliar faces at the front of the church. There was an older man Jack had a feeling might have worked with John – his boss, perhaps, at the ironmongers in Stowmarket? Although John rarely spoke about his work, Jack felt he would have been very conscientious in all he did. Jack’s gaze moved on to the other two visitors, a man and woman in their twenties. Relatives? John had never really mentioned his family.

  It was over. The congregation stood to leave, respectfully allowing the newcomers to lead the way. By the time they reached the door, Clive, now out of his robes, was waiting for them.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the young woman. ‘We spoke on the phone, I think. Mrs Monro, John’s niece.’

  Monro, thought Clive with relief. That was the name!

  The young woman was still speaking. ‘You made it very personal. It sounded as if you knew him quite well.’

  ‘It’s a small village, Mrs Monro, so we are inclined to live in each other’s pockets. John liked to keep to himself, though, so this whole thing has taken us rather by surprise. He always seemed a fit man. A sad business. Had you seen him recently?’

  ‘Well, no, I’m afraid we haven’t. Uncle John was never one for visitors – and we live so far away. The trip from Yorkshire takes three hours, you know, so it’s been difficult. I feel awful that we didn’t make more of an effort now.’

  She looked at her shoes, and in the awkward silence, her husband put his arm around her.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get started. There’ll be a lot to do. Thank you again, Vicar. Goodbye.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Hadlow, as she reached the church gate. ‘That’ll be his niece then. Come to clear up his things, I shouldn’t wonder. It was his house, was it? Now, there’s a thing. Whatever will happen to that house now? Poor man. So sad.’ She took Ivy’s arm, and together they set off down the lane, with George Hadlow, as quiet as a shadow, following dutifully behind.

  ‘Oh, Charles!’ Clive called out to the churchwarden as he emerged into the cool sunshine. ‘Some news for you. Well, it might be news. Someone from the BBC rang, about doing a Songs of Praise from here. I’m just going over to ring her back now.’

  At this news, Charles Waite, a large, imposing man, drew himself up until he seemed a whole inch taller.

  ‘Songs of Praise, eh?’ His glasses sank further down his nose as he peered at Clive. ‘Well, if that’s the case, there’s a lot we must take into consideration, a lot to discuss.’

  He paused, looking at Clive.

  ‘Would you prefer me to handle the call, Vicar? This really is a matter for the whole Parish Council, you know.’

  ‘Kind of you to offer, Charles, but I can manage perfectly well, thank you. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear more about it.’

  ‘Straight away,’ replied Charles. ‘We’ll need a meeting. It must be fully discussed.’

  ‘What must?’ Hearing mention of a meeting, Bunty Maddocks’ antennae were jangling. The round, beaming woman joined them, pulling her three-quarter length lilac-coloured jacket snugly around her. ‘What must be discussed?’

  ‘It seems,’ said Charles, ‘that the BBC plan to take over our church for a Songs of Praise.’

  Bunty’s eyes widened, but before she could open her mouth to comment, Charles went on.

  ‘As you know, I’ve had experience of television people before. This could be very disruptive. It needs careful handling. It’s essential that the PCC are kept informed. We must lay down the ground rules.’

  ‘Oh, but that’s wonderful!’ Bunty managed to squeeze in at last. ‘Wonderful, exciting news! When? When will it be?’ She turned to Clive.

  ‘I don’t know anything about it, until I get back and make that phone call to the producer. Do excuse me, won’t you.’

  ‘Well!’ Bunty’s eyes were shining, as she turned to Charles’ wife, Betty, who had just come out of the church with her arms full of sheet music and hymn books. ‘Did you hear that, Betty? Songs of Praise – it’s coming here!’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Charles. ‘It needs to be discussed.’

  ‘Oh, but Betty, that means you’ll be playing our organ on TV. Will they let you choose the hymns, do you think?’

  ‘It’s all to be decided. It needs to be discussed,’ repeated Charles, and taking Betty firmly by the arm, he led the way home.’

  ***

  ‘Thanks for ringing back’, said Jan, when Clive introduced himself. Her Scots accent was quite pronounced, especially on the phone. ‘I’d like to come and have a proper chat with you. Obviously, we’re only putting out feelers at the moment, but we are planning to do a programme from somewhere in East Anglia, and I noticed your church when I was driving around the area a couple of days ago. Sandford is a beautiful village.’

  ‘Well, we like it – and we’d certainly like to talk about your idea. Wednesday? Was that when you thought you might come?’

  ‘That would be best for me,’ Jan flicked through her diary. ‘About three-ish?’

  ‘Best day to choose. My afternoon off,’ replied Clive. ‘I’ll get my wife to drum up something special for tea.’

  WEDNESDAY

  10 FEBRUARY

  The fact that Jan’s glasses were perched on top of her dark, curly hair, as usual, didn’t stop her slipping on her sunglasses too, as she turned the car off the main road towards Sandford. This first week in February had been dark and cold, until today, when at last it felt that spring was really taking hold. Trees lined the way, their boughs shaking off the bareness of winter with new lime-green shoots. Then came fields, dotted with fat sheep, too busy chewing to notice the occasional car that passed by. Over the hedges, Jan could already see the tower of St Michael’s, quite out of proportion with the squat, neat houses that mostly surrounded it – but then, that was one of the most appealing oddities of this corner of Suffolk. Back in the Middle Ages, when a thriving wool trade meant that times were good in East Anglia, the most telling sign of an area’s prosperity was the grandness of its church. The more ornate the building, the more devout the locals must surely be – the higher the spire, the more likely they were to have the ear of God. Over the years, as the trade in wool became less important, thriving boom towns mellowed into pretty, quiet villages. Nowadays, all that remained of their former affluence was the church – a cathedral-like anachronism of days gone by.

  As Jan’s car turned into Sandford, St Michael’s drew the eye. It filled the side of the High Street, as the road turned a right angle into the main part of the village. Standing at the back of the old graveyard, lined on either side by small pargeted houses in pinks and yellows, the solid grey walls and huge clear glass windows of St Michael’s were impressive, and somehow moving. For Jan, who spent so much time in churches of all shapes, ages and persuasions, this was the very epitome of the English country church. For centuries, it had stood on that spot, marking out the Christian year, sharing joy and grief with its neighbours. How many of those neighbours would take a place in the pews on Sunday morning nowadays? Twenty, perhaps, in a building that could seat three hundred?

  The vicarage was easy to find. Jan thought wryly of her two-up, two-down terraced cottage in Manchester, and decided that there was a lot to be said for becoming a vicar’s wife. This house probably looked older than it was. A coat of paint might make it seem smarter, but it gave off an air of contented decline. No doubt it cost a fortune to heat, and the chimneys lolled at a charming angle – but if ever
Jan found the elusive Mr Right, a house like this would do very nicely, thank you. She smiled to herself, as she gathered her bag and bits together. Mr Right! When was there ever time to find Mr Right, when she was constantly on the road, researching this programme, recording the next! If she met Mr Right, the chances are it would be in some far-flung, inaccessible corner of the country where their paths would never cross again! Working in television, and working on your love life – what an impossible mix!

  What could she smell, sweet and earthy? Fancy a girl from the Borders not recognizing good fresh air when she met it? I need a holiday, she thought, as she locked the car. In fact, now she really looked at it, the garden was beautiful, even this early in spring – mature, rambling and obviously loved. Someone had green fingers.

  ‘Hello, need any help?’

  The tall man in baggy brown trousers and wellingtons, appeared from round the side of the house, and could have been the gardener – except that the clerical collar at the neck of his black shirt gave him away.

  ‘I’m not too early, am I? We did say three o’clock?’

  His expression was blank for a moment before he came towards her, his hand outstretched.

  ‘Miss Harding, of course, you must be Jan. Come to think of it, no one here has got a car that young!’

  ‘A hire car, company issue,’ Jan explained, as Clive caught sight of the mud stains on the sleeve of his jacket, and thought better of shaking hands. ‘Better not do that. I’ve been digging, you see – first chance I’ve had this year. Come on round the back, to the kitchen. Keep to the path, I should!’ And he strode off, leaving Jan to pick her way past the rockery, the bins and a rack of milk bottles, to the kitchen door.

  Clive’s wellies trailed clumps of dirt across the room, as he made for the kettle. ‘Helen!’ he called. ‘Helen, she’s here!’

  Clive was on the point of opening a third tin, trying to remember which one held the tea bags, when a slim, fresh-faced woman came in. The overall impression you got from Clive’s wife was that she was attractive. Her face was more interesting than pretty, framed by a sensible haircut which insisted on curling where it probably wasn’t supposed to. Helen held out a hand to Jan, saying, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect you to arrive at this end of the house. Tell you what, why don’t you two make yourselves comfortable in the front room, and I’ll bring the tea in.’

  She barely glanced at Clive’s boots, but he got the message. He sat down heavily, pulling off first one, and then the other, as he asked, ‘Long drive from Manchester? You haven’t done it all this morning, have you?’

  ‘Well, no. Actually, I stayed in Ipswich overnight. I think I mentioned to you that we know we want to make a programme somewhere in this area, but what we’d like to find is just the right church and village to base the programme in, a place that’s really typical of life round here. We’re still at the stage of searching for the right location, so I popped my nose around a couple of other churches on the way here.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Clive. It hadn’t occurred to him that theirs wasn’t the only church to be considered. ‘Right, follow me.’

  The front room was large, sunny, and packed full of chairs. Obviously, this room was used for more than just family evenings in front of the television. Everything from the Parish Council meetings to tea parties for the local lonely took place in this room, as Jan could tell from the shelves that lined one wall, stacked with assorted pamphlets, books and boxes of knitting. Clive directed her to a comfy, overstuffed armchair near the window, where she sat with a file unopened on her lap.

  ‘How old is St Michael’s?’ she asked.

  ‘The oldest part, around the altar end, dates back to the thirteenth century – sundry bits and pieces added on after that. The entrance porch is a youngster, built when Victoria was still a slip of a girl.’

  ‘And how big is Sandford? How many people do you count among your congregation?’

  ‘I have just over eight hundred potential parishioners on the books. Probably less than two hundred of them have ever been into the church for an act of worship, and that includes weddings, funerals and the Candlelit Service on Christmas Eve. I’d say perhaps a hundred would call themselves Christians, and about twenty of those would turn up regularly on a Sunday morning – thirty, if it’s nice weather.’

  ‘Do you have responsibility for any other churches besides St Michael’s?’

  ‘Well, I take a service on the first Sunday each month at the little church in Dinton – that’s about a mile and a half up the road. There are only half a dozen or so houses in Dinton. It’s such a nice church, though, that often the service there is quite popular.’

  ‘You don’t happen to have a picture of that church, do you?’

  ‘Um, let me think. Hold on, Helen will know.’ He stood up, and just outside the door, shouted, ‘Darling! Have we a photo of Dinton Church anywhere?’

  ‘I am sure we have,’ came the reply. ‘If I can lay my hands on one, I’ll bring it in with the tea.’

  ***

  Dinton Church. Have we got any snapshots of it? Helen rummaged through the kitchen table drawer, pulling out packs of photos, trying to remember. Egg rolling on Good Friday last year. Weren’t there some pictures from that? Dinton Church stood on the only decent hill around these parts, and it was a favourite tradition for children to race eggs down the slope. But were there only pictures of the green, or was the church included too?

  The buzzer on the cooker went. The scones were ready. Homemade, yes, but not by her. These had been left over from the Coffee and Cakes Stall at the Christmas Fayre, ably run, as usual, by the ladies of the parish, under the sergeant-like management of Bunty Maddocks. Helen pretended not to notice their understanding looks when she agreed to keep the leftovers in her freezer. A vicar’s wife who was hopeless at baking? They probably prayed for her!

  Found one! A grinning group of youngsters standing at the church porch, clutching eggs lovingly decorated with smiley faces and go-faster stripes. And she found another in the same pack of the altar at Dinton, with the stunning arrangement of catkins that had been so eye-catching. Bunty, and the team of flower arrangers she organized like clockwork, had excelled themselves with that.

  She buttered the last of the scones, and placed them on the tray with the photos and tea things. She was halfway out of the kitchen when she remembered the jam. She could never imagine herself making jam, but she was always glad to accept presents from others who could. She opened the cupboard, its top shelf overflowing with jars of pickles, lemon curd and marmalade. Strawberry, she decided, and picking up the tray, she made her way towards the front room.

  ‘This programme would be part of our special Lent series, Village Praise,’ Jan was explaining as Helen walked in. ‘We did the same thing last year, and it was really very popular. The whole idea is quite complicated from our point of view, though. You see, Songs of Praise has a large production team based in Manchester, who work together in small groups on each individual programme. The technical teams are quite separate though, and may not come from Manchester at all, but from the most convenient base for Outside Broadcast vehicles and technicians. That means that often, both the production and the technical teams working on Songs of Praise one week, may well be completely different from the team working on the following week’s programme.

  ‘But Village Praise is unusual, because for six weeks, the same unit are on the road all the time, working their way around the country from village to village. And last year, that meant a huge circle around the British Isles, covering Wales, Scotland, the North-East coast, and several other places around England.’

  ‘How many people make up a unit?’ Helen asked as she put the tray down.

  ‘Well, I suppose there would be about twenty technical people, probably with about three or four large trucks carrying equipment and cabling – and on the production side, let me see…’ Jan counted people off. ‘There would be me, and my production assistant; a researcher; a director
to take charge of the interviews and shots of the area; our musical director – oh, and the presenter, of course.’

  ‘Gracious me, I had no idea it was such a big operation.’ Clive reached for the tray. ‘Scone?’

  ‘Not for me, thanks – and no milk in the tea either.’ Helen handed Jan the cup, saying nothing.

  A sudden appalling thought struck Clive. ‘Lent. That starts in two weeks’ time.’ He relaxed back with a plate of scones balanced on his knee. ‘You’ll be thinking about us for next year then.’

  ‘No. For Palm Sunday this year actually. A programme to be made during the first week of April, and transmitted on the Sunday, 4th.’

  The scone never reached Clive’s mouth. He thought for a while before speaking. ‘Things move rather slowly around here. I’m not sure that we’d have anything to offer you with so little notice.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry too much about that. We’re used to organizing these things, and will just need your help to draw together local support, and all the individual elements we need. What you have readily available here is what we need most – a beautiful village, a lovely old church, an area steeped in history, and a local community that must include a few people who have interesting experiences to share, about how their faith has helped them through various aspects of their lives.’

  It was Helen who spoke first. ‘You know, Jan, we’re not a large congregation here. What about the singing? Our choir, if you can call our handful of ladies that – well, they’re very enthusiastic…’

  ‘But their style is quite…free, shall we say?’ finished Clive. ‘Betty, our organist, is excellent, of course, and can handle anything you throw at her – including choir pieces,’ he added loyally, ‘but she’s not…’

  ‘Look, don’t worry about that yet. We’ll be bringing along our own music expert from the very start, to identify talent in the area, and make sure that the quality of the singing and the music is good enough to keep people entertained at peak viewing time on a Sunday evening.’