A work for Sundays

Popped into the the church (of St. Mary the Virgin) at Brading on Saturday morning to find a table of books being given away in exchange for a donation, among which we had that illustrated left. A book about a chap from a reasonably wealthy background (trade, up north) who went on to be a lifelong leftie and a long serving Dean of Canterbury. Sufficiently leftie to get audiences with the likes of Secretary Stalin and Chairman Mao. Very able public speaker, very hard to get rid of, the Church of England not having invented the Human Resources Department or individual contracts at that time. For some time, the bug-bear of Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang, noticed at reference 5.

Two pounds in the collection box and my resolution to buy no more books, new or old, until I had worn down the stock in hand, was broken.

As it happens, a book which I almost bought at the time it was published, which I find was as recently as 2011. Whereas, if I had been asked, I would have guessed some years before that. My recollection is that I went into one bookshop, associating to Borders in Victoria Street, which would have been long gone by then, and not finding it there, tried the bookshop attached to Westminster Abbey, where the young man there knew all about it but did not actually have it. The matter must have rested there.

A well produced book, on good quality paper, which made it unusually heavy and which reminded me of the book noticed at reference 1, although in that case the same paper was used for glossy illustrations and for words, which is not the case here, with the illustrations being bound into three separate sections, and the words being bound into nine old-style signatures. Published by Scala of EC1, London, but produce of Spain. In association with Cathedral Enterprises of reference 3, the people who look after, inter alia, the cathedral shop at Canterbury. An operation which no doubt falls within the remit of the present Dean, so entirely appropriate.

With Scala appearing to be a corporation from the US, specialising in books for museums, galleries, libraries, religious and heritage sites. Which explains the quality of the book - and also entirely appropriate, with a large church of the Church of England qualifying as both religious and heritage.

I shall report on the content of the book in due course, offering for the moment a bicycling taster. It seems that the Red Dean came from a large family, which used to spend some of its Sundays cycling out on the northern moors. Mother and father on a two seater, side by side, called a sociable. Boys on bikes and girls on trikes.

PS: as it happens, the following day, taking tea at Brading Roman Villa, we picked up a well illustrated biography of Alexander the Great, by Mary Renault, whom I used to read when young, published by the very same people, Pantheon, who published PHI, mentioned above and noticed at reference 1 below. Very much the sort of thing you might otherwise get from Thames and Hudson, the people who published Kingman's book of the pot, noticed most recently at reference 6. Another donation job, so this time just one pound in the collection box: far from new, unlike the present book.

Reference 1: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/04/phi.html.

Reference 2: http://www.scalapublishers.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.cathedral-enterprises.co.uk/.

Reference 4: The Red Dean: The public and private faces of Hewlett Johnson - John Butler - 2011.

Reference 5: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/12/birthday-book.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/arts-crafts-2.html.