slightly odd occasion: the bereavedman, evidently not a church-goer, wants nonetheless to read a speech. Complacently she introduces this, after repeatedly invoking in first-name terms the dead man she has never met. In lucid and collected fashion, determined to remain straightforward, neat and audible, he proffers a few remarks about his father’s love of words, his gifts with language, his extraordinary precision with syntax, grammar and spelling (he had worked as an editor and proof-reader over many years), and also about his father’s passion and inventiveness with things, his skill as a maker of objects and contraptions sometimes more Heath Robinsonian than others might tolerate let alone admire. The speech then moves on to a truncated version of an anecdote about the church in which they are standing, concerning a period around twenty years earlier, when the vicar had no connection with the parish.
One day a builder came and erected scaffolding around the lychgate, presumably with the intention of painting or reroofing or otherwise repairing it, but no one ever followed it up, the days passed and the weeks and months and no one came and no one seemed to mind, besides the son who saw it as a daily eyesore and defacement of the church. Eventually he took it upon himself to type out a statement on the subject, on a single sheet of paper:
THE SCAFFOLDING
One of the most recent and most striking features of the village church is the scaffolding at the lychgate. It has now been in place for a year – some say even longer – and its purpose is shrouded in obscurity. It seemslikely that the original purpose of the scaffolding was to facilitate the application of a new coat of paint. Perhaps a more fundamental, strenuous and time-consuming operation had been envisaged: structural repairs to the lychgate? Rumours have been rife. One account which appears to retain credibility locally is the postulation of an argument between a painter and a builder and their consequent parting of ways. The painter may never return; or, of course, may never have existed. Already it is so long ago that few locals can easily picture the church without its parergonal complement. Another rumour has concerned the establishment of a small group known as the village Revolutionary Council, working for the peaceful overthrow of the scaffolding, as well (it is claimed) as the removal of the grotesque bow of barbed wire which secures the little ‘kissing gate’ round at the back of the church.
Is the scaffolding now a permanent feature at last, a monument in its own right? And if so, should it be attributed symbolic significance? These are questions which, over the past three months in particular, have caused fierce debate in certain areas of the parish. Suffice to bring to notice the philological endeavours of one local historian who has noted the word ‘scaffolding’ as etymologically of obscure origin but nevertheless as bearing the less widely known sense of ‘a raised framework, as for hunters, or among some primitive peoples for disposal of the dead’ ( Chambers ). Given the etymology of ‘lychgate’ (Ger. Leiche , corpse), the notion of an alteration in church policy, with regard to the practice of excarnation, irresistibly suggests itself.
This document was signed ‘For the people of the village’ and dated ‘June 1986’. His father apparently delighted in this so much that he created a speciallycarved wooden platter, like the sort of distended table-tennis bat you find in certain churches with information about the history and architecture of the building. The dead man screwed down this little text about ‘THE SCAFFOLDING’ under a carefully cut plastic plinth. The son placed the platter in the church that afternoon. Within days the scaffolding was dismantled. Unread at the funeral, this text is nonetheless exactly as the vicar pictured. Every word conforms to her sense of the inside narrative of the occasion.
He concludes
One day a builder came and erected scaffolding around the lychgate, presumably with the intention of painting or reroofing or otherwise repairing it, but no one ever followed it up, the days passed and the weeks and months and no one came and no one seemed to mind, besides the son who saw it as a daily eyesore and defacement of the church. Eventually he took it upon himself to type out a statement on the subject, on a single sheet of paper:
THE SCAFFOLDING
One of the most recent and most striking features of the village church is the scaffolding at the lychgate. It has now been in place for a year – some say even longer – and its purpose is shrouded in obscurity. It seemslikely that the original purpose of the scaffolding was to facilitate the application of a new coat of paint. Perhaps a more fundamental, strenuous and time-consuming operation had been envisaged: structural repairs to the lychgate? Rumours have been rife. One account which appears to retain credibility locally is the postulation of an argument between a painter and a builder and their consequent parting of ways. The painter may never return; or, of course, may never have existed. Already it is so long ago that few locals can easily picture the church without its parergonal complement. Another rumour has concerned the establishment of a small group known as the village Revolutionary Council, working for the peaceful overthrow of the scaffolding, as well (it is claimed) as the removal of the grotesque bow of barbed wire which secures the little ‘kissing gate’ round at the back of the church.
Is the scaffolding now a permanent feature at last, a monument in its own right? And if so, should it be attributed symbolic significance? These are questions which, over the past three months in particular, have caused fierce debate in certain areas of the parish. Suffice to bring to notice the philological endeavours of one local historian who has noted the word ‘scaffolding’ as etymologically of obscure origin but nevertheless as bearing the less widely known sense of ‘a raised framework, as for hunters, or among some primitive peoples for disposal of the dead’ ( Chambers ). Given the etymology of ‘lychgate’ (Ger. Leiche , corpse), the notion of an alteration in church policy, with regard to the practice of excarnation, irresistibly suggests itself.
This document was signed ‘For the people of the village’ and dated ‘June 1986’. His father apparently delighted in this so much that he created a speciallycarved wooden platter, like the sort of distended table-tennis bat you find in certain churches with information about the history and architecture of the building. The dead man screwed down this little text about ‘THE SCAFFOLDING’ under a carefully cut plastic plinth. The son placed the platter in the church that afternoon. Within days the scaffolding was dismantled. Unread at the funeral, this text is nonetheless exactly as the vicar pictured. Every word conforms to her sense of the inside narrative of the occasion.
He concludes
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