For Those in Peril

Phew! I spent an uncomfortable morning smuggling the linen despoiled by the spaniels out to the laundrette in Trollford, where Mary McCarthy took pity on me and offered me a service wash with free ironing, as a work of corporal mercy. I am a great believer in social networking, and I count someone whose great-aunt was the lay seamstress in the old Magdalen Laundry as a jewel among contacts. I also popped by the shopping centre and replaced the Thorntons Truffles and sneaked them back into the pantry, having removed two pralines, and left another on the radiator for a few minutes, to create a plausible cover story .

Mrs McElhone was surprised to see that her Easter present had migrated from the airing cupboard, but I explained that I had woken in the middle of the night, and worried that the cold air would trigger the frost thermostat. I pointed to the melted chocolate - and she agreed that I had got there just in time - and thanked me profusely - shutting the pantry door firmly, as Charles and Hetty are not above sneaking in if she leaves the Yale lock on the snick.


I may have escaped explaining certain uncomfortable things to Mrs McElhone, but I fear I must offer some sort of excuse for my absences during the greater part of Lent. I suppose I had better begin with the news that arrived on my doorstep on Ash Wednesday that the Oblates of the Order of St Brendan the Seafarer were about to quit the Diocese, and could they please have their rental deposit back, having left the place in good order, with the usual dilapidations etc etc.

I was surprised to hear that this order had had plans to retrench to their chapterhouse in the Hebrides for some time. I was somewhat perplexed, in fact - so I rang Father Crusty to make enquiries.

The good priest turned up on my doorstep within half an hour with a box folder full of press cuttings about this issue, which, it appeared, had been rather a bone of contention in the north western section of the Diocese.

St Brendan's Chapel

It appeared that in 1862 a group whose apostolate was to care for the spiritual needs of seafarers had set up shop in the quiet fishing village of Trollers Quay, where the Troll estuary met the Irish Sea, and there they pressed some local craftsmen and sailors on shore leave to construct a worthy place of worship. As the local economy was geared to fishing, rather than architecture, the local geniuses decided to stick to what they knew - and a couple of boat builders got involved with the project - giving the diocese its first and only naviform church - which appeared for all the world as if a boat had been upended and plonked at one end of the picturesque harbour. The oblates were very happy with their new abode, as they were followers of St Brendan the Mariner, who sailed the Atlantic - either in a coracle or on top of a millstone, depending on which medieval chronicler you choose to believe.

All proceeded according to plan, and for a century the good oblates tended for the lost and impecunious among the seafaring community, but like so many Catholic orders they took Vatican II a little too seriously, and decided to re-form and re-order, just as the dockers at Westerport decided to go on a ten year strike to protest at the introduction of docker-proof containers - and the result was, sadly, that St Brendans lost a large slice of its income, and most of its parishioners, and the oblates had to start buying their bananas at the local Tesco.