What a joy it has been for me this week to go into open churches, St George’s, Roman Catholic Cathedral and my own local, St Agnes, Kennington Park. In each the Blessed Sacrament was there, in a monstrance on the altar with lighted candles on either side. In each place of worship there were clear signs of what to do and also in each there was hand sanitiser to be used on coming in and going out. I could use the hand  sanitiser for a quick prayer, ‘Make me a clean heart O God, And renew a right spirit within me,’ instead of the usual making the baptismal sign from the holy water stoup.

That’s enough theology but it’s not the end of religion. When I last went to Tesco there were no baskets near the door and and I said to one of the staff there, 

‘Sorry,’ I must have become more English than I realised, beginning with ‘sorry’, 

‘Sorry, are there any baskets?’

And he said, ‘No problem Sir,’ he was older man, hence the ‘sir’, 

‘No problem, Sir. I’ll get some.’ And he did. And he passed me one.

We are allowed to got into church for private prayer. A priest is not permitted to say,

‘The Lord be with you’. 

And we are not permitted to respond,

‘And with your spirit.’

The world, or this bit of it, has gone mad.

Any local council in the British Isles will tell you that after a religious gathering of practically any kind there is almost no rubbish to clear up, no policing necessary and few ‘incidents’. The same councils will inform you that during and after a secular gathering or rave the complaints of noise and disorder pour in, the ambulances are called out and they have to send in the rubbish trucks and teams of workers to do the clean up.

The people who attend religious events, such as going to church, are, on the whole, thoughtful, considerate of others’ well being, and inclined to obey the rules – be the rules of social distancing or whatever. They’re inclined to be older too. It seems to me quite barmy for whichever authority, civil or ecclesiastical, to prevent this group from joining together in the worship of God. 

My thinking about street names, or more particularly about changing street names, has changed. My initial reaction to the intention of Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to review London’s statues and street names was to groan inwardly, and possibly audibly. 

‘Yet more party political interference in my life?’ I thought. And I still think it’s tricky territory. But as I’ve explored some of the history of my own local streets I do see that their names have an evolutionary life of their own.

My address is Kennington Park Road however my front door is in Braganza Street. Braganza Street was New Street until the 1930’s. It says so on the street sign attached to my house, 

BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK

BRAGANZA STREET SE17

LATE       NEW STREET

(By the way my postal address is SE11 so don’t be fooled by the sign.)

So why the change and why Braganza? I think the change was simply because the street was far from new and there were already too many New Streets around. As for why Braganza? There’s the mystery – at least for me.

On the wall of the house next door but one from mine, high up, there is a plaque. It’s not one of those smart blue plaques put up by English Heritage to show who lived there like the one on number thirty nine Methley Street where Charlie Chaplin lived from 1898-1899. I pass that one often when I’ve done enough turns around Cleaver Square. Charlie Chaplin has a second plaque on a block of flats in the Brixton Road. He lived there from 1908 – 1910. His family were very poor and, locals tell me, they ‘flitted’ frequently, that is, moved on without paying the rent. I’m told they also lived in Kennington Road but there’s no plaque there.

The plaque on the next door house but one to me is a serious plaque. It’s either brass or bronze, like those on headstones, and it’s on the side of the house in de Laune Street. The house is the corner house. The front is in Braganza Street. The plaque reads

Braganzas

This two-dimensional form is a braganza, a Cognate word which can be crudely translated as ‘spirit door’ or ‘tombshadow,’ but really meant something a bit more playful and mischievous. The Sharaara Tlar, the people of this area which was an island before it was a river’s side, believed that you shared your home with the spirits of the children you didn’t have by the person you didn’t marry. In fact, in some sects, you did not exist but they did.

Discover Endless Kymhuir

PLAQUE PLACED BY KYMAERICAPROJECT.CO.UK

As you will have realised it was definitely not placed by English Heritage. 

From what I can discover the plaque and it’s placing is the work of an American, Eames Demetrios who is, amongst other things, a ‘geographer-at-large’, an artist and film maker. This plaque is part of  current large-scale project, Kcymaerxthaere, which, according to his website 

‘is a multi-pronged and ongoing work of 3 dimensional fiction and has been underway for 11 years.  The project can be found in stories set in bronze markers and historic sites-like a novel where every page is in a different city.’  

It’s a sort of mythical history, I think, set in bronze, and I’m not going to explore the history of the Sharaara Tlar people.  And I live alone.  

I find much more fascinating the actual history I discover on every one of my walks. Why Braganza Street? My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that it has something to do with Catherine of Braganza wife of King Charles the second. But why? Did someone want to make a link between Kennington and Elephant and Castle, Portugal and Spain? The Spanish La ‘Infanta de Castillia’, is thought by some to have been corrupted to become the English ‘Elephant and Castle’. The Elephant and Castle was an Inn, a significant pub which certainly existed in 1765. By the way the Elephant Lodgings are mentioned by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night Act 3 Scene3.

But none of that really helps me with Braganza Street and I’m only just out my front door. I’m disappointed to discover that the street can’t have been named after Operation Braganza that was part of the desert campaign in the Second World War because the street was renamed before the war. Perhaps there was, living locally, or on the Council, a Mr or Mrs Braganza. More research needed.

I’ve already discovered a little about the family Faunce de Laune who owned land hereabouts and were generous benefactors of local community projects. I don’t know where their money came from. I walk down Faunce Street and have friends living in de Laune Street. I haven’t been able to find out whether or not there were orchards in what is now Berryfield Road that I walked along this morning having turned off Manor Place. The original manor being Walworth Manor.

There are of course lots of ‘Manors’. When I lived in Chelsea we used to buy our pizzas from an excellent Pizzeria in Chelsea Manor Street. I lived in Flood Street – named, of course, because it regularly flooded until the Embankment was begun in 1854 and opened in 1874. The various manors were the medieval areas of land that sometimes had a manor house. Walworth manor house was at the corner of what is now Penton Place and Manor Place. Also on my walk.

My much walked around Cleaver Square, three times round is one thousand steps, was called Prince’s Square when it was laid out in 1788. The Prince of Wales is an excellent pub in the corner of the square. But the square wasn’t named for any royal prince but for Mr Joseph Prince who owned the two houses on Kennington Park Road which were at that end of the square. The name was changed in 1937 to that of Mary Cleaver who had owned the land in the eighteenth century. And, while I’m across the road in that direction, the White Bear Pub and Theatre in Kennington Park Road, where, incidentally, I have performed, is named for White Bear Field which was the name of the land that Mary Cleaver inherited. It seems the 1930’s must have been a time for name changes around here.

But the name change I enjoy most is in New Zealand. The first parish I worked in was St Silas, Redwood. But the suburb wasn’t Redwood when I was at school in the 1950s, it was Styx, and it wasn’t Styx when it was first named in the 1850s. It was Sticks. 

It happened like this. North of Christchurch there was a stream and marshy land. There was one good place to cross the stream without getting bogged down so one of the early settlers put some sticks in the ground to mark the crossing. It became known, of course, as the place of the sticks, then Sticks. Later in the century a well educated English gent thought, 

‘Oh dear. These ignorant colonials. They don’t know their mythology at all. It is clearly the river Styx.’ 

Actually I don’t know whether he thought that at all but the spelling was changed and the name remained until the locals discovered that the Styx was not a good place to be so there was a vote in the 1960s and the locals chose the name Redwood. There was a handsome Sequoia redwood tree in one of the streets so Redwood it became. 

Clearly street names evolve and change and I hope they will always give us some history to discover. Much as I love trees and plants to have the local streets named, Plane Road, Oak Street or even Kangaroo Apple Place, (I bought a Kangaroo Apple plant from the Walworth Garden Centre in  Manor Place this morning), to have streets named botanically might be safe but would not give much room for education and the enjoyment of historical discovery.

My friend John Shepherd is into the third week of his hunger strike. You can find out more about it on Linked In or through his email johnshepherd@asia.com . He has been strongly influenced in taking this particular course of action by his life in Asia and his knowledge of Buddhism. His protest, to death, and I think that is where it will take him, is against the behaviour of Multi National Corporations world wide and the Marriott Hotel Group in particular.  The details are complicated and probably too complicated to attract much media attention which is what action like this needs if it is going to change anything. 

John is a friend, and will probably die, and I will miss him.

I gather that some people are enjoying lockdown. For working parents who can now work from home and spend time with their children I imagine it could be great. Though I am conscious of that tongue in cheek video I was sent early on in lockdown:

A man is given two options:

‘Option one – lockdown with your wife and children’

‘Option two -‘

‘I’ll take option two!’

It’s a rather cynical view of family life but it did make me smile. 

I’m told it’s easier for those in the country to enjoy lockdown than for those in the cities. Those who are by nature reclusive and are with their nearest and dearest must be enjoying lockdown. And there may be others who are enjoying Lockdown. I am not one of them.

I am not enjoying Lockdown and I’m trying to work out why, and why it’s getting worse not better, and then what to do about it.

Being over 70 and living alone I have discovered that I not only enjoy but also need my fellow human beings. And that that need may be helped but is not satisfied by telephone calls, video calls, face time or whatever. I need others for my own good heath. Though, come to think of it, having a dog might help. But I don’t have a dog. 

Part of the reality of Lockdown is that it is taking away part of my life. Or at least of living my life as I want to live it. From time to time I buy a lottery ticket. I don’t know why. The only thing I’ve ever won in a raffle was at a fair when I was at the Peel Forest School, our local primary school. I won a pale blue, hand crocheted, dressing table set. I have remembered and resented it ever since. That still hasn’t stopped me buying tickets. These days there are various sorts of lottery ticket and I avoid the one that will give me £2000, or is it £10,000 a month for the rest of my life. Fine if I was younger but I don’t have as many months. I want to win the one that will give me millions, now. 

It was easier to deal with when there seemed to be a defined time for Lockdown. The lack of clarity in ‘easing’ Lockdown I find difficult to handle. I remember my anger when a politician lived off the benefit for a fortnight and announced, triumphantly, how possible it was. Of course it was because she knew she was only going to have to do it for a fortnight. It’s not having any framework that does my head in.

I’m sure it was easier for the New Zealand Government with a population of only five million but certainly their clearly outlined stage by stage approach for easing Lockdown seems to have been helpful for my family and friends there. Dealing with uncertainty I have always found much more difficult than dealing with the known, however bad or difficult the known turns out to be.

So what to do about it. I try to find the positives in each day as it comes. It helps if the sun is out. Thank goodness New Zealand seems to be free of the virus as they move further into the darkness of winter. And Lockdown seems to have given people permission to talk, not that I have ever found that difficult. But these days other people seem more prepared to have a conversation.

I had two good conversations yesterday while on my walk. One was with a postman. I’d turned off Hayles Street into Fives Court (not a fives court in sight) and then into an unnamed alleyway not more than a meter wide and with old high brick walls on either side. It seemed to go along the backs of gardens and turned so I couldn’t see the end. When I came out into Orient Street there was a postman delivering letters so I asked him the name of the alleyway.

‘Orient Passage,’ he said, ’I’ve never been down it myself. What’s it like?’ So I told him and we then had a good talk about how he was finding life under Lockdown. 

‘Not too bad, having a job,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t say I’m enjoying it.’

I said that I wasn’t either.

After visiting the ancient mulberry trees in New Square, their branches are propped up because mulberry trees branches over extend so the trunks are prone to splitting – according to a sign near one of the trees – I went out towards St George’s Road. On the corner there was a woman creating a new garden. The outline was already there, in gray bricks, and she was preparing the soil. We had a good talk about gardening in general and her new garden in particular. And we agreed it was no good planting a box hedge because of the beetle that destroys box.

Walking has become essential to my routine. It’s for the exercise. And the talking. And the routine has become essential.

I combined my brisk walk with a visit to the large Tesco in Kennington Lane. It’s further away than my small local Tesco so it almost qualifies as a ‘proper’ walk – almost but actually not, even if I include walking around inside the supermarket. I hadn’t been there since the beginning of Lockdown so I was also interested in discovering how it worked.

The staff were wonderful, helpful and friendly, my fellow customers less so. There are arrows on the floor and markings to show two meter intervals. Many of the shoppers ignored them totally. Following the arrows down one aisle I came face to face with a young couple coming towards me. ‘You are going in the wrong direction, you know,’ I said in what I hoped were friendly tones. They looked at me completely blankly. I wondered if they didn’t speak English. I pointed to the arrows on the floor. ‘Yeah,’ one of them said and continued going against the traffic.

There was a woman keeping her distance two meters behind me and I caught her eye and said, ‘Am I just a grumpy old man?’ ‘Not a bit,’ she said, ’Keep at it,’ then, ‘How are you managing?’ I wasn’t sure whether she meant with my shopping or life in general but I chose to think she meant shopping so I told her, ‘Just one more thing to get.’ ‘That’s good, what?’ ‘Gin,’ I said. ‘That’s really good,’ she replied and we went our separate ways, she to continue her shopping, me towards the gin.

On my way home I was thinking about the nature of God – as one does when walking back from the supermarket. Well it’s Trinity Sunday this Sunday and that is the only festival of the church which celebrates a doctrine rather than an event and I was thinking about it.

There’s a story I’ve always liked about St Augustine walking on the seashore contemplating the nature of the Holy Trinity – he’d been working for over thirty years on his treatise on the subject – and as he walked he noticed a small boy running backwards and forwards from the ocean to a spot on the beach carrying water in a seashell and pouring the water into a hole in the sand. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked the boy. ‘I’m trying to bring all the sea into this small hole,’ the boy said with a smile. ‘But that’s impossible,’ the Saint said. In some versions I’ve heard that St Augustine told the boy he was being ridiculous and unintelligent. In this version he just said it was impossible to which the boy replied, ‘It’s no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small mind.’ And, of course the boy disappeared. There’s a painting by Alessandro Magnasco, from about 1740, of the incident.

Anyway I was thinking about the nature of God and I did not encounter any small boy with or without a seashell, but when I was going through Cleaver Square I saw a fellow parishioner from St Agnes and we stopped and chatted, at a distance, and got up to date on news and agreed that we knew God was everywhere but that we needed to be able to go to the church and that we needed to be together. We were not being particularly profound. I said how the previous evening when I’d done my walk around the Square I had met another parishioner who was sitting on a bench in the square reading the evening paper and we’d had a chat as well.

Each time I go out on my walk, sometimes trying to walk off the heaviness that Lockdown causes, the thing that really lifts my spirits is to meet another human being and to have a bit of a chat. I shouldn’t be surprised. The Christian understanding of God, the Holy Trinity, God being three in one, is that in some way the nature of God is community. And that we need one another in order to be who we

As an outsider looking in I guess community happens among the staff at Tesco down the road. They certainly all seem to get on and I guess they get to know each other and help each other out. Community does not happen among the shoppers, that’s for sure. Though there may have been the beginning of community with the woman who asked me how I was managing. And that was at two meters distance.

Here in Kennington the one place that I see community happening, regularly and actively, is at church. Only of course its closed. I only know St Agnes well but I understand it’s the same in all the other churches. At St Agnes there is a mixture of ages, races, of educations, of incomes, there’s certainly a diversity of political views, of sexuality of whatever you want to come up with, except of course religion. We’re all Christian. I suspect that community is an essential part of Christianity as it seems to be of most religions. Perhaps community is an essential part of being human. And it is community that is being threatened by many aspects of continuing Lockdown.