Lecture

After work I went to a village on the western border of the county.  Torrential downpours of rain, so violent that I had to stop the car and wait for the deluge to ease.  Then just as suddenly the rain stopped, about a mile away from my destination.

At the manor a garden party was being held for the county's architectural society (of which I am a member).  I was a little late, and felt apprehensive as I walked down the drive, seeing the guests walking about on the lawns to the left of the house.  The manor-house itself was like a large doll's house, swathed in roses and bordered in lavender.

The was a little bar under an awning where I got myself a glass of white wine (very good wine, but not really chilled properly).  I walked around the garden nodding to people I sort-of knew.  Although it was nearly 8pm the heat of the day continued, unbearable in its intensity.

A set of ornamental lakes, placid horses standing in a meadow, secretive walks leading to flowered arbours.

I felt a few spots of rain falling, and suspecting what might come next I walked hurridly back to the main lawn.  I warned people that it might be about to rain, but they seemed unconcerned.  More spots fell so that I hurried on to the gate in the garden wall that led into the churchyard and went into the church where the lecture was to be held.

A couple of minutes later the storm broke, the rain falling down on the roof with shocking ferocity.  The noise was incredible.  In through the north door the other members of the architectural society rushed, all of them completely drenched.

After a short introduction the wet speaker, a professor from a midlands university, climbed up into the Jacobean pulpit.  The subject for his talk was scholarly clergymen from the Victorian period.  He talked for about an hour and then took questions.

 "The gentleman scholarly cleric was a type of parson that hardly exists today...  probably they had failed to get a university fellowship and went into the Church as a second choice...  they would have a grand rectory, servants, and retire into their books and documents - to them Sunday services were an interruption to their researches...

"The meeting point for these clerics was the county's architectural society...  they discussed restoring churches to their gothic purity...  a standardised approach to writing church guidebooks was developed...

"They worked on the Victoria County History with a team of young female historians who had studied at universities but in that era were unable to take their degrees...  they published uninteresting books from original sources...  vast quantities of their work has never been published..."

The meeting came to an end.  There was a vote of thanks and we all applauded.  Various people were presented with bunches of flowers and bottles of wine.