Feb
12
2022
Father Philip was housemaster of Caverel and in 1970 I was appointed to be his assistant housemaster. A fireball of energy, he taught classics and fencing – indeed, at least one of his pupils became an Olympic fencer – and...
Feb
05
2022
How can I even begin to describe Wappy? Father Wulstan Phillipson had been attached to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin before, as he always implied though never quite said, abandoning a glittering dramatic career to join the monastery. His English classes...
Feb
02
2022
The Fall in Genesis 3:1-24
The most striking aspect of the story of the fall of mankind in Genesis is that God proves to be wrong and the serpent right. Eve tells him that God has forbidden herself and Adam...
Jan
30
2022
You think of monasteries as happy, peaceful and ordered places. I rapidly discovered this wasn’t Downside. Ever since its foundation in 1605 in Flanders there had been division between the young turks who wanted the danger of the English mission...
Jan
30
2022
Nuclear is not the answer.
The most amazing aspect of our age is that so many people are so unworried about the climate horror the scientists say will fall upon our children unless we act with the utmost determination and...
Jan
24
2022
I offered a plan involving support from OGs and the many friends of Downside to save it but the monks were not interested. Can we still save what they have abandoned for understandable reasons even without them, and perhaps even...
Jan
07
2022
Bad American Dreams
Millions of Americans support Donald Trump. Many believe Trump’s claim that the Democrats stole the election and some hold democracy in such contempt they stormed the Capitol. Some even threatened to hang the Vice-President Mike Pence in front...
Nov
17
2021
Maybe if we stopped money streaming from poor non-white countries into rich ones through the debt trap, paid the 100bn we said we would to help them fight climate change (a fleabite but might make us feel better) and...
Nov
08
2021
How can we explain that so many do not seem to see how stupid and ill-judged and, far worse, hypocritical is the shame that is now being heaped on Yorkshire by those who should themselves be ashamed. Most of these accusations...
Oct
11
2021
The Nobility of the British Empire.
I want you to think about Rudolf Höss who was the commandant of Auschwitz. He oversaw the worst crime in history (although our slave trade is up there competing hard). After a mass gassing he would...