PÁJARO DE CONCHA ¿CUAL ES EL PÁJARO QUE TIENE CONCHA? 70 LORO MACHO ¿En una pareja de loros, ¿cómo se sabe cuál es el macho?

It was perhaps reasonable to suppose that a highly motivated and energetic clergy, coupled with experts like Martin Purdy, could still be persuaded to work in Newham. Evidence of the decline in the life of the Church of England at this time would be better seen in the role of the laity. The former group after all were paid to do their job, the latter were volunteers. It could be expected that this group were cast into the role of voiceless guinea pigs who would passively accept the leadership of articulate, well educated outsiders, or they would feel so demoralized by decades of decline and stagnation they would be apathetically useless onlookers to these exciting developments. Some commentators did portray the laity in a less than favourable light. Paul said, ‘They have seldom been great instructors, though often effective obstructers.’102 _{Communities like}

East Ham had historically rarely been consulted about redevelopment.103 _{If secularization}

was to have taken a hold in Newham then it would be evident in its dwindling congregations. Despite these initial fears being realised, renewal was possible as clergy and laity forged a new partnership together.

The 1960s saw a flourishing of texts on the place of the laity. The seminal work by Yves Congar, Lay People in the Church: a Study for a Theology of Laity (1957), inspired a

Ecumenical History from a British Perspective (London: Epworth, 1979), p. 113. This collaboration never

materialized and the work was executed by the Anglican congregations in the East Ham Team alone.

102 _{Paul, A Church by Daylight, p. 148.}

103 _{Michael Collins, The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class (London: Granta Books,}

2004), p. 160.

series of studies on the laity from Protestant and Catholic authors. Hendrick Kraemer’s A

Theology of the Laity (1965), responded to Congar’s work from a Protestant point of

view. Works such as George Austin’s Laity and Priesthood in Tomorrow’s Church (1976), and Ronald Metcalfe’s Sharing Christian Ministry (1981), and Catholic approaches such as Leonard Doohan’s The Lay Centred Church (1984), examined the role of the people in the contemporary Church.104

Lay education was seen as crucial to the preparations for redevelopment, enabling the laity to participate in different aspects of the scheme that facilitated a communal sense of ownership.105 _{Early works such as Stephen Verney’s Fire over Coventry (1964), was one}

of the first books to advocate serious collaboration between priests and people in the Church of England.106 Adair still felt that progress was slow in the 1970s.107 Yet from the end of the 1960s there was an awareness that the Church would have to increasingly rely on an empowered and trained laity if it was to provide a mission to the world. This could have been interpreted as yet further evidence for decline as the Church could no longer depend on a salaried ministry, but equally it was indicative of change prompting fresh expressions of service. There was a growing expectation that clergy had to bring the laity with them in creating a vision for a parish. Lowe very quickly set about preparing the congregation at St Bartholomew’s to address the problem of redevelopment. Purdy also wanted a grassroots response to church developments, reflecting a fresh approach to planning in the light of a radical reshaping of Christian theology. The driving force for new buildings had to come from the minister and the congregation.108

Education was seen as the key to lay involvement. Imaginatively then, one of the most significant projects Lowe initiated was a six week course entitled ‘The Church Building,

104 _{Yves Congar, Lay People in the Church: a Study for a Theology of Laity (S. I. Chapman, 1957),}

Hendrick Kraemer, A Theology of the Laity (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1965), George Austin, Laity

and Priesthood in Tomorrow’s Church (London : Church Literature Association, 1976), Ronald Metcalfe,

Sharing Christian Ministry (London: Mowbray, 1981), Leonard Doohan, The Lay Centred Church

(Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1984), p. 10.

105 _{Adair, The Becoming Church, p. 57.}

106 _{Stephen Verney, Fire in Coventry (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964), p. 14.} 107 _{Adair, The Becoming Church, p. 67.}

108 _{Peter Hammond, Liturgy and Architecture (London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1960), p. 11.}

a Burden or a Blessing?’ This course was held at Fellowship House, and, as the outline programme said, was:

…open to everyone interested in the future of church building in Newham and a special welcome would be given to those anxious to participate in the re- development of St Bartholomew’s Church, East Ham.109

It was hoped that the congregation would discover something of the range of possibilities that were available to them with a new development.110 _{Guest speakers included J. B}

Taylor, the then Archdeacon of West Ham, Martin Purdy, J. G. Davies, and Gilbert Cope from the Institute for the Study of Worship and Religious Architecture. There were also speakers drawn from Newham including Jack Hart, the leader of Newham Council, Ken Boyce, Assistant Director of Newham Social Services. The settlements, missions and charities were represented by Jimmy Froud, General Manger of Aston Charities, Christopher Hill, Director of Newham Community Renewal Programme and Colin Marchant, Baptist minister at West Ham Central Mission.111

An insight into the content of the course can be gained from a related exercise Lowe described in his article ‘The Church Building: Sign of Hope or Cause of Despair’ in the

Research Bulletin (1985). There was a similar education course that he devised with the

then Diocesan training officer, Wesley Carr. Wesley was to act as Team consultant under Lowe.112 The content of both courses included theological reflection, what images of God the Church believes in, the place of symbols and control and power that buildings projected.113 Later on this idea of image was to be of significance when looking at the art commissioned by these churches for their new buildings. Lowe asked the congregation to reflect on what it was to be a church in a changing world.114 The programme was aimed

109 _{London SBCA, The Church Building – Burden or Blessing. Outline Programme. Autumn 1976.} 110 _{Purdy, ‘New Life for an Urban Parish’, p. 19.}

111 _{London SBCA, The Church Building – Burden or Blessing. Outline Programme. Autumn 1976.} 112 _{Interview, Lowe, 18 March 2010.}

113 _{Stephen Lowe, ‘Church Building: Sign of Hope of Cause of Despair’, in Research Bulletin,}

(Birmingham: Institute for the Study of Worship and Religious Architecture, 1985), pp. 31-34, p. 31.

114 _{Interview, Steward, 8 March 2010.}

at broadening the congregation’s horizons and enabling them to see beyond the church and church hall model of development.115

It was true that the St Bartholomew’s project did create much tension amongst some laity but the project took nearly eight years to complete, hardly a callous response. Those involved in the redevelopment were not indifferent to the emotional attachment some would have had to the old building. There was a recognition that there might need to be a period of mourning for the old building from some members of the congregation.116

There were potent memories of marriages, baptisms and funerals as well as its survival through the war.117 _{Lowe was under no illusions about the cost to people of the}

redevelopment; as he wrote in the parish newsletter for August 1980, ‘A lot of people feel very distressed in seeing the church building demolished. It leaves them with feelings of betrayal and sadness.’118 One example of this was a small group of parishioners who formally objected to the redevelopment in early 1980.119

That most significant of resource for the local church, its women, might now be conspicuous by their absence. The spotlight had been turned on them in recent decades. Jeffrey Cox records the crucial role that women played in churches in Lambeth from the 1850s.120 The high proportion of women that made up Victorian and Edwardian congregations has also been recognized by authors such as Robin Gill.121 Yet Callum Brown suggested that it was the social and financial liberation of women in the 1960s

115 _{Interview, Lowe, 18 March 2010.}

116 _{Chelmsford, ECRO, A11221. Box 1, Minutes of St Bartholomew’s Sub-Committee, 26 July 1979.} 117 _{Interview, Steward, 8 March 2010.}

118 _{Chelmsford, ECRO, A11221. Box 4, The Parish Newsletter, 24 August 1980.}

119 _{London, SBCA, Letters, Christmas to Trillo, March 1980. This resulted in a brief correspondence}

between Ms Christmas of the Church Commissioners and John Trillo Bishop of Chelmsford. These parishioners’ main objections seemed to be the cost of the project at a time of economic decline. They claimed the old church could have been restored at a cost of no more the £6,000. Words like extravagant and unnecessary were used. Other objections were that the old St Bartholomew’s was a possible venue for ordination and carol services. The Commissioners felt bound to take these objections seriously and were seeking the advice of the Bishop. This prompted a further concern from the Commissioners as to whether there were adequate funds for the whole project.

120 _{Jeffrey Cox, The English Churches in a Secular Society: Lambeth, 1870-1930 (Oxford: Oxford}

University Press, 1982), p. 50.

121 _{Gill, The Myth of the Empty Church, p. 176.}

that led to the rapid decline in Church adherence.122 Grace Davie felt that despite the decline in religion in the latter quarter of the twentieth-century women were still making a considerable contribution to Church life.123 Certainly women were playing a significant function in the life of inner-city churches like St Bartholomew’s.

St Bartholomew’s was to benefit from the growing empowered women of the congregation as British society changed. They were to play a major role on the steering group of the new development. Nine members of the District Church Council were women in 1979 including Doris Goodchild as Treasurer and Linda Steward who was churchwarden.124 _{Women were to contribute to the project, from creating the altar}

frontals for the new church to managing its finances. It was here that women like Linda Steward felt they discovered not just a vocation but their identity. Both Linda Steward, a former churchwarden, and Shirley Vetters, who was the first parish administrator of St Bartholomew’s, were to be ordained together. Perhaps in middle class communities women’s liberation and economic affluences did lead to a drift from the Church as Brown suggested. In Newham women like Doris Goodchild and Linda Steward were amongst a growing number of women who were empowered by employment but who reached out for and discovered a more fulfilling role in their Church.

A very small and easy to overlooked aspect of their work was a women’s group set up to design and make the altar frontals.125 There had been a revival of interest in church embroidery from the 1960s.126 Needlework could be dismissed as monotonous, women’s work, and Roseskia Parker, in The Subversive Stitch (1984), has pointed out the ambivalent attitude the Church has had to female embroidery in the past.127 Although this

122 _{Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, p. 10.}

123 _{Grace Davie, Europe: the Exceptional Case. Parameters of Faith in the Modern World (London:}

Darton Longman and Todd, 2002), p. 8.

124 _{London, SBCA, Minutes of the St Bartholomew’s DCC, 11 November 1979.}

125 _{London, SBCA, Minutes of St Bartholomew’s Redevelopment Sub-Committee, 20 October 1982. £601}

to £774 was set aside for this work. London, SBCA, Minutes of St Bartholomew’s Redevelopment Sub- Committee, 29 September 1982.

126 _{Constance Howard, Twentieth-century Embroidery in Great Britain 1964-1977 (London: B. T.}

Batsford, 1985), p. 17.

127 _{Rozsika Parker, The Subversive Stitch. Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (London: The}

Women’s Press, 1984), p. 20.

could be seen to be a very traditional role for the women of a congregation to engage in, Parker argues there were now radical elements to this customary aspect of women’s work, through identity, creativity and solidarity.128 St Bartholomew’s had a useful resource in the leader of the group, Janet Mayo, who had a degree in theology and was a dress designer for the Royal Opera Company.129 _{That a Newham church could draw upon}

such local talent reflected the colour and depth many of these inner-city congregations had.

The embroidery work at St Bartholomew’s had a radical edge to it. Where often in 1970s the design for needlework projects reflected an escape from urban and a return to rural images, St Bartholomew’s was to decorate the chapel altar frontal with a sky-line of the town including the gas works, dock cranes and town hall (Fig 3.2).130

The side chapel’s frontal would be a simple but striking design of important buildings around the parish. A series of photographs were taken as models, the only overt Christian symbolism being the three parish worship centres.131 This was a further example of the consistent approach to the building that wished to integrate the life of the community with the life of the Church. Newham’s sky line was in effect the new holy city adorning the altar of St Bartholomew’s.

128 _{Parker, The Subversive Stitch, p. 203ff.}

129 _{London, SBCA, Minutes of St Bartholomew’s Redevelopment Sub-Committee, 21 April 1982.} 130 _{Parker, The Subversive Stitch, p. 205.}

131 _{London, SBCA, Minutes of St Bartholomew’s Redevelopment Sub-Committee, 16 June 1982.}

Figure 3.2 Altar frontal of St Bartholomew’s, East Ham, displaying the cityscape of Newham including the Docks, Beckton Gas Works, tower blocks, East Ham Town Hall, the old St Bartholomew’s, St Mary’s, East Ham, the new St Bartholomew’s, St Alban’s and Fellowship House.

The author’s collection.

Nor were these endeavours tokenistic. Quality would not be expected to take second place to this lay involvement. Lowe was concerned that the whole building reflected a high level of skill. As Linda Steward recalled there was an expectation of a superior standard, of something splendid for the Church.132 Lowe felt that people in East London simply accepted second best and part of the role of the Church was to raise people’s expectations.133 High quality materials were chosen throughout the building.134 A mark of the standard of the products Doris Goodchild recalled was that most of the furnishings lasted over three decades.135 _{As Lowe said when he returned to the centre after nearly}

132 _{Interview, Steward, 8 March 2010.}

133 _{Newham Recorder, 4 September 1975, p. 12.} 134 _{Purdy, ‘New Life for an Urban Parish’, p. 22.} 135 _{Interview, Goodchild, 11 March 2010.}

thirty years, ‘…we were always determined to make this a quality building…’136 One way of achieving this goal was to sensitively offer work that was within the skills base of the congregation. The main altar frontal was to be made up of a patch work of material that each member of the sewing group could work on individually.137 This was an important and accessible way for members of the congregation to make their practical mark on the project.

Communication was another important way of developing ownership. There was a concern to keep the wider church community informed of progress. Much of the detailed discussion and consent for the redevelopment took place with the professionals and through the redevelopment sub-committee, Parochial Church Council (PCC) and District Church Council (DCC). Key discussions were thrown open for debate with the wider congregation as in the case of where to move to for worship when the church was being rebuilt.138 There were public events to display the details of the redevelopment.139 A strategy was planned for the grand opening with a meeting held at which forty members of the congregation attended. It was hoped that the grand opening would be a royal occasion. This was not seen as an ending but a beginning as Lowe said in the parish newsletter, St Bartholomew’s needed to be, ‘…a proper instrument of mission within the Parish of East Ham.’140 The parish newsletter was regularly employed to publicise progress. This monthly publication had articles about the redevelopment in almost every issue from 1980 to the building’s opening.

Alongside the dedication service were a series of events aimed at further publicising the work of the new centre. The local Methodist church was invited to an evening service; there were guided tours during the first week, an exhibition on the history of East Ham from the local museum, and a concert by the Newham Academy including Fauré’s

136 _{Interview, Lowe, 18 March 2010.}

137 _{This is strikingly similar to a design executed by a Women’s Institute group who worked on a banner for}

the Festival of Britain described in Bridgeman and Drury’s Needlework and Illustrated History (1978). Harriet Bridgeman and Elizabeth Drury, Needlework and Illustrated History (London: Paddington Press, 1978), p. 81.

138 _{London, SBCA, Minutes of St Bartholomew’s DCC, 11 November 1979.}

139 _{London, SBCA, Minutes of St Bartholomew’s Sub-Committee, 12 September 1979.} 140 _{Chelmsford, ECRO, A11221. Box 4, Parish Newsletter, 28 November 1982.}

Requiem. In early May there was also a Gospel Rock concert attracting a different audience.141

Alongside the ownership of the congregation was the ownership of a wider community, many of whom were now from other faiths. St Bartholomew’s was confident enough to support those who had no allegiance to Christianity. In the early 1980s there was an Asian Women’s Project working at Fellowship House. Linda Steward recalled how difficult breaking down barriers between cultures was at times.142 _{Despite this it was}

hoped that the work of the centre would include a broad range of peoples and age groups.

Communities like East Ham had historically rarely been consulted about redevelopment.143 The St Bartholomew’s project attempted to engage people’s interest and foster ownership of the project. There was a fine balance between involving the congregation and making up for the dearth of skills and energy available.144 Many of the most arduous roles in the redevelopment inevitably fell to Lowe and other professionals. Where the community could and should have been consulted the project invariably aimed to do so.

Chelmsford

It would be imprudent to overlook how strategic a role Chelmsford Diocese and the wider Church played in the St Bartholomew’s development. It could have significantly hindered its progress and felt just as vulnerable as those at the grass roots when it came to difficult and irrevocable decisions about the site. Perhaps most revealing of all was its commitment to the inner-city despite the problems the Deanery of Newham was facing.

Chelmsford Diocese had never been the most prestigious of posts in the Church of England. It was made up of the unfashionable end of East London and the swathe of Essex. Yet it was one of the most populous and geographically diverse parts of England.

141 _{London, SBCA, Flyer Advertising Events, c. 1983.} 142 _{Interview, Steward, 8 March 2010.}

143 _{Collins, The Likes of Us, p. 160.} 144 _{Paul, A Church by Daylight, p. 149.}

A microcosm of British society, it represented ministry that could be a model for the whole nation. Perhaps because it was not in the spotlight it could take risks and experiment. It had taken what were to be far sighted steps to deal with the issue of obsolete buildings.145 Most creatively of all it wished to emulate the work of Davies in Birmingham and even seemed to have headhunted key personnel to achieve this goal. Through the work of the Archdeacon of Southend, Peter Bridges and the architect, Martin Purdy, a Research and Development Unit had been established to support struggling parishes. This was inspired directly by J. G. Davies and Gilbert Cope’s Institute for the

Study of Worship and Religious Architecture, based in Birmingham.146 _{It was evidence}

that buildings were still at the heart of Anglican ministry. Experimental work carried out in Birmingham through people like Purdy and Lowe were to exert a significant influence on future redevelopments in Newham.

Power was very clearly in the hands of the central diocesan administration and this was none more evident than when in June 1978 Chelmsford Diocesan Pastoral Committee gave the go-ahead for the project to develop a final design and move to the full planning stage. As a sign of goodwill, the committee decided that it would pay for the architect’s