A slightly damp and dusty memory

I detoured this evening.

Spur of the moment, probably brought on by the hailstones.

Partway en-route to Brixton I turned left on a whim.

In to Vassal Road, SW.

And pulled up outside the church I used to attend.

Saint John the Divine, Kennington.

SJDK is a large, red-brick structure topped with an imposing spire that stretches upwards to almost pencil-thinness.

My head began playing tricks.

I believed I could smell the dusty/clean scent; the perfume that the wood polish gave off, but with a hint of dustiness from the vaulted places that no cleaner could ever reach.

The smell was a powerful jog to my memory.

My brain revelled in its memory focus, my mental view shifted from the knave to the vestry which brought a new smell; freshly washed and ironed robes.

In those days I was less ‘not religious’ than I am now; I used to go to church for the booze and the singing.

We had an excellent choir.

The organist/choirmaster Floss (his nickname lies in an unflattering story involving the wickedly barbed wit of Fr Geoffrey Kirk); the Divine Helen and her lovely sister Mary, the saintly-voiced Caroline Lenton Ward, Laura McGeary and her husband Peter, Andy Stribley, Roy Truscott.

Not many, no; but what we lacked in numbers we more than made up for in ability and aspiration.

Pauses for thought…

I got back in the car and continued down Vassal Road, then turned right and threaded my way through the one-way system to Calais Street where I lived for a while, and then turned right in to Cormont Road, also where I lived – but briefly.

And then on to Brixton, where I currently stay during the week.

The earlier hailstorm seems to have wreaked massive damage on south London; a couple of stores in the High Street have been flooded; staff sweep floodwater out as I drive past.

Pete and Shane’s house is untouched though.

Except for a small area in my bedroom.

Because I left the window open this morning.

Oops!

🙂