Rory Bremner shows Gretel his Trump Impression; Dratted Drones; a London Boat Trip; Gretel’s London; a Retreat; and Unsurpassable Shelley

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hello, a very good Thursday to you out on the highest point in Sherbourne and I was enjoying the sound of birds and recording and seeing what I could identify and suddenly and this is the first time it's ever happened a drone came overhead and because I was recording my bird app thought it was a kitty wake with a kind of but no it was a drone and what a shame are we gonna have drones now in the sky as we go on our walks are they going to compete with each other as we look up or are we going to look up and see actually as I do look up there is a gull it could be a kitty wake but it's not oh there's the drone again it's watching me it's looking I don't like it because you don't know who's in charge of it what they're looking at and this moment I had of complete solid being alone there's now this bloody drone up there invading my privacy I'm obviously very fond as you probably know of Headley who who does training but I don't think he would just if he saw someone was on their own particularly perhaps a woman you know and they saw he saw her looking up frowning I don't think he would carry on. Well I know he wouldn't he's very respectful so it's annoying I mean it's probably annoying for them that I'm here spoiling the shot that they wanted but still an all. Hello dear friend, uh how are you? And thank you so much for dipping in to my uh funny old podcast. More like an audio journal, really, isn't it? It doesn't perhaps deserve a podcaster title. I do call it that, but yeah they should have maybe a a different category for it. But anyway, I'm walking down Cheap Street in Sherbourne, and if I haven't explained it before, Cheap Street is our main high street, and m many of you I think will know that cheap means market or or cheap, well obviously cheap, but cheap cheap meant market, and so the C H E P E word meant that, and so we have place names like Chepstow and Cheap Street, if you look, are in many cities around the world. And we the cheap street here in Sherbourne goes from the top of the hill to the bottom of the hill. So sometimes the market streets sort of cut across. And I think the main reason why it does that here is because we've got a river running along the bottom, and that means very usefully in the old days we could have uh shambles at the bottom of the hill. Good evening. Where uh meat was uh processed, cut up, and the blood could drain away without it going into the system used by other people. And I'm walking past the new vibrant uh place in Sherbourne called the Sereno Lounge. It's a new kind of chain, but uh it's really uh brightened up Cherbourne with a a place that uh families can go to, you can go and eat, uh you can go and drink, but it's uh as it's a lounge, you don't feel that you're having a table where you have to leave afterwards. So it's a really good uh formula. I I like it because it's brightened up Cheap Street. And I've just spoken to her husband and he's had a lunch where he's had lots to drink with it's a working lunch in the sense that it's a meeting lunch, but I don't see why I'm working lunches people feel the need to get drunk. I thought that was a thing of old, but I'll pick him up in a couple of hours. So I think instead of doing more and more tidying of the house, which is what I was going to do, I might do a little bit of recording because it's uh it feels lovely and it's uh really nice to be out. I've uh spent the most day most of the day in the house trying to unpack all of my mother's stuff, and we've heard from the buyer that they open opened up the dishwasher and it was full of things that had been left in the dishwasher. And could we come and clear it? I don't know about you, but wouldn't you have just given it to charity? It's not like they've given us the uh option, they've uh said you know that's what they want to happen. And I think legally we can just say no, we're not coming back. I don't know what the legal uh position is because everything's exchanged, it's now their property and everything that's in it. And there was only one other well, there was one thing we thought we deliberately left last week and that was uh uh a bed and a mattress, and husband arranged for the Red Cross to come pick it up, but they weren't able to do it in time. So I'm thinking about going to London tomorrow and uh going to meet the buyers, sort that out, maybe take them another bottle of uh uh red wine, uh, because it's the time of year. And I think it'll do me good just to have a day trip there because as much as it depressed me last week, I if I spend too long here in Sherbourne, I go a bit crazy. Uh I can just see my daughter coming towards me having had rehearsals. So I'm gonna press off. Hello there. So I'm now bizarrely walking down the steps of a Pizza Express on the King's Road. If you know London and this part of London, you'll know this Pizza Express really well, because in the 60s it was a really thriving place, obviously not as a Pizza Express. And it's uh it's a large um establishment and it's got it has a sort of nightlife as well called the Pheasantry. I used to come here an awful lot with my good friend Claire, as you know, all my friends are called Claire. My mother, my family, my husband, my children. We've had birthday celebrations here, but my on my own just having used the bathrooms, and I'm just gonna take you through the hustling main part of the restaurant. It's a lovely restaurant, and uh in fact there's a lady there who looks so much like my mum. I had to go back and take a second look sitting where I last saw her there in the corner. I'm now coming out to the King's Road and I want to jump on the bus, but I've just missed it. And what's happened is I've come into London and I I haven't been needed at the house because my lovely sister-in-law who I haven't seen for ages, but I'm very fond of her. She she did all the sorting out today. So what I've decided to do, I haven't done it for a long time, and I think it's the right thing to do, is I'm going to have a two-day retreat, and I'm going to go to a place called I think it's called St. Catherine's by the Tower Convent. And I'm going to go because uh I I don't want to sort of burden you because I want to be enjoyable to listen to, but it's been a really quite a horrific time one way or the other. And I m more than anything else, I need some sleep, some rest, and just a couple of days where I haven't got animals to look after as much as I'm going to miss them. Where I'm going to get lots and lots of sleep, where I haven't got to put the washing on and get hiding and jobs done, and where I can read and rest. So I've chatted a husband, he's supportive, and you know, he enjoys the time, and I'm not there too. It gives him time off to relax and be himself and do whatever he wants to do, and he's doing the stopped over thing where he's going to not drink for the whole of October, which is good because he came home last night really drunk. He'd had a lunch and uh it was um very liquid lunch, but you you know, you he comes when he's when he's drunk, he's really, really cheerful. And Rory Bremner has just walked past me, which is um amazing because uh he's uh a very famous person. Hello, I'm uh I'm doing a podcast and I recognise you. Is it possible to say hello to you?

SPEAKER_01 9:32

And you're doing your podcast now.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

I am, I'm recording it. This is a random buscar. I know.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

My mother I met somebody the other day who wasn't doing a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

It's incredible, it's very unusual. I know everyone's doing a podcast and I know it's really you want to speak to Donald Trump. I don't do podcasts and I let them come to me and they do amazing. What's your podcast about? What's it about? I need to know. Is it about fuel? Is it about diesel? Is it about Islam?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Well, he wouldn't understand because it's about beauty.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Beauty, what? Well, no, I'm very beautiful actually. I have a very beautiful life.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Well, you took time out to have a more beautiful life, didn't you? I remember watching a brilliant documentary that I think talked about the fact you wanted to spend more time with the father with your children. Yeah. Well, you're looking very well. I'm sorry to have suspicious. It's about beauty.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

I don't know about beauty. Um I'm very old, I'm 65, and people say, How do you look so young? Moisturiser.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

You do look very good. My husband's 63, and he thinks he looks he always says to me, Do I look 55? And I say, Well, not really. We all look our age. It's more that some people look good for their age, that's what I think.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Well, I think I have so much makeup plastered on my face when I was younger that I thought we were allowed to have moisturizer on something like that. So the skin needs to need to hydrate. I can't believe I'm waiting for a bus and immediately I'm looking for it.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

I'm so sorry. Can I just quickly tell you what it's about?

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

So my name's I'm jumping on it too, though, but I will leave you alone on the bus. My name is Gretel, the matre, and when my mother died a couple of years ago, I wanted to get through it somehow. So I started upon all I do is talk to people about how they get through life looking for the nice things in life.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

Ooh, you're awesome, you're all personal, I do. Well, my mantras are do your best and be kind.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Do your best and be kind.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

I like it.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

And uh lovely evening. Do your best in your own garden.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Oh yeah, lovely. Thanks. Glory Brennan, ladies and gentlemen. So I did leave him in peace and got in the bus, and it's a beautiful evening. So that's night. We've just arrived at Townbridge. I'm gonna take some photos 'cause it's dark and it's looking lovely. I'm looking I'm feeling better because a minute ago I was crying. Because my sister, oh my goodness, she just sends such nasty emails. And she sent oh just a passive aggressive email, and um, goodness me, she just can't help herself. She's two years older than me and all my life has just bossed me about and thinks she could just say anything to me, and that I won't. I don't know, that it's like no one will stand up to her and say, you know, do you remember the time when you used to be nice? She was nice once upon a time, but just doesn't seem to be anymore. Yeah. Anyway, I'm gonna take some photos and then I'm gonna wend my way to the convent. Oh, there's lots of cheering going on from the party boat. Um just missed some good hooting. Darn it. I want to get some more hooting in. But let me take some photos. I can't take photos, I think, and record. Actually, I can, it's just that I'm not talking to you. You've just got silence, which I don't think is gonna be very interesting. Right, I've just taken pictures of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, and it's not London Bridge, so it's not the one that was falling down. But it's the one that we all think of when you think of London Bridges falling down. Of course, the original London Bridge uh was different. It was covered in shops and people actually lived there, and uh it was amazing. And now walking past where the the the gift shop, which they've actually put in a non-tudor building, and I love the dark Tudor brick. It's not the red brick of Hampton Court, it's a it's a darker bridge. And I'm getting past uh Paul Le Cafe, and what else is there to say? So I want to tell you something about Traitor's Gate. I've done a little bit of research into this, and by all accounts, it started as the trader's gate. It was the gate where the traders came because it was at the side of the river, and they came in and out with their uh goods. The traitor, traitor's gate, it was a sort of you know, classic British tongue-in-cheek thing where something is called one thing but has another name as well, and so with a kind of smirk, you could imagine the guards saying, Oh, going through Traitor's Gate, and you know, chortle, chortle. So, yeah, it didn't start off as Traitor's Gate. I'm I'm 95 uh percent convinced. I'm now looking down and there's a sculpture of a lion, because of course there was a zoo here, and the one thing I'm just I find it just leaves me completely cold going to places where there are sculptures of animals and just not interested, and it's like, oh wow, you go to a park and you turn around a corner turn to a corner and then there's a like a big plastic dinosaur. I mean, I suppose it's not it's not for me, is it? But I isn't even as a child, I remember thinking, yeah, but it doesn't do anything, it doesn't, it's not real. What's the point? Right, so more photographs, and uh this is the part of London I used to live in, so I was married in the church that's around the corner, and in fact, I think I might go just in case it's open, it would be quite moving, I think, and help put out of my mind my sister because I I just have to focus on the people who do love me and who I who who I, you know, who I'm close to and and make me feel good about myself. So, and sometimes it is the people of you know that we were closest to once, like our birth family, that as adults can make us feel the most uncomfortable. Um I remember often my mother saying she's just had a difficult conversation with her brother or something. So, yeah, it's a common thing, and yeah, I should just learn. I I'm terrible at learning, and and instead of thinking, look, I've been in this situation before, learn from it. I just get I just go back into it over and over and over again, which I suppose in itself is a common thing. One of the things I love about this parts of part of London is the bustle. See, there are lots of tourists, but it's a cleaner part of London than the West End. The West End is it can be pretty vile in parts, dirty and messy, and it uh sort of lots of criminals, it just kind of doesn't feel great. But this part of London, it's got a kind of there's a lot of new developments but done really well, and I guess it's because they have to be because of the you know the heritage of the area, and so it's it's it's a combination of you know the old, really old, the old stuff you've got here. Um I've got the Tower of London right in front of me, and then you've got lovely, kind of sleek new buildings and just lighting, and it's difficult to describe, but everything that looks kind of quite funky, I suppose, is the word. It seems to work anyway. Now I can see that there's an evening tour going on, and I looked into how much this would cost, thinking, oh, I might just do an evening tour. £2,000 for a group. So I would have to go on my own because I don't have a group. And I thought £2,000, even for my beloved listeners, is wow, it's more than I can afford. So sadly, I'm I'm not doing that, but you know, one day I'm just gonna do it, and I'll just go say it's me and my small family of four. Actually, I could get more of us. I you know, with it with my uh two stepchildren, their partners, their children. Did I say my stepdaughter? She's pregnant, and so we're having a fourth grandchild, which is very, very exciting. And we don't get no boy or girl. So the view, let me take you through my view. Right, let's start. Let's go anti-clockwise, and I'm gonna start at my five o'clock. I'm looking back at my five o'clock, and at my five o'clock is my church where I got married, and it's called All Hallows by the Tower. My beautiful stepdaughter. I'd like to give her name, but I won't. Uh, she was our little bridesmaid, and she wore a little shimmery blue dress, long blonde hair, little blue eyes, the prettiest. She still is so pretty, one of the most naturally pretty people in the world, I think. Really beautiful. And yeah, so she was our little uh she was our sort of maid of honour, our chief bridesmaid, uh, even though she was only about six, I think. And then my stepson, he was the best man, and he was twelve, I think. So he had the rings, he looked so smart in his outfit, and then at the party afterwards, he had to do a speech in front of everyone, and we've got a video of it, which is great, and yeah, I mean he's 36 now, so yeah, time's going by, but so that's where we got married. Right, bringing you now to three o'clock, some office building, I don't know what that is. Two o'clock, shops and funky flats that overlook the River Thames. One o'clock is the shard, and I don't know in what capacity, but my husband was involved in the building of that. So the shard with its shattered looking top. It does look amazing actually, because the angle I can I'm looking at now is very much like a torn, well, you know, as it should be, it should be, as though it's a broken bit of glass. And then coming round to 12 o'clock. 12 o'clock I've got part of the Tower of London, part of the gatehouse. The round it's beautifully round, gorgeously done, considering it was done a thousand years ago. Lovely Roman windows with the round arches, a bit of crenellation. Above that is an aeroplane, and one aeroplane going west, and another one heading, looks like it's heading north. Uh hang on, yeah, northwest. Alright. Then I can't see the river, but uh I can see actually I can see a bit of it. So the river's in front of me. And now going round to my 11 o'clock, then you that then it's the main gate houses. So sort of 12 o'clock to 11 o'clock, there's there's what would have been the drawbridge originally, and now it's a stone bridge that goes across. Sadly, there's no water in there now, it's just grass. There are talks from time to time about filling the moat, but I think it's probably, I'm guessing, more to do with the protecting of the the stone, the the bricks and the masonry. People shouting that they don't do it. And actually, if I look round at 10:30, I can just see the top of the tower of Tower Bridge, just a little golden sort of pinnacle. And then bring you around to nine o'clock, you can see the top of the white tower. And what I think I'm going to do is take you there tomorrow. I might also go to the service on Sunday, but I I I know that if I'm still feeling a bit sad tomorrow, I'll just want to go home. I want to be with my loved ones, my husband, my daughter, and my dogs. And then, okay, so coming round to eight o'clock and seven o'clock, you have the whole building of the tower. I mean the whole uh mass of it with its beautiful high crenelated walls, the slit the slit windows looking out in the shape of a cross. That was a genius thing, wasn't it, about using the cross as a symbol for Christianity because it's so easy to use it in all aspects of architectural design, from doors to windows to the crenellation to you know, all sorts. And I mean, not to mention, as we've seen, you know, in the the shape of windows and then the shape of the shape of coffins and then that also the cross also looking like the shape of a human being. Of course the Egyptian Christians used use that to combine a cross with uh a view of um of the human figure I think it's called the I think isn't it A NK H R something like that the Coptic Christian cross and then bring you all the way back round to re-end up my church game so why don't we go to that church see if it's open and take a few photos so I'm gonna take you across the faux cobbled stones this is an opportunity to say what would you like me to do? Would any of you like a photograph just for you? I wouldn't charge any money but if there's something you particularly like a photograph that is just yours and then I'm very happy to take a photo and not post it anywhere but just send it to you on a private account because why not? I just like doing nice things. Actually I need to take a few more photographs of the Tab in London before I go to the church so give me a minute. One of the sad and poignant things about the church is that it's completely surrounded now by all these tall buildings and there was a lot of uh criticism there were a lot of criticisms of uh at the time saying look these buildings are going to dwarf these important buildings and but in the end they they were built and I I'm not I'm not desperately sad. I mean the whole place has been so brilliantly rejuvenated. It really was quite a poor area when I first moved here when I was in my early twenties so that was you know 30 odd years ago and now you know I'm going past a wagon mumma's now and it's just beautifully done lots of lots of glass and but not in a horrible way it's uh it just feels well kept well looked after and it's a nice area to be in. Right I'm gonna take some photos of the church then wander up to it. And although it wasn't Peeps's church because his church was St Olaf's he was he did climb this church climbed the steeple he stood well I did not climb the steeple I can see the bit that he stood out on it there's a sort of balustrade or balustrade however you pronounce it and he he climbed it in order to see the progress of the fire as it spread eastwards and was pretty a a pretty terrifying sight and then he scurried off to hide his cheese as he would very peep thing to do huh and I'm now going past one of these courts for paddle a paddle court I wonder if they'll mind if I take a picture of them they'll probably be a bit surprised but it's just I've not seen one before very funky oh that's good the bells are ringing monument here in memory of Sir I think Sir Sir Tollet Holt first chairman of the Tower Hill Improvement Trust 1944 It's become very unfashionable hasn't it to put statues up of people I think we're too we're too cynical a country now to do that. I'm now walking into the church because the gate's open very surprisingly and I don't know if you know this area well but very close to me is in fact I've just looked round I can see the part where it what that I'm about to talk about is the place where the executions took place and when they took place people used to have for for weeks before would would set up these huge wooden seating areas in order to get a view because everybody wanted to see the moment when the axe fell and then the head was held up horrible and there's a pub just round the corner called the Hungrawn and Courted and we used to always call it the Hungrawn and Slaughters. This was the pub that my husband went to with his best man, young uh son and others before we got married and it was a pub we enjoyed going to but it was it I mean it's classic isn't it you have the church then you have the pub the site of the execution I'm actually in the church garden I don't know why I've managed how I've managed to get in here. I think it's probably should have been locked up or will be soon perhaps the darker nights that have suddenly come upon us has uh caught some of the timey the the pe the wardens unawares. I'm now right right right tucked behind the church in the place where there's nobody else it's quite spooky so I don't want to spend too long here but there's a memorial here with three little cherubs. Near this place lieth the body of Samuel Gilton MD what's M D Son of Samuel Mary Gittons of Barbados as he says Barbados he died February the 5th 1777 in the twenty eighth year of his age year of his age yeah so obviously a much loved child and I'm looking up at the window with the it's got four lights and I think the age is probably 15th century in this part but I know most of it because of the bomb damage has been replaced but I think I'm in a very old bit I'm in the eastern part and right here by an old buttress and yeah I don't know what kind of stone it is it looks nice it's a pale creamy sort of stone I think I'm gonna get told off in a minute I keep thinking I'm hearing someone and the lights are turning on but it's interesting I I think I'm just looking for that perfect photograph. We've now through the metal gate and out dear these are lovely old iron gates and it's nice although we're in a very busy part of London that it's full of teas and I I can see bird feeders as well so the Church of Warden obviously loves the church there's graffiti scroll what does it say? It's Asia can't read it right I've come to the main doors but now everything's shut but again I might take you here tomorrow because you know these are all such special places and you know I keep taking you back to the same sorts of places in at Sherbourne and I think it would be nice to do a few things here in London make the most of being here I'm just now coming round to the west door though the west door is at the bottom of the tower and it is a I mean it is a round arch oh the tower looks lovely I'm looking up and it's got kind of ruddy brick and then as I look to the top I can see the green copper spire and yeah it's very moving because it features in so many of the photographs a taxi we ordered a taxi we didn't have too much money we had sort of enough to get married and then and that was it. We did have an event in a hotel called the Rubens which is a quite a you know classy nice hotel but it was all done as mm in a basic way as possible like you know so many uh of people you know people have to do when they get married it costs a fortune so anyway I'm round by the west door which uh features in so many of the photographs and uh so it's quite moving my husband and I got into a taxi and their photographs of us looking very happy as we climbed inside come round to the south south side all hallows by the tower founded in seven sorry six seven five AD oh noisy horrible bikes making that noise so 675 if you remember is ten years before the stone was set in the monastery at Weymouth by by Wilfred and Bede was a young boy then so yes that was when their monastery was established so that was ten years before that the oldest church in the city regular services include Sunday 11am Wednesday 6pm all welcome so you know what I could do I could do the service in the Tower of London at 9.30 then I could come here and do the service at a moment that's a thought. And now because I'm running out of energy and I'm running out of phone signal I'm going to leave it at that wander back to the convent which I'm very excited to go to it's probably 10 years since I last came. It's a like so many of these places now it's a very simple sort of modern thing sadly they're not all beautiful and old because obviously so many of them were destroyed or turned into other things like private residences or whatever. So yeah that's fine I remember from that part you can just get a simple little room and but that's all I need no t I don't want to tell you don't want don't need a coffee machine although you know it's always nice to have a cup of tea. Now for all my American uh listeners particularly those of you who live in Pennsylvania and I know there are some of you in fact quite a lot of you there's a plaque that says William Penn found in Pennsylvania was born here on Tower Hill and was baptized in 1660 sorry 1644 in this church so William Penn was baptised in the same church. That I was married in that the bodies of people like Thomas Mall were brought into headless after their executions on the hill they were brought here and laid up at the Battle church. So revolting although it's a bit spooky I was going to jump in a cab to go to my retreat centre but I've actually brought you to the place where the executions took place but there are quite a lot of lone males here so and it's very dark and cut off so I don't want to take any risks. I'm not a coward I don't think but you know it's silly to take unnecessary risks but here I am I'll just take a couple of photos and I'll zip off. I remember the first time I came here was when I was 15 and I was so moved to think this is where so many people were executed because I read an awful lot of history books at that point. I think I told you about this that a lot of them were written by authors like Jean Plady and you know so they were sort of romanticised but you know they really got me into the history and so I I don't I don't think books like that should ever be knocked because it's what one forgets that they're not necessarily written for someone in their 50s and if you're a teenage girl and you want to get into history then reading about all the wives of Henry VIII and reading them by someone who wrote in a very light accessible way is is great. So yeah here I am I'm not going to take any pictures because there are lots of people sort of sitting around vaping and stuff not very attractive. I could actually walk to the retreat centre which probably will do me good. I think you always feel better after exercise even if you're tired at the end of it it's good tired as opposed to sad tired. And also because I haven't used the microphone today because I just wanted you to have the noise of London um I've had to I basically have to sort of press on something that says studio voice and it takes away some of the ambience which might seem like a contradiction but it it's a way of doing it but I don't think it's a particularly great sound and it's the kind of thing in the future especially if I could get someone to help me I'd like to to improve upon so I hope it's not been too unbearable and you know do give you feedback it's it's great when I get feedback it really helps really helps. Alright now you need to ask the question Gretel how did you get to the retreat centre? I decided that the first time I was going to try an electric bike was in the dark in in London at 10 o'clock at night why not actually not 10 o'clock at night nine o'clock at night but in the dark in London because that's kind of sensible decision making I take sometimes it was absolutely brilliant I loved it. When I seg my GCSEs I discovered cycling and I used to borrow the bike of the guy who lived opposite it must have driven him mad and I don't know well I suppose you had no money I was about to say well I I wasn't bought my own one but you know we didn't we were very poor and I used to just go cycling and all flop I did also visit the boyfriend that I had but that's a whole other story. So I used an electric bike to get here it was so good that I think I'm gonna take it up and get buy my buy myself one because it was really really lovely. Now how long has this gone on for 38 minutes? What I think I'll do to end this then is to I like sometimes to quieten things down. It's been you know another well it's been quite a crazy old day highs and lows low being my sister sending passive aggressive email as is her won't won't however you pronounce that um but highs all sorts of highs lovely contact with girlfriends with my family on my well I was about to say my husband's side but no you know my stepchildren and so on so my family and lovely interaction I just had with the guy downstairs on reception and he has told me how to get into the library that he says he says I'll tell you a secret in it it it stays unlocked 24 hours a day. So there was a part of me thinking you know by 10 o'clock I'll be in bed fast asleep to get a good night's sleep but I knew I wouldn't because I sort of want to make the most of being here. I want to go and look at the books they've got and sit in the library and do some reading. So before I do that what I think I'll do is publish this and I want to end it with something calm and maybe a little bit spiritual perhaps just to tell you a little bit more about where it is I am. Alright so about the house history of the foundation St Catharine's was founded in 1147 by Queen Matilda Matilde as a religious community and medieval hospital for poor infirm people next to the Tower of London. In 1273 after a dispute over its control Queen Eleanor granted a new charter reserving the foundation's patronage to the Queens of England for six hundred seventy eight years the foundation carried on its work in East London despite periodic difficulties and renewal. It survived the Reformation the dissolution of the monasteries reversion to Catholicism under Mary the Puritan Revolution and the Gordon riots it grew to be a village on the banks of the River Thames outside the east walls of the tower offering sanctuary to immigrants and the poor alas in 1825 commercial pressure for larger docks up river caused St. Catharines with its 14th and 15th century buildings I can't bear to read this and with some 3,000 inhabitants to be demolished. This was without compensation and at a time when deteriorating Dickensian poverty in East London much needed St. Catharines the foundation moved to Regent's Park and became a residential alms house for a hundred and twenty five years. In 1948 St Catharines returned to East London to its present location in Limehouse a mile from its original site and became that's why I cycled because I thought it would was closer than it was to the tower I'd forgotten how far along it it was so it took me I think about eight minutes to cycle a mile from its original site and became a treat retreat house with Father St. John Grosser or Grozer as master and members of the community of the resurrection from Mearfield providing worship and service in the locality the foundation remained under the care of this community for some forty five years until 1993. In 2004 St Catharines modernised and expanded its facilities to make available its hospitality more widely within the Church of England and to other churches, charities, voluntary and public sector bodies and associated individuals and then it goes on to give details of the master's house and the dining room this the lounge area not a fan of the word lounge the chapel although the chapel was built in 1951 on the site of the bombed parish church there are lots of things within it that are older for example let's see what it says there are two probably 19th century figures of King Henry III and his wife Queen Philippa of Hainault and they stand outside the west door in the newly vaulted antechapel above the door a stained glass window designed by the late Alan Younger shows the royal and bows lion shields of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother because it was always about the Queen's this foundation surrounded by the foundation's motto of worship, hospitality and service the font on a 17th century column was given by Queen Victoria and the candlestick develop depicts St. Blaise and St. Catherine the memorial to the right is to Joanna Caesar who died in 1694. The fine glazed entry doors came from Andrew Poyntner's 1828 chapel in Regents Park yes because it moved to Regent's Park for a while didn't it? Above them there is a beautiful 17th century carved series of panels that sounds interesting 17th century panels. The richly carved choir stalls came from the medieval church of St. Catharines by the Tower excuse me that's oh no I was about to say it's uh that was my church no the one I got married in was all hallows by the tower and are outstanding on a national level as they are examples of fourteenth century wood carving okay so we have to see that that's very early for wood carving they are alas only a fragment of the twenty four canopied stalls existing there in the eighteenth century. All of these stalls have misery cords with delightful lively figures including an angel blowing bagpipes an elephant with castle and rider and on a single chair the devil gripping two chattering women the unusual hexagonal pulpit has mocketry panels of domed inspired churches the chamber organ was built by John Avery in 1790 and restored in 1956 by Noel Mander. And I just want to end with a couple of poems and the poem I'd like to read this evening first is by Helen Hunt Jackson. She was born in Amherst Massachusetts in 1830 and the poem is called October bending Above the spicy woods which blaze arch skies so blue they flash, and hold the sun immeasurably far, the waters run too slow, so freighted are the riverways, with gold of elms and birches from the maze of forests, chestnuts clicking one by one, escape from satin burrs, her fringes done, The Gentian spreads them out in sunny days, and like late revellers at dawn, the chance of one sweet mad last hour all things assail, and conquering flush and spin, while to enhance the spell by sunset door, wrapped in a veil of red and purple mists, the summer pale steals back alone for one more song and dance. And we'll end today with another autumnal poem, this time by Percy Shelley. I never read them through first, and so you have to forgive me if my reading's not great, but I like it I like them to be a surprise to me as I read them. Does that make sense? I hope it does. And I'm going to s wish you a very good evening because after reading this I will close, publish, and then I'm going to hunt out the library and hopefully have a blissful half an hour or so in the library here in St. Catherine's Retreat Centre in London. Ode to the West Wind Percy Shelley seventeen ninety-two to eighteen twenty two. O wild West Wind, thou breath of autumn's being, thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, yellow and black, and pale and hectic red, pestilence stricken multitudes, O thou who chariotest to their dark wintry bed, the winged seeds where they lie cold and low, each like a corpse within its grave, until thine azure sister of the spring shall blow her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air, with living hues and odours plain and hill, wild spirit, which art moving everywhere, destroyer and preserver here, oh here, thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion, loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, angels of rain and lightning there are spread on the blue surface of thine airy surge, like the bright hair uplifted from the head of some fierce manad even, from the dim verge of the horizon to the zenith's height, the locks of the approaching storm, thou dirge of the dying year, to which this closing night will be the dome of a vast sepulchre vaulted with all thy congregated might, of vapours from whose solid atmosphere, black rain and fire and hail will burst, Oh here thou who didst waken from his summer dreams the blue Mediterranean, where he lay lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, beside a pumice isle in Bayer's Bay, and saw in sleep old palaces and towers quivering within the waves intenser day, all overgrown with azure moss and flowers so sweet the sense faints picturing them thou for whose path the Atlantic's level powers cleave themselves into chasms, while far below the sea blooms and the oozy woods which wear the sapless foliage of the ocean know thy voice and suddenly grow grey with fear and tremble and despoil themselves. Oh here if I were dead, leaf thou mightest bear, if I were a swift cloud, to fly with thee, a wave to pant beneath thy power, and share the impulse of thy strength, only less free than thou, O uncontrollable, if even I were as in my boyhood, and could be the comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, as then, when to outstrip thy sky speed scarce seemed a vision, I would ne'er have been striven, as thus with thee in my prayer, in my sore need. Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed, a heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed one to like thee, tameless and swift and proud. Make me thy liar even as the forest is What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies will take both from a deep autumnal tone, sweet though in sadness, be thou spirit fierce, my spirit, be thou me, impetuous one, drive my dead thoughts over the universe like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth, and by the incantation of this verse scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth, ashes and sparks, my words among mankind be through my lips to unawakened earth, the trumpet of a prophecy, O wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?