The Henson Journals

[111]

Tuesday, October 9th, 1928.

Bury St Edmund's

The Archdeacon's house is built on to the street, without any intervening strip of ground. Thus it has to sustain without mitigation the full tide of the street's traffic. I should find the noise intolerable, but no doubt custom has rendered the residents comparatively immune from the disturbance.

Lord Birkenhead has a letter in the 'Times' dealing faithfully with the latest effusion of the Home Secretary. It is brilliant, incisive, unanswerable, but ___. The humourless public, which is primarily interested, ignores everything except the single point that the writer is known neither to be professedly religious, nor to be apparently moral. His opponent had, so it is reported, a prayer meeting in his room before the fatal debate in the House of Commons. Nothing can obliterate that arresting contrast. "Non tali auxilio nec istis defensoribus" [not of such a kind a help nor as such defensible] is the inevitable reflection even of the Churchman who endorses Lord Birkenhead's argument admires his swift piercing thrusts. Still, when all deductions are made, it is worth having that an ex–Lord Chancellor should express himself so vigorously on the side of the Bishops.

[112]

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Then Mr Goldsmith, the Vicar of the Cathedral, came to take me into the church, expound its features. It is a long Church, with nave and aisles, architecturally late featureless, but not unimpressive for its scale. All the windows are filled with stained glass, the work of Clayton Bell. There is, however, one window, called the Susannah window which contains medieval glass of brilliance, collected from various parts of the church. I was told that it has been valued at poundsign10,000. While we were in the church, old Lord Say Sale came in. His ancestor was one of the barons who signed Magna Carta, so that his presence in the commemoration is valued. From the church we went to the ruins of the great monastery, which are being excavated by the Corporation. As we returned to the Archdeacon's house, a young reporter waylaid us, appealed for the loan of my M.S. I suffered him to come in, make some extracts, but refused to let him take the M.S. away. I lunched with the Mayor, who is a lady named MrsGreen, in a charming old house. There was a distinguished company including two peers, two local M.P.s, the Bishop of the Diocese, the Duchess of Grafton.

[113]

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The cathedral was well filled for the special service. In order to make himself audible to the congregation the Preacher had the doubtful assistance of a 'loud speaker'. I think that the mass of people heard my sermon, but the choir clergy, seated behind the pulpit probably did not. After the service everybody went on to the ruins of the Abbey, where a civic function had been arranged. I slipped away through a side door, and set out on my return journey. We left Bury StEdmund's at 3.45 p.m., and arrived at Auckland Castle at 11.15 p.m., stopping for half an hour at Newark. Thus we actually occupied 7 hours in traversing 231 miles, an average of 33 miles to the hour. This was the more creditable since we considerably hampered by fog in Yorkshire. The roads were almost completely void of traffic, a fact which caused me no small surprise, for I had supposed that at least so important a thoroughfare as the 'Great North road', would have been in active use at all times. Long drove with great skill and perseverance, reaching a speed of no less than 50 miles an hour in the long straight roads of East Anglia, and driving through the fog with admirable caution.

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