The Henson Journals

[463]

Thursday, November 21st, 1929.

I spent the whole morning in writing a sermon for the Durham students.

In the afternoon, I first saw the contractor in the chapel, where he was busily engaged in superintending the removal of the scaffolding. Then I walked in the Park. In the Counden Beck, a filthy stream, I heard voices, which, when I went to see, I found to proceed from a party of rather rough lads engaged in some kind of mischief under the little bridge. I called them out, & then they insisted on accompanying me back to the castle! I found it difficult to understand their dialect: but they struck me as a quite good material in the process of being permanently damaged by unemployment. Their ages varied from 14 to 17: they had all left school, & had no other work than acting as caddies to golfers.

Pattinson went with me to Byers Green where I collated Blackett to the Rectory vacated by Loxley by his preferment to Coniscliffe. The little church was crowded with parishioners, & everybody seemed to be in good humour.

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