The Henson Journals

[90]

Saturday, October 11th, 1930.

The Bishop of Tasmania (Dr R. S. Hay) called to "pay his respects" to me. He is a Durham graduate, & was ordained by Bishop Westcott in 1891. He held assistant curacies at Leadgate and South Hylton. He is a large, loose limbed man with conventional opinions. He voted in the minority on "Birth Control" in the Lambeth Conference. He told me that the "bush", interlaced together horizontally was so dense that that you can walk on it. He said that, though the Tasmanian aborigines were now wholly extinct, there were a certain number of half–castes.

Moore, the assistant curate, of Sedgefield came to lunch, and to tell me that he would go to St. Andrew's, Tudhoe, to succeed Marsh as Vicar. He was ordained by me in 1925, and his whole experience has been gained in two parishes – Barnard castle and Sedgefield. His first Vicar, Bischam, was a mundane, underbred fellow with private means & an impudent tongue: his second Vicar, Sykes, was partially demented for most of the time. How can he be expected to be a good parish priest?

[91]

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I walked in the Park. A football match between the Unemployed Centre Youths of Bishop Auckland and a Darlington team. I had some talk with the Superintendent of the Centre who was looking on. He said that he thought some of the youths were underfed, and occasionally some of them fainted. I asked what they lived on, and he replied, "mostly potatoes". Last year the Mansion House Fund enabled the feeding of the lads, & their physical improvement was marked, but this year that Fund was not available, & the boys had nothing but the "dole" of 6/– under 16, and 9/– over: which does not seem magnificent.

De Burton, the Vicar of Hunwick, came to see me about the difficulty, which has arisen as to the Scouts' Troop in his parish. He professed himself ready to yield to my direction! So I drafted a short letter to Lord Barnard, & he agreed to it. He is an unusual type of man, sophisticated by a smattering of Roman casuistry!

Then Dodd, the lay reader from Annfield Plain came to see me about his reading for Holy Orders. He also is not a common type of man, & has been an analytical chemist.

[92]

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The Times reports the sudden death of Professor C. H. Turner, who was constantly at Durham visiting Cruickshank, a fellow Wykhamist. He was 70 years old, but his white hair and infirm aspect suggested a far greater age. His learning was vast, accurate, & freely imparted. His appearances in the National Assembly, where he was always heartily welcomed, were most impressive, & his speeches enviously effective. I remember his coming into the Lambeth Conference as a theological expert.

In the course of my walk in the Park, I ran a splinter into the nail of my little finger: & when Alexander's efforts to remove it failed, I sent for Dr Cecil McCullagh, & he pulled it out. But the pain of the process was out of all proportion to the gravity of the damage. Nothing seems to me more certain than that we are vastly more sensitive to pain than our ancestors. I do not believe that we are more cowardly, but I am sure we should not "play the man" under physical torture as they for the part did. Of course, they had convictions, & we have nothing but opinions!

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