Mary Killen: Watching TV as a job is surprisingly tiring

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I enjoyed the Catholic Herald’s carol service in St James’s, Spanish Place. My older friend Anne and I were in a pew next to a handsome, pale, black-haired, tall man in a tweed coat who sang passionately. Later I found out he was Polish. That explained the passion. Why are Britons hot-headed, dyspeptic and choleric but rarely passionate? Anne is a cradle Catholic who is fortunate enough not only to have met Evelyn Waugh but also to have known Ronald Knox. The latter first came across her when Anne was a small girl attending the nursery at the Assumption convent in Kensington Square. She claims to be “really thick now”, but Fr Ronnie pronounced in 1938 that Anne Wells was by far the most intelligent little girl he had ever met and at three and a half, so advanced that she had already reached the age of reason and was therefore fully capable of sin (I understand the normal age is seven) and fit to make her first Confession. Later, the Assumption moved to Aldenham in Hertfordshire and Fr Ronnie, translating the New Testament under the patronage of Lady Acton, would preach there. Anne and her girlfriends, despite being teenagers by this time, positively looked forward to his sermons on Sundays because “they were so incredibly witty and exciting”. “Give details,” I urged. “He talked to us and not down to us and he talked about us. We just loved them because they left us feeling happy and on the side of good.” After the Herald’s carol service there was a party in the crypt. We met Mgr Keith Newton, who runs the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, a cadre of Anglican priests who have gone over to Catholicism but are allowed to remain married. Hmm … something disappointing about this. From a woman’s point of view there’s nothing more exciting than a celibate cleric. It’s something to do with being able to have an intimate relationship similar to romance but not dangerous.

***

I went to Lambeth Palace for the first time. The Archbishop of Canterbury is vice-president of the Demelza Hospice, and he made available the Guard Room so that 22 potential and existing supporters could be shown its current work. First of all we had a short tour of the Palace and I was intrigued to think that the Thames used to come right up to the door so people could disembark from a boat and walk directly inside. Demelza cares for babies and young people with terminal conditions across Kent, Sussex and southeast London. I spoke to Nurse Beth who told me that part of the work includes home visits to parents who truly appreciate the chance to “offload”. As you can imagine, you can’t really do this to a friend or a family member. Not for two and a half hours. I told Beth that I myself once received 10 weeks of grief counselling following a bereavement. I had found it immensely therapeutic to have someone to talk to – or rather, at. Looking back I noted that the therapist said virtually nothing; she had just prompted me. So later when I had another crisis I used to write a diary to myself each day, just battering out 400-500 words. Not only does this help you to express your pain but cumulatively these diary entries are really useful after the crisis is over. Reading them again in years to come you gain some wisdom. Obviously, I’m a journalist and writing comes naturally to me, but I would suggest that grieving parents make daily audio recordings, just speaking privately into their iPhones for a few minutes a day. (The app is called Voice Memos and it’s free.) This would be an enormously valuable verbal dossier. I also think that when you “moan” privately about something for long enough, a bit of wisdom does sometimes dawn. Well, it’s a bit like prayer.

***

My husband, Giles, and I are coming to the end of our Gogglebox season. It’s surprisingly tiring watching television as a job. Six weeks of freedom stretch ahead but, due to Parkinson’s law (work expands to fill the time available for its completion), I don’t expect to get anything productive done. My old friend, the literary giant John Gross (1935-2011), was editor of the Times Literary Supplement during the printers’ strike of 1979, after which Rupert Murdoch broke the unions. John had a whole year off, paid, while the dispute raged. “You’ll be able to get a lot of other things written with the free time,” I said to John. “On the contrary,” he smiled. “I find myself already extremely busy.” “Doing what?” I asked. “Shaving … shopping … it’s amazing how quickly the days go by.” Mary Killen writes The Spectator’s Dear Mary column

I enjoyed the Catholic Herald’s carol service in St James’s, Spanish Place. My older friend Anne and I were in a pew next to a handsome, pale, black-haired, tall man in a tweed coat who sang passionately. Later I found out he was Polish. That explained the passion. Why are Britons hot-headed, dyspeptic and choleric but rarely passionate? Anne is a cradle Catholic who is fortunate enough not only to have met Evelyn Waugh but also to have known Ronald Knox. The latter first came across her when Anne was a small girl attending the nursery at the Assumption convent in Kensington Square. She claims to be “really thick now”, but Fr Ronnie pronounced in 1938 that Anne Wells was by far the most intelligent little girl he had ever met and at three and a half, so advanced that she had already reached the age of reason and was therefore fully capable of sin (I understand the normal age is seven) and fit to make her first Confession. Later, the Assumption moved to Aldenham in Hertfordshire and Fr Ronnie, translating the New Testament under the patronage of Lady Acton, would preach there. Anne and her girlfriends, despite being teenagers by this time, positively looked forward to his sermons on Sundays because “they were so incredibly witty and exciting”. “Give details,” I urged. “He talked to us and not down to us and he talked about us. We just loved them because they left us feeling happy and on the side of good.” After the Herald’s carol service there was a party in the crypt. We met Mgr Keith Newton, who runs the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, a cadre of Anglican priests who have gone over to Catholicism but are allowed to remain married. Hmm … something disappointing about this. From a woman’s point of view there’s nothing more exciting than a celibate cleric. It’s something to do with being able to have an intimate relationship similar to romance but not dangerous.

***

I went to Lambeth Palace for the first time. The Archbishop of Canterbury is vice-president of the Demelza Hospice, and he made available the Guard Room so that 22 potential and existing supporters could be shown its current work. First of all we had a short tour of the Palace and I was intrigued to think that the Thames used to come right up to the door so people could disembark from a boat and walk directly inside. Demelza cares for babies and young people with terminal conditions across Kent, Sussex and southeast London. I spoke to Nurse Beth who told me that part of the work includes home visits to parents who truly appreciate the chance to “offload”. As you can imagine, you can’t really do this to a friend or a family member. Not for two and a half hours. I told Beth that I myself once received 10 weeks of grief counselling following a bereavement. I had found it immensely therapeutic to have someone to talk to – or rather, at. Looking back I noted that the therapist said virtually nothing; she had just prompted me. So later when I had another crisis I used to write a diary to myself each day, just battering out 400-500 words. Not only does this help you to express your pain but cumulatively these diary entries are really useful after the crisis is over. Reading them again in years to come you gain some wisdom. Obviously, I’m a journalist and writing comes naturally to me, but I would suggest that grieving parents make daily audio recordings, just speaking privately into their iPhones for a few minutes a day. (The app is called Voice Memos and it’s free.) This would be an enormously valuable verbal dossier. I also think that when you “moan” privately about something for long enough, a bit of wisdom does sometimes dawn. Well, it’s a bit like prayer.

***

My husband, Giles, and I are coming to the end of our Gogglebox season. It’s surprisingly tiring watching television as a job. Six weeks of freedom stretch ahead but, due to Parkinson’s law (work expands to fill the time available for its completion), I don’t expect to get anything productive done. My old friend, the literary giant John Gross (1935-2011), was editor of the Times Literary Supplement during the printers’ strike of 1979, after which Rupert Murdoch broke the unions. John had a whole year off, paid, while the dispute raged. “You’ll be able to get a lot of other things written with the free time,” I said to John. “On the contrary,” he smiled. “I find myself already extremely busy.” “Doing what?” I asked. “Shaving … shopping … it’s amazing how quickly the days go by.” Mary Killen writes The Spectator’s Dear Mary column

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