I like the A3, I decide on Christmas Eve. It’s a great road to drive, a testament to our island history. Were it not for the fact that Britain used to be a great naval power, we would not have had such a good road from London to the coast.
There is now not a single traffic light between the suburbs of south-west London and Portsmouth, thanks to a new tunnel under the Devil’s Punchbowl. Turn off on the far side of the tunnel, as I did on the morning of the 24th, and you come to Grayshott, on the borders of Surrey and Hampshire. On the outskirts of the village is a fine, smallish Catholic church, unusually with its own graveyard. Attached to the church is a large presbytery, which since autumn 2015 has been home to a convent of nuns, the Sisters of Maria Stella Matutina (Mary, Star of the Sea). They have asked me to celebrate Mass for them.
