To Bath on a Sunday evening, to JA Hansom’s magnificent church of St John the Evangelist, just around the corner from the station on South Parade. A journey made many times before, but never for the lively student Mass at 6.30 – which seems quite a sensible time in a busy university city.
I wasn’t there for the ambience, but rather to bid a fond farewell to Canon Tony Harding, the former archivist of Clifton diocese, whose body had been received into church that afternoon. As I was going to be unable to make the funeral Mass the next day, it was the least I could do – for I adored Tony and owed him much.
