St Stephen's Divinity School - II

The Stephano Divinity School was a hive of the finest practical jokers that the churches ever did see. Say for instance the story of one now very senior leading cleric, now ensconced in that other place and possibly episcopal material forsooth very soon, who decided to relieve the boredom and grave intensity of the nightly vespers service which had been taken over by the young traditionaliste sicarii solemnly chanting their Nigra sum and Duo seraphims of Monteverdi - as president he clacked down the aisle with the formal solemn procession but in stiletto heels and when he got into his stall-sedilla, kicked off the shoes and said very audibly to the massed and murderous ranks of the riggie rigatonis - "thank God I can kick off these shoes - these heels are killing me!" Boy we have laughed and laughed and laughed at this story in his old posh rectory in the countryside near Didcot. So all good and all amusing stuff at the Oxford Divinity School in those happy days, in that golden age when all older men knew how to take the steam out of riggie style take-overs of public services. The good old Church of England - boy did we have some fun in those happy years. Red canons and psychological stereotyping as standard in the sausage machines we call divinity schools alas have taken over all such happy Brideshead quads. And all now wears sovman's smell and sovman's smudge, with enormous apologies the great jesuit poet Hopkins.