Letters: Hard-up parishes despair as the Church jumps on another bandwagon
SIR – I read with a mix of sadness and incredulity your report (January 11) about the £100 million fund set up by the Church of England to atone for the “past wrongs of slavery”.
Sadness, because of all the parish priests and volunteers who selflessly support the day-to-day activities of the Church, yet are starved of funds and expected to do more and more by combining parishes. Meanwhile, the bureaucracy of the central Church seems to grow apace, absorbing ever more money.
My incredulity is at the astounding ability of the Church, presumably under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to jump on any woke bandwagon. The Archbishop has been proved wrong on several issues – from Bishop Bell to the closure of churches during the pandemic – but always apologises far too late, when forced to acknowledge his mistakes. Here again, he is following his own narrow agenda and ignoring the very people he is appointed to lead.
I fear that, if he is not careful, in time there will no longer be a membership of the Church, as it seems to be dying from the bottom up.
Roger Hollest
Melksham, Wiltshire
SIR – It is painfully obvious that no adequate recompense can now be made for the wrongs of slavery. And what of the appalling things done in the name of the Church during, for example, the European wars of religion? Are we to have memorial funds for these too?
Let the dead past bury its dead; the modern Church of England needs to apply its resources to the dire state of so many of its parishes (large numbers of them priestless), to which this rural churchwarden and church treasurer can certainly bear witness.
Jolyon Grey
Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire
SIR – In your Leading Article (January 12), you say that Church leaders would do better by directing resources at present-day problems such as homelessness instead of seeking to atone for past activity for which they were not responsible and which they cannot change. I’m sure this has resonated with many readers.
However, if the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks that virtue-signalling is more important than maintaining the broad fabric of the Church, at this time of great NHS need he might consider emulating the Knights Hospitaller and financing a Nightingale hospital as a continuation facility.
Nigel McKie
Helston, Cornwall
SIR – Recent letters (January 12) have suggested that the “parish share” goes into some diocesan slush fund.
It cannot be said too often that most – if not all – of the parish share goes to pay for parish clergy, pooled across the diocese.
It would be better referred to as the “ministry fund”.
Mike Keatinge
Sherborne, Dorset
Johnson’s portrait
SIR – It is a great mistake to install a portrait of Boris Johnson in the Carlton Club (report, January 12).
He is the first Tory prime minister ever to have been driven from office by scandal and personal misconduct. He is the first to be investigated by a Commons select committee to establish whether he misled the House, an issue of great gravity. At the very least, the Carlton should have waited until the publication of the select committee’s report.
Portraits of all Tory prime ministers since the Duke of Wellington, the club’s founding father, adorn its walls. In view of the discredit that he brought on the highest political office, Mr Johnson should not have been included among them at this time.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Co-author, The Carlton Club 1832-2007
London SW1
Degree class barrier
SIR – You report (January 4) that Santander is to become the first major bank in Britain to hire graduates with a third-class degree.
It is horrifying to think that employers, particularly banks, have been denigrating such degrees. Exam results are irrelevant once you start work. My 2:2 in history, a subject I never used again, did not stop me becoming the senior partner of a law firm.
High achievers at school or university are not always go-getters in business.
Jonathan Williams
Sleaford, Lincolnshire
Sociable shopping
SIR – I agree with Margaret Durrant (“Shoppers who welcome a chat at the checkout”, Letters, January 12).
As an ageing singleton, if I gave in to my children’s demands and started taking home deliveries, or began using self-checkouts, I would deny myself almost all public human contact.
No joy in that.
Simon Field
St Helens, Isle of Wight
SIR – I find I have much more chat at the self-checkouts, largely thanks to the oft-repeated message: “Unexpected item in bagging area.”
Only this week my very small shop required four call-outs to deal with assorted glitches. They were fixed by a smiley girl from whom I parted on first-name terms.
Felicity Thomson
Symington, Ayrshire
The NHS delusion
SIR – I was a junior doctor in the 1970s. Since then there has always been a shortage of beds in the NHS, every year exacerbated by winter. Things have got worse and worse and now we have people dying in ambulances while waiting to be admitted to hospital.
Britain has lagged behind every European country in the provision of treatment for cancer, heart disease and a variety of orthopaedic operations – despite injecting ever more billions of pounds into the health system.
All political parties seem to believe that the NHS is a jewel in the crown of British institutions, yet no other country in the developed world has opted for the same system. Most such countries have better provision of care for their populations.
No amount of tinkering will improve this last of the failed nationalised industries. Root-and-branch reform in its managerial structure and financing must be made, or we will simply continue to lurch from crisis to crisis.
Emeritus Professor Colin Brown
Bradfield, Berkshire
SIR – The claim by Professor Philip Banfield, chairman of the British Medical Association UK council, that the doctors’ review body process is “rigged” (report, January 12) cannot go unchallenged.
As a former chief negotiator for junior doctors, I always found that the review body listened and considered our evidence fairly. Even though we did not get everything we argued for, we received many substantial awards.
The issue is that successive governments have failed to accept the review body’s findings. It is time to reaffirm the original agreement, whereby both sides accept the body’s recommendations. The alternative is unacceptable industrial action.
Dr Aubrey Bristow
London W1
Drake and slavery
SIR – We want to reassure Michael Deacon that the BBC has no intention of cancelling Sir Francis Drake (Features, January 12).
A school decided to change its name because of his links with the slave trade, and we reported that. On reflection, we should have been clearer about Sir Francis Drake’s role as an explorer at the top of the story. We have since amended the article.
Robert Thompson
Senior head of content production, BBC London and East
London W1
Gentleman’s pass
SIR – I also took my driving test in my father’s Morris Minor (Letters, January 11). I was wearing my Wyggeston School uniform.
I had difficulty reading a number plate at 25 yards, but the examiner said it was further away. I stalled the car as I was so nervous – my left leg was in spasm on the clutch pedal. Reversing round a corner, I hit the kerb twice and my three-point turn became a five-point turn. I still attribute my pass to the fact that the examiner sported an Old Wyggestonian tie.
Brian Fisher
Tonbridge, Kent
SIR – I took my driving test aged 17 in my mother’s Morris Minor. When the examiner, a large gentleman, squeezed into the passenger seat, the handbrake was no longer visible. Despite the embarrassment of asking him to shift over, I passed the test.
I celebrated by pinching my father’s Bentley and taking the vicar’s daughter to the pictures.
Tony Billington
Bucklebury, Berkshire
Why baths will always be better than showers
SIR – Since we ditched our bath (Letters, January 12) in favour of a shower room, I find my book consumption has almost ceased.
Dudley Stringer
Stafford
SIR – How does one relax with a book in a shower, as one can in a bath, without getting the pages soggy?
Jan Bardey
Kineton, Warwickshire
SIR – Every morning I read the Telegraph in the bath with a cup of tea. Then I’m ready to face the day.
Ruth Piper
Irby, Wirral
SIR – For most of my life I was firmly a bath person, but 18 months ago I moved house and turned into a shower person for the sole reason that I can then spend a further 10 minutes in bed with the Telegraph cryptic crossword.
Helen Cann
Poundbury, Dorset
A point of honour at Oscar Wilde’s alma mater
SIR – Ann Willmott (Letters, January 9) writes that Oscar Wilde’s name was erased from the honours board at Portora Royal School when her father was a boy there in 1895.
It was restored quite early on, at a time when disapproval of Wilde was still general. In December 1931 the then headmaster, the Rev E G Seale, wrote to the biographer A J A Symons: “His name also appears on our honours board list of Royal scholars entering Trinity College Dublin.”
The restoration meant Wilde’s name appeared in larger and brighter letters than those of his fellow scholars.
Incidentally, Dr Seale was Samuel Beckett’s headmaster.
C D C Armstrong
Belfast
Letters to the Editor
We accept letters by post, fax and email only. Please include name, address, work and home telephone numbers.
ADDRESS: 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0DT
FAX: 020 7931 2878
EMAIL: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
FOLLOW: Telegraph Letters on Twitter @LettersDesk