Diary

17 November 2007

The church has a large congregation, among them Turkish converts. Mr Sherwood looks after refugees from Iran or Ceylon (they rebuilt the church) and organises a school where their children are taught the essentials, by volunteers. He visits prisoners; he visits the dying; when our Consulate-General was suicide-bombed, he took over the cleaning-up operation, and was given an OBE. Does the C of E look fondly on this little island, holding out in its long retreat? No. Our parish comes theoretically — very theoretically — under the diocese of Gibraltar. Its bag carriers, with curiously unlined faces, atop beards, are engaged in ‘nativising’ the local Anglicans and asset-strip. They tried to deconsecrate the church, and when the Consulate was blown up, they made no effort to restore the chapel, and proposed to lease out the churchyard to a local three-star hotel for purposes of entertainment (the memorial belly dance?). Glenda Jackson and Lord Salisbury put a stop to this — and the C of E did not forgive or forget. Mr Sherwood was served with a Visitation, preceded by 50 faxed pages of questions (‘Can we have the minutes of the Church Council of 15 October 1999?’). The Church Council — senior schoolteachers, bankers, Turkish converts, etc. — was suspended for the better part of a year. The Visitors turned up and asked their questions about the heating, etc., and were obviously embarrassed (well, they fell ill).

The Visitation was lifted, but They are still at it. An account is closed here, a trust-fund curiously read there, and our financial man, a senior American banker, served with lots of questions about accounts. The vicar’s income is meanly trimmed on specious pretexts. I could never really understand why the Church of Scotland was founded upon hatred of bishops. Now I do. The C of E needs just to decentralise, and get rid of this creepy bureaucracy. The poor old German Lutherans here are down to six, lectured on matters green by a pudding-bowl-hairdo’ed Ludendorff lookalike lady. That creepy bureaucracy would have us in the same state.