When I told a Westminster political editor that my novel NUNC! was about the prophet Simeon and the Nunc Dimittis, he said: ‘Who? The what?’ I reminded him that the Nunc was one of the great canticles along with the Magnificat, Te Deum, etc. More blank looks. It is startling how scriptural knowledge has faded. Thirty years ago an understanding of Church worship was one of the things that bound us. Today we are expected to know about celebrities. Here the blank looks are mine. One day last week MailOnline had headlines about Sydney Sweeney, Blake Lively, Gigi Hadid, J.B. Gill, Allie Teilz and Young Scooter, ‘known for collaborations with Future and Gucci Mane’. Not known by me, he isn’t. I haven’t a clue what genders they are, even. Not that gender matters, one hurriedly adds before the hanging judges of Ipso pounce.
Has the next Archbishop of Canterbury any hope of success if people like my friend have not heard of the Nunc Dimittis? The Crown Nominations Commission is discreetly asking parliamentarians what qualities Justin Welby’s successor should possess. Here is my manifesto: 1) Withdraw bishops from the House of Lords. Being in parliament has done the C of E little good in recent years. 2) Urge most clergy to stop preaching. Sermons demand eloquence, imagination, learning. Many priests are prosaic bores. My organist wife was playing an away match the other day when the scruff in the pulpit told congregants they would not progress to Heaven unless they denounced the Balfour declaration. 3) Scrap mitres. They make bishops look fools. 4) No more talk of slavery reparations. At our church we have not had a single newcomer say: ‘I want to be confirmed because I like Lambeth Palace’s stance on slavery.’ We have, though, had visitors refuse to give money because they think the Church will waste it. 5) Stop apologising. Think the best of people. Send those race advisers and safeguarding consultants packing, as Jesus did with the moneylenders. 6) After a service, offer the punters a bucket of sherry instead of dreary coffee. Supermarket amontillado doubled the gate at our monthly matins. 7) A parson in every pub. Instead of sending vicars to conferences and on management courses, urge them to visit the local boozer in their dog collars. Pastoral care is more important than ‘continual professional development’.
Andrew Neil reports in the Daily Mail that when he rang a White House source to discuss ‘Signal-gate’ his contact whispered: ‘The President is on the rampage. It’s not safe to talk,’ and hung up. Was it like this at Herod the Great’s palace in Jerusalem? Herod was a king who got things done. He was plainly, however, an overbearing sort. When those ‘wise men’ told him of an infant pretender to his throne, he overreacted. In NUNC! the people of Jerusalem regard the Magi as blundering eejits. If Herod had possessed braver advisers, he might be remembered for his remarkable buildings rather than infanticide.
As for bosses going ‘on the rampage’, two of my old editors, Max Hastings and Paul Dacre, were dauntingly tall men prone to eruptions. A loud voice, a throbbing eye: these need not be bad things. It’s the silent, smouldering types who are more dangerous. Sir Max would thump his desk and flick his fringe. The more he said ‘frankly’, the more you were in trouble. But his agile mind would soon leap to some other matter and before long that lopsided Hastings grin reasserted itself. At editorial conferences elsewhere, one editor was celebrated for venting his hatreds: explorers, astronauts, the Ecclestones, Paddington Bear (‘I’d kick him in the balls’), marmalade (‘Isn’t it extinct?’), Stephen Fry, wooden cutlery, jeans, men talking about fashion, older women’s knees, married transsexuals (‘They make me want to emigrate’), pale toast (‘Fucking waste of time’), rollercoasters, Soho House (‘I’d rather shoot myself than go there’), peas, Valentine’s Day and cats (‘They eat you when you’re dead’). He produced, naturally, a heck of a paper.
The dedication page of my book says: ‘Da un grande ammiratore dei baffi e del genio di Giovanni Guareschi.’ I doubt my political editor friend will have heard of Guareschi (d. 1968), whose delightful Don Camillo stories gave me the pace and tone of NUNC!. Guareschi’s moustaches were as thick as brambles. Facial hair is hard to get right: the Prince of Wales’s beard gives me the ab-dabs. Maybe the next Archbishop of Canterbury should have a thick ’tache. And smoke a pipe. Senior Anglican women would be able to manage both, surely.
Quentin discusses his manifesto alongside The Revd Jamie Franklin on this week’s Edition podcast from The Spectator:
Quentin Letts’s NUNC! is out now.
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