THE classic rainy day: the sky a liquid colourlessness, the
trees drenching sieves, the farm track a river, the fields just
dull and wet. The old labourers "saved" for such a day because,
unable to work, they would not be paid. Four horses soak it up, the
streaming day; whether indifferent to it or enjoying it, who
knows?
Cocooned in the old house, I have to settle down to it as it
rattles the windows and surges through the guttering. Field-wise,
it could not have come at a better time. October was dry as a
biscuit, and the dusty winter wheat had been aching for a shower;
but this downpour! It is not unlike Australian rain. One minute I
was baking, the next drowning. No point in running for shelter. In
any case, it had been thrilling: the heat suddenly all washed away,
and oneself as wet as a surfer.
The Duke of Norfolk's magnificent tomb in Framlingham Church has
a Genesis frieze that includes Noah's Ark. Benjamin Britten liked
to take children to see it. He turned it into one of his Church
Parables, Noyes Fludde, with a marvellous setting of
"Eternal Father, strong to save". I remember singing it for the
first time in Orford Church, long ago. William Whiting wrote it for
Hymns Ancient and Modern, in 1860. Britten's version is
heartbreakingly plaintive, slow, and sumptuous.
He would have seen the memorial to a Victorian crew in Aldeburgh
churchyard, and would have more than once witnessed the lifeboatmen
launching their new boat to rescue some vessel, maybe some holiday
yacht that had not understood the North Sea's power: from being
leisurely, it had become imperious, throwing craft and men about
like toys. We lesser mortals watched. Watching is a coastal
profession. Also a Christian imperative.
St Matthew reports Jesus as saying: "When it is evening, you
say, 'It will be fair weather; for the sky is red.' And, in the
morning, 'It will be stormy today; for the sky is red and
threatening.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky,
but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and
adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given
it except the sign of Jonah."
Jesus refers to this sign more than once; so what is it? That he
will be returned to life and not swallowed up? The island nature of
Britain has given its Christianity a flood-based imagery. They say
that our coast may have lost three miles in a thousand years.
Certainly, its dwellers spent much of that time keeping the sea
out. But the inlanders would not have noticed, or minded - and in
many cases would never have seen the sea.
Those who lived by it were farmers and fishermen by turn. Some
were marshmen, and a different breed altogether. Think of Peter
Grimes. There cannot be many sea views framed in a Gothic arch as
at Aldeburgh. It is how it first presents itself to the traveller
to this town. The road to it once ran through the arch like a grand
canopy. Or saw it as a divine approach to sea wealth or sea
desolation. The great sea poet George Crabbe's severe parents lie
beside it.
Like St Luke, Crabbe was a medical man and a voyager. Or,
rather, the voice of those whose business was in deep waters. Both
scientifically and spiritually, he took its measure. Luke's Acts of
the Apostles set the lakeside faith sailing through the centuries,
finding harbour here and there, but then restlessly taking to open
water. The Aldeburgh fishermen meditate (chat) by their boats by
the hour.
