Long-range kindness
READERS receiving appeals, however heart-wringing and persuasive, from individuals abroad are always advised by us to be cautious: it is often wise to channel your generosity through recognised charities and church links, as a clergyman who wrote to us this month usually does.
But, wishing to remain anonymous, he says that a series of coincidences introduced him via social media to the plight of a rural family in Southern Leyte, in the Philippines, and showed him that such organisations can’t reach everyone.
“A single mother in her forties had lost the bulk of her customers for her roadside catering business, owing to Covid-19. Her investment in rearing pigs has been devastated by the slaughter of at least 80 per cent of Philippine pig stocks because of the African-swine-flu epidemic.
“A three-year ban has been imposed on purchase of new pig stocks. Her two aspiring children have no internet access and have been all but cut off from mainstream education. Many families have experienced a near-total drop in income with the consequent loss of good diet, casual work, and now their animal small holdings. There is despair.”
So he stepped in to help to buy the woman a new fridge, and ingredients to restart her roadside bakery stall, and pay the debts incurred on cost of feed and veterinary bills. He also paid for a month’s travel costs to the nearest town, where she obtained a restaurant job, although she later lost this through Covid restrictions.
He has several fears for this single woman: that she may fall victim to nightly marauding men, or “may fall ill with no hope of hospital treatment. . . In a country where only 3.2 per cent of the population have received two vaccines as of 11 July, it is unlikely she will receive her dose in the near future,” he writes.
All this, he points out, is in great contrast to life in the UK; and none of it sounds implausible to me, though my newspapering side is always sceptical about tales of woe.
But I have found that once you get involved with a real individual in desperate straits, the need never seems to end. How much easier to resist are the unlikely legions of wealthy widows whose emails offer to transfer several million dollars to my bank account.
Two wondrous wheels
BLESS me, Father; for I have never ridden a bicycle, ever, and am too vain to be seen on a tricycle — though I do envy the young people whizzing recklessly past on electric versions of what I still think of as a child’s scooter. One nasty accident will probably change my mind.
Canon Roger Clifton, of Bath, is, however, another keen cyclist to add to our recent collection (Faith, 2 July; Feature, 16 July). “My bicycle has always been my main means of transport round my parishes,” he tells us. “It keeps you fit; parking is never a problem; it has no impact on the environment; it costs virtually nothing to run; and for short journeys it is usually the quickest way to travel.
“It has no associations of class or wealth. If you see someone you want to talk to, you simply stop there and then. (Likewise, if you see someone you do not want to talk to, you can pedal past them with a cheery wave so they don’t feel ignored.) And it has the advantage that you are visible: the parish priest is seen going about his business.”
Of course, priests who go about on social media instead don’t really need one. But I’m sure there is much less of that post-lockdown.
Family room
FAMILIES, as all of us (except, perhaps, official stationers) know, can be complicated.
The Revd Peter Sear, of Evercreech, near Shepton Mallet, hit such a snag when he officiated at his first wedding since the old marriage registers were replaced by the new marriage document.
“The old marriage registers included details of the bride’s and groom’s fathers (names, occupations, etc.),” he tells us. “The new marriage document, we were told, can also include similar details for their mothers, and for any step-parents, as well as for the fathers.
“The bridegroom of my wedding had asked that details both of his birth parents and step-parents be included. But the online marriage document allows for only 160 characters for this — in this particular case sufficient only for two-and-a-half parents!”
The register office, approached for advice, commented that this was not the first problem with it, and proposed that he should create his own document, with the proviso that it must contain all the necessary information and signatures, and be on one side of A4. He hopes that the online form can be amended soon.
One up to Ipswich
THOMAS CLARKSON may be an unsung abolitionist hero (Comment, 25 June) — thanks in part, I gather, to the efforts of Wilberforce’s hagiographers — but at least that isn’t true in his native Suffolk.
There, Clarkson Street, Ipswich, is “named in his honour in what is a very ethnically diverse area of the town. I wonder how many locals know of this famous son of Suffolk and his role in the abolition movement,” writes Peter R. Smith, from not too distant Framlingham.
Now that William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano, and Clarkson are together commemorated today in the Common Worship lectionary, I am tempted to suggest a last-minute pilgrimage to Ipswich for readers in England enjoying a different kind of liberation — while it lasts!
