Bradford

Bradford

Janet’s health was certainly better living in Castle Carrock, she had been retired from the Health Service and she was still unable to work or to walk any distance. She enrolled for a life drawing class at the local art school but was unable to make her own way there and I had to be on hand to help. She suffered, especially at that time, from the fatigue associated with MS and spent most afternoons in bed, resting.

She also continued to have relapses and with each relapse the floor was lowered, her walking worsened and she was less able to manage unaided.

Nevertheless she was also better, in the sense that she was more relaxed and happier. Although that might just had something to do with the anger management counselling making me an easier person to live with.

But she was better. The Bishop Ian Harland had taken sabbatical leave and whist he was away visiting our partner Diocese it was made clear to me that on his return I would be offered another job. This was partly because I suppose there was the feeling that I was being wasted in a job that was, as the bishop had said, too small for me. But also the Diocese was feeling the effects of the reductions in Church Commissioners support and a decline in giving. There simply was not the money to continue to pay for clergy in posts such as mine which had been identified as supernumerary.

I saw the Bradford job advertised and because I had a strong feeling that I knew which parish would be offered to me, I applied. This was in part because I had received a delegation from the Parish asking me to be their Vicar and in part because I had a feeling that it could well be my last job.

Previous Vicars had either stayed for years or died in office and I just wanted to see whether as a previous Archbishop’s Appointments Secretary had intimated to me, a residentiary canonry in an urban Cathedral like Bradford could well be mine one day.

So I applied. I was shortlisted and appointed. During the time when I was preparing to leave Castle Carrock and getting ready for the move, our son and two of our daughters travelled with Janet and I to see what we were getting ourselves into. All three of them agreed that and told me clearly about their misgivings based on meeting the Provost. Each of them confided to Janet that they were uneasy about the move and that I might be getting myself into a situation where I would not be happy.

They were of course right. But the attraction was irresistible. If moving to Newcastle had been like jumping on to a moving train and the move to Castle Carrock, stepping into a rural idyll, the move to Bradford was like falling into the well at the world’s end.

In my first parish which I have mentioned already but will discuss further I knew from the moment I was licensed and installed that it had been a mistake. On the first night in the new house Janet and I discussed in all seriousness how soon I could reasonably move without it impacting unfavourably on my career. And this before the house collapsed triggering my move to Newcastle.

Bradford was somewhat different. At first I thought that I had been given a role which would free me to develop many of my own interests. I had joked with friends that it was a ‘missionary position in the City Centre’ Writing and Poetry were high on the list of things that I wanted to pursue.

But it was not to be. The Cathedral did not, as Prince Philip asked me at the Royal Maundy service, operate a canon in residence system. I had replaced an outgoing canon precentor but at the same time the cathedral curate had left, and I was asked to become canon pastor, a title I rejected as sounding too much like an Italian supper dish.

So I was called Vice-Provost.

However, because I assumed many of the duties of the outgoing curate, it seemed to me that many members of the congregation seemed to think that I was in fact the new curate.

Bradford Cathedral had for much of its life been run by its Provosts rather like the old fashioned evangelical parish church it had once been.

 There was a sense that the Provost was the Vicar and the canons his curates.

As my work consultant observed it is the only model of ministry that the Church of England recognises and it was clear that in the Diocese there was little time for the canons; as another clergyman asked me on one occasion, could he speak to the boss?

My working day began at 7 00 am and often lasted until ten or eleven at night. The demands were insistent and I realised over the four years that I was becoming very tired and increasingly uncreative.

On top of the pastoral demands of the cure of souls of the parish and congregation I was asked to take lead responsibility for a project involving the acquisition of a significant building in Foster Square which lies beneath the Cathedral.

Much has been said and written about this initiative which in time, after it was chosen by the Millennium Commission as a Millennium Project, acquired at first national interest and then later national notoriety.

After the hard work was completed, and in confidence that the vision would be realised, I published the following in the magazine of The Bible Society: Transmissions.

In June 2000 the National Millennium Faith Experience will open at Bradford Cathedral. Housed in a former post office with a bridge over to the cathedral, this multi-million pound project represents a real journey of faith.

Like all journeys, as we have arrived at an ending with the turn of the century and the opening of the National Millennium Faith Experience (NMFE), we find that we have arrived at a new beginning. So what of that journey and where has it taken us?

NMFE at Bradford Cathedral is a project that is principally funded by the Millennium Commission with support from other key funders. Built in a former post office, it will comprise a local authority training facility, a restaurant, shops and a visitor attraction with three galleries (of which more later).

A 1995 report into the life and governance of the cathedrals of the Church of England aimed to effect considerable change. In its critical appraisal of Anglican cathedral life it has helped cathedrals to see themselves more clearly and identify what belongs to their mission.

Hidden away in the statistics in the appendices of the report was the revealing fact that Bradford was at the bottom of the league table as far as visitor numbers were concerned.

The Cathedral’s Education and Development Officer, Caroline Moore has over the years nurtured a dream that it might one day prove possible to develop a centre where the city could interpret itself and its history in relation to some of the themes which are emerging in the new realities of contemporary life. This vision she had tentatively entitled “The Observatory of Bradford Life”, a reference to Abraham Sharp, the eighteenth-century astronomer who lived in Horton Hall, Bradford.

We reasoned that if we could attract more visitors to the Cathedral, we would be advancing our mission as a place of pilgrimage, and helping people discover their own spiritual realities as they eavesdropped on the on-going life of an urban cathedral. More practically, we could also address the need for a third income stream alongside congregational giving and our Church Commissioners Section 31 grant.

More visitors would allow us to develop the educational and interpretive role of the cathedral. We define this as presenting Jesus in and to a city where cultures collide, diverse faiths are practised and poverty in all its manifestations is to be seen etched deeply into people’s faces.

The sale of the former post office sited at the foot of the cathedral hill offered an ideal opportunity. A magnificent Grade II listed building, it is rumoured that it was built expressly to obscure the view of the cathedral from the city centre!

In 1996, with the support of colleagues, I began to make enquiries about whether the cathedral could acquire the building for our own purposes. So the journey began.

From start to finish this has been a journey of faith, and whilst the money has been raised and the concrete poured, a number of theological questions have arisen. 

The first concerns money. At an early stage a member of the congregation took a very strong stand about the fact that the money we were spending was lottery money. In fact, he felt that he could no longer worship at the cathedral because he saw the use of proceeds from the lottery as inappropriate for a religious organisation.

My view is that money is ethically neutral and only finds moral value when it is spent. Applying lottery money to the purposes for which we had in mind meant that there would be a moral “good”.

The benefits are considerable. We have contributed to the regeneration of the city centre in a very positive way. We have created jobs and training opportunities. We have supported local businesses, and, in the end product, we have made a bold and inspiring statement that both arises out of and speaks to our post-modern environment. We have left our “statement” much as the Victorians left theirs.

Secondly, multi-faith Bradford reminds us that religion plays a central role in social, political and economic events, as well as in the lives of individuals and communities. People need opportunities to reflect upon and understand religious traditions, issues, questions and values (sometimes characterised as the search for ultimate meaning or the answer to spiritual questions). NMFE will offer such an opportunity.

Thirdly, the “spiritual” is almost always engaged through the concrete and practical. In this way, ordinary, everyday materials, events and experiences become the basis for spiritual enrichment. As an example, holy communion, which lies at the heart of the Christian Church’s spirituality, is an activity, involving the taking, blessing, breaking and sharing of bread and wine. Through this activity the presence of Jesus Christ is realised in the life of the Christian community. Within the visitor attraction, examples of other faith communities actualising their beliefs will be presented.

When I first arrived in Bradford, each time I left the cathedral I was greeted by a large billboard poster that exhorted me to read the Koran, “The Final Revelation”.

Bradford is a large, ethnically and culturally diverse city. Under the leadership of Bishop David, the Anglican Church has built excellent relationships with the community leaders. With the help of our Interfaith Adviser, a meeting was arranged for the various communities to hear about our plans and to visit the proposed site.

The original design concept proposed by Past Forward, designers of York’s Jorvick Viking Centre, began with the historic journey from the planting of the preaching cross by the broad-ford (Bradford) to late twentieth century multi-faith Bradford.

Debate about this proposal resulted in two quite clear principles being established with the agreement of the faith leaders represented at this first meeting.

Firstly, that each faith would be robustly presented in a form which acknowledged and respected the integrity of all faiths. Secondly, that we would seek to avoid a presentation that caused Christian visitors to ask “Is this how my story ends?” and for other faith visitors to wonder “What happened to the rest of my story?”

At the heart of the attraction in a central gallery, building on Caroline Moore’s Observatory idea, visitors will meet significant figures from Bradford’s past who have made their contributions to literature, art, music, science, commerce and social reform on a national or international stage.

On either side of this gallery will be two further galleries; one concerned with faith and the other, Digital City, with allowing contemporary visitors to record their contributions to a developing archive. This living history book will record the social archaeology of the twenty-first century. The three galleries of NMFE will provide insights into three key areas where the life of faith communities has enriched the life of the wider community.

At the end of the first millennium Wulfstan, Archbishop of York suggested that the significant spiritual question for his contemporaries was one of identity: “Who am I?”

The design of the exhibition has been fraught with the implicit question about what represents the fundamental spiritual question for a society on the cusp of a new millennium. 

Who am I? Where am I from? What will become of me?

These are real questions for people as postmodernism casts doubt on the value of the meta-narrative. It is in response to this agenda that the three galleries which make up the National Millennium Faith Experience will explore:

• aspects of faith, in the context of Bradford as an international city, leading to the question of identity: who am I?

• the triumph of social imagination through the achievements of individuals as they are related to significant social developments, leading to the question: what is my history?

• the contemporary fascination with religions as myths of origin and personal significance. Visitors will be invited to make their millennium mark, and, as their stories are collated and archived they will be seen as part of the on-going “story of faith”, leading to the question of ultimate value: what will become of me?

As part of the superb design solution for the project, a bridge was built to span the chasm between the cathedral and the developing NMFE centre. Crossing that bridge for the first time, I felt that the journey was truly well under way. We are near the end; the beginning of the journey is in sight…

This was, in hindsight a positive take on an experience and a time in my life which raised huge questions.

In addition to the pastoral care of the congregation and parish, chaplaining the Boys Brigade, including being away under canvas at the annual camp, organising the Cathedral’s education programme, initiating a new series of lectures in the Cathedral, taking communion, visiting, conducting baptisms, weddings and funerals, I became the project champion for the Millennium Project which included regular meetings and negotiations with the Millennium commission. For some reason the staff of the commission always seemed to think that they needed to play hardball.

On one occasion having been summoned to a meeting in London I was seated opposite four commission staff, realising the oppositional nature of the seating arrangement, they began by apologising, ‘we didn’t intend to intimidate you’, was the opening gambit of the Chair. ‘It would take more than you four to intimidate me’ I responded in an opening gambit that set the tone for the meeting.

Health became an issue again when we were in Bradford Janet was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, the insidious disease which had killed my Mother.

I wrote this poem whilst watching her receive her Radiotherapy Treatment on a public video screen in the Leeds hospital where she was receiving treatment, once a day for three weeks.

           

Your endurance

is legendary, arms

outstretched as if

to embrace this

healing ray or ray of death

whatever the hell it is

only time will tell

How you as a target

of their concern

bear your breasts

patiently in dignified

suffering

A crucified Madonna

dying a little each day

giving life

to those you love

Despite this the work did not stop, on one occasion I visited her at five thirty in the morning in hospital before catching a train to London for a meeting with the Millennium Commission.

The house we lived in was located in a corner of the church yard which a hundred years before had been closed because of the frequent outbreaks of cholera and typhoid in the town and in order to reduce the further spread of disease. In our corner of the churchyard was the site of the burial pit where the bodies of children, only 30% of children born to textile workers reached the age of fifteen, were buried.

If Janet was to recover her health in Castle Carrock then here in Bradford she was to experience further setbacks. During this busy time I managed to negotiate a ‘Sabbatical’ involving a trip to our American partner church in Roanoke. Janet was out of hospital and recovering from her operation and declared fit to travel by the consultant.

                              

Before we reached Roanoke, fortuitously while staying with friends in Virginia Beach, Janet experienced a Deep Vein Thrombosis and was hospitalised for two weeks, I journeyed to Roanoke for a preaching engagement alone, leaving Janet in the care of our friends Jo and Mike Sweeney.

When we returned to Bradford I had been replaced as Project Champion by the Provosts appointee.

But it was not just Janet’s health which suffered in Bradford, my own health deteriorated with recurrent bouts of Sciatica, dramatic nose bleeds and a recurrence of the depression which has always been a companion of mine.

But the most dramatic moment came when our seventeen year old son William was taken away by Ambulance with Meningitis. For twenty four hours he was desperately ill and we could only watch and pray. As the Ambulance drove out of the Close with blue lights and sirens I fell to my knees in the hallway of the house and I cursed a God who could allow this to happen.

On reflection I began to realise that it was impossible to live a healthy life in a Graveyard and I resolved to leave the Cathedral as soon as was humanly possible.

When I discussed my decision with the bishop I pointed out that the job had taken all my pastoral skill, all the wisdom I had accumulated in my thirty years since Ordination and all my management expertise and I was exhausted.

The bishop agreed to release me and once again I entered job search mode.