The trouble with history is that it is infectious. Contagious. Bloody dangerous (this is not a descent into gratuitous swearing, history is often bloody and frequently dangerous). Like MRSA or Clostridium difficile you can catch history from almost anything. People you meet shed history like dandruff and history leaches out of old stone walls and blackened brickwork by some strange and powerful osmotic force. It will get us all eventually: history will have me and history will have you.
Only the other day I had occasion to visit someone in our church and I brushed against a large slate sarcophagus on my way in. I paused to take a photograph of the offending object, and in that brief moment I must have been infected. By the time I got home, sepsis had set in and I just had to download the photograph and set about transcribing the inscription.
Only the other day I had occasion to visit someone in our church and I brushed against a large slate sarcophagus on my way in. I paused to take a photograph of the offending object, and in that brief moment I must have been infected. By the time I got home, sepsis had set in and I just had to download the photograph and set about transcribing the inscription.
"In memory of Mr Thomas Calvert, late of this parish who, in the year 1746, first introduced into this church four part psalmody and with indefatigable pains and perseverance not only encouraged but in a great measure supported it with great reputation upwards of 30 years. He was an honest man, a kind master, a sincere friend and a good Christian. He departed this life in Plymouth, June 3rd 1781 in the 71st year of his age".
The problem with an inscription like this is that there is enough intrigue in it to keep you blogging for ages. Who was Thomas Calvert? What was his role in the church? What was four part psalmody? What caused him such pain and needed perseverance? The questions become what the microbiologists call systemic. They take over your being and they dominate your life. Like an intellectual tsunami they wash away all other thoughts.
I have begun to gather answers: Thomas did not die in Plymouth but in St Germans; he married Honour Stacey in our church in 1745 and I have an inkling that I may be able to get hold of a copy of his will. But the fever that is history has a long way to go before it burns itself out. In the meantime my hair is unbrushed, my dog is unwashed, my fish are unfed and my next blog post is unwritten. That's what history does to you.
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