Page 29

5 May 2010

There are advantages and disadvantages to being part of a minority. There is no intention on the part of The Times, as far as I am aware, to lose its religion correspondent. But The Daily Telegraph, our main competitor, does not have one at the moment, after Martin Beckford was promoted to election and investigative duties. At The Guardian, Riazat Butt is another survivor. The other person in our three-man boat is Jerome Taylor. It is cosy, but we could all probably do with a bit more competition. So what do you do when a rival gets an amazing scoop? I seethed with rage and jealousy. I found an inanimate object or two to kick, bits of furniture that don't have a Royal Society or lawyer to protect them. I prayed like mad. And then I did a blog on it and telephoned Jonathan Wynne-Jones to congratulate him on his barely-credible exclusive about the Foreign Office memo on the Pope's visit. I imagine even he had trouble believing it until he held the document in his own hands. A letter in The Times from a non-Catholic former diplomat Allan Hird summed up my own views: 'While I have no brief for doctrinal edicts from Rome, for me it beggars belief that the trivial disputes of our current diplomatic elite, especially potentially damaging ones leaked to the media, are regarded as laudable activity. What does it suggest to the countless Catholics in this country and the rest of the world, if not that we have completely lost the plot in our endeavours to improve international relations?'




I was surprised by Tom Wright's early departure from Durham to return to academia. A mischievous source suggested he might be leaving in a huff over 'plans' to sell Auckland Castle. I doubt this is the case. Past reviews have come down against selling and although the next review is due this autumn, Auckland is different from Carlisle's Rose Castle. That was in the middle of nowhere and useless for a modern bishop. Auckland has more potential for use by the local community. No, Dr Tom Wright had an amazing time on sabbatical at Princeton, completing his seminal book on St Paul. Really, like Dr Rowan Williams at Lambeth, he is a professor. He's simply fulfilling his true vocation. The Church should consider it a gift that Dr Williams has not done the same thing long ago. I called Lambeth Palace for a comment. They are a bit annoyed with me at the moment for our Easter coverage of the Archbishop's Start the Week programme with Philip Pullman. Even so, I was a bit surprised when they said they had 'no comment' about Dr Wright's announcement. I pointed out that these two episcopal heavyweights are supposed to be good friends. A little bit later, a nice comment from Dr Williams about his colleague at Durham dropped into my inbox, in time for the online edition of the paper but sadly not for the paper paper.

Is cleanliness next to Godliness? In our book, it never has been but it's getting closer. I've always excused myself on the grounds of being more of a Mary than a Martha. But Biblical backing for slovenliness doesn't go far with the yummy mummies of Kew and I've belatedy realised that you can't live with a dog, two cats and a little boy in Surrey as we did with horses, dogs, cats, two parrots, rabbits, five kids and half a dozen foster kids in a crumbling Queen Anne rectory in Gratwich, near Uttoxeter. Guitar practice has gone out the window, in spite of a looming Grade Two exam. I'm spending all my spare time on my hands and knees with lemon spray and flannels and have booked our Polish cleaners to do a top-to-bottom spring clean. Yesterday I asked my husband to put out the rubbish.  DH is a poet, writer and musician. Naturally, his mind on such elevated things, he forgot. When I understood that in spite of all my hard work with sponges and buckets we would spend the bank holiday weekend with the house stinking under a festering pile of black bags of stinking cat litter and ravioli tins, I sat on the naughty step and burst into tears. I called another mum for advice. 'Just bag it up and take it do the dump,' she said. 'I can't,' I sobbed. 'I've just had the car cleaned.' I need a non-working wife.

My colleague Melanie Reid has fallen from a horse and broken her back. Her article about this in The Times this week is one of the most powerful testimonies to personal tragedy I've ever read, her will to live indomitable. As a child, I loved riding. I had a horse, Sadie, who was nicknamed Sadist by commentators on the showjumping circuit. I am sure she didn't always throw me off on purpose but it certainly looked and felt like that. Once, out hunting with the Meynell, even she was caught, by barbed wire in the top of a ginormous hedge. She somersaulted and landed on her back, me still firmly planted on top of her, only now underneath. Luckily, it was one of those hedges with a brook and a massive ditch behind it, just big enough to take my body without drowning me. I wasn't even scratched. I got back on and we cantered off to join the rest of the field. I'm often tempted to go riding again, just to enter into that communion with the horse, where you are as one, galloping along the beach or woody tracks, the wind in your hair because in those days we never wore hats, understanding what it is like to be animal, not human. Another temptation, I now think, to be resisted.  

I've spent many hours over the last few weeks reading books and writing about them for The Times Book Club, which is run by Alyson Rudd, also a sports writer. We are about to publish our new God Pack. I've reviewed Joseph Ratzinger's Jesus of Nazareth, Karen Armstrong's History of God and Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, brother of Henry. The pack is out on 1 May, available through The Times website. It was such a pleasure to do something that, for once, will not annoy the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope or anyone in Kew. I can sort of understand why the Bishop of Durham is getting out. I love working and love my job, but religion can be a difficult field to work in at times, as one civil servant at the Foreign Office has, belatedly, discovered.