A Year in Pictures – 26 and 27 May 2015 – The Lancastria Window

The Lancastria memorial window was installed in St Katharine Cree Church on Leadenhall Street in the City of London in 1963. It is by Farrar Bell and commemorates the sinking, on 17 June 1940, of HMT Lancastria off the south coast of Brittany. The vessel, built as a liner, had been commandeered to evacuate British troops, as well as French and Belgian civilians, escaping the German invasion of France. 

Around 4,000 lives were lost in the sinking and it remains to this day the worst ever British maritime disaster. It was kept hidden from the British people until after the end of World War II so as not to damage morale so soon after the mixture of embarrassment and triumph that was the famous evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk the previous month. A survivors' organisation was founded and although it has now been formally wound up, there is still an annual act of remembrance in the church every June, attended by family members and the poignantly dwindling band of those who were caught up in the sinking.

When the window was originally installed, there were ugly offices in the side aisles of the church and the lower parts of the aisle windows were in plain glass to let light into the working spaces. The offices were removed in 2010 and now the Lancastria window has been completed with lower sections designed by Michael Coles and funded by a generous donation from The Friends of St Katharine Cree. The new panels, made by Lincolnshire Stained Glass Studio, were installed on 23 May and I saw them for the first time on Monday the 25th.

Deep colour floods into the church through the richly aqueous vertical panels on either side, while the clear glass sections sparkle like the tumble of a waterfall. A sea serpent is shown in yellow holding a roundel bearing the date of the disaster. It is a fantastic piece of work and took my breath away when I went to photograph it. The image is a composite of seven shots taken at direct exposures to yield a high dynamic range.

The second photograph was taken on my phone on 27 May and shows the new bands of colour across the base of the window frame and spilling into the aisle.

A Year in Pictures – 25 May 2015 – In the Isabella Plantation

Bank Holiday Monday and in the morning the sun was shining with a gentle warmth out of a cloudy sky, so we thought it would be good to catch the blooms in the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park. It was the first time I had been there in what seems like a couple of decades.

The rhododendrons and azaleas were out in profusion and riots of colour, but most of the magnolias had had their moment of glory. Apart, that is, from the one you see here: Magnolia sieboldii subsp. sinensis. Named after the German doctor Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866), Siebold's Magnolia is native to China, Japan and Korea and has dramatically pendulous single blooms and large papery leaves very different from the thick, waxy ones to be found on the commoner spring-flowering varieties of magnolia.

It is the national flower of North Korea.

A Year in Pictures – 22, 23 and 24 May 2015 – Plants Owe Us Nothing

On Friday 22 May I managed a (not terribly good) photograph of one the Common Councilmen of The Ward of Tower placing a wreath on the memorial of Samuel Pepys in St Olave Hart Street, the church where the illustrious diarist is buried. The occasion was the annual Pepys Commemoration Service, a tradition established in the 1920s. The wall is nearly 600 years old.

On Saturday 23 May I pointed my camera at the ceanothus that does rather well at the bottom of our garden. There are about 50 varieties of this shrub, which originates from North America and is sometimes known as California lilac. I love the pale blue of this one and its variegated leaves.

On Sunday 24 May I arranged some small plum tomatoes on the breakfast bar in our kitchen. Their rich red is reflected in the dark, glossy iridescence of the bowl in which they have been placed.

The Solemn, The Decorative and The Edible. We make use of plants but they owe us nothing.

A Year in Pictures – 20 and 21 May 2015 – The Soprano and The Violinist

One of the joys of working at St Olave Hart Street is that we have a tradition of twice-weekly lunchtime classical music recitals. While I am typing away or shuffling papers in my office I can hear, through the double doors that lead into the church, some of the finest music in the world.

The recital tradition at St Olave's goes back over 50 years and a number of world famous artists have, in their younger days, honed their art in the generous acoustic of the little church on Hart Street. Most of the performers are still in the early stages of their professional careers and some are still studying, so the performance opportunities presented to them at St Olave's are very welcome to them.

Here are photos of two of this week's performers.

A Year In pictures – 19 May 2015 – Change and Growth

I thought you might like a look at how the new herb beds in the churchyard at St Olave Hart Street are doing. The recent rains and some sunshine have encouraged exuberant growth and the plants are now carpeting the area more lushly, filling it with a variety of colours and leaf shapes, and delighting the eye with small delicate flowers.

In memoriam William Turner (c.1508–1568), Dean of Wells, doctor of physic, "father of English botany".

A Year in Pictures – 15 to 18 May 2015 – More Façadism, A Tall Pointy Tower, A Lofty Leafy Thing and The Bright Blazing Sun of Eventide

On Friday afternoon, 15 May, I was at the western end of Oxford Street, where an extreme example of façadism is on display. While the engineering involved is a thing to behold, why are two Victorian façades being preserved as a figleaf for the enormous residential development (at present a large hole in the ground) that is to be placed behind them? Such efforts suggest a lack of confidence in modern architecture coupled to a guilt about eradicating the past on this particular patch of London turf.

On Saturday 16 May, my wife and I went to Portsmouth to see my mother. It was good day and the sun blazed from a virtually cloudless sky, although the air was still quite chilly. Here is the Millennium Tower that dominates Gunwharf Quays and has become a major landmark on Portsea Island. At night it is illuminated in a variety of colours.

Sunday 17 May saw the second day of the "Marriott Sevens" at Twickenham Rugby Stadium. The town found itself turned over the weekend into a giant litter bin/urinal/vomitorium for the hordes of 18-25 year-olds drawn by the mindless and irresponsible advertising of the sponsors and the Rugby Football Union, who seem to think that a noisy hedonistic drinkfest is just what the increasingly hard-pressed residents need to wake them out of their cosy complacency. The litter and debris visible when we drove into our road at around 9:20 the previous evening was truly shocking. No efforts were being made to clear this ghastly mess, with the result that detritus would be blown into people's gardens, as well as local parks and streams. I did not witness the scenes in the middle of the town, but they were by all accounts not pretty.

There was mercifully no evidence of this in Richmond College's playing fields on Sunday as I made my way through them back to my house. All was peaceful there, although the fields are within sight of the RFU Stadium, where Sevens matches were still in progress. This was also a sunny day and I spent quite a while photographing an elm and an ash that stand next to each other by the path along the edge of the fields. The leaves are new and their colours fresh and vibrant. Here is one of the shots I took up through the dramatically zig-zagging branches of the ash towards the bright midday sky beyond. 

If you have read some previous posts, you will know that I am no fan of 20 Fenchurch Street, aka "The Walkie-Talkie". It punishes those who walk by it with fierce winds that I know are of concern to the City of London's planning department (who rejected the development, but were ultimately overruled by the then Secretary of State, whose name I neither know nor can be bothered to find out). There are nevertheless things I like about the building, not least the layout of the pavement at its feet, seen here.

At around 6:30pm on Monday, 18 May, we are looking east along Fenchurch Street to the junction with Gracechurch Street and on into Lombard Street, at whose end lies the great commuter magnet that is Bank Station. Not the greatest of shots, but it was taken on my phone and then put through various software hoops to try and tone down the dazzling setting sun. I hope it captures something of the drama of that early evening sun at this time of year.

A Year in Pictures – 14 May 2015 – Praise

Every May for the last five years we have put on a fund-raising concert at the church of St Katharine Cree on Leadenhall Street in the City of London.

It is called "The Widow's Mite", the idea being that musicians, most of whom have an existing association with the church, each perform brief items. The title recalls the comments of Jesus on seeing rich people bringing large gifts to the temple treasury and a poor widow depositing two small copper coins. The widow, observed Jesus, had given more than all the rich because she had given sacrificially, while they had contributed out of their abundance. Admission to the concert is a modest amount and a hot meal is served. Additional donations are invited and everyone contributes what they can to the evening. It is a joyful and inspiring event and has raised several thousand pounds each year for the much needed restoration of the church, which is a building loved and used by many.

Here is one of the contributors, singing a gospel song.