November 7, 2004

• The Reverend Tobias Trontby.

  
  

  ____________________________

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The Reverand Tobias (Toby) Trontby.

  
  

  ________________________________

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  He is one of these vicars who seems ageless and a lot older than one supposes he really is. Young at heart though, and fit, he has been in the parish of Shawthwaite (and hamlets) for 23 years. Ficticious Shawthwaite, (based on Castleton, though of course not on the vicar there!) resides in the rolling hills of Derbyshire Peak District, and has a population of about 3,000.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The Rev Toby (as he is known) will do anything for anybody. No family of his own (his wife died in a car crash not long after they were married) he considers the whole village his family. Not very religious, and one of those C of E “fudgeberts” who do not believe in the bible and only half believes in the divinity of the Christ, he nevertheless is loved by the deeply religious as much as by anyone. Not for him “one-day-a-weeker” he organizes all aspects of village life, from the cubs and brownies to the Old A.P.’s trip to Blackpool and Skeggie. He is the first person anyone in need turns to, he is counseller, therapist and listener to the lonely.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Of course he himself is very lonely but does not show it.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  ______________________________________

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Prose From Toby’s blog-spot blog.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I walk to the shop, everything is dear in the remaining village shops, though at least we still have shops, smaller places do not.

  
  

  I should really go to Sheffield to buy my food, but a vicar is supposed to use the local shops (and the local bus, not that Stagecoach runs much of a service.) I don’t know why or even if it matters anymore. It might have done in the fifties, then we meant something to the people.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Sometimes I wish I was in America, where people still believed in God, and where they went to Church Sundays and not just looked at the telly.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The woman in the shop is always nice and pleasent, but she does only goes to church on special occasions, she no longer even come to Midnight Mass at Christmas.

  
  

  —-

  
  

  
  

  
  

  For Matins, I had 25 people in my church, including a baby that howled for the full hour. The funeral last month for cheerful old Mrs Enstone robbed me of two morning faithfuls, because Mr. Enstone blames God for his wife’s death. I went round to see him and he told me to “bugger off, you old tosspot!”

  
  

  I keep the hymns simple, nothing they would not know. Even so, by the third verses only Freddie, my alter-boy Bill and myslf were singing.

  
  

  I’ll give something away. Parishe just can’t get decent organists these days, so we vicars use a sort of karaoki machine, you type in the hymn number and the church is fulled with organ sound (or whatever sound you want). Few people seem to know it’s not a live person on the organ.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  On leaving the church, Mr and Mrs Church’s (sic) son Luke asks me for the upteenth time what I think about homosexual vicars. This is not some gentle banter, Luke, who came to pick up his parents, is a right-wing bigot who hasn’t been inside my church since he was ten. (And these names have NOT been changed.)

  
  

  
  

  
  

  ________

  
  

  
  

  
  

  For

  
  

  Well Dressing

  
  

  The blessing of the watersupply, in the form of the well, is an ancient ceremony which has recently been revived for the tourist industry, having virtually died out in the area by the 1950s.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Some sources attribute the practice to the period of the Black Death in 1348-9, when probably a third of the population of England died of the disease, but some villages such as Tissington were untouched. The local people attributed this to their clean water supply and gave thanks by ‘dressing’ the village wells. However, it seems very likely that the practice goes back much further than this – probably to pagan times – and the fact that many well dressings have a ‘well queen’ suggests echoes of ancient fertility rites.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The practice is continued mainly in the limestone villages of the central and southern peak with a succession of different villages dressing their wells between the end of May and early September. Traditionally, Tissington is the earliest in late May, and Eyam is the last of the large festivals at the end of August. The construction of the well dressings is a skilful art in which many whole villages are involved.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  After the well dressing is erected next to the well it is blessed in a short outdoor service, and usually a brass band will be hired for the occasion. Since many of the towns and villages have several wells, there will then be a procession around the town to bless each one in turn. The well blessing ceremony is usually the signal for the start of a week of celebrations (or ‘wakes’) with a range of events culminating in a carnival at the end of the week.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  ——–

  
  

  Harvest day would have been a flop if it wasn’t for the primery schools. My Shawthwaite church was full of small children giving fruit and tins so kindly. There are rules where such food goes afterwards, the tins to the local Derby & Joan club, the fruit and veg to be desroyed. This is because of some crap EC hygine law. As for the lovely meat-pie by cooked by penniless Samantha Jacobs Mum, that was going off by tea-time.

  
  

  Fuck the rules set by people with no feelings! I spent two hours giving the fruit and veg to the poorest people in the parish.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  _________

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “The Train Journey” (A Sermon I wrote)

  
  

  ___________________________________

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The other day I was going sorth on a train to see a dear old friend of mine, Tiffy: when this lady came and sat down beside me.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  When I am travelling, I always wear my dog-collar, and wear it with pride, sometimes it is a help to people who only want someone to talk with, like this lady.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Sadly, she was a crushing bore, yes, she wanted to talk about Jesus, but to use his name as a vile hatred for what she called “Scrounging Gypo-illegal immigrants and filthy Arab terrorists”. 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The lady ranted and raved and used the most foul language, and saying that she felt that Jesus would understand. In the end I pretended I had to get off at the next stop and moved to the next carriage, the only spare seat was right across from an Imran.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  This Muslim cleric and I talked about the beauty of life and the wonder of human beings each so different to each other, each so important to God.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  So you see my children, it is not what you believe in that leads you to heaven, but how you believe.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  That is why Jesus, who remember, embraced both sinners and outcasts, died to save us, to show God, that he loved us, his fellow humans, enough to give his life for us.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Bless you all in the name of the Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost, He who loves all peoples that dwell upon Earth. Amen.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  —

  
  

  The Rev. Tobias Trontby.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  _________

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I sat in my church a long time today, and I thought about various things, and not only about God.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I thought about the lonely, the sick, the depressed, and I thought about those like the nurses who gave their hearts for us, to keep us warm, and those like the soldiers who gave their lives for us, so we could remain free. And I thought about how this all fits in with my role inside the church.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Oh yes, and I thought about you my darling, where you are you now Susan? Where in heaven are you singing with that same wonderful voice of yours, where are you singing those same songs that you once sang for me, queen of my soul.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I lit a candle for you and I watched it glow and I remembered how you once lit a candle just for me.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I sighed, and I left that candle glowing as I locked the church door.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Outside, a nightingale was singing in the bushes, and I cried.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  ————-

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Shawthwaite Parish Notes.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  In my poems I write about drama, the lips that stole a kiss, the child that stole our hearts, the lost and the lonely and the dying.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  For there are the people who meet us the most, women looking for sex, little children (though less these days I need hardly say), and the ones who only want to hear those three little words: “You are saved”.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The others ignore you or give a nod, and there’s old Mrs Moppet on the way home from her allotment every saturday (she, aged eighty, works during the week.) dropping in a sack full of vegetables that she sure God would want me to have on Sunday. Never comes to church does Mrs Moppet, Sunday is her shopping day.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  But to me, those who see me as bad or mad or just mentally blessing their coffin in the street, are entitled to their views, God embraces all, the sinner and the sinned.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  And of course I hear all the gossip. Every month in the church hall I am expected to meet Shawthwaite Rotery Club, which I expected to be all drinking men but are these old woman who between them know every scandal, however minor; in the small town. But among all the gossip is important tit-bits, Mrs Dewdrop had lost her son in Iraq, Mrs Honey has said thats he hadn’t seen a vicar “near her ruddy house for forty nigh years”, and so on.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  That’s enough for you to read today, and oh, all proper names have been changed.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  —

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Rev. Tobias Trontby

  
  

  
  

  
  

  __________

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Another cold day.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  It was another cold day, I put on my coat, I had done a reasonable service, I had been given a “John Doe” name, Herold. I used the name twice. I said he must have once been a proud and noble man who was worthy of high heaven, (the usual crap to hide the loss forever of another mortal being.)

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I did more than perhaps I should have done, without guidence from my bishop.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  And the two policemen and the one social worker bowed their heads, and so did I.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  It was another cold day, we were up at the crem, not normally my line, but I owed the police one for not busting me or even taking away my stash.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  So there was no coffin-bearers, no local copper, “how’d do there Rev Tobias?” No gentry “Hi there Toby!” No local butcher (a grunt and a nod) and no distant mayor who is a commie.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Just myself and the two policemen and the female social worker…

  
  

  
  

  
  

  And the ashes of a headless man.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  _____________

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Hocktide.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  On the Tuesday of the second week after Easter, is Hocktide. This used to be the day when tithes (church and parish taxes) were collected.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Of course, in the age of state taxation, this is just history, but it’s a big day in our small market town.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The Hocktide procession starts from my church. The Bishop of Derby usually leads the procession, though one year it was lead by the Princess of Wales,  Princess Diana.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Every year this Hocktide walk with most of the town and the hamlets joining in, many of them fine musicians: head towards St. Andrews Cavern, a massive man-made cavern and caves once mined for Blue John (link). http://www.bluejohn-cavern.co.uk/cav.htm

  
  

  
  

  
  

    Pennies used to thrown down a steep hole for the local kids to scramble after, but a death in 1962 put paid to that and now the local school-children are given a party instead in the church hall.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Then at night the club-scene starts with throbbing music deep in the cavern. This is not for my ears, so letting my young assistant take over, I retire back to the vicarage and put on my ear-phones and drown myself in Mozart.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  —

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The Reverend Tobias Trontby.

  
  

  
  

  • 11:19 am
  • 34 Comments