We
didn’t go in for too much poetry in the village. On the days of Eliot’s
visits to the parish church I may have been helping my dad in one of his duties
as sexton. I can, however, claim no personal contact with him as,
self-consciously I imagine, he strolled into the building one summer’s evening
and, initially without a word, took up a position behind the ancient font.
‘The old man’ (vicar) told Dad that someone had come to take a look at the
church: “Not sure who he was but he thought he said he was some kind of
writer. The name Elliott or something like that was mentioned.” There was no
name left in the visitors’ book; if there had been, I fancy we should have
seen only one L and one T. Various spellings of the surname of TS and his
ancestors were discovered in the church records.
I
don’t think there is much doubt about the identity of the solitary member of
the congregation that evening. Dad was vague about the direction of the
conversation over five or ten minutes at the most. He was halfway up a wooden
ladder trimming the wicks of the hanging oil lamps, not so far from the font.
“Seemed a nice sort of bloke. Bit religious, too – you could tell that …
We had a word about Yeovil & Petters.” More likely, it was my father who
had a word about Yeovil & Petters, the semi-pro side of modest talent which
played in the Southern League. He would have run through the whole team,
nick-names and all, as he finished the trimming and topped up the lamp with
paraffin. It is hard to think that Eliot shared this intimate knowledge of
small-town Saturday aspirations. But he would have politely affected to listen.
It should be remembered that my father was a sociable man. He would rub the back
of his earthy gardener’s hand across his moustache and go up to any church
visitors for a chat.
He’d tell them that he had been married in this church, was a sidesman who took the collection once a month and was one of the bell-ringers. Dad might give the Norman pillars a mention in passing, though he wasn’t so hot on St Michael’s other architectural treasures. He might slip in, too, that he’d been winding the clock by hand for years.