BOOM! SHAKE THE ROOM!

 Well yo are y’all ready for me yet?  (DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince)

In the week up to June 4^th, RAF Wittering was host to the (annual?) Exercise Swift Pirate which this year saw the airfield play the part of a foreign location where humanitarian assistance is required. The theme was ‘Human Security’.  Over the decades the airbase has fulfilled various roles, but in recent decades logistics has always been its major task, so the sight of the Service’s massive transport aircraft in Rutland’s skies isn’t that unusual. Local plane-spotters had an extra treat too, because, (coincidentally? I wouldn’t think so…) some of Coningsby’s Typhoons were on detachment there for the first time in a while.  As, Basil Brush would say, ‘Boom, Boom’ – though unless there’s a major panic, these strike and air defence aircraft aren’t allowed to go supersonic where there are people.

For the walker, RAF Wittering’s presence is a bit of an obstacle – obviously, you can’t go through it - and for my Big Walk it means a short out-and-back from the village of Thornhaugh to preserve my Rule and reach Wittering’s church without risking death crossing the A1. This major league road cuts alongside the entrance to the RAF base. As one flashes by to north or south (though hopefully not with the speed of a Typhoon pilot) one glimpses a Harrier preserved and parked on the concrete there, a reminder of one of British aviation’s more innovative and accomplished aircraft. To me, despite their deadly intent, including valuable service in the Falklands, they always resembled exotic insects. There was something lovable about their gentle vertical descent and pneumatic settling. Mechanical things can be beautiful, as the late Fred Dibnah frequently used to remind us.

Someone has a tidy mind on the Thornhaugh estate. The grass which fronts it on the lane near the A47 is cut immaculately – and there’s an awful lot of lawn to mow. You’d think you were looking at the fairways of a premier British golf course. The owners are also noticeably protective of their own privacy. Up past the chicken farm, a path begins to loop all the way round their territory under charming tree cover, flanked by secure fencing. At one point a short steep rise leads the walker to a track which takes him/her on to Wittering village above a field of distant horses and a pongy sewage facility. The airfield is largely out of sight, as I suppose is to be expected security-wise.

All Saints, Wittering is strikingly out of place where it sits in front of the utilitarian housing estate built for the Forces in the middle of the last century, because of the spaciousness of the church grounds and the clash of architectural styles. More than usually, I feel sad I can’t explore its interior. At least one other electronic writer clearly found it a memorable and evocative space. Like so many of our wonderful places of worship, it still carries evidence of its Saxon origins, but few churchyards so obviously contain a record of human sacrifice on behalf of others. The common design of many of the headstones, white and regular, instantly tells the visitor these graves are the last resting places of RAF personnel. On a very quick look, the most recent I found dated to 1981.

Do you shudder as I do when watching telly and seeing the temples of those South American civilisations where human sacrifice was regularly practised for the propitiation of the gods or the achievement of a good harvest?  We use the language of sacrifice regularly in our worship and liturgy, but very often insulate ourselves from the brutal meaning unless it’s Good Friday or there’s a particular prompt to think more deeply. The Wittering churchyard is sobering on the one hand, and a Tom Wright ‘thin place’ on the other. At any rate, it’s hard to walk away feeling anything beyond fear, humility, or quiet gratefulness.

There’s an odd contrast between the technicolour gore of the Old Testament – whose concepts carry over into what we assume is a friendlier New Testament context (but then think of the Romans’ enjoyment of the Arena!) – with the comfortable welcome of an Anglican Sunday morning.  This is why we read the OT so rarely these days, unless we follow Morning Prayer. Instead, we confront our fears by watching Line of Duty - and I only do that through half-closed eyes. Even in the middle of this pandemic, which has produced minor challenges for us all alongside tragedy for some, I’m grateful my life has been so sanitised.  I may have difficulty grasping ‘Jesus died for me’, but I have a rather better understanding by contemplating the airmen who died during and after World War 2.

On the way back to Thornhaugh and the car, on the opposite side of the estate, I come across a forty something female jogger sporting psychedelic multi-coloured tights who's just met a friend along the path. The teenage daughter of the latter is standing at a distance looking as if the grown-ups are nothing to do with her...

Hippie jogger:             It’s a – well, I don’t know - like a kind of a ripple…

Friend:                        I don’t go for all that sort of transcendent stuff…

I wanted to stop and ask, but of course, I didn’t.

Aircraft in the squadron:  7.5 km.  2.2 hrs.  21 degrees C. Intermittent cooling breeze.  No stiles. Ten gates Two bridges. A fox. One church.

 Father God

I thank you for old friends

Like Andy and Clare

Who used to live at RAF Wittering.

For memories of happy times

And lessons learnt along the way.

For shared experience

And clever sons and daughters:

For parents and relatives now departed:

For parties on summer lawns:

For laughter and for gentle disagreements:

For the appreciation of each other’s skills and talents:

For careers that are now past history

But which inform us still.

For all this and much more

I thank you.

Amen.