Released into the community

When I was due to leave the Poly, the diocese couldn’t work out what to do with me. There had been talk of a new chaplaincy set up in Bedford among the various FE colleges. But they could never agree how to share the job out or how to pay for it and negotiations dragged dangerously close to the end of my poly contract.

I had looked at other chaplaincy jobs, but the only one Humphrey Taylor (then secretary for C of E chaplain’s work) could offer was the University of Zimbabwe in Harare .

So I said to Robert Runcie I would be prepared to go back into a parish, as long as it wasn’t an old building with roof problems and so he sent me to a new building with roof problems. And a problem with the congregation.

They had had a vicar who kept telling them they should be shut down. An old traditionalist who did little outside the services. But a new team ministry was being set up joining Bennett’s End with Leverstock Green and Apsley. Bennett’s End the infill council estate between two villages.

Having got the old vicar out of their hair and with support from the neighbouring churches I set about building back the congregations confidence.

At Hatfield I had got to know the music tutor – Howard Burrell – very well, we used to split a bottle of malt between us on occasion. So I asked him to come over with the polytechnic choir and orchestra. And we performed Mozart’s Coronation Mass liturgically with a string quartet from the orchestra playing Borodin quartets as we shared communion.

It was the start of a series of events to bring the arts into a neglected area. A local choir performed Allegri’s Miserere and Theatre Roundabout fitted us into one of their tours. They had sent ahead details of the lighting and sound required but brought the effects tape with them. Needless to say it wouldn’t play in my tape deck and I had a couple of hours to source a half track tape deck at a time when they were already well out of fashion. That meant I had to operate a strange deck with a tape I hadn’t heard to produce all the effects on cue. Naturally some of the cues had to be set during a blackout and if I had missed one the rest of the effects would have been out of sequence for the rest of the evening. In the end all went well.

Sue helped out with the artistic side of the community and created a set of Stations of the Cross which some of the ladies then did in needlework as well as a parish map which featured all the local community buildings. We discovered enough local talent to put on a craft exhibition.

The church began growing and I started some home groups but wanted to expand them. In my visits I had met a couple who lived in the parish but worshipped at St Andrew’s Chorleywood. They offered to host a group in their home. But they needed to ask the vicar at Chorleywood for some reason. He then refused, telling them “not to have anything to do with Peter Ashby”. I never did find out why.

I got myself onto a couple of local committees with the Council for voluntary service and the One World Group. Through them I was in touch with a lot of people throughout the community and was able to go into schools to spread the message about fair trade, which hadn’t yet formed into an organisation in its own right.

I visited the local youth club, where on the first evening they asked if I played pool. I said I would have a go but they would have to tell me what to do. I proceeded to clear the table - a misspent youth comes in handy sometimes. After the London riots (1981?) the church windows were all broken and we replaced them with an "unbreakable" acrylic. I went to tell they youth club that they would have problems breaking them now. One of the lads took me to the local phone box, which used the same stuff, and pushed his cigarette straight through. It doesn't break if you throw things at it but has a low melting point.

They also showed me how to open car doors which came in useful when people turned up to church events and locked themselves out of their cars (a regular occurance).

Meanwhile a couple of friends had returned to Zimbabwe. Tony and Alison had come over for training and after Tony was ordained had stayed on for his curacy. They had gone back by now and asked us to go and visit. We thought it unlikely we would be able to afford it but I checked out the fare anyway just in case.

The car I had was a proper Friday night job. It kept breaking down for no apparent reason. Back in the garage 26 times in six months and it only had a six month warranty. Each time I had taken it back I passed a garage that said “cars bought for cash”. So after the 27^th visit to the garage that had sold it to me I drove straight back to the other garage and asked what they would give me for it. The salesman looked out of the window and gave me a quote without even going outside. The quote was for exactly the fare for the four of us to go to Zimbabwe.