Mother's, Mothering Sunday, Mom and apple pie .......

Mothering Sunday usually referred to the day in the middle of Lent when congregations travelled to the mother church. The Cathedral or perhaps here in Shotley Fields the Mother Church which was Blanchland Abbey.

More recently the day  has become confused with the American Mothers Day which is focussed on 'Mom and Apple Pie'.

Two biblical mothers, Hannah and Mary are recalled in our readings, Hannah whose son Solomon was dedicated to God's service and Mary whose heart was pierced with a sword.

There is apparently a current TV show about houses.  I understand that it makes fascinating viewing.

Of course not all houses are of interest.

But yesterday when the carpet fitter came to measure he asked some interesting questions about the house we live in here in Shotley Fields.

As Glen Hoddle famously commented about a game of football, ‘it was a game of to halves’.

And this is a house of two halves.

With the upper landing door firmly closed and the entrance hall doorway also closed it is possible to imagine one of my clerical predecessors living as well as any landed gentry.

Outside the ‘garage’ is in fact a coach house, and at the rear there is stabling for a horse and upstairs a room where the coachman could sleep. There is a fireplace and what looks like a still but I doubt that the coachman made hooch for the Vicar who in all likelihood enjoyed fine wines as contemporary Vicars do.

It is a large house, seven bedrooms but only one small and inconvenient bathroom. When I discussed the bathroom with the Diocese property manager he pointed out that the Vicar and his family would have been presented each evening with a chamber pot, or a commode which was removed in the morning when the maid would bring hot water in a ewer and with a bowl for washing, removing the chamber pot as she left.

In the servants part of the house a similar arrangement would be in place. The lounge, dining room and main bedrooms are all South facing whilst the servants quarters are gloomier as they face North.

On the ground floor there are two rooms one of which was a kitchen and the other possibly a sitting room for the servants. Two pantries lead off the kitchen.

On the second and third floor are the bedrooms there are three suggesting that the household staff was of a reasonable size.

Of course the days of houses like this still boasting a sign saying Vicarage are passing, the house is now an anomaly as most such houses now boast a sign saying The Old Vicarage, with the new Vicar, if indeed there is one, living close by, usually in the garden of the old house, in a house that has insulating, double glazing and an energy efficiency rating somewhat higher than the ‘G’ that this house has.

Living here is however very enjoyable. It is a luxury and certainly not a luxury that under normal circumstances would be affordable to two retirees.

This reflection began with my wondering whether on Mothering Sunday the Vicar would have allowed his servants to go home to visit their own mothers gathering small posies from the hedgerows as they went or baking a Simnel Cake?

Mothering Sunday, or Refreshment Sunday as it sometimes called is a breathing space during the rigours of Lent.

It is a day for reflecting on the role of Mothers in the Bible, a day of thinking about gifts and breakfast in bed.

And it was always Mothers, until Woolworths invented Father’s Day, because as Rabbi Lionel Blue once commented on a Thought for the Day:

Who your Mother is, is a matter of fact ,whilst who your Father is, is a matter of faith.