The modern uses of churches

Our parish church is huge - with aisles in the transepts. It's bigger than some cathedrals, 'reflecting', as they say, the wealth of earlier times. It has a treasure - a painted pillar which survived the iconoclastic ravages of the 16th and 17th centuries. And of course, like all old and carefully maintained buildings it has some marvellous quirks and oddities. In the Georgian period someone saw fit to rebuild the nave, so whereas the rest of the building is nicely Gothic with stone structure, pointed arches, stained glass and genuine theatricality about it, the nave is a real shocker, looking like an Edwardian municipal concert hall or (worse) a Masonic dining room.
Still, the acoustics are great and we have lots of good music there.
Last week we had a 'Wine and Wisdom' party there. 144 enthusiasts crammed themselves into the north transept to answer barely audible quiz questions, drink some rather nice wine, and then hear music performed by the redoubtable Henry Dagg.
Henry is a saw player and creator of sound sculptures. He is also keyboard player in a Genesis tribure band (In the cage).
Everyone had turned out to raise money to keep this genius in one piece, body and soul. It has been said, if this was Japan, he would be labelled 'a National Treasure' and be given a reasonable pension.
Anyway, the town rose up in his support and pulled more than £1000 for him. In return he played his saw, the Sheng, and the Catastrophone. If you have not heard any of these instruments yet, mark it down in your diary today! One day, you WILL hear them and you will never forget them.
And you will never forget seeing or hearing his new Pin Barrel Harp (a commission from the English Folk Dance and Song Society, in London's Regent's Park). This work, which was originally to have been made in bronze, is in fact made of stainless steel. In size and general shape it resembles a garden sofa-swing, but it is solar-powered, with two huge stereo horns, a piano-style frame at the back with 46 strings all counterbalanced by their own oscillating weights to provide perfect, weather-proof pitch and vibrato, and then a rotating barrel in the middle fitted with 26,000 pins to pluck at those shining taut sexy strings at the back.
What a piece.
It was not in the church for our fund-raising evening, except in spirit. It ought to go to the Tate Modern before it gets installed in the garden at Cecil Sharpe House.
We were all very pleased and grateful that we could have this quiz and concert in the church. It seems very fitting that this huge building should have a large group of people there, thinking, drinking, supporting the arts, creating community....
If there were fewer fixed pews, we could have used even more of the building and we could arrange an even wider variety of events.
Meanwhile, EFDSS and the townspeople of Faversham have managed to scrape a few more quid together to keep this genius going. Good old Faversham.