Continuity

Down in darkest West Dorset, in what they will one day call PJ Harvey Country hem-hem, is a village with the lyrical name of Whitchurch Canonicorum, the White Church of the Canons. The church of St Candida and the Holy Cross there is a fine one, although calling it 'the Cathedral of the Vale' is I think a trifle hubristic. Not that the Marshwood Vale, all of six miles or so across, offers any other rivals for cathedral status. In one transept stands a white stone box surmounting three oval alcoves. This is the Shrine of St Wite, one of only two pre-Reformation shrines in England which are still intact - the other is that of St Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey. The idea is that, should you be ill, you should pray at the shrine to blessed St Wite - supposedly a female hermit who lived out on the hills and was martyred by the Danes, though no one really knows - and place your afflicted part in an alcove. Her Holy Well is not far away to the south of Stanton St Gabriel, while there is another arched well just opposite the church itself.

My family first came here years ago. I was looking for the well, so I think I must have been about 15, which would make my sister 8 at the time.

This last week my mum was on holiday round the coast in Seaton with my sister and her family. It was her first holiday (apart from staying with me for a few days) since my dad died. They all went to the village of the White Church of the Canons, and my nieces, G (7) and J (3) put their hands in the shrine and lit candles, exactly the same as we had first done twenty-eight years ago.