An Unwarranted Intrusion

Nobody wants phone calls from the police, still less before one's customary time of rising on one's day off. In those circumstances one's only consolation is that it probably isn't one they are after as they wouldn't have phoned up first. In the case to which I refer particularly, a week ago last Thursday, it was PC Blackley telling me there'd been a break-in at the church. It wasn't, as it turned out, much of a break-in, just the leaded windows in the vestry smashed and whatever was within reach grabbed and pulled out sometime over night; I'd wondered about the wisdom of keeping stuff in view of the windows but comforted myself that the window bars would keep ne'er-do-wells out, and didn't realise that the bars are in fact flimsy leads that are easy to pull out. So we lost, very unhelpfully, one of each pair of silver candlesticks, the low steel ones we use on a Sunday morning, and the rather elegant silver cross which I suspect is 1920s or 30s. I say 'silver': 'white metal' is a better description as they don't seem actually to be silver in anything but colour.

It was all horribly inconvenient and we are still using my Nan's old brass candlesticks as the nearest appropriate ones to hand. I spent a while hunting online for replacements and came up with nothing very suitable.

Then on Friday afternoon the police called again: having had 'information' they had visited a flat in Aldershot and removed a number of items they suspected were ours. So it proved. We don't yet have them back, but they are safe in a police station over there and will be heading in our direction soon.

I was surprised at the reaction the incident aroused. There isn't anything obviously more wicked about breaking into a church and robbing it as opposed to someone's home. From a human point of view, nobody clearly owns the church kit as such, and we're insured, aren't we? There is of course the issue that two of the candlesticks were given in memory of someone whose relatives are still active members of the church, but that's incidental. I suppose behind the outrage (which was even expressed by an atheist friend of mine) is the feeling that churches represent a group of people who, belief quite aside, are trying their hardest to live according to the very best ideals they can manage. To assault the church is to do injury to that idea, and anyone of whatever belief can understand that.