There is a strange sense of comfort in hearing the church bells chime the hour and summon the masses to Sunday's service. Curled up on my couch reading the latest news from abroad, the faint din of the bells would drift through the garden to tap at my chequered windowpane. Sitting there absorbed in a world of stories they sing a song of the morning hours.
It's not as though I'm religious at all, but instead it serves to reinforce a sense of community which we just don't get at home. Even in the outskirts of London, this prevails to remind one that what is now simply SE3 was once the village of Blackheath and the community centred around Westcombe Park manor and estates. Somehow it successfully penetrates through a Sunday morning sky, drowning out the neighbouring dog and creating the illusion that in the surrounding silence everyone is waking from their slumbers, or quietly trooping in to begin the weekly service.
Now that I'm home, I couldn't tell you where my nearest church was, or what denomination it is. I've never needed to know: I've never even wanted to know.
It's not as though I'm religious at all, but instead it serves to reinforce a sense of community which we just don't get at home. Even in the outskirts of London, this prevails to remind one that what is now simply SE3 was once the village of Blackheath and the community centred around Westcombe Park manor and estates. Somehow it successfully penetrates through a Sunday morning sky, drowning out the neighbouring dog and creating the illusion that in the surrounding silence everyone is waking from their slumbers, or quietly trooping in to begin the weekly service.Now that I'm home, I couldn't tell you where my nearest church was, or what denomination it is. I've never needed to know: I've never even wanted to know.
