Monks’ and Nuns’ Day
On Thursday 24th May my class, J2B, went to St Peter’s Church in Wootton Wawen. When we pulled up, my first impression was ‘Wow! What a church!’ We walked up the cobbled path and into the church through the big wooden doors. We turned to the right into the Lady Chapel, which was so-called because of Mary, Jesus’ Mum.
In the Lady Chapel there was a tall wardrobe. We lined up in two lines: one line for boys and one line for girls. The boys put on long, hangy black habits with a hood. The girls put on wimples and robes. Then we went in pairs in a row and when Father Abbot came in it was funny. We got the giggles and a stern look from the teachers! I was laughing because the Abbot had a pillow under his habit.
The Abbot asked Surraiyya Jaffer, who was tallest, to carry the tall cross into the actual church and we split up with our partners and went into the choir stalls that were about five hundred years old! After that we sang ‘Be Still’ and made a vow with the Abbot not to talk all day, unless the teachers allowed us to. We walked through the village of Wootton Wawen and I felt a bit silly and embarrassed. We reached a field and met Mr. Keyte and Mr. Osborne (not my Dad!) and they told us what we were going to do. He said we would be making candles and looking at bees. We walked into a shed where Mr. Keyte got some very hot beeswax out of the oven that was at a temperature of 76°!!
Mr. Keyte told us to get a piece of wick and do two dips in the beeswax and two dips in water to cool it down. The wax on the wick gradually got thicker as we all had a go. We were also told about the different types of bees and were shown bees behind glass, where we spotted the queen bee, who had a blob of tippex on her back. On the way back to church I got to carry the candle we had made and I handed it to the Abbot for the next service, which was about silence. We had to think of a word. I thought of ‘Be Still’ and then we lit small candles using the flame from the candle we had made.
We had a monks’ lunch - I had bread, ham and grapes and drank ginger beer, which looked a bit like mead. Then we went brass rubbing. The brass rubbing was a slab with a brass picture of the Harewell children on it. I chose to do the five sons of Lord Harewell. We put black paper over it and carefully coloured it. I did mine in silver. It was quite tiring, but fun!
We then went bell-ringing. I had a go on number six, the heaviest bell, which weighed a ton. It took three of us on the bell and we still nearly banged our heads! The bell-ringing was the most exciting thing in the whole day.
I will never forget the great day I had at St Peter’s Church in Wootton Wawen.
Ben Osborne J2B