Union Triptych II: The Chapel Meeting

 

The Union Triptych

Dedicated to their husband

 

 

Union Triptych II: The Chapel Meeting

 

The Gathering

 

They gather

Our Ancestors

From different times, places, and traditions.

Today, in the Chapel of our Heart,

From the different Houses of the Past

For the Chapel Meeting.

 

No longer do women

sit bonneted, silent in the galleries[i].

No longer are people silenced

For fear they do not fit.

We all gather, together.

 

The women,

ennobled from the Kitchen,

their work done,

their neat, folded, pressed pinafores

sitting on their laps.

Their purple beribboned bonnets,

Bejewelled with Mother of Pearl[ii],

Resting on their pinafores.

 

The men

their caps and trilby’s

purple beribboned, and bejewelled,

sitting firmly,

still on their heads.

 

There they debate,

in two Houses,

the House of Lincolnshire

and the House of Suffolk.

In the tune books[iii]

and in the text of the song books,

what they will sing

in Celebration

over the Union of their Descendants.

 

While they debate

everyone gets out

their knitting

their crocheting

their piecework

and their sowing.

 

The West Gallery

 

In the distance,

gleaming, glistening, in the light

of the West Gallery

the orchestra quietly gathers,

tuning their instruments.

 

The First and Second Crochet hooks.

The First and Second Knitting needles.

The Sowing Machines on Cello.

And the Farriers,

from the Farms

and the Army in Flanders Field,

on the Double Base.

 

Piccolos to the fore,

the Cooks,

the Cleaners,

the Bar Tenders

the Landlords

the Travelling Salesmen

and the Shop Keepers

gather up their Wind Instruments.

 

Among the Brass

in dulcet deep Tuba tones

the Coal Miners

the Express Steam Train Drivers

the Steel Workers

and the Suffolk Sheep Farmers

hold sway.

 

And there

above them all

with the Percussion spread out before them

sit the Yellow Women,

fresh from the Munitions Factories[iv],

with their Sewing Needles and Xylophones,

in full array.

 

At the Podium

the scores of the tune books set before them

stands the dapper Tailor, our Great Grandfather:

their tape measure around their neck.

Their pencil, their baton.

 

The Platform Party

 

The Platform Party enter.

Father, as Clerk, fountain pen at the ready

to keep the Meeting Record

in their pitch perfect italic script.

Brother, and late Partner,

as Tellers and Assistants.

Uncle and Grandfathers

as the Vice Chairs.

Mother and Grandmothers

as the Joint Chairs^[v].

 

The Platform Party Rise

 

The Platform Party rise.

The three Joint Chairs

Mother and Grandmothers

sit their Immaculate Pinafores

and purple beribboned

Sunday Best Bonnets

on the White Linen Cloth

spread o’er the Table.

 

They call for silence.

The Tellers announce the results of the House votes,

for the recommendations on the tune and the song,

to be sung this day in Celebration o’er the Wedding of their Descendants.

 

In Silence.

Bells ring.

Incense rises.

Pitch perfect circles are executed.

Poise is honoured.

 

All stand

 

By a Standing Silent Vote^[vi]

Standing Silent?

Silent Standing?

By a Unanimous Silent Standing Vote

they resolve to sing

In pitch perfect harmony

A new and unending song.

 

All sit

Silence

 

 

 

Copyright

© Lottie E. Allen

Thursday 22 July

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-One

 

 

Footnotes

 

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[i] In some non-conformist traditions as well as not being able to speak in the Service, women were segregated and sat upstairs in the galleries.

[ii] In the Inauguration of Vice President Kamala Harris, in Washington DC on 20 January 2021, pearls renewed their status as symbols of Constancy, Stability, Solidarity and Sisterhood. Dame Helen Mirren taught us that “no matter what sex you are, be a feminist” (22 May 2017).

[iii] Our Non-Conformist ancestors were musically literate: you would have a tune book and a hymn book at the Chapel Service. There was an expectation that you would be able to sing one hymn to several tunes (as, for example, a way of marking the seasons, or special events). Co-equally you would know how to sing one tune to several different hymns.

[iv] During the First and Second World Wars many women worked in the Munition Factories. It was dangerous work. Their skin turned yellow from the chemicals. They were often called the “Canary Girls”.

[v] In that place, all meetings are Chaired by the women: there is no more patriarchy or misogyny. Feminism has triumphed in the New Jerusalem.

[vi] In British Non-Conformist traditions, important decisions are made in meetings by the honourable practice of the Silent Standing Vote.