Cloister Cats. Richard Surman
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secret in the Church of England’ – thus possibly turning it into the worst kept secret in the Church of England! A casual glimpse of the Rhenish ‘pepper pot’ tower of the abbey church through the trees is almost enough to persuade oneself that one is in Normandy: this striking building, set in some 80 acres of woodland, was designed by Sir Charles Nicholson, and built by the monks themselves in the late nineteen hundreds to accommodate retired seamen.
It was the retirement of a vicar of St Paul’s Knightsbridge that caused the community to adopt its first cat. When the vicar was making arrangements for his retirement, he asked Abbot Giles if the community would look after his cat Misty for a couple of months. But Misty made herself rather more at home than was intended, and ended up living at Alton Abbey for nine years. Then one damp November day, the feast day of St Gertrude (who is variously described as the patron saint of cats and of those who fear mice), a young cat turned up at the door of the abbey. She rolled over disingenuously at the feet of the Abbot and Prior, flashed a few appealing looks, got fed, and promptly disappeared. The fleeting visitor hadn’t gone far, however. She haunted the woods adjacent to the monastery, appearing at odd times asking to be fed, and as time passed, her disappearances became less frequent, until she finally decided that she would move in. And once that decision had been taken, Millie declared her annexation of the monastery in short order. One near victim of this fierce territoriality was a visiting blind priest’s guide dog. For the whole of his visit Millie sat growling on the inside of the enclosure door, which was thankfully kept firmly closed. She didn’t endear herself to the guest master either, having given him a sharp nip when he picked her up: it says something for the Benedictine spirit of hospitality that she wasn’t shown the door permanently.
On the way to the abbey bakery
Millie has an aversion to closed doors: an early sortie into the abbey church while the monks were at their offices caused much distraction and hilarity, and resulted in a ban from any further church attendance. So closed doors represent a challenge that Millie is forever trying to overcome. One welcoming door is that of the abbey bakery, and another that of the guest house, through which Millie charms her way in order to shamelessly solicit attention from visitors and guests.
Millie’s real nest is in Abbot Giles’s study, where a cosy fire and comfortable bed are at hand, as is a doorway to the grounds through which she can come and go as she pleases. And somewhere in the background lurks the call of the wild. For she came from the woods, and when one sees her spread-eagled on the trunk of a tree, it is quite clear that the woodland environment is where she feels at her wildest best. Millie pelts across the open spaces between trees, scaling them in a frenzy of excitement, ending up teetering crazily on a narrow branch, looking around with startled eyes and flattened ears, before dashing down again to join in mortal combat with a wind-blown leaf or two.
The monastery has a pond which is home to a vast number of large frogs. I don’t know what it is about cats and frogs. The cats obviously enjoy stalking the frogs, but rarely seem to know what to do once they are actually nose to nose with one. And recently the tables turned. It was a warm day, and Millie was lying in the shade of tree by the pond. Nearby was a small, and apparently confused frog, which decided to hop onto Millie’s back. She was later spotted, complete with inscrutable amphibian passenger jogging on her back, oblivious to the hitchhiker’s presence.
Watching for wind-blown leaves
Millie at her best in wild woodland
‘Let the porteress be mature in her manner of acting, discerning, and of a suitable age. Let her remain in an open cell without a door during the day.’
From the Rule of St Clare
HISTORY
The Poor Clares in Arkley make their living from the sales of homemade marmalade and jam. This seems to be something of a speciality in the English order of Poor Clares, and a very successful one. They also make church linen, church candles and greeting cards – a hive of cottage industry. The community moved here in 1970, and an important aspect of their work is in running retreats for people who live in parishes within the Diocese of Westminster.
When Sister Bernadette, the porteress at the Poor Clare Monastery in Arkley, opened the door to me, I told her that I had an appointment to see Inky, the community’s cat. She goggled at me, and shut the door firmly in my face. Luckily Sister Francesca, the monastery cook, and Inky’s keeper, had been listening out for my arrival, and came to the rescue.
Inky’s arrival at the monastery of the Poor Clares in Barnet, North London, is a tale of Dickensian poignancy. On a bitterly cold Christmas Day, with an iron hard frost and cold wind sweeping in from nearby fields, Sister Francesca was busy preparing the festive lunch for the whole community. Looking out of the kitchen window, she spotted an unkempt and underfed black cat, looking out from under a nearby bush at one of the bird tables that the sisters maintain. Followers of St Francis and St Clare have a particular affection for animals – though more than one person has commented, rather unfairly I think, that if St Francis had really cared for birds, he might have done better to preach to cats!
Inky likes to walk with Sister Francesca
Sister Francesca was concerned for the cat, though also for the birds that were busily feeding at a pile of breadcrumbs that she had put out earlier. She was on the verge of going to find something to eat for this poor Christmas orphan of a cat, when to her horror she saw the cat streak across the open lawn. Reaching the bird table, he leapt up; thinking that the cat was after one of the birds, Sister Francesca closed her eyes in horror. When she opened them again, the birds had scattered in alarm, and Inky was ravenously tucking into the breadcrumbs. A tin of sardines was found and opened, and placed out on the grass – but Inky had disappeared like a shot at the first sound of a door being opened. After a while she emerged again, nose uplifted and twitching: she crept over to the opened tin, looked around, and dived face first into her first ever Christmas delicacy as if she was trying to get inside the tin. No one can recall when the transition between Inky the furtive visitor and Inky the resident took place. She had been eating all the food put outside for her, and then suddenly she was inside. Inky took a further three months to become at all sociable with Sister Francesca – but now clambers up onto her lap. She has realised whose hand it is that wields the can opener.
The work of the Poor Clares at Arkley is chiefly that of prayer. Following austere rules, the whole community meets at midnight for Matins (although an exception is made for Inky), and then rises for the day at 5.30am – although nobody can persuade a sleeping cat to get up against its will, without resorting to force or violent noise of some kind – behaviour that would be unseemly and out of place for the Poor Clares. However, Sister Francesca has encouraged Inky’s compliance in this case by feeding her at 5.30am. Inky has some odd rituals too: on regular walks with Sister Francesca, Inky will accompany her on a long circular path. She’ll go round this three times only. Then she goes to the centre point of the circular walk, slowly rotates on the spot, and then rejoins Sister Francesca on the path, and walks in exactly the opposite direction, three times only. Perhaps it is as Garrison Keillor once commented, ‘Cats are intended to show us that not everything in nature has a purpose’.
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