When I was a child, my family went to visit Tewkesbury, during which time both the rivers flooded and I went walking in a submerged field so I didn’t know where the bank was, and didn’t realise until later how close I must have been to the fast-running water. Another time I walked across a bridge where the water was actually flowing, faster than tapwater, under the rail, and I thought I would be safe if I held on to the top. In those days I was immortal, and lucky. And we lived for a week in an old house, above the high water line, and wandered around that part of the world exploring. During that time I was happier than I can say.
Of course we went to the Abbey, because the Abbey is a wonder. And when we were there, one of the Abbey staff began talking to us and told us, “I don’t usually show people this, but since there are so many of you, I’ll show you.” There were five children and two grown-ups. She took us into a side-room, a vestry perhaps, where only the priests and the vergers went, a room with a table and some chairs. And she closed the great wooden door, and on the back we saw armour. The door was covered with it: not ringmail or platemail, but leather armour it was, set throughout with metal studs.
She told us that after the battle the monks had gone out and stripped the armour from the bodies, and used it to cover the door. What I didn’t find out until years later was that many of the soldiers on the losing side actually ran from the winners and sought sanctuary in the abbey: the winning side chased them down and killed them there anyway. The abbey was closed for a month until the monks could bless it and make it clean again.
No wonder they hadn’t redecorated in five hundred years.
And apparently last year the floodwaters didn’t just pass that house we stayed in, but they actually entered the abbey, too. There was some clearing up that time, as well.
