Corpus Christi 2022

Having been unable to celebrate Corpus Christi at all during the 2020 lockdown, and having had to make do with a very abbreviated version in 2021, there was a real determination this year to get back to some kind of normal. The tradition of the Corpus Christi procession and Carpet of Flowers was instituted by Duke Henry in the 1870s, just a few years after the great church had been completed, and the celebration has become a defining feature of the Cathedral, and indeed the town, taking place without fail each year. The only break, prior to Covid, occurred during the First World War, when the Estate staff then responsible for the Carpet were all at the Front. For someone like myself who has been part of the Parish for many years, Corpus Christi evokes lots of memories - of one’s first carrying banners alongside the redoubtable Head Lads of yore, Charlie Smithers and Dennis Hartigan; of one’s

daughters in their First Communion dresses strewing petals under the guidance of Betty Barrett; of trying to hold the Canopy straight above Bishop Cormac as he swerved left and right like the marauding rugby forward that he was in another life; of taking over from Jim Kenny, with some trepidation, the role of drawing up the full-scale Carpet; of the satisfaction of seeing a finished Carpet giving pleasure to visitors in their thousands; and of the moments during the mass and benediction when one recognises the purpose of it all. Planning for the Carpet begins soon after Christmas, as the appropriate quantity of each type and colour of flower has to be ordered well in advance. For this year it was agreed that the design should take as its theme ‘The Word of God’, the theme originally intended for

the 2020 event. Certain words and images were chosen – an open book, a white dove –always bearing in mind that whatever graphic icons are chosen have to work when translated into flowers. Rather to my relief Canon Tim’s original enthusiasm for a graphic representation of a burning bush, challenging by any standards, was not shared by his successor. Once the design is agreed I have the interesting task of calculating the area of each colour in the letters and icons involved; easy enough in the case of a simple geometric shape, but

quite tricky in the case of, for example, a totally asymmetric white dove. Once we have the areas Mary Bagg and her team can work out how many heads of white of chrysanthemums, for example, are needed to cover 36 square feet of carpet. Meanwhile, with the help of Faith Harding I prepare full-size card stencils to facilitate drawing up the design on heavy-duty paper covering the central aisle.

With the carpet design drawn up on Sunday afternoon the whole of Monday is taken up with a dozen patient volunteers chopping up small pieces of greenery for the background. Then on Tuesday volunteers get down on their knees and lay the flower heads on a painting-by-numbers basis, filling in the outlined spaces and shapes. Gradually a lot of chalk marks on paper are transformed into brightly coloured images. Some will have noticed in this year’s design the initials ‘MH’ included at either end of the carpet. Mary Harding, whose memory these letters honour, was for many years the mainstay of the team, a woman of unfailing competence, patience

and positivity, on whose watch nothing would come apart. Those of us who had had the joy of working with Mary were conscious of her spirit at every stage of this year’s preparation and celebrations. In recent years we have had increasing numbers of visitors coming in to watch the procedure on the Monday and Tuesday. As well as those laying the Carpet, the Cathedral is full of others working on the numerous arrangements around the church. My own focus at Corpus Christi is of course on the Carpet itself, plus a bit of stewarding and maybe a role in the procession, but I am conscious of an enormous amount of work going on elsewhere, undertaken by other people –sorting out road closures and PA systems, marshalling stewards, setting up the sales tables, managing the catering in the Cathedral Centre, and all sorts of other duties, many of them receiving little recognition. We can, I think, feel that this year’s Corpus Christi has been a great success. Anxieties about the likely cost of flowers, lack of volunteers, and uncertain weather were all confounded. Certainly

there were fewer visitors than in the days when Canon Whale reckoned in tens of thousands, but Wednesday and particularly Thursday were busy enough, and there were as many people in the actual procession to the Castle as I can remember. Reassuringly, enough was received in donations and sales to cover our costs. With the service finally over, and the Cathedral emptying, my role is not quite done. I survey the scattered remnants of the carpet, now ready for disposal and composting, and as so often before it is Connor and his family who are there with brooms and a last burst of energy, to help roll up the paper underlay and sweep away another year’s display.